Residents of western Baghdad's al-Salam district say militant groups in the area are hunting down women and killing them, and have petitioned the Iraqi parliament for urgent action. "Over the past six months 15 women were killed in al-Salam neighborhood for religious reasons or because they had criticized the militants, or because of their previous affiliation to the Baath Party," MP Safia al-Suhail told the UN news agency IRIN.

From the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq, via US Labor Against the War, April 29:

May Day Message from the Port Workers in Iraq to West Coast dock workers in the US
In solidarity with the ILWU, the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq will stop work for one hour on May Day in the ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Al Zubair.

How the US is Reproducing Israel's Flawed Occupation Strategies in Iraq

by Steve Niva, Foreign Policy In Focus

The new "surge" strategy in Iraq, led by General David Petreaus, has been heavily marketed as an example of the US military's application of the "lessons of history" from previous counterinsurgencies to Iraq, foremost among them the need to win the population over from insurgents through cultivating human relationships, addressing popular grievances and providing security.

Having been busily building separation walls between Shi'ite and Sunni districts of Baghdad for the past two years, the US is now building one around the southern quarter of the Shi'ite enclave of Sadr City—to keep out Mahdi Army militants, effectively separating Shi'ite from Shi'ite and turning the quarter into an armed camp, patrolled by tanks, Stryker vehicles and Apache attack helicopters. (NYT, April 18)

An agreement on a draft oil law for Iraq may finally have been reached this week, bringing multinationals like BP and Royal Dutch Shell closer to long-sought contracts, Forbes reports. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told United Press International April 16 that a new understanding had been reached between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), after a year of deadlock over the future of the country's oil industry.

Well, it looks like a US oil major is going to be back in Iraq for the first time since the 1972 nationalization. Maybe if Ahmed Chalabi had taken power, Chevron wouldn't have to share with the French Total. But (as we predicted) the Russian Lukoil's Saddam-era contacts are not being honored. From AP, April 12:

Chevron, Total Seek Oil Deal in Iraq
BAGHDAD — Oil giants Chevron Corp. and Total have confirmed that they are in discussions with the Iraqi Oil Ministry to increase production in an important oil field in southern Iraq.

Life imitates art: in this case, I, Robot—the appropriately technophobic movie version starring Will Smith, not the entirely too techno-utopian Isaac Asimov book. Now, if only the human soldiers would follow their example... (We're joking, fed lurkers). From the irreverent IT trade site The Register, April 11:

US war robots in Iraq 'turned guns' on fleshy comrades
Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), April 9:

On the Fifth Anniversary of the Occupation
The 9th of April marks the fifth anniversary of the occupation. It is the anniversary of the genocide in which more than 1 million lives have been lost and 4 million others were made homeless inside and outside Iraq. It is the anniversary of the destruction of everything that relates to humanity.