Last good news from Iraq

Notice the change in my atti­tude after the Elec­tion.…!!!!! :)

–Israeli-Iraqi Tells Story of Vote in Iraq Elections

There a mus­ta­chioed and grave-looking man was seated who made me dip my fin­ger in a sponge swim­ming in a pud­dle of indeli­ble ink. In my naivete, I pre­sumed this was the first stage of vot­ing by fin­ger­print, but the Iraqis cor­rected my mis­take with a smile usu­ally reserved for the feeble-minded: col­or­ing the fin­ger with the black muck that will come off “in another month, maybe more,” was merely intended to pre­vent repeat voting.

Once the Swafiyeh ink-blotter was pleased with the black­en­ing of my fin­ger, he pre­sented me with a vot­ing form the size of a poster and sent me behind a low divider. I had decided two days ear­lier who I would vote for, but then, alone behind the divider, I was gen­uinely dis­tressed for the first time: The enor­mous form con­tained 111 names of the lists com­pet­ing in the elec­tions, all writ­ten in Ara­bic whereas I, unfor­tu­nately, can read only Hebrew and English.

I sig­naled to a mem­ber of the polling sta­tion com­mit­tee and asked him for trans­la­tion help. He asked that I whis­per in his ear the name of the party for which I want to cast my bal­lot and after I did so, he wrote its name in Ara­bic on my card. After­ward, aware that attempt­ing to locate the party’s name on the long list would try the patience of the vot­ers wait­ing in line, he pointed to the title on the vot­ing form. I com­pared his hand­writ­ten note to the inscrip­tion on the poster, checked the box next to the party’s name and dropped the folded poster into the trans­par­ent bal­lot box

Read it here

–UNESCO: New books and lab­o­ra­tory equip­ment route for Iraq’s universities.

Based on pri­or­i­ties iden­ti­fied by Iraqi edu­ca­tion author­i­ties, the ship­ment includes $4.6 mil­lion of equip­ment and mate­ri­als for med­ical and related dis­ci­plines such as den­tistry, phar­macy and nurs­ing, as well as for engi­neer­ing fac­ul­ties. It also includes US$1 mil­lion in text­books for stu­dents and ref­er­ence books for uni­ver­sity libraries.

Mr Mat­suura added that, “this ship­ment comes with a clear mes­sage of sol­i­dar­ity and hope to all uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sors, researchers and stu­dents, admin­is­tra­tive and sup­port staff in Iraq, and a sig­nal of UNESCO’s com­mit­ment to help them.”

Read it here

–10,000 work oppor­tu­ni­ties for Iraqis in com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mobile telephony

The CEO of Al-Ather com­mu­ni­ca­tion com­pany tell Al-Hayat news­pa­per that at the end of 2005 there will be 10,000 work oppor­tu­ni­ties for Iraqis in com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mobile Telephony.

It is here (Arabic)

–IRAQI AIR FORCE RECEIVES HELICOPTERS

Iraqi air force offi­cials wel­comed the arrival of two UH-1H Huey heli­copters Feb. 1 to Taji Air Base.…Iraqi air force offi­cials are gen­uinely excited about the prospect of oper­at­ing these new air­craft, Greene said. The first eight air­craft will com­prise Squadron 2 and the sec­ond eight air­craft will become Squadron 4, both based at Taji.

–Recon­sruc­tion

Recon­struc­tion started in 30 schools in Al-Sadr city.

Read it here (Arabic)

–Mus­lim Edu­ca­tion Soci­ety (MES) for help to rebuild Iraq mosques.

“The MES had been coop­er­at­ing with a well-recognised char­i­ta­ble organ­i­sa­tion in Iraq to trans­fer the aid,” he said. “The soci­ety makes sure that the assis­tance reach to the fam­i­lies at their homes to restore their dig­nity.“
Al Muawda said that although Iraqis are in a great need for food and essen­tial daily require­ments, char­i­ta­ble organ­i­sa­tions should respect their feel­ings and not force them to gather in cer­tain places like beggars.”

Read it here