Date: Friday 15th February 2013 Time: 1-2 pm Venue: 23 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6LB (Nearest tube station: Victoria) The Freedom Umbrella group is organising a protest outside the London office of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to mark the second anniversary of the deadly attack by militiamen on unarmed demonstrators in the city of Suli. Bookmark on Delicious…
.jpg)
Yearly Archives: 2013
Syria and the partition scenario
By Mohammad Rasho: Amidst new alignments in the ‘Syrian street’, the dominant feature is ‘back to the roots’ as Syria’s social fabric is torn along mainly ethnic and denominational lines. The fighting has developed into a civil war in every sense of the word, with a conflict between Islamic fundamentalists and Alawites and, lately, between…
Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation; too little action taken against FGM
By HIVOS and WADI: Encouraging steps in Iraq The 6th of February was introduced by the United Nations as The International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Since then public awareness worldwide has grown. In a time when women’s rights and violence against women are discussed more than ever before, especially in…
Free Adem Uzun
By Friends of Adem Uzun: Initiative by Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) UK The Kurdish politician Adem Uzun was arrested in France on 6 October 2012. Having been denied bail, Adem remains in detention awaiting a trial which could be months away. Adem Uzun is a prominent activist working to…
Open Letter to the French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira
Dear Mrs Christiane Taubira The arrest of the prominent Kurdish peace advocate Adem Uzun in Paris last year came as a great shock to us all as it coincided with progress towards the opening of peace talks between Turkey and the Kurds. Over 200 public figures, lawyers and politicians with expertise in the matter of…
Turkey keeps up pressure for PKK to disarm and withdraw its forces
KT News and Comment: The Turkish state appears to be stepping up its campaign for the PKK to disarm before any comprehensive peace negotiations have begun. There are reports in the Turkish media that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan “might” call on PKK fighters to withdraw from north Kurdistan/Turkish territory over the next 10 days. Turkish…
3 students die in Suli University fire tragedy
KT News: Three students died today and 57 were injured as fire swept through Suli University’s main student accommodation building. Initially a spokesman for the ministry of education told the media that the accommodation had passed health and safety checks and that he thought the fire must have been started deliberately. However, Halwlati reports that the cause…
KRG higher education has the ‘lowest standards’
KT Comment: Research conducted by assistant professor Dr Sleman Jaffar Mohamed at the University of Erbil sheds critical light on the standard of higher education provided by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Mohammed has completed a thesis on the “evaluation of the standard of higher education in the KRG “ and concluded that, using international…
Maliki is pushing parties towards sectarian conflict and the division of Iraq
KT News and Comment: LATEST: A suicide bomber and gunmen have killed 33 people today in an attack on a police station in Kirkuk. The nightmare is unending … Shwan Muhamed Taha, an MP belonging to the Kurdistani Coalition in the Iraq parliament, told Sumaria News yesterday that the withdrawal from parliament of the Iraqia…
BDP and PKK leadership must be involved in peace talks, says Demirtaş
KT News: Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş yesterday denied Turkish media reports that a delegation of three Kurdish politicians (Ahmet Türk, Ayla Akat and Sırrı Sakık) was about to visit jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on his Imrali island prison. In a statement, Demirtaş said: “We request that you do not pay…
South Kurdistan shows its support for West Kurdistan refugees
KT News: Last night Kurdsat TV launched a high-profile campaign to raise more support for refugees from the west of Kurdistan. There are already 80,000 refugees in Duhok province, with around 500 more people crossing the border to join refugee camps every day. Bookmark on Delicious Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin Tweet about it…
Opposition calls for parliamentary elections date
KT News and Comment: The Opposition is asking for the Kurdistan Region’s two ruling parties to announce a date for parliamentary general elections. This should by 25 July because these elections are meant to be held every four years. However, due to the political uncertainties facing the two ruling parties, it seems highly possible they will…
The failure of the Syrian Kurdish parties at the time of the Revolution
By Mohammad Rasho: The struggle of the Kurdish parties in Syria is in vain, and didn’t quite live up to the level of the challenges faced by the Kurdish people in Syria. Because of the ongoing civil war, some Kurdish parties tried to increase their mass base through the liberal Coordinating groups (Altenseekiet) but these…
President Barzani’s quest for hegemony: Insisting on a presidential system as an example
By Kamal Chomani: There is near unanimous support for changing the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) semi-presidential system to a parliamentary system. The proposal is backed by the three main opposition parties – the Gorran Movement, Islamic Union and Islamic Group – and by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), as one of the two ruling…
Weight gain and weight loss difficulties: the Set-Point Theory (part 2)
By Kanya Said: Many of us try to lose weight but we find it very hard. We often lose some weight at the beginning. After that, we get very tired and we give in to the food offered, especially in the Kurdish culture where it is considered rude for a guest to say ‘no’ when…
