May makes first visit to conflict zone

0 Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to British troops at Camp Taji in the Iraqi capital Baghdad Theresa May has become the first major foreign leader to visit Iraq after Mosul was reclaimed from the clutches of Islamic State.

Iraq’s second biggest city became a stronghold for the extremist group after it seized control in June 2014. The fight to liberate the city has left much of it in ruins.

For Mrs May, the first British Prime Minister to visit Iraq since Labour’s Gordon Brown, yesterday was also the first time she had been to a conflict zone.

Her first stop was Camp Taji, a coalition base north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad where about 80 British troops are based.

“In Iraq, we are working together to defeat Daesh and my visit comes at a critical moment as we see the caliphate collapsing with the fall of Mosul and Raqqa,” she said. An anonymous donor has pledged £10 million to fund a University of Edinburgh initiative addressing some of society’s most pressing concerns.

The gift – the biggest ever capital donation to the university – will help transform the city’s former Royal Infirmary into a state-of-the-art home for the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Launched yesterday, the institute will bring together university researchers with other partners to tackle major issues within the economy, education and societies worldwide.

Researchers will, for example, consider how theology can help tackle climate change or what business management can do to alleviate the refugee crisis.

They will also examine ways lawyers can foster creativity and consider how design