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Iraq Directory is reporting that “Japan will spend $100 million to build a power plant in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa where some 600 Japanese troops provide humanitarian assistance. (AJ)

Scott Peterson in The Christian Science Monitor writes on the fight by Iraqi women to defeat moves to Islamisise Iraqi society.

Go here for CNN interview with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari who talks about the regional autocracies that fear the new democratic Iraq will work. Yet another case of the anti-democrats understanding better than the democrats what is at stake in Iraq.

Read ‘The End of Secularism in Iraq’ at the Open Democracy site. (AJ)

A major military corporation is now producing cranes and electrical cables instead of missiles and bombs. (AJ)

The New York Times has obtained a copy of the 2000 page confidential file of the US Army’s criminal investigation into prisoner abuse – torture – at Bagram, Afghanistan. To watch Tim Golden’s interactive report on his investigation into the deaths of two prisoners at Bagram go to the New York Times site and click on ‘The Bagram File’. (AJ)

The New York Times (registration required) is reporting that “The Iraqi government publicly acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that Iraq was the aggressor in 1980 when it touched off a bloody eight-year war with Iran”. (AJ)

The IFTU posts an excellent article by John Lloyd reporting from Iraq on the struggle for equality of Kurdish women. (AJ)

Mixed reactionsin Iraq to the report that defense minister, Sadoun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab, has ordered the Iraqi army to stop raiding mosques, arresting clerics and “terrifying worshipers.” Some point out raids have led to the capture of large hauls of weapons and ammunition, including bomb-making equipment and antitank rockets. “The holy places must not be violated by the security forces, nor religious leaders arrested, and that will not happen anymore” said al-Dulaimi. In a related move Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told reporters that Ayatollah Sistani “insisted on the need for brotherhood between Shiites and Sunnis, and the need to … Continue reading Human Rights in Iraq (3) New Government calls for end to Raids on Mosques

Support for Iraqi unions Phil Lenton (Letters, May 10), doubts the credibility of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. I was part of a delegation that recently visited Iraqi Kurdistan. The IFTU and its Kurdish counterparts are militant trade unionists whose affiliates not only participate in strike action but, in the teeth of savage attacks by fundamentalist and Ba’athist groups, are building a strong trade union movement – the bedrock of civil society. The teachers’ union alone has more than 300,000 members and is growing. Rather than belittle such a process, Mr Lenton should, as does the TUC and many … Continue reading IFTU defended in today’s Guardian