Gates Foundation to help Iraqi academics escape persecution
Financial Times: Victoria Kim reports that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is helping to fund a new initiative to relocate more than 150 Iraqi scholars who are facing persecution. The foundation will provide $5m (£2.5m) for fellowships to Iraqi scholars trying to continue their work at institutions in other countries, notably Jordan, matching funds provided by the US Congress. The money will be administered by the Scholar Rescue Fund, an organisation founded in 2002 by Wall Street investors that helps academics in conflict zones.
Iraq is "the closest thing that any of us have seen to the Holocaust in terms of attacks on science and learning", said Allan Goodman, president and chief executive of the non-profit International Institute of Education, which administers the fund.
"It is not even clear who is doing it," said Dr Jarecki, the fund's chairman.
