Administrative, financial corruption, violence culture in press
BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Two Iraqi newspapers on Tuesday focused on the tragic conditions afflicting the country due to “rampant administrative and financial corruption,” while a third newspaper said it is time for measures to tackle the culture of violence.
Al-Mada, an independent daily newspaper, published an article by Hadi Numan al-Hayti in which he said that corruption must come to an end. The author said that while the beneficiaries of corruption are few, the victims are so many, adding that the current situation necessitates urgent reform and hard work to uproot corruption.
On the same subject, al-Ittihad, the daily mouthpiece of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Iraqi President Jalal al-Talabani, portrayed the suffering of Iraqis because of electricity shortages. Commenting on the frequent power cuts in Iraq, Abdel Hadi Mahdi said: “Had Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, been alive, he would have announced his sympathy for the Iraqis, who are deprived of the blessing of his great invention. Exception has become a rule in several fields in today’s Iraq, mainly the electricity sector.”
The author said that with the approach of summer and the rise in temperatures, Iraqi cities, particularly the capital Baghdad, are expected to plunge into darkness for most of the day. Empty promises by officials to improve the power grid and to reduce blackout hours are a common strategy in such situations, the author added.
The author presented the reasons which the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity had given for the poor performance of the national grid and called on the ministry to find alternative solutions to the problem.
Al-Safeer, another independent daily, published an article on the spiraling culture of violence in Iraqi society. The newspaper blamed certain factors for the phenomenon, including the cultural policies implemented by the former Iraqi regime. The author of the article, Amira Khalil Taha, said that the proliferation of weapons among children is a serious indicator of an unprecedented rise in violence in Iraqi society. Taha called on concerned authorities to exercise their responsibility and to ban the selling of all toys that trigger aggression and encourage violence among children.