Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS)

Based on data from 22,000 households and released last week, is the first comprehensive statistical description of living standards in the country produced in years and is expected to steer future reconstruction and development assistance.Household surveys were conducted by (ILCS) last year and measured indicators ranging from health to employment, housing, status of and access to public services, education, income and war-related deaths.
The report estimates the number of Iraqis who have died since the US-led invasion of 2003 somewhere between 18,000 and 29,000. Of those deaths, 12% were children under 18 years of age, meaning that between 2,100 and 3,500 children have been killed in the war thus far, according to ILCS data.
In a country where almost half the population of 27.1 million people is less than 18 years old, some of the most startling findings relate to youth.
Nearly one-fourth of Iraqi children aged between six months and five years are chronically malnourished, meaning they have stunted growth, the report says. Among all Iraqi children, more than one in 10 suffer from general malnutrition, meaning they have a low weight for their age. Another 8% have acute malnourishment, or low weight for their height.
In some areas of the country, acute malnourishment reaches 17% and stunting reaches 26%, the report says. Both infant and child mortality rates appear to have been steadily increasing over the past 15 years. At present, 32 babies out of every 1,000 born alive die before reaching their first birthday.
In addition, 37% of young men with secondary or higher education are unemployed and just 83% of boys and 79% of school-age girls are enrolled in primary school.
The infant mortality and malnutrition findings make clear that "the suffering of children due to war and conflict in Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or killed by military activities", the report says.
Researchers found that diarrhea killed two out of every 10 children before the 1991 Gulf War and four in 10 after the war.
The report also highlights disparities in access to and supply of services and infrastructure between town and countryside.
Some 47% of urban households but only 3% of rural ones have a sewage connection. More than 80% of urban households are able to reach secondary schools, health centers, pharmacies and police stations within 30 minutes while only 60% of urban households can reach a pharmacy or police station in that time.
Rural households tend to be more overcrowded and more frequently have open sewage nearby.
Overall, about eight out of every 10 Iraqis get water piped to their dwelling but in rural areas, only 43% of households have that service, according to the report. Piped water is widely available, but much of it is unsanitary and one-third of all Iraqi households receive an unstable supply.This is part of a wider trend of infrastructure existing but not working, the report says.
Some 98% of all households are on the electric grid, but 78% of them say the electricity supply is unstable.
Key facilities have been neglected for years under economic policies described as misguided and as a result of international sanctions, which cut Iraq off from most trade throughout the 1990s. Infrastructure has also been damaged by three wars, the most recent of which was followed by severe looting and vandalism. The report concludes that refurbishing these systems is one of the biggest challenges to rebuilding Iraq.
The World Bank and United Nations have estimated that Iraq needs US$36 billion for reconstruction over four years.
The report is a joint effort involving the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the Iraqi government. No other report has covered all of Iraq's provinces, or governorates, and previous data on the Kurdish region was particularly sparse.
The ministry oversees the government agency that conducted the surveys, the Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT). A team from COSIT conducted the fieldwork. The Norwegian non-governmental organization Fafo-AIS trained the team and analyzed its data.

This is only one scene from many others

This picture to show you the suffering of our kids they are studying hard for examination on candles ,in a summer conditions where temp. reaches 40 C at night , and 55 C at mid-day. They are from the same teenagers whom I wrote about them in a previous post, with their intention to learn and gain more knowledge. But I am feeling very sorry to tell that no one in the world cares for this country condition or even have any true intention to support them or donate for them to increase their knowledge and get more progress .I am telling you that , after my personal bad experiences in the last two years in getting any assistance for them from different non-profit projects . As a conclusion I can tell you following ( no one care for Iraqis )

Iraq's insurgency, death with no rules

Iraq's insurgents decided that Iraq would not be governed by the elected government. After the elections of January 30, they also determined that a government elected under the American occupation would not govern it. But how are they are going to impose their will?
Their decision seems to be that one side has to be either eradicated or defeated.
The American side cannot be eradicated, but the insurgents seem to have decided that they will not be defeated, as long as they are willing to die for their cause.
A US Marine recently described the battle with insurgents in Ubaidi, 15 miles east of the Syrian border, “They came here to die. They were willing to stay in place and die with no hope. All they wanted was to take us with them."
How do you develop an effective strategy to fight those who follow no rules, except their willingness to die for their cause?
And recently they were targeting civilian Iraqis as well; No one seems to have an answer.
I can recall a famous American paraphrase from the 18th century:
"Give me liberty or give me death." In this instance, the Iraqi insurgents are not interested in living under a system based on liberty. They have chosen death as a price of destroying that system. In the process of dying, they are also willing to take a whole lot of Iraqis and Americans with them. This is not a reality that AmericaIraq.
American efforts for stabilizing Iraq are by increasing reliance on the Iraqi security forces, while keeping a high operational attempt for catching the insurgents or killing their top leaders. It is hoped that the capture or eradication of the top leadership of the insurgency will eventually lead to the defeat of that movement.
How much worse do things have to get in Iraq before they get better?
No one has a clue, except for the insurgents. We must not forget also the insurgency encouraging by many Arabic countries and surrounding neighbors who want to stop the emergence of the real democracy in Iraq by affecting internal factors in Iraq. That is why insurgency follows no rule other than dying for their cause, and takes with them a whole lot of others who oppose them.

My Loyal Readers : Help needed for smart students

Internet is a new undiscovered tool for majority in Iraq. During a lecture in a high school last week , many distinguished smart students in this high school asked me to help them in getting required training during the three months of summer vacation about how to use the internet , surfing , learning to search online , how to establish Blog spots and web pages , and all other internet applications , They want to learn every thing about internet before attending the university next year.
Those students should attend special courses in a private computer learning centers, and they also need internet café reservations few hours every day all summer time.
Because they cannot pay the required fees, they asked for my advice in helping them in solving money problem.
I promised them that I will do my best for helping them in getting this knowledge as easy as possible. So, I am inviting all my loyal readers to offer any amount of money donations for them by using the Donation Button on this blog.
I do hope that I can get enough money to include maximum number of the students in this summer program.
It only needs you to take a matter of minutes if you decided to donate, really it will help to change their life for better.
Thank you in advance for your attention.

This time we talk bout oil

If oil producers cannot meet surging global demand, energy prices, and gasoline prices in particular, will likely continue upward. Which means that the Arab OPEC countries , which are already swimming in cash , will become even richer. According to a recent report from the World Bank, the Arab oil-producing countries will take in nearly $300 billion from their oil exports this year. That's nearly double the amount they garnered in 2002. By the end of this year, the World Bank predicts that Iran will have $18.5 billion in cash on hand , more than four times the surplus the country had in 2002. Kuwait will have $13.9 billion, more than three times its 2002 surplus. The Saudis will have a staggering $60.6 billion surplus, five times the amount they had in 2002.
O.k , where is the broken economy of Iraq on this global map , is there any healthy sign may appear in nearly future ?? perhaps time will reveal more secrets .

Two pictures can make big difference

Before few days, I was walking in down town when a group of American forces accompanied by Iraqi national forces are searching a certain place in the market.
Usually in this kind of events you see only tough faces of American soldiers only holding their weapons in stand by action, suddenly, I saw a young American soldier who was holding his gun on his shoulder, smiling for people and even shaking hands of few Iraqis who were moving a round, and then I saw him saying hello with big smile on his face when he saw a young kid with a bandage covering his broken arm.
This scene reminded me with all times that we spent in war times in the last twenty five years , most of us are holding a human feelings even in war frontiers , we were obliged to go to war , but from inside we were not ready to cause any harm even to our supposed enemy ( by our leadership ).
I figured out that the world can see only the military uniform of any soldier but can’t see the inside of this soldier. To give you an example, the world talked too much and can recall very easily Lynndie England, the American soldier that was responsible for Iraqi prisoner’s abuse. See the picture.
But very rare to hear or see in many occasions that there is always a human beings inside the uniform who are against the Wars, and they feel very sorry for being in war frontier seeing much blood and sadness of death and may be they have no choice but to go and fight in any war see this picture for a kid who was killed on May 2, 2005 in Mosul after a suicide exploded himself killing 8 people.
Being a subjective and neutral blogger , we must give truth in subjective and neutral way beyond our emotional estimation , and this kind of coverage cannot be seen in Media that is affected by political limitations and objects.

Making the people an enemy is a losing strategy

Let the world understand that the change that happened in Iraq was necessary and it is what the majority in Iraq wanted.
Is This what is called “resistance” (I really doubt about their good intention lately) Who were murdering hundreds of innocent people monthly in Iraq, deserves to call them (Resistance)?.
Only a few hours ago, a suicide car driver in Talafer, small city in western Mosul, he entered a mourning gathering tent , exploding himself and killing twenty five persons and injuring eighty,
For what reason ?
can any one tell me about his intention ?
No more comment by me and, to let you discuss this action from your observations ..