MEANWHILE, BACK IN IRAQ....

The Brain Drain continues:

Violence forces scholars to become refugees
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY

Several hundred Iraqi academics have been resettled outside the country with support from organizations in the USA, England, Spain and the Netherlands, says Kate Robertson, deputy executive secretary of the London-based Council for Assisting Refugee Academics.

At least 256 Iraqi professors have been killed since 2003, according to the council. Of those, 134 were from Baghdad, including 89 from the University of Baghdad, the organization says.

Of perhaps 20,000 academics in the country, a quarter have left, Robertson says. They are among 2.2 million Iraqis who have become refugees since 2003.

"In 2004, we began to get one or two requests every few months," says Allan Goodman, president and chief executive officer of the Institute of International Education, a non-profit New York-based organization that has been rescuing foreign academics since 1919. "By early 2007, it was 40 or 50 a week."