News: Iraq, Iraq: Number of IDPs tops one million, says Iraqi Red CrescentAccording to an Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) report, 142,260 families - about 1,037,615 individuals - have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) since 22 February 2006, when a revered Shia shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, was bombed by what many believe was a Sunni extremist group. Sectarian violence has increased sharply since that time.
Broken Spring? : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.
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