Hollywood megastar and UN goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie on Thursday visited a refugee camp in Baghdad for Iraqis displaced by the war, the UN refugee agency said.
Jolie toured the Chikouk camp in northern Baghdad’s Kadhimiyah neighborhood as part of a one-day visit to Iraq, UNHCR spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told AFP.
Jolie called for more aid for Iraq’s internally-displaced people and said she hoped that the Iraqi government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will provide the refugees with new accommodation.
“This is a moment where things seem to be improving on the ground, but Iraqis need a lot of support and help to rebuild their lives.
The picture in this camp is a rough one but there are also some people that were able to return home to other safer areas. There are some changes. There are returns of displaced people, not a big number but there is progress.”
She told the camp’s residents that she wanted “to come back and find you in a better place and in a different situation.”
Chikouk is home to around 12,000 internally-displaced people, most of whom are Shiite Muslims from the predominantly Sunni town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, who fled fearing for their lives during the sectarian violence that engulfed the country in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion.
Residents of the camp sleep in poorly-constructed shelters on bumpy ground with surrounding streets piled high with litter.
The camp only recently received access to clean water but has no electricity supply, functioning sewerage system nor regular rubbish disposal. Many residents suffer health problems.
Jolie was on her third visit to Iraq since she became a volunteer for the United Nations goodwill program in 2001.
The UNHCR is the only organization providing any services to the camp, although local authorities co-ordinate with the refugee agency to help deliver water and non-food items.
The agency estimates that 1.6 million Iraqis were internally displaced by sectarian fighting that flared in 2006.
source: Film megastar Jolie visits Iraq refugees [afp]
Stephen Colbert’s entire career is based on being gleefully insincere, a man who literally wraps himself in the flag to the screaming of majestic computer-generated eagles.
On the other hand he is unquestionably a real supporter of the troops, raising money through donorschoose.org for school supplies for children of soldiers, through his WristStrong bracelets for the Yellow Ribbon Fund, which helps injured veterans, and by donating to the U.S.O. proceeds from iTunes downloads of this week’s episodes.
So it was easy to wonder if, given the setting, he would be a little less mock Bill O’Reilly and a bit more risk-free Rich Little. Any doubt was dispersed the minute Mr. Colbert ran out onstage wearing a business suit made of Army camouflage and, shortly afterward, declared himself the only person man enough finally to declare victory in Iraq.”
In addition to getting his head shaved, Colbert also took the time to participate in a video from Principal David St. Aubin of Goodrich High School in Michigan to his students. St. Aubin was pulled into service last year through the Army reserves.
Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, as Arabs across many parts of the Middle East hailed the journalist as a hero and praised his insult as a proper send-off to the unpopular U.S. president.
The protests came as suicide bombers and gunmen targeted Iraqi police, U.S.-allied Sunni guards and civilians in a series of attacks Monday that killed at least 17 people and wounded more than a dozen others, officials said.
Journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who was kidnapped by militants last year, was being held by Iraqi security Monday and interrogated about whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a press conference the previous day in Baghdad, said an Iraqi official.
He was also being tested for alcohol and drugs, and his shoes were being held as evidence, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Showing the sole of your shoe to someone in the Arab world is a sign of extreme disrespect, and throwing your shoes is even worse.
Newspapers across the Arab world on Monday printed front-page photos of Bush ducking the flying shoes, and satellite TV stations repeatedly aired the incident, which provided fodder for jokes and was hailed by the president’s many critics in the region.
“Iraq considers Sunday as the international day for shoes,” said a joking text message circulating around the Saudi capital Riyadh.
Palestinian journalists in the West Bank town of Ramallah joked about who would be brave enough to toss their shoes at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, another U.S. official widely disliked in the region.
Many users of the popular Internet networking site Facebook posted the video of the incident to their profile pages, showing al-Zeidi leap from his chair as Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were about to shake hands Sunday and hurl his shoes at the president, who was about 20 feet away. Bush ducked the airborne footwear and was not injured in the incident.
“This is a farewell kiss, you dog,” al-Zeidi yelled in Arabic as he threw his shoes. “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”
Al-Zeidi was immediately wrestled to the ground by Iraqi security guards. The incident raised fears of a security lapse in the heavily guarded Green Zone where the press conference took place. Reporters were repeatedly searched and asked to show identification before entering and while inside the compound, which houses al-Maliki’s office and the U.S. Embassy.
Al-Zeidi’s tirade was echoed by Arabs across the Middle East who are fed up with U.S. policy in the region and still angry over Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.
The response to the incident by Arabs in the street was ecstatic.
