In her tin-roofed home in Basra, a few hundred feet from the great churn of the Shatt al-Arab River, Shamaa Mustafa blinked as a bead of sweat ran into her eye. On the floor sat her children, shining with perspiration, hair sticking up in tufts, mouths hanging open.
It was 125F and, for the fifteenth day in a row, the electricity had cut out. They could do nothing to escape the heat pressing down on them like a steam iron in the Iraqi city.
