The Kurdish website was tied up with the Turkish exploits in Northern Iraq. The other websites were penning down the usual round up of violence, death and the fate of Chemical Ali.

The international news was comprehensive– spanning from the latest violence in Gaza, Iran, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Russia but no primaries.

On March 5, a small blurb on John McCain’s likelihood of presidential nomination and Hillary Clinton’s win in Ohio appeared on the Al Sumaria website. No analysis of the implications on Iraq.

Interestingly, Alsumaria like NY Times now has a video option, in Arabic, for some of its top stories. For instance, there was a comprehensive video report on the Turkish pull out from Northern Iraq.  The piece addressed the question whether the Turkish departure is temporary. Another video was an assessment of the visit of President Ahmadinejad to Iraq.

Kurdishmedia.com reported that Turkish troops had used internationally banned weapons and left 3200 landmines, in the shape of toys, before withdrawing from southern Kurdistan. The United States did make it to the news in this part of the world, but only because Kurdish students in the U.S. have been organizing protests against Turkey.

One news item on Azzaman.com underlined the vulnerable position of the Iraqi Christian minority. The article said that a Catholic Bishop was kidnapped by gunmen in Mosul, which has a substantial number of Christians. They have been, for a while, leaving Iraq in droves.

I think it’s fair to say, with Turkey, allegedly leaving landmines in one part of the country, Christians receiving death threats in another and Baghdad hosting the Iranian President, the Iraqi websites have a lot to cover before they get to Texas and Ohio.

Kurdishmedia.com reported that on V Day, director Jalal Jonroy’s film David & Layla began showing at the Quad City Cinema in NYC.

 Inspired by a true story, the film is about David, a secular Jew from New York, and Layla, a Muslim Iraqi Kurdish refugee and orphan from Halabja, a city, which was gassed by Chemical Ali.   

The questions are evergreen and classic: will the Jewish boy become a Muslim and will they get married. Find out this Valentine season.  

Kurdishmedia.com also had an interesting interview with Kani Xulam, Director of the American Kurdish Information Network , who in a previous interview with Dan Rather’s said “let Iraq break up” and is a fierce proponent of a free Kurdistan.  

When asked, “Can a super power (America) be a friend of a people without a state like the Kurds?” he answered. “Nope. Nation-states deal with nation-states and stateless Kurds have to deal with stateless others.”  “The jury is still out on this decision,” he responded to the question “Will America hit Iran?”  

The Alsumaria website spruced up it’s website by adding “cultural Shows” and “socio-Political” section. There is even a “forum” segment and subject for discussion is about the visa restrictions Jordan has imposed on Iraqis.  

Purple with a bluish tinge is the new color of the website. 

Oil dominates the economic news. The website reported that the Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani announced that the oil contracts with foreign companies did contradict the constitution.

A contract is expected to be signed with a South Korean company in the next two months.  DNO a Norwegian Oil company, the first foreign company to drill out of Iraq after the war from Tawke field in Kurdistan is still waiting to get an export license.

 The website also reported that Iraq is to buy 40 Boeing airplanes with a value of 6 billion dollars that are to be delivered to Iraq in 2013 and 2014. No major developments on the sports scene.

There was some news on the Iraq Basketball Super League. “Kahruba team maintained its place in the first rank after beating Al Shurta team with a score of (79-75) and Al Jaish team achieved an important win against Al Hudud team and Al Karakh easily won over Al Anbar,” reported the website.  

U.S. army’s botches 

Azzaman had news of the “massacre” in which a US helicopter gun opened fire on a house in the small town of Zab in northern Iraq, killing eight people, five of them children from the same family. “Many incidents like these go unreported in the violence-plagued country as reporters are afraid to leave their highly-protected hotels and offices in the capital Baghdad,” said the report. 

The New York Times carried the same story with the additional information that the American military denied having operations in the area at the time. 

Aswat-aliraq reported another incident in which US soldiers killed three tribal fighters of the The Sahwa (Awakening) an anti-terrorist group in Jerf al-Sakhr.

Soon after the killings, the Sahwa fighters announced their withdrawal from any activities in Hilla, 60 km south of Jerf al-Sakhr and 100 km south of Baghdad.

 The U.S. forces have killed Sahwa fighters before, incidents which are under investigation. 

“After each incident, the U.S. forces claim that it occurred by mistake. The U.S. side promises to offer an apology and compensations for the victims’ relatives but does not fulfill these pledges,” said Sabah al-Janabi, the chief of the Sahwa forces in the area

 Azzaman.com also reported power failures and maintenance problems have disrupted running water supplies to almost half of the capital, Baghdad.

No mention of Super T or the primaries on the news websites but the U.S. is in the news. 

On Alsumaria, the hurricane in the south was one of the four top stories of the “world news.” 

The Aswat Aliraq had a feature story on Kurd students who left Iraq to escape Saddam’s wrath and have now returned home. They speak neither Kurdish nor Arabic and are “foreigners in their homeland.”  

But…guess what folks…the U.S. did make it to the top story in the sports section because an American basketball coach, Depp Backott, just opened the first women’s basketball school in Sulaimaniya (a city east of Baghdad). 160 girls tried out for the school and 50 got picked.

Kurdishmedia.com carried a shocking piece on the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). And for those of you, who thought that the practice was confined to Africa, think again. The article “Kurdish woman are also victims of circumcision,” is about the frequency of FGM among Kurds in Iraq and Iran. http://www.kurdmedia.com/article.aspx?id=14522 

The Kurds hogged the news on all four websites. Azzaman.com reported that the Kurds have said that they will withdraw from the government if their oil revenue is reduced.

Considering the toxic relationship Iraq and U.S. share, one might expect Iraqi’s to be curious about the next president who calls the shots on their future.  

From the English language news websites, I’ve been monitoring, it appears that the Iraqi media isn’t falling over to cover the presidential race but a random article with an Iraq angle does pop up occasionally. 

 Alsumaria is an independent Iraqi Satellite TV Network that operates from Lebanon. Its basically covers “Iraq news” but there is a “world news” section as well, which has broad coverage on international stories.  

On Monday, a day before Super Duper Tuesday, the “world news” section was dominated by reports from Iran, Chad, Kenya, Palestine, Egypt and a small unexciting update about the U.S. primary. 

Then, on Tuesday night, as John McCain was savoring his first victories, the website had a write-up on him as the most likely to win the Republican Party candidacy and his Iraq agenda.  

“McCain, who had previously said the US presence in Iraq could last 100 years, said that the main reason he is running for President is because of the transcendent challenge of the 21st century which is radical Islamic extremism.” 

Another website, Kurdmedia. com, which hardly had any past coverage on the presidential nominations, carried a  piece on Hilary Clinton with a Turkey twist on Tuesday night.  

“Hillary Clinton has recently employed Mehmet Celebi, a Turkish ultra-nationalist – as one of her delegates for her campaign for President of the United States.” 

However, websites like Aswat Aliraq reported the usual Iraq news, “US army launches wide-scale operation in Northern Baghdad,” and in the sports news, “Iraqi midfielder Nashaat Akram’s move to British Premier League club Manchester City failed because it contradicts with the regulations set by the British Football Association.”  

Neither Aswat Aliraq nor Azzaman.com, another Iraqi website, reported on Super Duper Tuesday.

Why the Iraqis don’t care YET

Journalists who have worked in Iraq are not surprised by the lack of interest. According to Abdulla Mizead, an Iraqi journalist, who is presently studying journalism at Columbia University, the presidential elections in Iraq are insignificant.  

“Most Iraqi, friends of mine, and colleague journalists don’t care that much. Most of them view Demos and Repub. as essentially the same when it comes to foreign policy.” 

And this attitude stems from the indifference of their readers, says Mizead.   

“A lot of Iraqis are sucked into their daily life in trying to stay alive, and even if there were some who cared about watching the coverage of the elections won’t be able because of the electricity blackouts. They’d rather go wait in line to get gas or oil for heating rather than sit and watch a translated version of the Obama-Clinton debate.” 

But the Iraqi’s are getting election news, from the bigger pan Arabic media outlets like Al Jazeera and Alarabiya, which are taking the names like Clinton, Obama, McCain and their Iraq-centric polices into many homes in the Middle East.

But Al-Jazeera, has a different playing field than the local Iraqi media outlets. It’s competing with the big boys like CNN and BBC. This trend can be seen in India as well, where news channels like CNN-IBN and NDTV  are covering the presidential race very closely, even if there is a disconnect between the news and the audience. 

It’s too complicated anyway…. 

One reason for the current state of indifference is because the nominations are still baby steps towards choosing the next president. Bobby Ghosh, the Baghdad Bureau Chief of Time Magazine for the past five years, says that Iraqi interest will spark when it comes down to two candidates with opposing views on Iraq, like Obama and McCain.  

“Right now it’s all too vague for them.”

Jamez Glanz who is currently the Baghdad Bureau Chief for The New York Times, also says that Iraqi’s will “pay attention” when it’s time for the final decision.  “This was true in the second Bush election, for example, and the appointment of General Petraeus to the top commander spot.”  

Another reason for the lack of interest in Super Duper Tuesday, according to Glanz, is because the Iraqi’s simply don’t relate to the whole Super Duper Tuesday deal.  

“There are lots of reasons that they don’t follow every twist and turn, one being that they don’t know all the players and — despite their Iraqi-style elections –the democratic process is still mostly foreign to them.”