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KT Report: The political map of south Kurdistan has been re-drawn today – according to preliminary results of the polls for a new parliament – with Gorran set to become the second largest party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) facing a huge setback. According to early results, the opposition Gorran movement won decisively…
KT Report: Voting to elect a new Kurdistan regional parliament ended officially at 5 pm today. The day has mostly gone smoothly, although there are reports of some attempts at fraud by Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) supporters in Erbil city and Dhok. One reported irregularity is that KDP supporters encouraged people to vote late, after…
By Mufid Abdulla: Barham Salih has spoken publicly for the first time about his concerns for the future of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – in an interview published today, as Kurds cast their votes for a new parliament for the south of Kurdistan. Observers have noted that Salih, a former prime minister of…
KT News: Yakob Rasol Mohamed, a young journalist in the south of Kurdistan, was shot dead in front of his house in the town of Qalaidiza on Wednesday night (September 18th). The police have arrested a number of people but currently there are no details of anyone being charged. A group of local independent newspapers…
By Rauf Naqishbendi: The never-ending saga in the Middle East has a new frontier. Basher Al Assad’s regime has opened itself for a United States missile strike. Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against his own people. President Obama is adamant to punish Assad’s regime through striking selective Syrian military targets, unless Assad…
KT News: Peshmerga and other security forces members voted today in advance of the main polling for the Kurdistan parliament which will take place on Saturday. This is the fifth parliamentary election in the south of Kurdistan. Reports of technical problems with the machinery deployed to detect fraud and duplicate voting could add to existing…
By Issa Chomani: If we want to understand about the French revolution, we may go to the libraries or access Kurdish websites. But we will be disappointed by the lack of books and reliable sources: there are fewer texts written in Kurdish or translated into Kurdish about the French revolution than the fingers of your…
KT News: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced yesterday that he will reveal the Turkish government’s ‘democracy package’ before the end of September. These details were expected some weeks ago, as part of the peace process that began in January. The KCK (Kurdish Communities Union) responded last week to the delay by announcing a halt…
Peace In Kurdistan Campaign, Press Release: A delegation of six leading barristers and solicitors from the UK has arrived in Istanbul to observe the sixth hearing of a major counterterrorism case. The delegation, which includes international human rights barristers Margaret Owen OBE, Hugo Charlton, and Mark Jones of St Ives Chambers, as well as Tooks…
By Dr. Sherzad Al-Khalifa: It is more than nine months since Jalal Talabani was moved to hospital treatment after suffering a stroke and, in that time, practically no credible report has been published about his health situation. The extraordinary thing is that his position as President of Iraq has been left vacant for all that period…
By Mufid Abdulla: During my recent visit to the south of Kurdistan, all I kept hearing from people inside the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was about greed and patronage, and how the political culture inside that party has to change. The culture inside that party at the moment is gang culture. Talabani’s absence from…
By Ausama Anwar: We’ve all lived life as being a human, and we’ve never imagined living as something else – something bigger maybe, or something smaller – so as to be grateful for the shape we live in (as humans). So here the adventure begins. One of the crazy-minded writers tries to create a character…
By Osamah Golpy: The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has reduced the price of oil by half, from 1000 IQD to 500 IQD (approx. 0.60 USD) per litre. This cut came just four weeks before the parliamentarian elections, set for September 21st. It has come under attack from the opposition parties, not on environmental grounds, but…
By Dr Aland Mizell: With the PKK–Turkish government peace process once more sadly hanging by a thread, the Turkish media and especially the Gülenist media have already launched a pre–emptive blame game. We already know for a fact that Gülen and his followers never wanted the Turkish government to talk to the PKK or to…
An interview with Dr. Kamal Mirawdeli: Interviewed by Aras Ahmed Mhamad AA: What role do the youth of today have, in this technological age, compared to the youth of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s? KM: They have the entire world on their laptop or iPhone, in which they have lost the whole world, their world….
