Photo 22- a drying irrigation canal near the village of Ras al-Bisha in southern Iraq where the shat al arab spills into the sea - The Tigris is one of Iraq's two big rivers that gave birth to the ancient empires of Sumer and Babylonia and are said to have watered the biblical Garden of Eden. Today, it is dying.Human activity and climate change have choked the once mighty stream that, with its twin the Euphrates, brought to life the civilisations of Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. (Photo by Ayman HENNA / AFP)