Turkish Kurd teenagers turn to the PKK after enduring years of brutality
Ian Traynor in Diyarbakir, Turkey - Monday June 5, 2006
Guardian
Sevder is seething. Growing up in poverty and squalor, he has seen schoolmates shot dead by Turkish security forces and had to put up with the vulgar taunts of Turkish policemen towards his mother and sisters. His grudges have been nourished by endless tales of family and friends burnt out of their villages in the hills and decanted into the slums of Diyarbakir.
From the Los Angeles Times By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer
May 30, 2006
BATMAN, Turkey — Huseyin Kalkan, the mayor of Batman, pointed to the bullet holes in the pale-yellow wall of his office, little indentations just above the framed photograph of a lavender cactus blossom.
By Abbas William Samii
During the last week of May, thousands of Iranians demonstrated in the northwestern city of Tabriz, and the previous week there were protests at universities in five cities. The protests were triggered by the official government newspaper - the Islamic Republic News Agency's Iran - publishing a cartoon which depicts a boy repeating "cockroach" in Persian before a giant bug in front of him asks "What?" in Azeri.
Sectarian Bickering Over Unfilled Posts Interrupts Ceremony
By Nelson Hernandez and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service - Sunday, May 21, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD, May 20 -- Iraq's first constitutional government since the fall of Saddam Hussein took office in a televised ceremony Saturday, with unfilled cabinet posts and last-minute sectarian bickering underlining the difficulties it will face in bringing peace and order to the country.
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN
The Associated Press - Monday, May 22, 2006; 5:58 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Guards pulled the sole woman on Saddam Hussein's defense team from the court Monday after she had a shouting match with the chief judge, prompting her to throw off her lawyer's robe in rage.
Iraq's new Prime Minister Nouri Maliki - who is also sometimes called Jawad Maliki - is a stalwart of the Dawa party, the Shia political group that for years led an armed underground resistance to the secular Baathist leadership of Saddam Hussein.
As the Baathist government hunted down its opponents, Mr Maliki followed other Dawa leaders into exile - fleeing the country in 1980 and eventually finding refuge in Syria.
Saturday, 20 May 2006
Here is the full list of ministers.
Sectarian Bickering Over Unfilled Posts Interrupts Ceremony
By Nelson Hernandez and Omar Fekeiki - Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 21, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD, May 20 -- Iraq's first constitutional government since the fall of Saddam Hussein took office in a televised ceremony Saturday, with unfilled cabinet posts and last-minute sectarian bickering underlining the difficulties it will face in bringing peace and order to the country.
By The Associated Press
Sat May 20, 200, 2:39 PM ET
Iraq's new 39-position national Cabinet, which includes four women:
Prime minister: Nouri al-Maliki, Shiite.
Deputy prime minister: Barham Saleh, Kurd.
Deputy prime minister: Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie, Sunni Arab.
FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2006 - AMMAN, Jordan
He has a disconcerting facial tic and opens his cellphone with an odd jerk of the left wrist, as if barely controlling his muscles. Yet he is vigorous, razor sharp and articulate, and holds a commanding presence.
