Iraq Welcomes Nobel Peace Prize Winner Nadia Murad

Nadia Murad speaking in Washington after winning the Nobel Peace prize last week. (AFP)
Nadia Murad speaking in Washington after winning the Nobel Peace prize last week. (AFP)
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Iraq Welcomes Nobel Peace Prize Winner Nadia Murad

Nadia Murad speaking in Washington after winning the Nobel Peace prize last week. (AFP)
Nadia Murad speaking in Washington after winning the Nobel Peace prize last week. (AFP)

Iraqi activist Nadia Murad is meeting with her country's president in Baghdad after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy on behalf of victims of wartime sexual violence.

Murad, a member of Iraq's Yazidi minority, was among thousands of women and girls who were captured and forced into sexual slavery by ISIS militants in 2014, AP reported.

"There is no meaning to the Nobel prize without the ongoing work for the sake of peace," Murad told group of community leaders and foreign ambassadors at the presidential palace.

She became an activist on behalf of women and girls after escaping and finding refuge in Germany.

According to AP, Murad arrived in Baghdad from Stockholm on Wednesday, and was received by President Barham Salih and other dignitaries.

In her Nobel speech on Tuesday, she called on world leaders to put an end to sexual violence.

She stressed that "the only prize in the world that can restore our dignity is justice and the prosecution of criminals."

President Salih said Murad "embodies the suffering and tragedies Iraqis have gone through in the past and represents the courage and determination to defend rights in the face of the oppressor."



Massive Winter Storm to Clobber US from Plains to East Coast

Elijah Minahan, of Johnstown, Pa., shovels out the driveway at his home in Westmont Borough as cold temperatures and snowfall hits the region on Friday, January 3, 2025. (Thomas Slusser/The Tribune-Democrat via AP)
Elijah Minahan, of Johnstown, Pa., shovels out the driveway at his home in Westmont Borough as cold temperatures and snowfall hits the region on Friday, January 3, 2025. (Thomas Slusser/The Tribune-Democrat via AP)
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Massive Winter Storm to Clobber US from Plains to East Coast

Elijah Minahan, of Johnstown, Pa., shovels out the driveway at his home in Westmont Borough as cold temperatures and snowfall hits the region on Friday, January 3, 2025. (Thomas Slusser/The Tribune-Democrat via AP)
Elijah Minahan, of Johnstown, Pa., shovels out the driveway at his home in Westmont Borough as cold temperatures and snowfall hits the region on Friday, January 3, 2025. (Thomas Slusser/The Tribune-Democrat via AP)

Millions of Americans from the Plains to the East Coast faced the threat of blizzards, heavy snow, treacherous ice and freezing rain through Monday, the National Weather Service said on Saturday.

Governors in Kentucky and Virginia declared states of emergency ahead of the winter storm.

"The storm is still taking shape," meteorologist Rich Bann of the NWS's Weather Prediction Center said Saturday evening. "But this thing has multiple hazards from heavy snows in the Plains to significant icing covering roads farther south."

He added that more than 60 million people in the US were affected by winter weather warnings, watches or advisories this weekend.

A swath extending eastward from Nebraska and Kansas through Ohio, Indiana, southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern Virginia could see from 1 inch (2.54 cm) to 1 foot (30 cm) of snow. Ice could knock out power lines and cause widespread outages.

A wintry mess of freezing rain and ice will hit southern Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee on Sunday, Bann said, likely making roads hazardous and downing power lines.

"It'll be nearly impossible to drive in some areas," he said.

The Kansas City International Airport in Missouri closed temporarily on Saturday afternoon due to rapid ice accumulation, officials said on social media.

Bann said that the storm should move past the East Coast and into the Atlantic Ocean by late on Monday, but a new blast of Arctic air will bring frigid cold to the eastern two-thirds of the US by the middle of next week.