FEAST OR FAMINE

Between Kirkuk and Sulamaniyah, northeast of Baghdad, is the district of Chamchamal. Once a wheat farming plain with gentle hills to now an oil-producing site, it is a growing city with a population expanding from 55,000 in 2003 to about 200,000 today. The city of Sulamaniyah is an hour’s drive further east, to the mountains. In the middle of the city is an ancient citadel with magnificent expansive views across the hills and valleys. The city has a troubled history, with hopes now of peace, education, and employment. The first school was built in 1935 and is still functioning, although the buildings need renovation. Instead of a grassed area for children, the central courtyard is a basketball court of cracked and uneven concrete. From 2003, and especially from 2007 with the introduction of a revised curriculum, students are filling classrooms with up to 40 in a class. Parents, who have been out of school for up to 20 years are returning to the education system and e

Erbil is the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq. KRG is landlocked with the rest of Iraq to the south, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west, and Iran to the east. Erbil has been appointed the 2014 tourism capital by the Arab Council of Tourism, winning against three other cities—Beirut, Taif, and Sharjah—at the council’s Cairo conference in October 2012. Part of the selection criteria was to present 40 different activities that the city will host throughout 2014. Erbil included national activities that focus on its food and culture as well as seasonal ones. Twelve cinemas are currently being built at the super–sized Family Mall in preparation for an international film festival. To accommodate the expected influx of tourists in 2014 (expected to reach 4 million over the full year) the government aims to increase the number of hotels. It says Erbil will have seven world class hotels with many more hotels and motels catering for different family b

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, with a population of 4 million and Erbil as its capital, is the size of The Netherlands. It has three governorates: Erbil, Duhok, and Suleimaniah. Geographically it is diverse, ranging from agricultural and dusty plains to northern mountains with natural springs that border Turkey. About an hour out of Erbil, travelling northwest into the western governorate of Duhok (that borders Syria and Turkey), is the District of Bardarsh (Baradarash) in Akri territory. It lies on the transit route from KRG to Turkey on the southern side of the Nafkor Plain along the Khazir River. The fertile land provides its citizens with non-irrigated agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, rice, tomatoes, onions, and sunflowers. They also breed cattle and poultry. Bardarsh is the centre of the “seven tribes district” of 76 villages and the Duhok Archaeology Office recorded 33 ancient locations in the region. From 2007 w

Final Night: Short Stories (2002) by prolific Iraqi writer Buthaina Al-Nasiri, was purchased at the Tahrir Bookstore in Cairo, Egypt – where the author now lives. She was born in Baghdad. Final Night is a collection of 16 stories with a diverse range of characters. She writes sometimes in first person and other times in third person, using both male and female narrators.  Predominantly about the relationship between male and females, the stories explore themes such as: fraternal love, separation, reunion, letter-writing, children, material wealth, class, politics, work, emotional tension, expression of feelings, house and home, old age, and death. My favourite story is “Why don’t we go more to the sea?” Written in the first person, the narrator is one of four brothers. Their mother drives them to the seaside for a day’s outing. Swimming in their underwear, splashing, collecting sea shells, and hearing the “grating sound of the shells in the paper bag” the narrator

While northern Australia in the southern hemisphere had a rare perfect view of the total eclipse of the sun on November 13/14, I am in the northern hemisphere. The solar eclipse crossed the International Date Line so it occurred on the 13 th in some countries and on the 14 th in Australia. It lasted for about four minutes, unlike last year’s lunar eclipse that I witnessed from Pakistan which lasted an hour. Currently I'm in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq where it's the celebrations for the 2012 Islamic New Year. On November 15 it is the first day of Muharrum. While astrologically it is a solar eclipse, during which the moon passes between the earth and the sun, darkening the earth, religiously it is the Islamic New Year based on a lunar calendar, and potentially a bright time for all. Therefore the New Year commences when the moon is sighted. The lunar calendar contains 12 months as does other calendars, but the year is calculated by multiplying 12 by 29.53 whi

As women increase their educational qualifications across the globe, they are changing their views of marriageable partners, says an article in Madison magazine. Where once women married partners who had educational qualifications, or higher qualifications, they are now marrying partners with equal, lower, or no qualifications. The article maintains that a global study by university researchers in Barcelona, Spain, assessed census figures from the late 1960s to the present time from 56 countries. The study revealed that the increase in women attending university, gaining degrees, and moving into careers, has changed how they choose their marriage partners. In 21 of the 56 countries studied, including countries as diverse as France, Jordan, Mongolia, Slovenia, and South Africa, the majority of women were marrying partners with lower or equal qualifications. With educational qualifications, women are increasingly earning more money, since the late 1960s, and are often becomi

A young giraffe just won’t move until it stops raining. The Daily Telegraph (November 7, 2012) writes that Australia’s Taronga Western Plains Zoo rangers have delayed a giraffe’s relocation because giraffes don’t like rain. Three-year-old Kitoto, a young female giraffe, was due to be moved to a different location – which meant getting into a large box and being placed onto a low loader truck. She’s been practicing the move for a awhile to get used to entering the transport box. She is becoming sexually mature and the zoo keepers want to move her to Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. She only had to travel 15 metres from her front yard to the transport crate. But it rained. The Taronga Western Plains Zoo is in the rural town of Dubbo – and it hasn’t rained for weeks. But Kitoto wasn’t going to move one little bit. A zoo spokesperson said, “Giraffes just don’t like the rain. They will not move, and prefer to just stand still, preferably under a tree, or at Dubbo, stay inside the

A delegation of women from Indian-held Kashmir is meeting in Pakistan-administered Kashmir for peace dialogues. The Dawn newspaper announced that a ten-member delegation of prominent women arrived in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Monday November 4 through a crossing point along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir, where they were warmly greeted by their hosts. The delegation is attending a two-day intra-Kashmir women’s dialogue, sponsored by the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) and arranged by the Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) Women for Peace Organization. The AJK administration allowed fourteen members of AJKWPO of Pakistan-administered Kashmir to receive their Indian-held Kashmir guests at the crossing point instead of the bus terminal 800 metres before the bridge. The Kaman Bridge is 60 kilometres south of Muzaffarabad and is the crossing point between the Chakothi sector of AJK and the Uri sectors of I

The black swan ( Cygnus atratus ) is native to Australia – mostly in the south – and is the only entirely black-coloured swan in the world. Only the tips of its flight feathers are white, which can only be seen when flying. Its bill (or beak) is deep orange-red with white bands at the front. Because it is a water bird, it feeds mainly on algae and aquatic weeds. It dips its head and neck into the water scooping up plants from the lake bed. Like ducks, swans sift and filter their food through special plates called lamellae (which can be seen in the photo). These tiny rows of plates along the inside of the beak allow swans to filter water out and keep the food inside its mouth.    The black swan pairs for life, and has one brood of about 4-10 chicks per season. The chicks (cygnets) are grey and develop their black feathers when they are about nine months old. Adult swans are quite large – the size of a goose. Males are called cobs and they are larger than females, called

Canberra’s Captain Cook Memorial Globe sits on Regatta Point at Commonwealth Park on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin. It was built to commemorate the Bicentenary of British Captain James Cook’s first sighting of the east coast of Australia – where Sydney is now located, which he called Botany Bay. Queen Elizabeth II officially inaugurated the memorial on April 25, 1970. The other part of the memorial is the Captain Cook Memorial Jet – a fountain in the lake which operated from 2:00-4:00pm daily. Designed by Walter Ralston Bunning, the bronze, copper, and enamel globe of the world depicts Cook’s three expeditions to the southern hemisphere with the history explained on the handrail. James Cook (1728-1779) was a British explorer, navigator, and cartographer. Essentially, he took the voyage to create a map of the uncharted region and to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun, visible in the south. It was on his first voyage (1768-71) that he sighted Australia in his shi

  “Great Adaptations: Words to Image” is the current free exhibition at the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra, Australia, until December 31, 2012. It is an extensive compilation of film posters, highlighting some of the many film adaptations from Australian novels and dramatic plays into captivating promotional images. Included are beautiful posters from films such as: The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934), Don's Party (1976), The Getting of Wisdom (1978), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Strictly Ballroom (1992), Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), and many more. In addition to the special exhibition, the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) of Australia is the nation’s living archive, collecting, preserving and sharing its audiovisual heritage. The national audiovisual collection holds more than 1.9 million works. The collection includes films, television and radio programs, videos, audio tapes, records, compact discs, phono

The new National Arboretum in the nation’s capital, Canberra, opens to the public in February 2013. Canberra Times (November 2, 2012) announced the upcoming opening of the visitor’s centre at the $67 million National Arboretum.   The centre has floor-to-ceiling windows to capture the expanse views of the natural reserves and trees of Canberra, the Bush Capital of Australia. In addition, it has a domed roof which took 11 weeks to erect. It covers more than 2,000 square metres with more than 3,000 components and 8 layers. The Tasmanian oak beams were harvested from sustainably managed forests, with the longest beam at 56 metres. Measuring the roof from its centre, it is 11 metres high. The rock walled walkway to the visitor’s centre will be embedded with art glass of plant fossils and LED lighting which can be programmed to change colour. The interior and exterior rock walls are made from Wee Jasper bluestone. The visitor’s centre will have a café and room for fu