New commando special forces

A picture from a special visit today.




The picture talks for it self, and say something special to those with historical knowledge.

Amedi

Today i traveled to Amedi and back to Hewler. As i took regular cab i lost a couple of kilos of weight in the heat. But From Duhok to Amedi i had some great company, two girls and a guy that were very interested in our project. We talked about that there is lack of activity for youth in Amedi. Many youth also move out from the city to Duhok and Hewler for work or for education.

This is one of the many churches in Hewler. This one is in Ankawa that is the christian district of Hewler. It is also one of the most nice areas with nice people. (Picture from the day before)






Amedi, the very special town on top of a big mountain hill. Since all space is occupied in the town it can not grow any more. This is also because of the lack of high buildings here.

An incredible nice park in Amedi.

Planning period

The day after the pictures on the mayor Abdul Rahman Belaf he left the hospital.

Regarding my work the equipment delivery seem to take longer time than expected unfortunately. Since the distributors in Dubai usually do not have all items in stock this can be the situation. However this leaves opportunities to develop the plans and work methods. Technical work can always be improved. The limit is mainly time and budget.

The plans for 2007 are huge and include many projects in different areas. However more on this when the plans have been put in practice. What we are doing in the meantime is to work on the basis to educate in computer and to find suitable premises and other requirements and good trainers and teachers.

For example I am investigating the market for new materials for building the studios. As until now they have been built by the classical way a with wooden frame and MAM(Mass Air Mass) principle. The materials could have better quality and special acoustic material is not even available. So this is the reason for searching new ways.

An example could by to build the walls with these materials, but they have their up and down sides. There are many factors that have to be considered in building a studio and in the construction work. This is not my area of profession since I am electronics engineers but in Kurdistan things work different. As said before you have to consider all aspects during the work for achieving the goal, a studio with right acoustics properties within the budget and time line.

Studios are fascinating because you can never get it perfect. It is always a balance between the factors that was mentioned. In our plans we have music studios also. However the radio stations usually have less requirements in acoustic properties. This since it does not require advanced mixing and mastering techniques and monitoring requirements.





More information will be provided later when the work has started.




We were in Ranye during the weekend to follow up some various works. One of them was a water well constructed for this dried out soccer field.

Hotel Chwar Chra or Texas?

Update - Ongoing democratic work after the Makhmur bomb

Update - Ongoing democratic work after the Makhmur bomb

We were recently at the hospital in Hewler to visit our dear friend Abdul Rahman Belaf. He was in great mood and eager about the work towards democracy. We admire him a lot.

Mayor Abdul Rahman Belaf and minister Taha Barwary, and in the background stands the authour Reidar Sabir.






"...fortunately the democratic process and work will not stop with this terrorist attack. And there are thousands of Abdul Rahman Belaf to replace the first Abdul Rahman [meaning himself]. Our work and democratic process will never stop."

A relative young guy who was wouded.

A badly wounded young guy. He also lost his brother.

This guy had got hit by splinter from the bomb in his stomache.


During the day there were two terrorist bomb attacks in Kirkuk also.

But the work goes on....

New terrorist attack - But the democratic work never stops

There has been a new bomb in South Kurdistan today. This time in Makhmur. The bomb exploded during a big meeting outside of the city hall and the nearbying local KDP office branch 23. At this time 32-35 persons has been killed and 120 people are injured, as reported, in this act of terrorism.

The Mayor of Makhmur and the local national hero Abdulrahman Belaf was hit in the explosion and is injured. He gave anyway an interview to TV and radio regarding the terrorist attack.

Makhmur is today not under Kurdistan Regional Government administration.



This is a picture with Fredrik Malm and the mayor Abdulrahman Belaf. This picture was taken 2007-04-03 during Fredrik Malms visit to Kurdistan. Fredrik Malm is memeber of the parliament in Sweden and is a true friend of the Kurds.

The mayor on TV after the terrorist attack. He said: "...fortunately the democratic process and work will not stop with this terrorist attack. And there are thousands of Abdul Rahman Belaf to replace the first Abdul Rahman [meaning himself]. Our work will never stop."

The mayor of Mekhmur here seen with a girl and her father in Makhmur refugee camp.



These pictures below are from the emergency in Hewler after the terrorist attack.
























Today 2007-05-13 at 11.25 o clock a truck, coverd as a truck loaded with metal for construction work, exploded between the city hall and the local KDP office branch 23. It was an suicide attack and the truck exploded when it was close to the KDP office.

The explosion was so powerful that 100 cars has been blown out around the explosion.

There has been appeal from the minister for care that the people shall not load the care institutions and the care personell. This so they can do their job better. But it seems not unresonable that relatives want to know what has happened or to be close to the hurted.

There are huge mass of people seeking towards where help is needed to provide help in which way it may be. The democratic work will never stop in Kurdistan . It has not been stopped in history and will never be stopped in future... This is very obvious here in Kurdistan.

The scene of the terrorist action. Special Kurdish peshmerga forces.

No internet

We have not had any internet at our office the last days. So i am sitting at hotel Chwarchra right now. I have been trying to work here last days. The owner of hotel Chwarchra is Kurd from Sweden and it seems like he has done a good job. There are always important people here and it seem to be great service at least that is what i have heard.

But once in a while there are tens of life guards running around with thier communication radios and their weapons well covered, protecting some dude. There is actually no need for this security at this level here, but anyways. It is hard to see that they are here in Kurdistan because of any care or special interest in Kurdistan, besides of economical profits or other kind of power. You also see a lot of other people that you have hard to place. I guess i am working to much so i do not see that there are happening a lot here.

Barzan travel

This is the pictures from the Barzan area. We visited Sherwan village, Piran village and Mergasur. The purpose was to follow up our projects in Mergasur and to establish a culture center in Sherwan village.


Right here, when we took a short pause we found out that there had been a terrorist attack in Hewler just a couple of minutes earlier in Hewler. Our plans could however not bee canceled and were best to be performed.

Some of the UZI boys.

The view from Mergasur where we had a workshop later in the day.

Bringing computers as a first step to open a Culture center in Piran village. These will be computers for kids and youths in Piran. They will be able to participate in computer, internet and English courses.

The road to Sherwan village.

Lower part of Sherwan village

Youngsters having a break at school?

The road to North Kurdistan.

Unloading equipment in Sherwan.

Piran mountain

Greeting in Mergasur




We left Hewler 6 in the morning, visited 3 cities, had 3 seminars and 5 meetings without any pause. After that we had a well deserved picnic at 15 o clock. This is on our way down from the picnic place. They always has to get to the top of the mountain to have picnic and of course there has to be a big spring or river there also.





Behind the high mountains in the horizon is the border to North Kurdistan. The mountains do not look to be as high as they look in reality though.




The entrance to Gali Ali Beg that is a fabulous valley as taken from a fairy tale. It was here we saw the puppies last time. But they were not at the same place this time. The mountain you see behind the first one is Korek mountain. On top of it is an old observaroty.

Barzan travel and Hewler bomb

Yesterway it was a terrorist attack in Hewler. It led to 12 persons death and 70 injured. It will also cause severe damage to the democratic work and the safety work that has been built up in the area. but hopefully it will work as a ringing bell to never stop the decmoratic work and to always be aware of the safety and to develop it.

Yesterday our staff had a work travel to Barzani area amongst them Mergasur, Sherwan and Piran. We left hewler 6 in the morning so we were not there during the terrorist attack. However we got aware of it immediately but could not interrupt our plans.




I will update the blog with picture from yesterdays Barzan travel later on today. But here is a picture i took today on the Interior Ministry building. A big misstake in the planning was to have the Asaish (secret service) and the Interior Ministry located beside each other and located on a big comon road in the middle in the city.

The reconstruction work has already begun as you can see on the road. The situation is calm and there are less peopole outside, today in Hewler.

Choman day trip

Yesterday we were invited to a day trip high up in the mountains around Choman. A seminar was also held out in the free. Four Kurdish TV channels were in the area so maybe you saw it on TV.

On the way to Choman

Driving higher and higher. The cars got stuck badly 2 times.

This area is still partly a minefield. Some organizations has been working with clearing minefield areas in Kurdistan. The areas around the borders and around Kirkuk are the worst and you still see a lot of these signs. Choman is a important and historical place in the history of Kurdish war. This was also a military heavy occupied area during the Iraq and Iran war.

A part of Choman city.

Choman culture house that is one of our projects.

The waterfall you saw a couple of posts ago.

I saw some nice puppies on our way and wanted to take this one with me but i do not have the time for it. I will do it next time.

Today was the end of the English course held for students at Salahaddin Economical University and they received their diplomas.