Some good news not being reported: (via Good News Central)
RECONSTRUCTION:
- A new hospital is being built in Fallujah:
The government has allocated $46 million for the construction of a new hospital in the war-ravaged city of Falluja. Minister of Industry and Minerals Asama al-Najafi has laid the foundation stone for the 200-bed hospital.
“The building of this hospital has a lot of symbolic significance because it is being implemented in a city that has suffered a lot of oppression and tyranny,” Najafi said, without elaborating.
The minister also promised other projects, among them a $20 million housing complex with 504 flats.
- Reconstruction highlights for the week ended Sept. 12th, courtesy of USAID and Winds of Change.NET’s Monday Iraq Report: A seminar was recently held in Baghdad for 175 business people from 10 business associations on World Trade Organization (WTO) membership and what it would mean to Iraq and its business community. USAID?s Agriculture Reconstruction and Development for Iraq (ARDI) program is assisting the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) to restore hybrid maize, which provides increased yields and better performance. USAID partners have completed training 180 volunteers from 130 local NGOs to monitor all 540 voter registration centers throughout Iraq. The Ministry of Education (MoE) and UNICEF have registered approximately 8,500 out of the targeted 10,000 children to attend school in the upcoming school year under this year?s Accelerated Learning Program (ALP), sponsored by USAID. USAID partners have helped advance the Wheat Flour Fortification (WFF) program in Iraq through advanced training and distribution of nutrient supplements. Programs are on-track to rehabilitate water and sanitation facilities in 800 Iraqi schools by the end of December this year. A local Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) and OFDA partners recently completed rehabilitation work at a major university in northern Iraq, employing 160 displaced and impoverished women in the process. A 16-week public health campaign in an Arbil Governorate sub-district has been completed after benefiting roughly 1,100 internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning to 19 villages.
- Thousands of tons of munitions have been destroyed in Iraq since 2003:
In June 2003, military officials in Iraq called on the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering and Support Center here is the core of expertise for ordnance and explosives, to handle an estimated 600,000 tons of captured enemy ammunition.
Six self-sustaining depot sites were established to secure and demolish the munitions that were already in coalition forces’ possession, Stahl said. The goal of beginning demolition from these sites by Dec. 1, 2003, was met, and to date about 406,000 tons of munitions have been destroyed through ESC and military disposal operations.
- More than $51 million has been allocated to build more police stations throughout Iraq:
The Iraqi government and Coalition forces speed to complete police stations to accommodate the new police officers. To help assuage the problem, the Iraqi government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Gulf Region South (GRS), and the Project and Contracting Office are investing more than $51 million to rehabilitate or construct 204 police stations across southern Iraq. To date, they have completed 129 and have started on 65 others.
- More than $8 million has been allocated to build a waste water treatment plant in Ramadi:
The waste water treatment plant will be capable of treating 30,000 cubic meters per day of effluent – large enough to serve both Ramadi (in excess of 200,000 people) and Tameem (with a 100,000 population) on the other side of the river.
- The Mosul Dam, upon which the people of Mosul and much of Iraq’s Tigris Valley agricultural sector depend, will be strengthened with a $20 million grant and oversight from the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Electricity and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The project includes an upgrade of specialized maintenance equipment, seismic monitors, materials and spare parts. A training element is included with the aid package, which USACE believes will help make the project self-sustaining in the future.
Completed in 1983, the dam has required maintenance to plug or grout areas of leakage on a regular basis. Without this needed work, the dam could develop problems over time with the possibility of a catastrophic failure. An event of this magnitude would be profound, devastating the rich agricultural valley of the Tigris and endangering the population of Mosul.
New automatic grout-injection equipment included in the project will help arrest seepage under the dam. Seismic equipment will provide information to monitor the dam?s stability. Both types of work are critical in continuing flood protection, irrigating farmland and maintaining sufficient water to generate 320 MW of electricity.
The work will be completed by an Iraqi contractor and Iraqi workers.
Will you see any of this in the MSM? Nope.
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News About Iraq Not Reported By The MSM
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