Iraq Shias call for more autonomy

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Iraq's Shia majority should be granted an autonomous federal state in the south of the country, a senior Shia leader has said. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim made his call at a rally in the Shia holy city of Najaf, as Iraqi politicians debate the wording and balance of a new constitution... Shia religious leaders have long backed calls for the creation of a federalised Shia south, but secular Shias have been cautious, fearing that it might grant excessive power to religious parties.

The proposed name for the autonomous state is said to be Sumer. Sumerian civilization - long believed to have been created by invaders moving to then sparsely populated Mesopotamia, but according to new excavations, a continuity of earlier cultures - started to emerge circa 4000 BCE and started to use writing first in the world around 3500 BCE. The Sumerians were divided to city states until the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur - these "dynasties" were invented by the excavators of the city in the 1920-30´s and of the three "dynasties" the Third Dynasty is the only one which can be truly said to have been a dynasty; the others consist of possible rulers from two different eras that have been put together to form groups - united the Sumerian culture under it´s rule in about 2100 BC. At this time the Sumerian culture itself was most likely already dying, after a century and a half of domination under the Semitic Akkadian empire between circa 2350-2200 BCE. The decline of the Sumerian language - which has no certain relatives - could have started even earlier. After the Third Dynasty of Ur fell when attacked by the Elamites of southern Iran after a few decades of decline - it has been believed that this happened between 2008-1986 BCE, but newer evidence indicates that the Elamites conquered Ur after 1954 BCE - the Sumerian civilization ended. Ur had a special place in the following Mesopotamian culture and the Sumerian language was used as a kind of equivalent of the Medieval latin of it´s time for almost 2000 years afterwards.