Wheels of Justice

Kathy Kelly writes from Amman, Jordan, demonstrating through the story of one mother and her son -- who's still in Iraq -- how violence is entrapping Iraq's boys and young men. In the process, she shows the ways in which US efforts in the name of security send dangerous messages and force painful choices on the young people who are the future of their country.

The city of Amman, Jordan, is awash with numerous colorful signs that proclaim independence, "Istiklal."  The word is found on posters and placards in store windows. It names a major thoroughfare, a hospital, and a shopping center.  Appreciation for independence is palpable, and this could be said for numerous cities and towns throughout the region, including Iraq, where past struggles for independence are commemorated by naming buildings and streets "Istiklal."  It reflects the love of independence and the longing for it.

Ali Ahmed, Dahr Jamial, and a handful of Iraqis in Baquba weigh in on the U.S. presidential election. "I'll believe the troops are gone from Iraq when they are no longer on our streets and their warplanes no longer bomb our homes," a local merchant told IPS. " All politicians are liars, even school children know this."

Rival political factions have slammed a United Nations proposal to settle disputes over control of a number of areas in the north of the country, arguing the recommendations are more likely to deepen their disagreements than resolve them.

More than five years after the invasion of Iraq -- just in case you were still waiting -- the oil giants finally hit the front page. Last Thursday, the New York Times led with this headline: "Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." And who were these giants? ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and BP. What these firms got were mere "service contracts" -- as in servicing Iraq's oil fields -- not the sort of "production sharing agreements" that President Bush's representatives in Baghdad once dreamed of, and that would have left them in charge of those fields. Still, it was clearly a start.

Don't miss Brooklyn photographer Moises Saman's from Basra, Mosel and Sadr City over at the New York Times site. The slide show accompanies the paper's "What’s going right? And can it last?"

Kathy Kelly writes from Jordan with an appeal for an Iraqi doctor in need of an urgent surgery.  In the process, she gives us a window into the struggles of Iraq's doctors to support even one of their own through the ongoing catastrophe, so that they can support and heal their people now and in the time to come.

Conflict has undermined the potential of an entire generation of Iraqi children, UNICEF said today. The organization urged new momentum to reach vulnerable children inside the country with assistance.

The United Nations Children's Fund said today it is scaling up its emergency operation in Iraq to address the basic needs of more than 360,000 vulnerable children inside the strife-torn nation. After five years of conflict, more than 800,000 Iraqi children are unable to go to school and only 40 per cent can access safe water, according to the agency.

Sixty-five media workers killed in Iraq in 2007, with little investigation into their deaths. An Arab charter that gives governments control of what satellite channels can broadcast. Up to five years in prison for insulting the President in Egypt or Tunisia. This is what journalists working in the region can expect, says the International Federation of Journalists in a new report.

Monday June 30, 2008 could be one of those fateful dates in Iraqi politics that will remain mostly unnoticed by the outside world. June 30 is the new deadline set by Iraq’s electoral commission for forming coalitions for this autumn’s provincial elections. The deadline for registering political parties expired with some 500 entities having registered. The question is whether any of these parties are capable of amalgamating into larger alliances that could mount a challenge to the established elites represented by the core components of the Maliki government. In the previous local elections in January 2005, it was mainly those elites that excelled in the art of coalition building prior to the elections.

Nearly 500 Iraqis took to the streets of central Baghdad on 14 June demanding the government secure their return to their homes and pay compensation to those with damaged propertie. "We have been displaced for nearly two years now and we don't see any serious action being taken by the government to end our suffering," said Emad Taha Ali, a 39-year-old father-of-two who took part in the demonstration in Baghdad's Jadiriyah area.

Amnesty International has released a new report on the Iraqi refugee crisis. "Humanitarian agencies cannot cope with growing demands as more refugees need help with the basics to survive," the organization writes. "The UNHCR had planned that by the end of the year it would be food to around 300,000 people in Syria alone. However, the agency recently announced that inadequate funding means that, by August 2008, it will not be able to 'cover all basic health needs of Iraqis, and many serious and chronically ill Iraqis will not be able to receive their monthly medication.'"

Engelhardt begins with an almost $6 million contract recently awarded to a private contractor for "replacement facilities for Forward Operating Base Speicher," near Tikrit. Work on this small U.S. base is expected to be completed by January 31, 2009, a mere 11 days after a new president enters the Oval Office. It is but one modest reminder that, when the next administration hits Washington, American bases in Iraq, large and small, will still be undergoing the sort of repair and upgrading that has been ongoing for years.

A powerful story from young Iraqi refugees and immigrants in Australia: Young Iraqi women living in Western Sydney have created digital stories about their experiences - harrowing journeys by boat to Australia, their time in detention, stories of longing for family left behind, and dreams of future lives in a new land.

Veteran Iraq campaigner Kathy Kelly denounces the current efforts by some in the US leadership to require the Iraqi government to foot the bill for US costs in Iraq, and challenges the argument that the American people are bound to continue to fund the war - rather than reparations, relief, and reconstruction - with their tax dollars.