Cholera cases spreading in Iraq

[ProSense]

Cholera cases spreading in Iraq

2 hours, 33 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - The number of suspected cholera cases in northern Iraq continues to rise, with 16,000 people now showing symptoms, the World Health Organization said Friday.

As of Sept. 10, 6,000 have been reported with symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting in the province of Sulaimaniyah, another 7,000 in Tamim province, and 3,000 in Irbil province, the WHO said in a statement.

To date 10 people have died and 844 cases of the disease have been confirmed, the WHO said.

Earlier in the week, regional authorities reported 11,000 people with symptoms, 700 confirmed cases and 10 deaths.

Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration. It broke out in mid-August and has so far been limited to northern Iraq.

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Friday, September 14, 2007

Bush's 'Troop Withdrawal' Branded Phony;
Sattar Assassination a blow to Bush Optimism;
1 million Dead in Iraq?

Our national discourse has now reached a point where it is a journalistic coup just to point out when a politician is lying. Thus, the headlines that Bush's 'troop cuts,' announced in his speech last night, are phony, and reflect normal rotations.

Patrick Cockburn, whose excellent reporting is deeply informed by his risky forays into the real Iraq,, analyzes the meaning of the assassination of Sattar Abu Rishah for Bush's policies, and finds that ' His killing is a serious blow to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq. '

Tina Susman reports the results of a recent British poll done in Iraq, which concludes that as many as a million Iraqis have died in war-related violence since late March of 2003. This estimate is higher than that in the Lancet study of last fall, since that study simply looked at excess deaths from all kinds of violence above what one would have expected from the baseline of 2002. That is, the Lancet study included criminal violence, tribal feuding, etc., not just military or guerrilla actions. The combination of the two, however, makes the Lancet study's conclusions seem unassailable and if anything conservative.

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[ewoden]

1. How shitty can things get in Iraq the jester asked n/t

[thereismore]

2. They say it's limited to northern Iraq, but I heard it's in Diyala to, that's

just south of Baghdad.