Iraq fish die-off leaves farmers mourning lost livelihoods

On the banks of Iraq's Tigris River, Haidar Kazem mourned 300 tonnes of the fish he had carefully raised in ponds wiped out by a flood of polluted water.Water supplies in Iraq, the eastern half of what is known as the region's fertile crescent and which the United Nations ranks among the countries most affected by climate change, are in a dire state."In just two hours, my entire project was gone -- fish I had spent a year-and-a-half raising. I am back to zero," the 43-year-old fish farmer told AFP.