Aaron Glantz

With Salam Talib Students at Iraq’s universities were to start the new school year this week – no small task given the daily barrage of violence that surrounds them. “Our ministry is the Ministry of Higher Education, so we don’t have a military and we can’t make one,” ministry spokesman Basil al-Khatib explained. He said … Continue reading “Iraq Violence Leading to Academic Brain Drain”

A U.S. soldier who went AWOL – away without leave – over his opposition to the war in Iraq was incarcerated at the U.S. military’s Mannheim prison in Germany Tuesday, pending an appeal in Washington this November. Augustin Aguayo’s imprisonment comes less than a week after he turned himself in at Fort Irwin in California’s … Continue reading “More Dissension in the Ranks”

With Salam Talib Few in Iraq have experienced sectarian violence more than residents of Samarra, an ancient, mid-sized city on the Tigris River northwest of Baghdad. For centuries, the areas Sunni majority had lived at peace with its Shi’ite minority – but in February, someone blew up a major Shi’ite shrine in the city, sparking … Continue reading “In Iraq, Strife Follows US Military Wherever It Goes”

The 2006 U.S. congressional elections are heating up, along with a proliferation of television ads featuring U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I’m a veteran," a series of plainclothes men and women say into the camera in an attack ad against antiwar Democrat Ned Lamont, who is challenging incumbent Joe Lieberman for … Continue reading “I’m a Veteran, and I Support/Despise This War”

With Salam Talib Until two weeks ago, Ali Falah worked as an emergency room doctor in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. The city, which is ethnically mixed but dominated by two Kurdish militias, has been the scene of increased sectarian violence. Most doctors left the city earlier this year after one physician was gunned … Continue reading “Doctors Under Fire in Iraq”

With Salam Talib The U.S. released three Iraqi journalists from prison over the weekend. The three were arrested together in a single sweep by U.S. troops last Wednesday. Among them, was Fadel al-Badrani, a reporter for the BBC and Reuters news agency who has reported from Iraq’s most dangerous places. “Fadel al-Badrani was the only … Continue reading “Iraqi Journalists Caught in Crossfire”

Fresh allegations of brutality are being reported from inside the walls of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which was transferred from U.S. military to Iraqi government control on September 1st. Sa’dik al-Hasnawi, who heads up Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s offices in the southern city of Diwaniya, told OneWorld, "it seems torture is not just a random … Continue reading “New Leaders, Similar Story at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib”

Dozens of South Koreans took to the streets of Washington, DC Thursday in support of small farmers forced to relocate to make way for a massive new U.S. military base in their country. President George W. Bush was meeting with his South Korean counterpart just steps away in the White House at the time. On … Continue reading “‘NO USA’: Korean Farmers Continue to Protest US Base Expansion”

The Bush administration is objecting to a groundbreaking treaty that set up a nuclear weapon-free zone in Central Asia. Under the treaty signed Friday, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan committed themselves not to produce, buy, or allow the deployment of nuclear weapons on their soil. But the United States, along with Britain and France, … Continue reading “Former Soviet Republics Give Up Nukes; US Objects”

with Salam TalibIn Iraq, the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars is accusing the US military of carrying out a massacre during a pre-dawn raid in a small village Northeast of Baghdad. The Association said the raid, which was carried out on Monday in Muqtadadiya, left five dead including an elderly man, a young man, and … Continue reading “Iraq: Media Dead Zone”