INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Shafaq News/ Blazes engulfed more than 250 palm trees in the southern governorate of al-Muthanna, Iraq's Civil Defense Directorate said on
Saturday.A statement by the directorate said that the firefighting teams managed to control and extinguish a huge fire that erupted inside
an agricultural area in al-Muzlem, al-Rumaytha district.The flames turned 250 palm trees to aches but left no casualties, according to the
statement.In the 1950s and 1960s, Iraq was the world's top producer of dates, with nearly 32 million date palm trees growing across the
country.But since war broke out with neighboring Iran in the 1980s, Iraq has lost at least half of those trees, with the government
estimating in 2004 that only nine million remained.
