Kurds become pawn for gas

By STEPHEN FARRELLPublished: December 9, 2007KIRKUK, Iraq — Even by the skewed standards of a country where millions are homeless or in exile, the squalor of the Kirkuk soccer stadium is a startling sight.
Michael Kamber for The New York TimesThe Kurdish authorities ordered people born in Kirkuk to move back there for a referendum on the city’s future. More than 2,000 of the displaced Kurds moved into the city’s soccer stadium.
A Kurdish woman and a girl bake bread at their makeshift home, a stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq. VideoMore Video » On the outskirts of a city adjoining some of Iraq’s most lucrative oil reserves, a rivulet of urine flows past the entrance to the barren playing field.
There are no spectators, only 2,200 Kurdish squatters who have converted the dugouts, stands and parking lot into a refugee city of cinder-block hovels covered in Kurdish political graffiti, some for President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
These homeless Kurds are here not ....more from NY Times

Blog brought to you by S.D. Professionals, LLC