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Death of Ali Hussein Jaloud Highlights Harm of Fossil Fuels

( Human Rights Watch) Ali Hussein Jaloud, an Iraqi man barely in his 20s, died April 21 of leukemia, a disease Ali and his family attributed to the pollution from the oil production and constant gas flares that surround their community in the southern Iraqi town of Rumaila, about 50 kilometers from the port city of Basra.

Many of us around the world felt we knew Ali and suffered his death personally, having followed his story in BBC and Unearthed investigations of the human and environmental toll of fossil fuel operations in Iraq, focusing on the devastation caused by flaring.

Flaring occurs when fossil fuel companies burn off excess methane gas from oil operations rather than capturing the gas in pipelines. When burned, the powerful greenhouse gas more than 80 times more potent at global warming than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period is released into the atmosphere. After Russia, Iraq accounts for the most flared gas in the world.

Flaring also releases toxic pollutants known to harm human health, including benzene, a human carcinogen that can cause leukemia. An Iraq Health Ministry report leaked to the BBC attributed pollution from the oil industry, among other sources, as the cause of a 20 percent rise in cancer in Basra between 2015 and 2018, and revealed cancer cases in the region to be three times higher than publicly disclosed figures.

Iraqi government officials have acknowledged a link between the oil pollution from flaring and cancer. Iraqs former environment minister, Jassem al-Falahi, told the BBC that pollution from oil production is the main reason for increases in cancer rates in Basra. Similarly, Luay Al-Khateeb, Iraqs former oil minister, told Unearthed that unregulated oil operations in southern Iraq and poisonous gases being flared in the air are the link to rising cancer rates.

Flaring is a global crisis with clear solutions. The Iraqi government should start by moving beyond simply acknowledging the problem to enacting and enforcing tight regulations to restrict flaring, providing proper health services to impacted communities, and making polluters compensate those who have suffered, as required by Iraqi law. To address the full harm to local communities and the global climate, the government should transition away from fossil fuels.

Alis was a tragic yet predictable death. I hope in the future that these companies go away, Ali says in the film. That the emissions stop, so children can live in peace.

Via Human Rights Watch

Read more:
Iraq Gas Flaring Tied to Cancer Surge - Informed Comment

SALT LAKE CITY Choice Kinchen was among the first U.S. soldiers to cross the border into Iraq in March of 2003.

I'm sure most people would remember the statute of Saddam when he came down," he said. "I was actually around the corner. That was my 21st birthday.

The veteran went straight from high school into the military in the hopes hed be able to go to one day go to college.

I am 100 percent permanent and total," said Kinchen. "A bomb blew up in front of me in Iraq. They gave me a TBI, and a lot of people that found out, you know, they're not quite aware of what PTSD is. They think it's because I went to war, and my PTSD stems more from coming home.

He struggled for years with addiction, gambling and homelessness attempting to pursue his degree, finally returning to the University of Utah in 2018.

If I can make it out of, you know, where I dragged myself out of, then anybody can do it," said Kinchen. "So that's kind of what I want to do, is definitely help veterans realize that there is life after war.

At Thursdays commencement ceremony, Taylor Randall, U of U's president, honored the 41-year-old grad, sharing his journey of perseverance with thousands of students, families and friends.

He was able to find a new road," said Angela Brink, Office Manager at the U of U Veterans Support Center. "I've watched him go from dark to light, and that process for him to find his smile was just amazing to watch.

Kinchen plans to pursue a master's degree in social work, so in the future, he can help veterans like himself work through PTSD.

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Iraq War veteran graduates from college after battling PTSD, addiction and homelessness - FOX 13 News Utah

A video apparently showing evangelical Christians praying at what they brand a "Satanic" Yazidi temple in northern Iraq has sparked outrage.

Light A Candle, an organisation that professes to "shine the light and love of Jesus by preaching the Gospel", on Thursday posted a story on its Instagram page showing a number of its missionaries praying outside the temple overlayed with a caption reading "We see chains broken and the enemy's power defeated.

"So right now we just break the power of this temple, we break the power of the Satanic curse that it places on people who enter Jesus... and we curse all of the enemy that is attached to this, we say it will come to nothing," one of the activists can be heard saying in the video.

Social media users identified the temple as being near the Yazidi-majority town of Ba'adre, which is located in a region disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), though the latter is currently in control of the town.

Middle East Eye could not independently verify the location, however.

Yazidis have for centuries faced persecution from other Abrahamic religions which claim that Melek Taus, the central figure in the Yazidi religion, is analogous to Satan.

Accusations of Satanism have been used to justify numerous attacks on the group, including the massacre of thousands of Yazidi men, and the enslavement of thousands more Yazidi women, by the Islamic State group in 2014.

The video sparked outrage online with many questioning why the local authorities had allowed the visit to take place.

MEE contacted Light a Candle to ask if they stood by the implication of the Yazidi religion as akin to Satanism, but had received no response at time of publication.

Narin Briar, a Kurdish human right activist, said that the act was particularly offensive considering the "centuries of genocide and erasure" that Yazidis had faced.

'American Christian missionaries are hunting Yazidis , falsely labelling them as "Satanic" in their social media posts, in hopes of forcefully converting them and erasing their ancient culture even further'

- Narin Briar, activist

"Just recently, the Yazidis fled the Ezidi Genocide at the hands of [the Islamic State]" she told MEE.

"Now, through an organisation called Light a Candle, American Christian missionaries are hunting Yazidis , falsely labelling them as 'Satanic' in their social media posts, in hopes of forcefully converting them and erasing their ancient culture even further."

Light a Candle was founded by Sean Feucht, a singer-songwriter and activist who claims to have had four number one albums in the Christian Worship section of iTunes.

The group has been involved in distributing aid to displaced people in northern Iraq, including Yazidis, but has also been accused of attempting to recruit Christian converts during their visits.

In the pinned tweet of his Twitter account, Feucht claims leftists have "hijacked" the minds of the younger generation and calls for "REVIVAL" as the solution, while lambasting such policies as student loan forgiveness, "open borders", abortion and LGBTQ rights and the "mutilation of childrens bodies".

A profile in Rolling Stone characterised Feucht as having a "far-right Christian nationalist agenda" and being a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. It also suggested he had made considerable sums of money out of his work, owning homes in the US valued at over $2m.

MEE also contacted the KRG for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication.

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Evangicals spark outrage by praying 'to break power' of Yazidi temple in Iraq - Middle East Eye

Dohuk, Iraq Members of the Yazidi community have rung in the year 6773 surrounded by stunning scenery in a mountain valley in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

At sunset, when Yazidis believe a new day begins, thousands of worshippers on Tuesday lit candles at Lalish Temple, the holiest of all Yazidi temples. Supreme spiritual leader Baba Sheikh Ali Alyas presided over the ceremony commemorating the coming of light into the world.

The Yazidi New Year falls on the first Wednesday of April according to the Eastern Julian, or Selucid, calendar, which is 13 days later than the Gregorian calendar.

Children boil and colour 12 eggs each for the months of the year. The egg symbolises the Earth. Boiling it epitomises the time it lies frozen, and colouring it stands for the end of the cold, frozen months.

For Hilda Dakhil, a 17-year-old who has come to the temple every New Years for as long as she can remember, the colouring of the eggs is one of the essential rituals.

At the temple outside Dohuk, young people play an egg-tapping game that symbolises one of the four divine events the Yazidis commemorate on New Years: the bursting of the White Pearl, which brought about all life.

April has a special sanctity for Yazidis, said Luqman Suleiman, 40. We dont cut down trees or plough the land in the first 15 days because this distorts the beauty of nature. We also dont marry in April because we believe this brings misfortune. For us, April is the years bride in which there are no other marriages.

Families hang bouquets of anemones on their doors and dress in pastel-coloured, festive clothes that are pressed and made ready well in advance.

Ewes are also not milked ahead of the New Year so they can fully satisfy their young.

Amir al-Hajj Hassan Zainal, 63, a Yazidi cleric, says, This holiday is considered the creation of the universe because Lalish is the leaven of the earth, and this is the most important holiday we have because it is the feast of the King Peacock because God honoured him on this holy Wednesday.

Read more from the original source:
Photos: Yazidis ring in the year 6773 at temple in Iraq - Al Jazeera English

Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, told reporters on 20 April during a conference in Baghdad that Kurdish armed groups in Iraq most notably the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) exploited the countrys lack of security following the 2003 US invasion in order to establish bases and launch attacks from the border.

The situation that Iraq faced since 2003 our fight against terror led us to lose focus and control of our borders and armed groups exploited this situation and began to threaten the security of neighboring countries, especially Turkiye, Sudani said.

Sudani condemned the PKK, but also denounced Turkish strikes against Kurdish positions in Iraq, which the prime minister deemed a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

These events that happen are definitely a violation of sovereignty, and we cannot give it any excuse, he added.

The Turkish state and the PKK have been sworn foes for decades. Conceived as a political organization in Turkiye in the late 1970s, the groups armed wing was formed not long after and has been engaged in guerilla warfare against Ankara since. In the 1980s, the PKK launched an armed insurrection in southwest Turkiye.

Outlawed in Turkiye, the PKK operates illegally southwest of the country, as well as in northern Iraq and Syria, through its Syrian branch, the YPG, which is military aligned with the US-backed Kurdish militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Ankara regularly targets the SDF in Syria, and its troops are currently occupying the country under the pretext of securing the Turkish border.

For years, Kurdish militias have also threatened the security of Iran from Iraqi territory, most notably the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), which has been active for decades and operates in exile in areas of northern Iraq. KDPI was the driving force behind the 1979 Kurdish rebellion in Iran and was supported by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. It also played a role in anti-government riots in Iran last year.

As a result of this Kurdish presence near the Iranian border, Iran has launched operations and strikes against KDPI positions in Iraq which Baghdad has also condemned.

In Iraq, Turkish strikes against the PKK have regularly resulted in civilian deaths.

When asked by a reporter if Iraq would officially designate the PKK as a terrorist organization, Sudani said that it depends on legal contexts.

The Kurdistan Workers Party has existed since the [19]80s in bases, and they have [Iraqi] identity cards in the interior ministry. We are supposed to maintain our borders, not have them turned into bases and used for armed activities. This falls in line with terrorist activities that threaten the security of citizens and neighboring countries, the prime minister said.

The PKK recently vowed to refrain from military action against Turkiye until after the Turkish election.

Excerpt from:
PKK exploited US invasion of Iraq to target Turkiye: Sudani - The Cradle