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Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Annexation through the back door

Anne Penketh should sort out her facts or resign her job as Diplomatic Editor at the Independent. In article published today in The Independent she wrote:
Yesterday, in Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed 12 people and injured 15 by setting off an explosive belt on a bus in a Shia district of the city, while a bomb attack killed four people near Liberation Square. In the Kurdish city of Mosul, a suicide attacker blew himself up in a restaurant packed with policemen eating breakfast...
Whoa - wait a minute. Did she just say Kurdish city? Now last time I checked Mosul was an Iraqi city how did the word 'Kurdish' slip in there? Maybe the Kurds are a majority. No - I don't think so - according to the last census they made up 20% of the population and have been a minority in that city as far back as I care to remember. I am sure that there are claims by some chauvanists but that still does not make Mosul a Kurdish city.

So why call Mosul Kurdish? Maybe she could have dropped in that word by accident - but then that is ignorance unfitting of her position. Maybe Penketh agrees with the Kurdish nationalists. Fine, but even a lowly hack journalist would understand how to report a contentious issue. You come out and say what you think - otherwise this counts for cheap propoganda and not fitting of a respectable newspaper. Either way - sort out you facts or resign.

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