Inspired by Egypt, mass protests break out all over Iraq! "Iraq could blow up at any moment"

[Better Believe It]

Three shot as Iraqis protest power, food shortages
CNBC
February 3, 2011

BAGHDAD - Iraqi police opened fire on Thursday to disperse hundreds of angry residents protesting against shortages of power, water and other services near the southern city of Diwaniya, wounding three, officials said.

The crowd of about 1,000 tried to force its way into a local council building in the al-Hamza district south of the Diwaniya provincial capital, demanding improved food rations and more power and water.

"The protesters threw stones at police. Police opened fire at them, wounding three," said Raad al-Zaidi, an adviser to Diwaniya Governor Salem Hussein.
"There was no reason to open fire. It doesn't matter if they tried to raid the place or threw stones."

Protesters set tires ablaze, hurled stones and tried to storm the local police station, witnesses said.

Read the full article at:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41406203


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Protesters demand jobs and basic services
One killed, four injured in Iraq protest
February 4, 2011

Police shot randomly at hundreds of protesters in al-Hamza district in Iraq’s southern province of al-Diwaniya on Friday, killing one person and injuring four.

The incident came after a statement released on Thursday by the Iraqi parliament condemning the use of violence against demonstrators in Egypt and urged for the respect of human rights.

The protesters who followed up with their demands from a previous demonstration on Thursday called for the removal of al-Hamza head official and for the Iraqi government to provide basic services.

In addition to demanding employment, the protesters carried lamps and small sacks of sugar to symbolize their demands for food and electricity. The ration card system includes only necessary items such as wheat, rice, flour, and the government is mulling to cut the ration food supplies into four items only.


Unemployed Workers' Protest In Baghdad Turns Violent

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/04/136241.html


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3,000 persons take to street in Diwaniya to improve services
February 5, 2011

DIWANIYA: Three-thousand persons took to the street in Diwaniya on Friday demanding better services and more job opportunities.

"The demonstration started on Thursday in al-Hamza district, south of Diwaniya, demanding to improve services, offering job opportunities and ending ration cards problems," Alaa al-Husseini, one of the protesters, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

"Security forces cordoned off the district to prevent any possible attacks and to protect the protesters," a security source said.

http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20110205053855


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Demonstrations break out in Iraq
Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network
February 5, 2011

Hundreds of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad on Friday in protest against unemployment, freedom restrictions and other demands.

Demonstrators waving the photo of late Argentinean revolutionary leader Che Guevara said they had no one to represent them in Iraq.

Iraqi demonstrators urged to change the policies in Iraq and accused Parliament of shortcoming.

On the heels of Egypt, manifestations broke out around Iraq. In northern Baghdad, hundreds of citizens of Hussayniya region rallied for the fourth day in denunciation to bad services and to cutting off the highway between Baghdad and Diyala.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-59945-.html


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Iraqis step up protests in job and food crisis
By Nizar Latif
February 6, 2011


Protesters who stormed government buildings and a police station in a small, poor southern Iraqi town on Thursday continued their demonstrations yesterday, despite a crackdown by security forces.

Angry residents in Hamza, in Diwaniya province, 180 kilometres south of Baghdad, took to the streets for a third day yesterday after protests over shortages of power, food and jobs, as well as political corruption, turned violent.

"There will be a revolution of the hungry and the jobless in Iraq, just as there was in Egypt," said Abu Ali, who helped organise the demonstration.
"It was a march by the unemployed, by those who have lost hope and who see Nouri al Maliki and the new government becoming another dictatorship," he said.

The revolt in Hamza reflected nationwide anger at service shortages and perceived government failures, said Karima al Jawari, an MP with the Iraqiyya bloc. She warned that unrest could rapidly spread nationwide and, with protests in the Husseineyah district of Baghdad, also over poor services, there were indications that the process has begun. "Iraq is boiling and it could blow up at any moment," she said.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/iraqis-step-up-protest-in-job-and-food-crisis


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Thousands rally for work and basics
by Tom Mellen
February 7, 2011

Thousands of working people took to the streets of occupied Iraq on Sunday to press for higher wages and food rations, improved public services and government action to tackle rampant unemployment and corruption.

Inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, citizens rallied in Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi, Mosul and Diwaniya carrying yellow cards symbolising the warning card carried by football referees.

In Baghdad thousands thronged the working-class district of Bab al-Sham to protest against the medieval conditions that they are now expected to endure.

In Basra thousands gathered in front of the provincial government HQ and jostled with riot police, demanding higher wages and the resignation of the governor over alleged corruption.

Speaking at a rally in Diwaniya on Sunday, local university professor Nidal al-Sarmad predicted that a revolution was "close at hand. "The people feel they have been deceived, they are frustrated," Mr Sarmad declared. "The change the Americans brought has brought us a new set of thieves, a new set of dictators, not justice and freedom."

Please read the full article at:

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/100796

[meegbear]

1. And at CNN ...

Monday quarterbacking: Super Bowl's hits and fumbles

[RKP5637]

4. Yeah, good old CNN, as the world melts down CNN will be covering what's

the most popular at the time to enhance their viewership and bottom line profit.

MSNBC will be covering prisons, and Fox will be covering RW distortions of whatever.

It's no wonder none of them want Al Jazeera on the cable. They would not be able to compete with Al Jazeera.

[hatrack]

26. Oh, and they had a thing on shark attacks - they were up SHARPLY in 2010!!!!!!

:dunce:

[GiveMeFreedom]

28. republican sharks? n/t

[DeSwiss]

21. The only true answer:

[Poll_Blind]

2. Need another war! Third time is the charm, riiiiiight?

PB

[tabatha]

3. See.... the Iraqis could have done it all by themselves.

A war was not needed - neocons!

[BobbyBoring]

17. They tried once.

It shows how short American memories are. Poppy Bush encouraged the Iraqis to rise up against Saddam after Gulf War I. "WE got your back" he told them. Well we didn't have their back and as I recall, somewhere in the neighborhood of 85,000 were slain.

We don't remember, but they do~

[tabatha]

25. I don't count that as an uprising.

The Iraqis were fooled into thinking that they would be helped by Bush I.

I remember that clearly. It was disgusting.

It was not an Iraqi inspired uprising; it was a Bush generated uprising.

[Better Believe It]

5. Iraqi economist and former policeman: "It will happen in Iraq. The gov't is doing nothing for us

Iraq swirls with rumors of Egypt-like protests to come
With their televisions set to 24-hour coverage of the turmoil in Egypt, Iraqis have mounted a number of modest protests in recent days against power, water, and food shortages.
By Scott Peterson
February 6, 2011

With their televisions set to 24-hour coverage of the turmoil in Egypt, Iraqis have mounted a number of modest protests in recent days against power, water, and food shortages. On Thursday, police opened fire on demonstrators in the southern city of Diwaniya, wounding three.

A grinding refrain from Iraqis for years has been that their government fails them, a complaint that is echoing louder now as popular anger rises against Arab regimes across the Middle East.

“It will happen in Iraq,” says Mohammad Ali, a trained economist and former policeman, now unemployed for nearly five years, speaking in central Baghdad. “The government is doing nothing for us.”

Senior clerics warned the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki to heed the lessons of a region in turmoil.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0206/Iraq-swirls-with-rumors-of-Egypt-like-protests-to-come

[Better Believe It]

16. Iraq government acts to contain Diwaniya anger

Iraq government acts to contain Diwaniya anger
February 08, 2011

Iraqi government is acting fast to contain the anger of Diwaniya residents after their protests against lack of services and increasing poverty turned into gory confrontation.

Iraq’s Trade Ministry took drastic measures to meet the people’s demands. The Ministry approved to provide full ration cards and acknowledged that the level of poverty in the province has approached the limit of 88%.

These measures seem insufficient anymore to curb people’s anger in Diwaniya as they warned against not meeting their demands. Diwaniya residents believe the latest measures taken by the central and local governments have come a bit late.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-60052-Iraq-government-acts-to-contain-Diwaniya-anger.html

[malaise]

6. No amount of plaster will cover up the sores

The wall has been torn down - down go the neo-cons and neo-liberals across the globe. It's only time before they collapse and it may get worse before it gets better but the bankrupt system and all its contradictions have been exposed. All that's left are hypocrites with weapons, robber barons, corrupt corporations and the politicians they all manipulate.

[girl gone mad]

7. This is just a small local protest..

it's not like there's a global insurrection against banker occupation happening, or anything.

Or so I keep being assured by the corporate neocolonialist apologists.

[K8-EEE]

8. Wait didn't they get the memo? Dubya LIBERATED them! eom

[gratuitous]

9. Finally, a popular uprising where we can control things

We've got the military and the weapons there already, let's get realpolitiking! U!S!A! Fuck, yeah!

[Sonoman]

24. Easy, just send L Paul Jerry.

Bremmer had it pretty much buttoned up.

Well, kinda....

Sonoman

[LiberalEsto]

10. If only we could protest PEPCO's outages

with angry crowds. It's one of the worst, if not THE worst electric utilities in the US, and people in parts of Maryland and DC are dependent on them.

[Ghost Dog]

11. Ball rolling.

With what I now know, wish I were younger (and the 'wife' less, recently, selfishly reactionary).

[Better Believe It]

12. "Riot police had a hard time coping with thousands of demonstrators in Baghdad, Basra, Ramidi, Mosul

Iraqi demonstrators protest against lack of public utilities and employment
February 6, 2011

Riot police had a hard time coping with thousands of demonstrators in Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi, Mosul and some districts in Diyala province, where protest rallies were organized against the utter lack of public utilities and employment opportunities. Since the beginning of the US-led invasion, Iraq'electricity, drinking water and sewage service has deteriorated to an alarming level, together with employment opportunities in the public sector.

These services, which had already reached a historic low during the twelve years preceding the US-led invasion, were further dilapidated under the occupation, while the Iraqi governments that were put in place since then follow a doctrine according to which it is up to private enterprise to build up and maintain a public utilities supply network.

Political analysts on the ground predict that if the protests continue, the government most likely will smother the fire in limited, symbolic ways, by installing some power generators in determinate areas or paving one or the other road.

http://www.arabmonitor.info/news/dettaglio.php?idnews=32867&lang=en

[Better Believe It]

13. "The United Nations is making contingency plans to feed the people of Iraq"

Iraqi flour prices triple
February 7, 2011

Iraq’s flour prices have tripled over the last two months because of shortages in imported wheat supplies, threatening to push up food prices that have already stirred protests in some poorer parts of the country.

The United Nations food agency, believing that it may be facing the largest and most costly humanitarian crisis in history, is making contingency plans to feed the people of Iraq.

In New York, the UN Secretary General is seeking immediate authorisation from the Security Council to take over the agency's oil-for-food programme.

Officials at the World Food Programme (WFP) headquarters in Rome are deeply concerned.

http://dailymailnews.com/0211/08/Business/index.php?id=4

[ohheckyeah]

14. I'm surprised this hasn't happened

before now. It appears to be a domino effect right now.

[Ghost Dog]

15. Not dominoes. Go.

Position surrounded. Not even two eyes left. Not even Seki.

[Xenotime]

18. All of those lives wasted.

[Divine Discontent]

27. exactly....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Gosh! It's a good thing we still have troops there to.....????

What is it that they're doing there? Provide targets?

[xchrom]

20. ruh roh! nt

[DeSwiss]

22. I am a sucker for that phrase!

[xchrom]

23. i love me some scooby! nt

[MasonJar]

29. Maybe women will get their rights back, and the fundamentalists we

back will be ousted from power. In Iraq we are culpable.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

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