Roj Recommendation

I am certain that nobody is in need of my little blog to know what's happening these days in Kurdistan (especially since I never write of the political going ons). But as my mother worries when she watches TV or reads the news, I have decided to dedicate a little post to the news. The picture to the right is taken from Radio Free Europe's Feb 22 report of the Turkish army on their way to the Iraqi border to fight the PKK rebels. How does this affect life in Erbil? Students at my institution staged a protest; it took an hour and delayed the start of class by 10 minutes. And every time I turn on BBC World or Al Jazeera International, I can hear international condemnations of the separatist PKK "terrorist" organization. I can see images of the Turkish tanks and helicopters amassing on the border towns. I can also hear the Iraqi, Kurdish and international governments' official responses... about how it is critical that Turkey finish quickly and withdraw in order not to destabilize the region and harm Iraq's territorial integrity. This gives everyone something to speculate about. Life here is sometimes just one big political discussion. (Note that if things heat up, I will post more later).

What you can't hear on every station is what anyone connected to HOTBIRD sattelite can view on Roj TV! Last night, Roj showed footage from the perspective of the PPK rebels hiding in the mountains; scenes punctuated by the loud blasts as they shot at the Turkish helicopters flying by. Then the camera surveyed the wreckage of what could be a helicopter through the tangly vegetation to the audio accompaniment of laboured, possibly frightened, breathing. However, it was not truly clear that the wreckage was recent (no smoke or signs of recent impact, and there were branches and growth over the wreckage). The footage was somewhat like CNN's minute-by-minute on-location news... except that there was a huge semi-transparent Roj logo (see above) superimposed over the entire footage. Was it to stop people copying it and broadcasting it as their own? I have too many questions... Maybe because I don't speak either Kurmanci or Turkish. I wanted to post a link so that you could watch video streaming of recent events and come to your own conclusions. Unfortunately, when I tried to visit Roj, my computer's security system went wild detecting and deleting all sorts of security risks. Anyway, if you can speak Turkish or Kurmanci, I highly reccomend you watch Roj news for a different perspective!