Heat, politics fuel Iraq’s power woes

BASRA: In Iraq’s oil-rich south, the scorching summer months pose painful new choices in the age of the coronavirus: stay at home in the sweltering heat with electricity cut off for hours, or go out and risk the virus.

This is Zain al-Abidin’s predicament. A resident of al-Hartha district, in Basra province, al-Abidin lost his job because of pandemic-related restrictions. During the day he listens helplessly to his four-month-old daughter cry in the unbearable heat, too poor to afford private generators to offset up to eight-hour power cuts.