Of the 1,000 U.S. employees at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, only 10 have a working knowledge of Arabic, according to the State Department.
That is still a slight improvement from last year when, according to the Iraq Study Group, six people in the embassy spoke Arabic.
=====
Report: Iraq Violence Leading to Abortions, Drug Abuse Among Civilians
Pregnant Iraqi women who have been forced from their homes by worsening violence are obtaining illegal abortions because they are unable to get medical care for themselves and their unborn, according to a new report by a national humanitarian group.
Rape, theft and drug addiction have also become "commonplace" among the displaced, who live in government buildings, at relatives' homes, tents, or squat in abandoned homes or makeshift huts on empty land, according to the report, which was first noted on the Iraq news site Iraqslogger.com.
=====
U.S. acknowledges 'increasing pattern of attacks' in Green Zone
The U.S. military acknowledged "an increasing pattern of attacks" against the Green Zone, a day after a mortar barrage against the heavily fortified ara sent soldiers and contractors scrambling for cover.
Militants fired a volley of mortars into the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies as well as Iraqi government houses on the west bank of the Tigris River, officials said Tuesday. The U.S. Embassy said no casualties were reported, but the attack was the latest in what has become a nearly daily occurrence despite stringent security measures aimed at protecting the area.
=====
Iraq’s Lost Generation: Impact and Implications
Problems facing the intelligentsia of Iraq have been neglected in the scale of that country’s ongoing tragedy. Since 2003, the new phenomenon of targeted and systematic assassinations, kidnappings and threats to professionals and academics has surfaced. These are escalating. Over 830 assassinations have been documented, victims killed along with their families.
Numbers includes: 380 university academics and doctors, 210 lawyers and judges, and 243 journalists/media workers but not other experts, school teachers or students; neither professionals displaced internally and externally. All aspects of life are affected. The victims are often highly qualified, PhD or equivalent. Assassinations are not specific to sect or gender but victims are predominantly Arab.
The Human Cost of War
Two Million Iraqis Flee to Jordan and Syria for Safety, Face Economic Hardships
After his young son was badly burned in a missile attack and his daughter's school suffered repeated bombings, Hussein Ali decided it was time to pack up his family and leave Baghdad.
"I did not think we would survive another day," he said.
Bob Woodruff Talks With Iraqi Refugees - Video
Tens of thousands of Iraqis flee every month, mostly to Syria.
=====
William Rivers Pitt | A Time to Reap
William Rivers Pitt writes "There is something happening today in America. With the right kind of ears, you can hear it in the sound of millions of brows slowly furrowing in anger and disgust. It feels like those tense moments just before the eruption of a summer thunderstorm, those moments when the air is electric, the ozone reek of spent lightning fills the world, and you know something very loud is about to happen. What is happening, what can be heard and smelled and sensed all across the land, is the cresting wave of rage, betrayal and fury that is, finally, roaring across the shores of our collective American heart."
=====
Jim Hightower | Bushites Outsourced Our Government to Their Pals
Jim Hightower writes: "Since the Carter years, Washington has drifted toward more and more outsourcing of public functions to private contractors, but Bush Incorporated has turned that gradual increase into a fullblown, jet-powered rush to privatization. The shadowy and highly lucrative world of government contracting has boomed under George W., rising 86 percent since he's been in office and now totaling nearly $400 billion a year. Get this: There are now more people doing federal jobs under corporate contracts than there are people employed directly by the government. In other words, in today's government, corporate servants outnumber civil servants."
=====
400 million people live in ‘minefields’
* Report says thousands of civilians are known to have been killed or injured in recent years by the bombs
GENEVA: Some 400 million people around the world live and work in what are effectively minefields, at daily risk of death or maiming by cluster bombs, according to a report issued on Wednesday.
The report, from the campaign group Handicap International, said over 13,000 civilians are known to have been killed or injured in recent years by the bombs, but that the real figure was probably many times higher. In the wake of armed conflicts “unexploded cluster submunitions turn homes, livelihoods and social areas of 400 million people living in affected countries into de facto minefields,” the report said.
No comments:
Post a Comment