For the next 2 days the workshop will open a discussion about laws and regulation in Iraq that concerns freedom of speech and censorship laws. Bloggers will work together to discuss new media applications and technologies and how they can use it to share information and building each other’s blogging networks and capabilities. The conference in held by help of IMS and HR institutes to develop new media in Iraq.

Several Arab and Iraqi bloggers had sent a video message that will be shared during the lectures, and several speakers will discuss media, freedom of speech and blogging.

wameeth@gmail.com

67 years ago, in Japan, “THE LITTLE BOY” didn’t mean innocence; it meant damage, pain and suffering. It wasn’t blue and wasn’t white, it was black and grey with spots of red all over the place. And most importantly it wasn’t a toy, it was the bomb that vanished Hiroshima!

It took only 60 seconds to kill 30% of the total population of Hiroshima, 90% of their doctors and 70% of their buildings were instantly turned into ash. Experts predicted it would take a city wiped off the map decades to ever be the same.

Three to four years after the A-bomb, Hiroshima rose from the ashes!

After all, naming a bomb that killed thousands of children “the little boy” wasn’t that cruel. It gave the Japanese the hope of a new start that a “little boy” can have while riding his bicycle for the first time. Each fall showed him the mistakes, which he should never repeat again. And instead of crying, he smiles and tries again and again until the day comes when he can let the winds wipe away all his painful memories as he ride his bicycle as fast as a bicycle can be ridden.

The people in Hiroshima couldn’t fight death, burns or diseases from the radiation, but they certainly could fight fear, despair and negativity. They knew that with hope and faith, everything is possible. They believed in the power of the human willingness, determination and his ability to recover. When people told them “the glass is half full”, they disagreed and refused to settle for anything less than a “full glass”!

As an Iraqi, my left and right brain sides are always in dispute.

My left side thinks we can never be Hiroshima, Iraq can never be the same, the damage can never be undone, the hurt and pain that each Iraqi carries over their shoulders can never be lifted and that we will have to live with the shame of not recovering forever. My left side thinks peace and happiness have left Iraq long ago, and he insists that they will never come back again. He reminds me every day of our mistakes as Iraqis, as a government and as humans.

And whenever someone asks me “where are you from?” he nags me to deny being an Iraqi, he screams loudly the names of the children who were killed by the Iraqis themselves, he sings the wedding songs of the newly weds who were killed on their wedding nights, and sometimes, he makes me listen to the Iraqi mothers telling their stories which always start with tragedy and end with uncertainty. And when I remind him of Hiroshima, with a voice full of rage and anger, trying to hold on to my last piece of hope, quietly he says “but we are Iraqis, we can never do the same!”

Then…just then, my right side wakes up, with his loud silence, reminding me of the days of Hulagu, when he raped, destroyed and shuttered Baghdad. The days when instead of giving up, Baghdad ran and took the hands of her history, medicine, astronomy and mathematics and hidden them inside of her, under her streets and between her walls, turning her rivers into a blue water which she later generously let us drink.

She was smart enough to know that with sword and hatred, you might be able to kill people, damage houses, or even make a city vanish! But she was sure that they could never erase our history, wipe away our culture. That the smell of smoke cannot replace the delicious smell of our tea, and no matter how bitter our pain is, we can never forget how sweet our date once tasted.

I still believe in Baghdad, in Hiroshima!
I refuse to settle for half-solutions, half governments, and that Iraqis will always live with half happiness, half satisfaction and that sometimes they only get to live half a life!
I still want to believe that I will not settle for half a country, I won’t get to choose between south and north, Sunni or Shia, I will never follow half a religion!
And no matter what my left-brain side says, I try to hold on, as hard as I can, to the belief that my right side will always be RIGHT.

Earlier this week declared Wuterich is guilty of misconduct, and Tuesday he met in court at the military camp Pendleton near San Diego in California to find out the sentence.

He was initially sentenced to 90 days in jail, but do not have to zone as a result of an agreement he made with the military prosecutors. Instead, he was demoted to Private.Prosecutors have emphasized that the 31-year-old lost control after seeing a comrade killed in a bomb explosion in the Iraqi town of Haditha 19 November 2005.

It is a big shock to iraqi people that the ministry of human rights is planning to call for appeal ,,the victims families can not understand how this just happened …many in iraq thought that the legal system in US  is better than iraq ,but to act with such disregard of the death of all those people makes them lose faith in the democratic system that they “brought” to Iraq.

wamith al-kassab

wameeth@gmail.com

Today in Baghdad  the Iraqi people celebrated the memory of the great iraqi sculptural  Jawad Salim, the clebration was orgnize by Al-mada   Foundation  of information  culture and the arts in collaboration with the secretariat of Baghdad on Friday night in Tahrir Square under the Monument of Liberty by the late Jawad Salim on the occasion of the passage of half a century of his death where the ceremony was attended by a large number of political figures, cultural and artistic by playing pieces of the music by Iraqi  Symphony and  reading poetic pieces in his honer ,this was a message from the people to the world that in spite of all the violence in Iraq they still believe in hope ,art and better live and future

You can see an Arabic copy of the new regulation below, it consist of 4 paragraphs, each one is restricting wearing certain clothes and shoes to females employed in the ministry and signed by the women affairs coordinator.

I have set up an e-petition urging the British Government to recognize the Genocide inflicted upon the Kurdish population by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

If we get 100,000 signatures than they will debate this cause in the British Parliament, thus please sign and pass on your petition.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/25526

I would like to thank you all for the support and for being a friend to Kurdistan.

Laween Atroshi

As a British – Born Kurdish Health professional whereby having graduated in the cutting edge field of Biomedical Informatics I wanted to prove locally, nationally and internationally that this is not an accurate reflection of the Kurdish people.

Indeed, after visiting Kurdistan for the first time in July 2011 & October 2011 it was quite hard not to notice the wealth of talent, determination and skills that stem from the Kurdish professionals.

After visiting different universities and hospitals it was clear professionals and the youth were very dynamic and keen to grow. Moreover, the influx of girls being encouraged to study and work was overwhelming and an area that carries my support. As with any system, there will be flaws but a reform is happening and I always think of the saying ‘Rome was not built in a day’.

My message to my fellow Kurds has always been to study and utilize the knowledge gained effectively and contribute it back to Kurdistan. For Kurdish Anfal recognition I started an e-petition on the British Government website urging them to recognize and remember the Kurdish Anfal. Indeed,www.ekurd.net the weapon of defense for our forefathers was riffles but now it’s the pen and it should be used to protect Kurdistan and show the world the talent this forgotten nation holds.

However, actions speak louder then words so I nominated the Slemani Autism Centre a project initiated by a non-political NGO called Kurdistan Save The Children working collaboratively with the Ministry of Labour & Social Affairs for the most prestigious award of public service from the United Nations. This is the first time in history that Iraq has been nominated for such an award and my rationale for doing so was because it promotes and integrates disability into society. it acts as a platform to encourage community partnership & serves as an educational tool in reforming the stigmatization of disabilities.

We may not win the award but at least we are striving hard to try and compete intellectually at that platform and will be recognized for attempting.

Kurdistan may not be independent at the moment but by working collaboratively as one voice we can claim independence at other channels, nationally and internationally which will gradually lead to Kurdistan’s independence by having people informed on our capabilities and peaceful rich culture.

Thus, as Kurds we must never give up, never be pessimistic and always support each other and aim high, with the hope we may become recognized for our good qualities and talented workforce.

Laween Atroshi
UK Health Informatician & Ambassador For Peace (UPF)
All views & opinions are of my own and do not reflect my employers or any organization whom I have a direct or indirect affiliation with.

Tweet me @laweenatroshi and let me know your opinions, I could be wrong but this is how I feel from my experience. My views do not reflect any individual or institution. www.laweenatroshi.com

We need painters, musicians, writers; we need people to have dreams and faith in the possibility of it coming true…

My friend Mohamed Amer had a dream , his dream was no to tell the story of his country, but to tell the world that his country is still have good sons, who can rise from the middle of war and death, to tell the world good stories, he always tried to help others who he believed got the talent to stand by their side and help of building new generation, so this young Iraqi youth decide to use his ability of writing to make one step to achieve his dream and he wrote a book, the book title is God Is In The Rain , is a story about an old man who tells stories to children in a fantasy and realistic way to grab their attention , a story a bout an amazing journey into the worlds philosophy about life and religion, romance and war.

I advice you to read it, and to help this 26 years old Iraqi engineer who lived most of his life in Iraq, waiting that someone, finally, hear all the talented youth calling, so how you can help him ??

Well you can buy his book, which is available on Amazon.com and Lulu.com ,,, and you can spread the word, share the link for this article and help other who like to support Iraqi youth to find a chance to do so.

Believe me in the end you will read an amazing story and feel good for helping g to induce change for Iraq future

This is link to the writer book and blog page

http://www.iraqistreets.com/talented-youth-blog-mohamed-amer-book

This is link to the book on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/God-Rain-ebook/dp/B006R90QHU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1325344110&sr=8-5

This is link to the book in Lulu

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/mohamedamer

Exactly in Iraq this what we say instead of happy new year, every year we call for mercy but we got the opposite thing, maybe we are not doing it the right way, maybe we don’t believe in destiny, maybe we are far away from the truth that we even became a slave for Israel.

As all of other countries celebrating the new year and the era of a new sun that would shine their life, brighten their sky, they will breathe a new 2012 air, the morning would be very nice as it’s a new birth of a new year, actually it’s really birth of a new year, because all the world is celebrating the new era as if they were as a family.

Here in Iraq the picture of a perfect life had been burned, every year we try to find find that shining light and we seek that beautiful smile on our face but we failed, we are becoming like a slave of death, because he is the only one who give orders and accept and denies everything in the life in a country that is falling in hell from the moment it was born.

While it’s a new year in Baghdad and for the first time here in a while it’s raining, but the point is it really raining? Might be the sky missing its victims, might be the sky happy for its new year. Well nobody knows why, we may all be at the shave of fall, but we may never look up. Life is taking us somewhere so far from what we want.

All we want is a peaceful life and I think this is a reasonable demand for us, to have our voices shout together loudly for the world to hear our voices and be there for us. We hope this year be a really happy new year for us all, and for all of our children and our beloved ones, may this be a year full of mercy and happiness for all of the world.

Smile is all what I can say, because when you smile… you may forget.

The spokesperson for the Safety Authority in Baghdad, Qassim Atta, blamed the attack on some unknown power (in past times he used to blame al-Qaeda or the Baath party). There is a connection between the attacks and the U.S. withdrawal, but we don’t know not yet who is behind it. Some think that as the U.S. has withdrawn, al-Qaeda will show that it is present and that the Iraqi government can not protect the population, as the terrorist network’s goal is to carry out an attack that could destabilize the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama said “we leave with a sovereign, stable and independent Iraq with a representative government that was elected by the people” during a celebration of the military withdrawal last week, but it seems his vision will not be as stable after all that the U.S. has done  in recent years. Iraq still  needs to introduce democracy in a country where, even after the US left, while the last American soldier left the Iraqi soil, almost nine years after the invasion, there was an end to the peace between Shia and Sunni Muslim politicians. The political crisis came to a head when an arrest warrant was issued for Tariq al-Hashemi, the country’s vice president and the most prominent Sunni politician in Iraq. Hashemi is accused of having ordered terrorist attacks against Shia leaders. The politician has sought refuge in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq and the Shiite prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has asked to have him extradited. This has led ministers from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc to boycott both the government and the parliament, which makes many fear the shadow of civil war .

If the political situation improves, then it is a confirmation that Iraq is less democratic than the United States has indicated, and if leadership  fails to take control, the situation can grow to be very violent. Many have seen signs that Maliki’s dictatorial tendencies have degenerated in recent months, especially during the so-called Arab spring. Some call him the new Saddam Hussein, for he rules on the basis of the minority, but instead we can see it is a dictatorship based on majority rule.

There is a slightly different constitution, but there is no better framework and a new dictatorial regime in Iraq has become clearer and clearer in recent years. The fact that Maliki is in the throat of the opposition, can be very risky. There is not any real opposition because of the political persecution.

The future is held between the thin hands of destiny to build a state or destroy one.