News stories by Karlos Zurutuza, page 9

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain, Oct 26 (IPS) - Fighters in the Balochistan province of Pakistan will soon set up a common front to take on the Pakistani military in their fight for Baloch independence, a senior commander of the Balochistan Liberation Front tells IPS in an interview.

QAMISHLI, Sep 17 (IPS) - Over a yellowish map, Qehreman Meri draws an oblong surface along the Turkish-Syrian border. "We want an autonomous region with clearly defined boundaries," says this spokesman from Yeketi (Unity), one of 15 Kurdish political parties in Syria.

DERIK, Northern Syria, Sep 10 (IPS) - "I want to learn how to read and write in my own language," says Manal, a young Kurd from Syria. Neither she nor any of Manal’s 30 classmates have ever been so close to achieving their goal.

GUNDIK SHALAL, Syria, Aug 31 (IPS) - "Of course I want to defect but I cannot give up my salary. How could I possibly feed my 11 children?" The war is putting every Syrian on the brink, including this policeman on the side of President Bashar Al Assad.

GIRKE LEGE, Syria, Aug 24 (IPS) - The smuggler wants 200 dollars but Jewan negotiates him down to 100. That’s still a lot for this 26-year-old Syrian Kurd, but he can hardly wait to cross the border to Syria from Iraq. It’s been three years since he last saw his family.

TIZI OUZOU, Aug 07 (IPS) - Untamed stone villages line up over imposing green valleys. In winter they are white with snow. The luckiest have a view to the deep blue sea. "It’s gorgeous, isn’t it," says Amzi from his yellow cab. "Nobody would say we’re living in an open-air prison."

At Fallujah hospital they cannot offer any statistics on children born with birth defects — there are just too many. Parents don’t want to talk. 'Families bury their newborn babies after they die without telling anyone,' says hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi. 'It’s all too shameful for them.'

Barely three months after the pullout by U.S. troops, sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shia Muslims have begun to take a heavy toll across Iraq.

Dozens of bodies bludgeoned to death pop up in Baghdad’s dusty streets like the remains of a wreckage on a beach. They are the corpses of homosexuals and followers of the ‘emo’ fashion who dare to break with the strict canons of the Shia orthodoxy in power.

'We have not been paid since the Americans left Iraq last December. If nothing changes, I will abandon this checkpoint,' Saif Ahmed tells IPS. He is one of the militiamen who claim to have defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq.