In the aftermath of the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad by operatives working for Blackwater, top company officials including then-president Gary Jackson “authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support
Nov
09
The Iraqi parliament has approved a crucial election law ahead of national polls due in January 2010. The reform was passed by a wide margin after weeks of deadlock, which had raised fears that the parliamentary election might have to be delayed.
Oct
17
On 30 September, 11-year-old Muntadar was snatched off the streets of Baghdad. The family never saw him alive again.
“Look at the place where they kept him,” his father Yussef says, pointing to a poor quality photograph sent to him by the kidnappers. “A child his age, kept in a place like this. Look how scared he looks.”
The kidnappers contacted Yussef, by phone, and he agreed to pay a ransom of $25,000.
“They called me to tell me that they got the money and that they would free my son in about an hour. But I believe they killed him the same day they kidnapped him. I paid the ransom but I didn’t get my son back.”
Sep
30
Under Saddam Hussein, despite the brutality of his regime towards so many of Iraq’s people, war widows were looked after by the state. Now, they are mostly hidden and vulnerable. It’s been called Iraq’s cultural time bomb.
Close to the surface of the new normality here, there are painful memories, and a yearning for lost loved ones. And – there’s anxiety about looking after the children when the breadwinner has gone.
Sep
13
Young Iraqi women are dressing more liberally now than three years ago during the height of the war. Both muslim and Christian women can now be seen not wearing a hijab in public. Some muslim women who used to wear an abaya, an ankle-length black cloak for fear of being targeted by Islamists or by conservative members of their family are now merely wearing a headscarf.
Aug
17
A report that shed the light on situation of human rights in Iraq.
The report says members of the Mehdi Army militia group is spearheading the campaign, but police are also accused – even though homosexuality is legal.Witnesses say vigilante groups break into homes and pick people up in the street, interrogating them to extract the names of other potential victims, before murdering them.
Human Rights Watch says it was told that Iraqi security forces had sometimes “colluded and joined in the killing”.
Full report can be found here
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/08/17/they-want-us-exterminated-0
Aug
12
Not long after the Iraq War began in 2003, Uday al-Ghanimi was accosted by several men outside the American military
base where he managed a convenience store. They accused him of abetting the Americans, and one fired a pistol at his head.
Now, after 24 operations, Mr. Ghanimi has a reconstructed face as well as political asylum in the United States. On July 4, his wife and three youngest children joined him in New York after a three-year separation.
Aug
07
After six years of war and terrorist bombings, Iraq is moving against a different killer in its midst — smoking. Sweeping curbs unveiled by the government Thursday suggest that as the violence subsides, authorities have more time to worry about normal quality-of-life issues. The legislation to go before parliament would ban smoking in public buildings, outlaw sales to under-18s, prohibit advertising, limit tar content and mandate health warnings on cigarette packs.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090806/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_smoking
Jul
20
Abject poverty across Iraq is fuelling an illegal trade in human organs.
Hundreds of people are believed to have sold kidneys and other organs through dealers in the capital, Baghdad, over the last year.
Karim Hussein made the long journey from Amara, a province in the south of Iraq, to Baghdad because he was desperate for the $3,000 he would get from the sale of a kidney there.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/07/200972052636416787.html
Jul
14
Throughout the marshes, the reed gatherers, standing on land they once floated over, cry out to visitors in a passing boat.
“Maaku mai!” they shout, holding up their rusty sickles. “There is no water!” The Euphrates is drying up. Strangled by the water policies of Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey and Syria; a two-year drought; and years of misuse by Iraq and its farmers, the river is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago. Some officials worry that it could soon be half of what it is now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/world/middleeast/14euphrates.html
