خلُصت دراسة استمرت لأكثر من عقدين ونشرت في عدد مايو/أيار الحالي من الدورية الدولية للسرطانInternational Journal of Cancer، إلى أن القهوة والشاي لا يزيدان من خطر إصابة المرأة بسرطان الثدي.
وقال الدكتور دافاسامبو جانما إن بين هذا العدد الكبير من النساء على مدى فترة متابعة استغرقت 22 عاما لم نلحظ أي علاقة بين القهوة “التي تحتوي على الكافيين أو المنزوعة منه” والشاي وبين مخاطر الإصابة بسرطان الثدي.
وأضاف جانما الباحث بكلية الصحة العامة في جامعة هارفارد أن القهوة والشاي مشروبان آمنان جدا في حالة تناولهما باعتدال.
وقاس جانما وزملاؤه استهلاك القهوة والشاي والكافيين بين 85987 امرأة شاركن في الدراسة، تراوحت أعمارهن بين 30 و55 عاما في بداية الدراسة، وعلى مدار 22 عاما من المتابعة أصيبت 5272 امرأة بسرطان الثدي.
وبعد دراسة عوامل أخرى مرتبطة بسرطان الثدي مثل العمر والتدخين وكتلة الجسم والنشاط البدني وكمية الكحول التي يجري تناولها، وتاريخ الأسرة وانقطاع الطمث وتاريخ العلاج بالهرمونات وعدد الأطفال، لم يجد الباحثون أي مخاطر مرتفعة للإصابة بسرطان الثدي بين النساء اللائي كن يشربن 4 أكواب أو أكثر من القهوة (سواء التي تحتوي على الكافيين أو المنزوعة الكافيين) والشاي في اليوم، مقارنة بأولئك اللاتي كن يتناولن أقل من كوب واحد يوميا.
ولم تظهر الدراسة أيضا أي ارتباط بين الإصابة بالمرض وبين شرب أنواع أخرى من المشروبات الخفيفة التي تحتوي على الكافيين والشيكولاته التي تساهم في زيادة المقدار الإجمالي للكافيين.

“We came to power on a CIA train,” said Ali Saleh Sa’adi, the Ba’ath Party interior minister in the 1960s. One of the passengers on that train was an up-and-coming assassin named Saddam Hussein

A Non-Arab Arab / عربي غير عربي: CIA In the Mideast from “Legacy of Ashes”

Charitable Appeal For Eid Gifts:

Iraq charities are launching their donation campaign for gifts for Eid Al Fitr this year. A UK£20 donation will  provide a gift package that will include:

• Clothes (e.g. suit, dress, headscarf)
• A pair of shoes & socks
• Toys
• Sweets

Their goal is to provide 2,000 such packages. The links below take you the relevant pages which include information on how the gifts are to be distributed, guarantees, credit card or bank donation links.

• Eid Gifts for Iraqi Orphans (Arabic Page) 
• Eid Gifts for Iraqi Orphans (English Page) 

Electricity Bombing Campaign

The electricity campaign continued.  An attack yesterday evening on the al-Doura power station, (south Baghdad) caused severe damage to two generation plants forcing the power station offline. Widespread blackouts were caused throughout the region. One of the plants was set on fire the other severely damaged by the attackers. A fire engine was attacked and also set on fire. Several firefighters were wounded. The area is considered to be a hotspot and as the Electricity ministry official who spoke to Aswat Al Iraq on condition of anonymity pointed out repairs require security and the region is a “hot spot” and not under control either of the Americans or the green zone government despite massive reinforcements there. (Notes: The plant is now operating at one third of its already reduced capacity. The last attack was on the pipelines to the plant. The attack before that destroyed one generation plant.)

Karbala Aftermath (Update 6):

Other Reports:

Muthanna Governorate

Muthanna’s new governor has been elected (his predecessor was killed 10 days ago) like his predecessor he is a member of SIIC (SCIRI)

English Summary: According to the local hospital the preliminary toll in 31 dead and 179 wounded. Fighting is still going on but eyewitnesses say it dying down. Three hotels and a large number of vehicles are burnt. Eyewitnesses say they is still smoke coming from the hotels.

Haleema

Summary: There are meetings going on between officials and officers of the religious authorities and the local government, attendees include the Director of the Office of the Martyr al-Sadr in Karbala they are trying to work out how to contain the crisis and stop clashes between gunmen and police forces. Fighting has been going since Monday night around the Baghdad gate and in the streets between the two shrines. The fighting is still going on.

Editor’s note: There is no word of the fate of the Red Crescent workers and volunteers whose vehicles were destroyed.

Haleema.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Photo: Afif Sarhan/IRINBAGHDAD, 10 June 2007 (IRIN) “We only took a few clothes and some important documents and left everything in its place [in the house] as we thought it was just a temporary situation and that we would go back after a few days,” said Jawad, a 48-year-old Shia maths teacher who was threatened by Sunni extremists to leave his house in the mixed sect Gazaliyah district of Baghdad or have his head chopped off.

“Now, we see no light at the end of the tunnel,” Jawad, a father of three boys, told IRIN in a phone interview from Shula government camp in northern Baghdad.

The turning point in relations between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iraq can be traced back directly to 22 February, 2006, when a revered Shia shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, was bombed by what many believe was a Sunni extremist group.

The attack spawned days of reprisals that damaged or destroyed dozens of mosques, killed hundreds and made thousands of families homeless, compounding the displacement problem created after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Over two million displaced

In its latest statement, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) warned that the situation in the war-torn country continues to worsen with over two million Iraqis now believed to be displaced within the country and another 2.2 million having fled to neighbouring states.

The statement, issued on 5 June, said that an estimated 820,000 people, including 15,000 Palestinians, had been displaced since the bombing of the Samara shrine.

Limited access to social services and a general lack of resources has led to a growing number of impoverished shanty towns.

“Individual governorates inside Iraq are becoming overwhelmed by the needs of the displaced. At least 10 out of the 18 governorates have closed their borders or are restricting access to new arrivals,” UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said in the statement.

“UNHCR is receiving disturbing reports of regional authorities refusing to register new arrivals, including single women, and denying access to government services. Many displaced have been evicted from public buildings,” Pagonis added.

Political disunity

An official in the Iraqi Cabinet blamed a lack of unity among politicians and lawmakers for the growing displacement problem.

“There is real fighting between Sunni and Shia politicians for power inside the government and that is reflected on the street. This has become part of the political game - the more pieces of land and the greater number of neighbourhoods you control, the more power you have on the political level,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

“And this game is going beyond the control of anyone in the government and gets worse and worse,” he added.

For displaced people such as Jawad and his family, who live day by day in uncertainty, Iraq’s politicians have failed them miserably. “It’s as if we are wood for their fire,” Jawad said.” What have we done to deserve that? I’m dying every day when I see my family struggling to get a container of drinking water or sleeping in this makeshift camp in hot summer temperatures.”

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Early Warning, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

Source: IRIN Middle East | Middle East | Iraq | IRAQ: Iraq’s displacement crisis continues to worsen, UNHCR says | Early Warning Conflict Refugees/IDPs | News Item

More on displaced Iraqis

UN report highlights plight of over 800,000 IDPs

Thousands flee upsurge in violence in Diyala province

Families begin to flee Baghdad suburb as US-led forces strike

Hundreds of displaced children in south unable to get school places

Violence hampering efforts to tackle IDPs

Displaced families fall victim to house sale scams

UNHCR warns of tragedies facing Palestinian refugees

BAGHDAD, 5 June 2007 (IRIN) - Neglected factories, military scrapyards and battle sites containing hazardous material across the country pose a serious threat to Iraq’s environment and to public health, experts warn. The current security situation is also hampering rubbish collections and clean-up operations. Photo: IRIN Rubbish on the streets of Baghdad, poses health risk, doctors say “Chemical and other forms of hazardous material can easily be found in many areas of Iraq. Military scrapyards aren’t destroyed, but rather left wherever they are. Urgent clean-up measures are needed, but few financial resources are available, while ongoing insecurity is preventing specialists from even reaching the sites in question,” Iraqi enivronmental specialist, Professor Rand Abdel-Jaffar of Iraq’s Baghdad University, said. “Many chemical sites have been destroyed during the past wars and weapons production sites looted by insurgents and militias, leaving people exposed to hazardous material, and the environment polluted,” she said. In addition to damage to fauna and flora, according to Abdel-Jaffer, without clean-up measures, heavy metals left near rivers or even in the ground will result in the poisoning of ground water, leading to serious health concerns for the local population.

(more…)

I ran to the place happy that the police had found my son. However, when I got there, it wasn’t my son at all, but just the smelling remains of his body, his delicate face mutilated.

continued

“It’s hard to imagine the pain of losing one’s son. I was just a man who was happy to help his Iraqi brothers with food and clothing. And while I have paid the ultimate price, they blame me for being one of the people responsible for the violence taking place in our country, even though I am just trying to help. My son paid with his life for my humanitarian work, and unfortunately I have had to abandon many people desperate for help because I don’t want to lose my daughter now.”

This is why people are so careful about not revealing anything that could identify them. There is still no word of the fate of the kidnapped Red Crescent workers.

Haleema

BAGHDAD, 5 June 2007 (IRIN) - Hilal Naim, 33, has stopped working with humanitarian agencies in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, after his son was killed and the life of his only daughter threatened by militants. Photo: Afif Sarhan/IRIN Hilal Naim, 33, stopped working with humanitarian agencies in Baghdad after his son was killed and the life of his only daughter threatened by militants Naim had never had any trouble in his job or with the local community until militants one day demanded that he give up his job, which involved helping displaced families. When he failed to do so, his 10-year-old son was murdered. “When I first received a letter demanding that I give up my work, I didn’t take it too seriously. Since December 2006, I have received three warning letters, but I always thought it was a joke: no one would kill another person for trying to help others to eat. “At the beginning of April, however, my son was kidnapped and two days later a man called me to say that my son could be found along a highway in the capital. Desperate, yet relieved, I rushed to bring my son home, but when I reached the place I found police cars blocking the road.

(more…)

This article talks about a problem that you find especially in the border governorates mines or shells left over from previous wars. Often reports like this:

A child who was sheep herding sheep 50 kilometres west of Basra was seriously wounded when he stepped on a landmine (many mines are left over from the war with Iran. Because so many people are extremely poor many people especially children in the border governorates try to take out the copper wiring from mines and sell it to scap mechants see this posting by markfromireland called “Death in a Garbage Dump” - Mohammed.)

Source: Gorilla’s Guides » Blog Archive » News From Irak Summarised From Arabic 2007-02-19

Don’t get reported. They are so common that we only get to hear about them on a “slow” news day.

The article underneat this introduction I have writen  talks about the South. But I think it is very important to say that the problem is in ALL the border governorates.

For example - This report from Aswat Al Iraq gives a good idea of the seriousness of the situation in the Northern Governorates - the Kurdish Regional Government areas:

Dahuk, June 3, (VOI) – Kurdistan comes first out of all Iraq’s regions with the highest number of landmines, the Iraqi Kurdistan anti-landmine authority – Dahuk Branch said on Sunday.

“Authority staff managed to remove 1,532 anti-personnel landmines, 47 anti-armor landmines and 1,074 cluster and fissile bombs in a year,” Eng. Uwainan Youssef told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

“The area cleared of landmines this year reached 321,519 square meters, in addition to 12,978 square meters cleared using sweepers,” he said, adding that 3,251,154 square meters have been examined by bomb squads.

Youssef said 53 villages benefited from the authority’s work, noting that landmines were removed from a large area covering 10 fields where oil pipelines are laid.

“We have not scanned for any internationally banned unexploded bombs but we have detonated several phosphoric bombs, which are highly dangerous, in the area of Bishapour near the Iraqi-Syrian-Turkish border triangle,” said the Iraqi explosives expert.

Source: Aswat Aliraq

According to both Uthman and Mehmet (2 Gorilla’s Guides members who live in the Notth) most of the victims are either poor people who risk their lives to try to open them to sell the copper inside them for scrap or sheep or goat herders who step on a mine. Uthman says that several times he has a young person brought to him but because if the ruggedness of the land it took too long to bring them and they have died.

Haleema

(more…)