www.umarahmed.com

I've been absent from the blogging scene for a little bit but I've finally managed to secure my own name as my domain name so you can now find me blogging at www.umarahmed.com

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The District (pure brilliance from NewsWeek)

Twitter for Beginners

Twitter for beginners

View more presentations from Paul Bradshaw. (tags: journalism bcumedia)

Obama Goes Negative

77 per cent of Mr Obama's ads in the past two weeks have been negative compared with 56 per cent of Mr McCain's, according to a University of Wisconsin analysis.

And it's working.


OBAMA WIPES OUT MCCAIN'S FLORIDA LEAD

BARACK Obama has gained ground on John McCain in key battleground states, wiping out the Republican's lead in Florida and trailing by just one point in North Carolina, according to a new CNN/Time poll.

The poll comes as other surveys show Mr Obama regaining his national lead over Mr McCain as the impact of Sarah Palin's selection as the Republican running mate appears to fade.

The CNN poll puts Mr Obama ahead by two points in Ohio and by three in Wisconsin, with Mr McCain leading by six points in Indiana. It shows the two candidates in a dead heat in Florida, with 48 per cent each.

Mr Obama's poll surge follows days of aggressive Democratic campaigning aimed at portraying Mr McCain as out of touch on the economy, which voters identify as the most important issue in the campaign.

A University of Wisconsin analysis found that 77 per cent of Mr Obama's ads in the past two weeks have been negative, compared with 56 per cent of Mr McCain's.

The two campaigns clashed yesterday over a Spanish-language ad in which Mr Obama linked Mr McCain's views on immigration to those of right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance," the ad's announcer says as a picture of Mr Limbaugh appears on screen with quotes of him saying, "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out".

"John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote and another, even worse, that continues the failed policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families."

Mr McCain's campaign hit back, pointing out that the Republican braved the hostility of his party's base to back comprehensive immigration reform while Mr Obama backed Senate amendments that killed a bipartisan immigration Bill.

The McCain ticket came under friendly fire yesterday when Nebraska Republican senator Chuck Hagel said that Ms Palin lacked foreign policy experience and called it a "stretch" to say she was qualified to be president.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald.

"You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

From The Irish Times

The Front Fell Off

Senator Collins, a member of the Australian Parliament, appeared on a TV news program to reassure the Australian public.

This actual interview is so funny, you'd swear it was a skit on 'Saturday Night Live' or something by Monty Python.

Enjoy!

South Africa's Human Rights Reputation Tarnished

By Carroll Bogert

Published in The Sunday Independent

September 7, 2008


Supporters of human rights around the world watched in joy 14 years ago as apartheid ended and a new era of democratic governance began in South Africa. But many of us are now watching in dismay as the country's foreign policy often aligns with global enemies of human rights.

The South African government's unwillingness to confront President Robert Mugabe on his extremely abusive governance of Zimbabwe is well known to South Africans, and justly controversial.

Less well known are the many other important international issues on which the South African government has sided with reactionary rather than progressive forces.

As a member of the United Nations security council for two years, South Africa has had many opportunities to speak out forcefully for human rights - or to join those speaking out against them. Again and again, it has chosen the latter course.

Burma is the best-known case. With Russia and China, South Africa has blocked efforts to condemn the military government's lethal crackdown on peaceful protesters last year.

Perhaps the department of foreign affairs has forgotten that, when Burma was still democratic, it demanded that the evils of apartheid, including the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, should be brought before the security council.

The international solidarity movement against apartheid constantly confronted the argument that what happened inside a country's borders was none of the rest of the world's business. That is precisely the argument that the South African government now makes frequently at the security council. It narrowly defines what constitutes a "threat to international peace and security", and insists that all other matters be taken up at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, outside the limelight, South Africa has demonstrated a similar pattern - failing to support key resolutions condemning human rights abuses in countries from Iran to Uzbekistan, and aligning itself with countries whose human rights records are, by anyone's standard, abysmal.

At the UN this month, a diplomatic struggle is shaping up to be South Africa's lowest moment yet. The issue is Darfur, and more specifically the request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president. The accusation: genocide and crimes against humanity, the world's most serious crimes.

News of the warrant request was greeted with joy among the millions of Darfuris who have been driven from their homes by government forces acting in concert with janjaweed militias. Tens of thousands of Africans have died in this civil war, most of them civilians, and most of them as a result of Sudanese government actions.

The Sudanese government has begun a concerted campaign to evade justice for these crimes and the South African government has become its accomplice. Together with Libya, also on the security council, South Africa has been leading an effort to suspend the International Criminal Court's request for the next 12 months.

Suspending the request for an arrest warrant would send a clear signal, not only to the Sudanese government, but also to tyrants everywhere that they can continue to cheat justice through international political machination.

I was present at the negotiations on the treaty for the International Criminal Court 10 years ago in Rome, and listened with admiration to the speech of Dullah Omar, the South African justice minister, in ringing support of this important new human rights institution. Achieving a strong treaty at those talks was an uphill battle, but we won. Only the steadfast leadership of South Africa, along with a handful of others, overcame the opposition of major powers such as the United States, China and Israel.

The International Criminal Court is not an anti-African institution, as some have alleged. It is a pro-African institution: pro-civilians in Darfur whose villages have been burned to the ground, pro-women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who have been raped in wartime, pro-children in northern Uganda who have been abducted as child soldiers. It is opposed to government and rebel leaders responsible for such crimes, no matter where they live.

The prosecutor has also been looking into situations in Colombia and Afghanistan, as well as crimes committed in the Russian-Georgian armed conflict.

It is truly heartbreaking to see South Africa preparing to abandon the court at a critical juncture in its history. Sadly, it appears to be part of a trend that is putting Pretoria's foreign policy on the wrong side of history.

Perhaps only a fervent and sustained outcry from South African society can restore the country to its rightful path and begin to repair the damage that has already been done to its reputation.

Carroll Bogert is Associate Director of Human Rights Watch

Denver Prepares For The Main Event

Check out the best reporting on the Democratic National Convention from Campaigns and Elections Blog live from Denver

CNN DNC Coverage

Article taken from Irish Times be Reuters

Democrats prepared a grand celebration today for Barack Obama, who will accept a historic presidential nomination with a speech that spells out his vision for change in America.

Mr Obama, the first black presidential nominee of a major US party, will deliver the address in Denver's open-air football stadium before 75,000 supporters on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech - a landmark in the US civil rights movement.

The televised speech by Mr Obama, who was formally nominated yesterday, will give the first-term Illinois senator his biggest national audience until he meets Republican rival John McCain in late September in the first of three face-to-face debates before the November 4th election.

In an unannounced appearance in the hall at the end of yesterday's national convention program, Mr Obama said he shifted the event to the football stadium as a tribute to the grass-roots energy of his supporters.

"We want to open up the convention to make sure that everybody who wants to come can join in the party," said Mr Obama (47) who appeared on stage after the acceptance speech of his newly minted running mate, Delaware Senator Joe Biden.

National conventions are often the first time voters start to pay attention to a presidential race. Opinion polls show many voters are still unfamiliar with Mr Obama and concerned about his readiness for the job.

Republicans, who hold their own convention in St Paul, Minnesota next week to nominate the veteran 71-year-old Mr McCain, hammered on their theme that Mr Obama is unprepared and his soaring speeches mask a lack of substance.

"The question for Obama is 'What have you done and what have you run?'," Minnesota Govenor Tim Pawlenty, named as a possible running mate for Mr McCain, said on ABC's Good Morning America . "He has good oratory but when you shut off the teleprompter there's not much there," he said.

Speakers at the Democratic convention have addressed those concerns, led by rousing testimonials for Mr Obama from former rival Hillary Clinton, her husband former President Bill Clinton and Mr Biden.

"Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world," Bill Clinton told flag-waving Democrats.

Mr Obama is running even with McCain in opinion polls. The back to back-to-back nominating conventions will give voters a chance to compare and contrast.

Mr Obama's senior strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters the speech would focus on Mr Obama's vision for the country's future.

"He's going to lay out a case for change. He's going to set the stakes of this election, the risks of continuing down the road we're on which is plainly what Senator McCain is offering," Mr Axelrod said.

Democrats tie Mr McCain's name to that of the unpopular President George W. Bush, whose eight years in power are associated with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and an economic malaise.

Some Democrats have said Mr Obama needs to be more specific about his priorities as president, and draw a sharp contrast with Mr McCain. Mr Axelrod said both elements would be included.

Republicans, seeking to draw attention away from the Democrats on their big day, tried to build up anticipation over Mr McCain's vice-presidential pick. A party official had said yesterday Mr McCain had made his choice, but the senator denied in an interview with KDKA NewsRadio in Pittsburgh today he had yet made a decision.

He did say, however, that two men considered potential running mates would join him at a rally in Ohio on Friday, his 72nd birthday, when the announcement is expected. They were former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.

If elected Mr McCain would be the oldest first-term president to take office.

Mr Obama was formally nominated on Wednesday in an emotional show of unity after Hillary Clinton, his vanquished rival, appeared on the convention floor to ask Democrats to suspend their roll call of the states and make Mr Obama the nominee by acclamation.

Former Vice President Al Gore will speak to the convention before Obama today. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Hispanic, will also make an appearance. Hispanics are a fast growing segment of the U.S. electorate and a potentially vital voting bloc.

The last presidential candidate to accept the nomination in an open-air football stadium was John Kennedy, who spoke to the Democratic convention at the Los Angeles Coliseum before 80,000 supporters in 1960.

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Musharraf Announces Resignation In TV Address

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has announced his resignation during a live TV address to the Pakistani nation.

The former army chief and firm US ally has seen his popularity fall over the past 18 months and has been isolated since his allies lost a February election.

Read on here

Watch televised address here

Georgia: Russian Cluster Bombs Kill Civilians

Stop Using Weapon Banned by 107 Nations

(Tbilisi, August 15, 2008) – Human Rights Watch researchers have uncovered evidence that Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated areas in Georgia, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called upon Russia to immediately stop using cluster bombs, weapons so dangerous to civilians that more than 100 nations have agreed to ban their use.

'Cluster bombs are indiscriminate killers that most nations have agreed to outlaw. Russia’s use of this weapon is not only deadly to civilians, but also an insult to international efforts to avoid a global humanitarian disaster of the kind caused by landmines' says Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch.

Read on here

Russia Wants More Security For Georgian Troop Pullout; How Georgia Opened The Door To Nostalgia

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a French-brokered six point peace agreement to end it's conflict with Georgia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

"The president informed participants of the security council meeting that he had just now signed the six-point plan," said the Kremlin's chief spokeswoman, Natalia Timakova.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia will pull out troops from the conflict zone in Georgia once additional security arrangements are put in place.

The ceasefire agreement signed by Russia and Georgia states that Moscow's troops will continue to implement additional security measures on a temporary basis pending the arrival of an international peacekeeping mechanism.

"The (Russian) president issued an order to the relevant authorities to start the adoption of extra security measures envisaged in the six-point plan," Mr Lavrov told reporters.

"As these security measures are implemented, the withdrawal of forces sent to carry out this reinforcement operation will be carried out."

Mr Medvedev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili have now both signed the French-brokered peace deal, but Mr Lavrov said the document signed by the Georgian leader was missing a key introductory part.

"The document signed by the Georgian president differs from the one which was agreed," he said. "It totally omits the introductory part saying that these principles are supported by Russia and France and calling on all sides to sign them."

He said Russia was discussing the matter with Georgia and that it would be settled through diplomatic channels.

Mr Lavrov said Russia had started consultations at the United Nations on international efforts to end the conflict.

"Additional numbers of monitors should observe the security zone. We will carry

out our obligations under the deal, depending on how other parties carry them out," he said.

Russia received a copy of the ceasefire document signed by Georgia this morning, according to the Interfax news agency.

The Ministry said the document, sent by the United States, was identical to the one signed already in Moscow by leaders of the separatist regions at the heart of the conflict, Interfax reported.

Russia has denied continuing military operations in the country. Georgia's Interior Ministry claimed this morning that Russian troops had blown up a railway bridge about 45 km from the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said troops had destroyed the bridge in the Kaspi region west of Tbilisi, "paralysing the Georgian railway network".

However, Russia's General Staff denied the accusation.

"We are now in peacetime. Why should we be blowing up bridges when our job is to restore ?" Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, told a daily official military briefing.

"This therefore can only be yet another completely unverified statement. We are not conducting bombardments. I can say with full responsibility that this cannot be the case."

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will privately meet US, Russian and Georgian ambassadors today to discuss the cease-fire accord agreed yesterday.

Mr Ban has been unable to reach President Medvedev after earlier speaking with his Georgian counterpart, according to a report by AFP, citing Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman.

The UN estimates the number of people displaced by the conflict is approaching 115,000, according to a statement on its Web site yesterday.

Two days ago, the UN children's fund, Unicef, put the number of refugees at about 100,000. The latest figures show that 30,000 people uprooted from South Ossetia remain in Russia, while as many as 15,000 fled south into undisputed Georgian territory, the UN said, citing data provided by Russian and Georgian officials.

About 68,000 refugees are displaced in the rest of Georgia, according to the statement. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres will visit Georgia and Russia next week to discuss the ongoing operations.

Human Rights Watch said in an Aug. 14 report that both sides made ``indiscriminate attacks'' on civilians.

A doctor at the main hospital in South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali, told Human Rights Watch that the clinic handled 44 corpses and 273 wounded between Aug. 6 and Aug. 12, including civilian and military casualties, the New York-based group said.

"Human Rights Watch cannot definitely attribute specific battle damage to a particular belligerent, but witness accounts and the timing of the damage would point to Georgian fire accounting for much of the damage described'' in Tskhinvali, the report said.

Russian and South Ossetian officials earlier said as many as 2,000 civilians died in the fighting. Human Rights Watch reported seeing houses that had "clearly just been torched" in South Ossetia's ethnic Georgian villages.

The group said in a separate report on Aug. 15 that its researchers uncovered evidence Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated areas of Georgia, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens.

No country has recognised South Ossetia or Abkhazia since they broke away from Georgia in wars after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia has had peacekeepers in both regions since then and expelled all Georgian forces from the territories in recent fighting.

"Unfortunately, after what happened, it's unlikely that the Abkhaz and South Ossetians can live in a single state with Georgia," Medvedev said.

"Or some absolutely titanic efforts must be made to resolve this conflict."

He met Aug. 14 in Moscow with South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity and Sergei Bagapsh, the leader of Abkhazia, and told them that Russia would support the regions' decisions about their future status.

From Irish Times by Bloomberg, Reuters

________________________________

But what has been the aim of Russia's involvement in Georgia? I am not sure it is just about Russia exerting 'power' in the region. In a sense it is but not purely for the sake of exerting that power. President Bush says the "territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected". Many might correctly say it is now a bit too late for that, after the carve-up of the former Yugoslavia by the Americans, ably assisted by elements within the EU. Kosovo, of course, being the latest in Western-backed declarations of independence.

It is Mr Bush, his predecessor and their disciples in Europe who have let the separatist genie out of the bottle. And once genies get out, they rarely, if ever, go back. Surely, the Russians have the right to protect the South Ossetians and assist them in their quest for self-determination. Of course, am I not being devilishly naive to suspect that situations mirror one another in terms of democratic self-determination. When it suits us, you say. How are the Spaniards doing in recognising Kosovo (difficult one that for them)?

The players in this game are all too similar. South Ossetia as Kosovo, it's separatist fighters as a KLA, Georgia as Serbia, and an energetic Russia acting as NATO. Of course, the similarities might not be perfect but the parallels to be drawn are striking.

President Bush stated that 'bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century. Only Russia can decide whether it will now put itself back on the path of responsible nations, or continue to pursue a policy that promises only confrontation and isolation'. In the same speech he explains how 'Georgia has sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to help others achieve the liberty that they struggled so hard to attain'. If you are somewhat confused you should be. Democratic nations are free to do what they want because they are democratically elected and thus serve in the interests of the majority of their population. But the will of the nation being attacked is ignored, provided that they are not a democracy, which means they have no right to be heard. Puzzled? I certainly am. Rhetoric and propaganda are starting to take root in a serious way and I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the Cold War. Times were simpler then and we always had an enemy to blame (or at least knew who the enemy was). The post-Cold War era has been far too confusing for my liking and often actions of supposed allies seemed questionable given the changed security paradigms. Global Jihad was hot for a while providing us with some common enemy but its form was far too intangible to grasp (not to mention being notoriously difficult to target with our own WMDs). With the slow emergence of China as a great power and the thunderous reawakening of Russia I can look forward to a time in which things once more become black and white.

Political Cartoon Of The Day

Political Cartoon Of The Day

Re-introduction Of Third Level Fees

The political maelstrom that has precipitated in the wake of Education Minister Batt O'Keefe's suggestion that Third Level Fees are back on the cards is wholly laughable given his statement on the matter yesterday. Mr O’Keeffe said yesterday the introduction of third-level fees for better-off families was being considered but today said any new fees would target millionaires and those with “excellent salaries”.

What baffles me is that the very small minority that he refers to is hardly going to solve the chronic under-funding of Irish universities. He is yet to draw a limit at which people have to start paying for their fees but from the statements made so far this is to be set quite high. What would the point of having 3-5% of students pay their fees?!? Of course, the argument is that the limit can be decreased and that there will be pressure to do this as time goes on. But to be perfectly honest, the Irish third-level sector is in serious trouble and in need of proper funding, which cannot just come from government. Private investment must be secured. The CAO system also feels somewhat broken.

Personally, I feel radical changes need to be brought to the whole area of Irish Third Level education. Fees may not be such a bad thing but then Irish banks need to grow up in that culture and begin to offer good packages to students (which they don't have to start paying back immediately upon graduation). I will write of the CAO system tomorrow as all those Leaving Cert-ers will be getting their results in the morning. Good luck to them all!

To read more on this story go here

Is The Race Really As Close As We Think?

From Campaigns and Elections by Doug Daniels

With our voracious appetite for 24/7 cable news and online coverage of the presidential race, everybody seems obsessed with scrutinizing every shred of polling data out of the race for president. Daily tracking polls, national averages, and even polls of polls have become standard metrics by which pundits and politicians alike steer the political discourse.

And in a political climate that is universally viewed as terminally grim for Republicans, the fact that Sen. Barack Obama has been unable to pull farther ahead of GOP rival Sen. John McCain has many wondering why the presumptive Democratic nominee isn't doing better.

The latest Gallup tracking poll has Obama with a 3 point lead over McCain-46 percent to 43 percent. Rassmussen's latest tracking numbers have Obama ahead by 2 points. A recent CBS News poll gives Obama a 6 point lead.

But despite the media frenzy over the surprising tightness of the race, Obama's campaign has avoided, at least publicly, exhibiting any sense of panic. Maybe that's because Democrats claim to see plenty of promising data in the state-by-state polling.

"Remember, in the primary there was a lot of talk about how the white, non-college educated vote would not go to Obama in the general election, but those voters have come back to him," says McMahon. "Plus, he's still ahead in all the states John Kerry won in 2004, and ahead in three or four of the states Kerry lost, so the playing field still tilts to Obama."

On Sunday, former presidential advisor and George W. Bush political guru Karl Rove suggested Obama should be much farther ahead than he currently is in national polling. On CBS' Face the Nation, Rove said the Illinois' senator's slim lead suggests that far too many voters have doubts about his ability to lead the country.

But Obama backers counter with the numbers that they say really matter on Election Day-those measuring the race in key battleground states-which appear to offer Obama a somewhat brighter picture. The latest Rassmussen poll has Obama up by 4 percentage points in Michigan and seven points in Wisconsin.

Most polls out of Ohio have Obama with a slight edge in that state, and the latest Quinnipiac numbers out of Pennsylvania have Obama up by 7 points.

Of course, history suggests that both candidates should be cautious in reading too much into any of these numbers, since the national summer polls have traditionally been an unreliable predictor for what will happen on Election Day.

Even former vice president Walter Mondale actually led President Reagan by a handful of points in a Gallup poll in February of 1983, only to suffer a crushing defeat in November. Reagan won the most Electoral College votes of any candidate in history that fall.

And four years later, in July of 1988, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis lead George H.W. Bush by a similar margin, only to lose in a landslide in November.

And don't forget polls back in the summer of 1992 that showed Ross Perot defeating both Bush and Bill Clinton.

Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International, says summer polls aren't necessarily unreliable, simply snapshots of where the electorate stands before voters really engage in the campaign.

"You start to see public opinion solidifying more after the conventions or after the debates, and there are people who don't make up their mind until the last week of the campaign," Zogby says. "Most people are doing more important things right now than following every detail of a campaign, like keeping their job or putting food on the table."

Still, Zogby says he's not surprised by the closeness of the race, despite the damaged Republican brand. "Structurally the country is still competitive," he says. "If you subtract George Bush from the equation you still have two parties that are pretty close, and if any Republican can run away from Bush with some credibility, it's McCain. And so I think those factors, along with Obama's race and perhaps his inexperience, are keeping it close. But there are still enough undecided voters out there who may feel more comfortable with Obama the more they get to know him."

Political Cartoon Of The Day

For Edwards, An 'F' In Crisis Management

From Campaigns and Elections by Shane D'Aprile and Doug Daniels

Now that former North Carolina senator and two-time presidential hopeful John Edwards has admitted to an extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer in an exclusive interview with ABC's Nightline, one prominent political strategist, who specializes in crisis management, says Edwards handled the allegations in just about the worst way possible.

"The good news for the Democrats is that [Edwards] isn't the nominee right now," says Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist who has done crisis management for numerous politicians including former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, who admitted to a gay extramarital affair in 2004.

"He really handled this badly," Sheinkopf says of Edwards. "Truth is always the refuge of politicians who want to survive, and he didn't tell the truth."

According to ABC News, in an interview that will air tonight, John Edwards told correspondent Bob Woodruff that he did have an affair with 44-year-old Rielle Hunter, but denied that he is the father of her child. The admission of the affair comes despite repeated denials over the past year, and throughout the course of his presidential campaign.

Last October, the National Enquirer ran a story that Hunter, responsible for producing some of Edwards' presidential campaign spots, had given birth to his child, forcing Edwards to publicly deny any romantic involvement at the time.

According to Edwards, his wife was made aware of the relationship back in 2006, and rumors began swirling within the blogosphere. But the mainstream media, reluctant to put much stock on the Enquirer's unnamed sources, largely avoided reporting the story at all.

The admission from Edwards may very well end the former senator's political career and likely nixes any speaking invitation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver at the end of this month.

Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, was rumored as a potential number two for Sen. Barack Obama, but that was probably a long-shot to begin with.

As for what advice Sheinkopf would have given Edwards after the initial report from the National Inquirer some months back: "First I would have found out the truth. Then I would have told him to go public with the truth," says Sheinkopf. "In politics these days, if you lie, you're a dead man."

Political Cartoon Of The Day

Political Cartoon Of The Day

For The Daring Investor...

Brochure shows idyllic properties for sale - in Iraq

IRISH PROPERTY investors have developed an international reputation for being daring and decisive -but are they ready for holiday homes in Iraq?
Frances O Rourke reports

The brochure for Tarin Hills, a resort to be built near Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, comes with the usual idyllic images: swans gliding on a lake in front of red-roofed houses, snow-capped mountains rising in the distance . . . and not a soldier in sight.

Developer Damac Properties, which has an office in Dublin, also highlights that Tarin will be a "fully gated community with security fence, checkpoints, high-tech screening at entrance gates, numerous internal monitoring points and around-the-clock security patrols".

For sale are "Mediterraneanstyle" villas, townhouses and apartments with facilities that include a spa, sports centre, 18-hole golf course, and lots more. So far, no prices have been announced - but Tarin is likely to attract cash buyers only. (Don't bother asking your bank manager for a loan.)

Damac, which is based in Dubai, has signed a €2.5 billion deal to build a new community in what is currently dusty foothills, home to a few families and shepherds.

It is the biggest investment contract signed in Iraq since the start of the Iraq war, according to Kurdistan regional government spokesman Jamal Abdullah. Due for completion in 2010, the new community will have apartments, houses, primary and secondary schools, a medical centre, a lake, hotels and a golf course.

There will also be a children's play area, shopping mall, water and theme park, and hotels.

Erbil is more than 300km from Baghdad, but just 100km from the border with Turkey where Kurdish militants are active. But the regional government is hoping that terrorism will be the past, tourism the future, in this part of Iraq.

From The Irish Times