NOT ASKING FOR THE WORLD

"Just to add a bit of local color to all my bellyaching about the building of resorts, hotels, shopping malls and "Dream Cities" in South Kurdistan, everybody should check out Kurdish Globe's recent article on life in Penjwen. Here's a sample:

With his private car, Sheikh Salam has transported 38 pregnant women to the delivery hospital in Suleimaniya at midnights, but no baby has so far come to the world inside his car. Salam said that fathers of three of the newly born babies had no money to pay for the car expenses.

Penjwen, about 150 km west of Suleimaniya, is a town at the borderline connecting the southern (Iraq) and eastern (Iran) parts of Kurdistan together. The town is notorious for its loads of iron resources and its frosty winters. The current population of the town approaches 60,000, most of whom residing in nearly 2300 houses.

Did you get it? This is a town--no--this is a city of almost 60,000 in South Kurdistan that has no hospital. I have one question for the KRG: Why the hell not?

Think just babies are the only reason for these people to have a hospital? Think again:"
Rasti