Cyd Charisse danced with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly

Obituary: Cyd Charisse

Cyd Charisse danced with Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain

Cyd Charisse danced with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in some of Hollywood’s finest musicals – The Band Wagon and Silk Stockings with Astaire, and Singin’ in the Rain and Brigadoon with Gene Kelly.

She was one of the most brilliant and beautiful female dancers ever to appear on the big screen.

With the decline of big musicals she took straight roles, but not with the same success.

Cyd Charisse was born Tula Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, in 1921, she was six when she began dance lessons to strengthen her muscles after a bout of polio.

She went on to study ballet and, at the age of 18, married Nico Charisse, her instructor.

She became known as Sid when she was a child – the nearest her brother could get in his attempt to say Sis. Later, when she signed for MGM, she changed the spelling to Cyd.

Erotically charged

Cyd Charisse made several films in the early 1940s, using the name Lily Norwood, but became a star of film musicals as Cyd Charisse after joining MGM, who were reputed to have insured her undeniably lovely legs for a million dollars each.

But Cyd Charisse later revealed that that had been an invention of the MGM publicity machine.

Cyd Charisse dancing with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire

She was married to her second husband, the singer Tony Martin, and a new mother, when she starred with Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain.

She worked with the sometimes rough and always demanding Kelly again in Brigadoon and partnered Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon and her favourite film, Silk Stockings.

Like Kelly, Astaire was a perfectionist, but Cyd Charisse’s time with Diaghilev’s ballet company had equipped her for the challenge:

“Coming from a Russian ballet company and a lot of hard training,” she said later.

“I was a strong dancer and I loved to dance and I loved to work and he found someone who liked to work just as much as he did and we got along fabulously well together.”

She also appeared in The Unfinished Dance, Words and Music, It’s Always Fair Weather and Invitation to the Dance.

Later she was in Two Weeks in Another Town, and made some films in Europe, including Warlords of Atlantis.

Cyd Charisse did play some straight roles, but her dancing was more eloquent than any spoken word.

While the censors were always on the set, training their eagle eyes on her costumes, the erotic nature of her dance escaped them.

And though the golden age of Hollywood musicals came to an end, admirers still remember Cyd Charisse’s vital role.

bbc world news

Amalia Rodrigues diva, fado music famous worldwide

By Alison Roberts
BBC News, Lisbon

Amalia Rodrigues, the singer who made Portugal’s hauntingly melancholic fado music famous worldwide, is drawing big crowds again – to see a controversial film about her life.

Amalia became a celebrated singer in the 1940s

Known in Portugal simply as Amalia, she died in October 1999. Her homeland declared three days of national mourning and suspended the general election campaign, in her honour.

The film will be shown abroad in the new year. It tells the story of the singer’s rise from extreme poverty to international stardom, as she projected Portuguese folk music abroad in a way no-one has before or since.

But the film has been harshly criticised by members of her family.

Spirit of a nation

The voice of Amalia Rodrigues is not only instantly recognisable – it is also inimitable. So the first full-length film about her uses original recordings for all but her earliest performances.

Sandra Barata Belo, the young actress who played her in the film, says the role was a huge challenge.

“She’s still very present in our memories. I think to have the feeling to be Portuguese is the same feeling to love Amalia. She belonged to us.”

Remarkably, Belo plays the singer at ages from around 20 to over 60: the pivotal scene depicts the time when, diagnosed with cancer, Amalia shut herself up in a New York hotel and, as she later hinted in interviews, had suicidal thoughts.

In the film, at this moment of crisis she recalls key episodes in her life, from childhood onward, which are then shown in sequence.

Amalia, The Film has been screened in more cinemas nationwide than any previous Portuguese movie.

Relatives upset

In 1989 Amalia received a medal from then Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac

The singer had no children, but relatives including her sister Celeste, who is depicted in many scenes, unsuccessfully sought an injunction to block the film’s premiere, arguing that neither Amalia’s personality, nor those of family members, were faithfully portrayed.

Director Carlos Coelho da Silva says the film was thoroughly researched, in interviews with many people who knew Amalia well. In particular, certain behaviour that was shocking to the conservative society of the time shows how modern she was.

“The stories that we have with Amalia and the men that she related to are in fact real,” he said.

“Everybody knows that she had at least those four men that we have in the picture. But she was a woman ahead of her time, so she was very open-minded about that. That’s a way of also showing the tribute to her, and show her like a real woman, a woman of desire and of passion, not only for the fado but also as a human being.”

Distribution deals have already been signed for the film to be shown in two dozen foreign markets, including Brazil, China and several Arab countries, starting with the Netherlands and Belgium in April.

News in New Years Eve!2009!With our hearts open and embrasse for those around!

Students line up during the “100 Oblations” photo shoot at a state university in Quezon City Metro Manila December 13, 2008. Some 100 students, faculty, staff and alumni pose as Oblation, the naked figure of a man symbolizing the sacrificial offering of service to country and humanity, freedom and selflessness, to mark the university’s centennial celebration.

Buyers look at a nude photo of France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on display at Christie’s Auction House in New York April 4, 2008. The portrait of Bruni-Sarkozy, taken during her modeling days in 1993 by photographer Michel Comte, has attracted attention since she married French president Nicolas Sarkozy in February.

Two men pose naked at Toronto’s 28th annual Gay Pride Parade in Toronto, June 29, 2008.

A member of the “Optimalist” heath club hacks a hole into the ice covering a canal near the village of Viazynka, some 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Minsk December 28, 2008. The club promotes a healthy way of living, encouraging its members to spend most of their free time in the countryside.

Many thanks Reuters(pictures) and google.com for beautiful images on internet

Calls for truce as Gaza deaths rise

Dec. 30 – Egypt’s President, Hosni Mubarak calls on Israel to end its attacks on Gaza as Spain calls for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza.

Palestinians injured in Israeli airstrikes continue to be taken to hospitals in Egypt through the Rafah border crossing as Egypt’s President, Hosni Mubarak calls on Israel to end its attacks on Gaza. But Egypt said it would not open border crossings completely because that would facilitate Israel’s plan to divide Gaza from the Occupied West Bank. Penny Tweedie reports.

SOUNDBITES:

Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, saying (Arabic):
“I say with all honesty and conviction that the right to resist occupation is a just and legitimate right but the resistance will always be responsible to its people that will judge for or against it according to the gains it will achieve for its causes or according to the destruction it brings and the waste of the lives of martyrs.”

Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Moratinos, saying: (Spanish)pictures from google
“I want to ask, as we have formally done already, an immediate cease fire. To ask Hamas to stop sending Qassam missiles to Israeli territory and Israel to stop bombings on Gaza and therefore military intervening in Gaza. Secondly, to ask the return to the negotiations table and to political and diplomatic dialogue which is ultimately the only possible way to face the region’s future.”

Israel says Gaza truce proposal unrealistic

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel on Wednesday rebuffed French calls for a 48-hour humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip and stepped up preparations for a possible ground offensive after Hamas’s long-range rockets hit a major population center.

Diplomats said the deadliest conflict in the Gaza Strip in four decades appeared close to a tipping point after four days of cross-border fire killed 385 Palestinians and four Israelis.

Foreign powers have increased pressure on both sides to halt hostilities, but public anger in Israel over the widening of the rocket attacks to include Beersheba, 40 km (24 miles) from the Gaza Strip, could move the government to hit Hamas even harder.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert huddled with his security cabinet to review their options, both military and diplomatic, including Paris’s proposal for a 48-hour truce that would allow in more humanitarian aid for Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.

Along the heavily-fortified border fence, Israeli tank crews prepared for battle while Islamists militants, hiding as little as a few hundred yards (meters) away, laid land mines and other booby traps should a ground war break out.

Inside Gaza, for the first time since the fighting began, many residents ventured outside their homes to stock up supplies, taking advantage of a lull in Israeli air strikes.

But Israeli officials made clear there would be no respite for Hamas. “There is no intention of stopping the military activity,” said security cabinet member Meir Sheetrit, adding that a ground operation was still “on the table.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the French proposal, as currently crafted, was not realistic because it lacked explicit guarantees to ensure that Hamas would stop firing rockets and would be unable to smuggle in more arms.

“A band-aid solution that is neither sustainable nor real will have us back to where we are today in a month or two. We must strive for a real solution,” said Olmert’s spokesman, Mark Regev.

But Israeli officials made clear that they had not rejected the French plan outright and were open to amendments and alternatives being put forward by other international parties.

LONGER-RANGE ROCKETS

At least four of Hamas’s longer-range rockets hit Beersheba, the city Israel calls the capital of the Negev, its southern region. One struck a school that was empty. Municipal authorities had canceled classes after rockets landed in Beersheba on Tuesday evening for the first time.

Israeli aircraft carried out only two strikes in the Gaza Strip early on Wednesday, targeting smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt frontier and Hamas government offices in Gaza City, an Israeli military spokesman said.

Palestinian medical officials said one person, a paramedic, was killed.

Rain over the past few days and fresh showers on Wednesday could delay any push soon by Israeli tanks into the territory and also limit air operations.

pictures from reuters

Freddie Hubbard in memoriam of Jazz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnSYHzyjZcM

Grammy award-winning trumpeter Frederick Dewayne “Freddie” Hubbard died today at the Sherman Oaks Hospital in Los Angeles of complications related to a heart attack in November.

Hubbard began his musical career on mellophone in his junior high school band, and within a year switched to the trumpet (having already played the trumpet at home.) As a high school student, he studied french horn and played both trumpet and tuba in the school marching band. In the 1950s, he took trumpet lessons with the first trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In Indianapolis, he and Larry Ridley co-led the Jazz Contemporaries, a quintet including James Spaulding. He also played and recorded with the Montgomery brothers.

He moved to New York City in 1958 and immediately worked with artists like Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, J. J. Johnson, Art Blakey, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock and John Coltrane. From 1964 on, Hubbard worked principally as a leader with his own quintets and quartets, but he also played as a sideman with Max Roach from 1965-6. He also made a tour with Herbie Hancock’s group V.S.O.P. in 1977. Hubbard’s most constant sideman was Kenny Barron, but other musicians like Louis Hayes, Junior Cook, Buster Williams, Al Foster, George Cables, Henry Franklin, Billy Childs, and Carl Burnett also spent times in the trumpeter’s groups. In the mid-1980s, Hubbard made many international tours and recordings with all-star bands, playing much hard-bop and modal jazz. In 1985 and 1987 he made albums with Woody Shaw. Hubbard’s busy performing schedule continued until 1992 when he maintained a serious lip injury. As a result of the injury, he recorded and performed less regularly.

Hubbard won a Grammy in 1972 for his performance on the album First Light. Hubbard also received the US National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters Award in 2006.

Freddie Hubbard, 1938-2008

The Dragon capsule in the space

Private firms to haul ISS cargo

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News

The Dragon capsule is designed to carry cargo or crew

Cut off in the seclusion of space, crew members living aboard the International Space Station (ISS) depend on regular deliveries of air, water, food and fuel for their survival.

But when the ageing space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010, the US space agency (Nasa) will lose a principal means of ferrying crew and cargo to the ISS.

The shuttle’s replacement – Ares-Orion – will not enter service until 2015 at the earliest.

And in April, Nasa told legislators it would stop asking for Congressional permission to buy cargo space on Russian Progress re-supply vehicles after 2011.

I don’t think the market can support more than two companies. And it’s going to be hard for it even to support two Antonio Elias, executive VP, Orbital

That leaves the US dependent on European and Japanese spacecraft for delivering supplies to the space station.

But Nasa has also been pursuing a commercial approach.

Three years ago, the space agency took the unprecedented step of fostering the development of private spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo to the ISS.

It offered $500m (£340m) in “seed money” to help stimulate a competitive market for supply flights to the space station.

This month, Nasa awarded two companies – SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation – with lucrative contracts to provide cargo delivery flights to the ISS up to 2016.

Nasa’s administrator Michael Griffin said he hoped the commercial ventures would succeed. But he told BBC News recently: “It’s not commercial if Nasa is sitting around telling them what to do and how to do it. I don’t think they need that.”

Elon Musk, the South Africa-born entrepreneur who co-founded SpaceX, says: “Even when [Ares-Orion] does come online, it’s sort of overkill to use it for servicing the space station. It would be incredibly expensive. So Nasa looked to the private sector to solve its problem.”

Mr Musk made a fortune from the sale of his internet payment service PayPal to eBay and has invested at least $100m (£68m) of his own money in SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, California.

The company’s cargo re-supply plans are based around a rocket called Falcon 9. The standard version of the Falcon 9 is arguably a medium-lift launcher, says Mr Musk, designed to place 9,900kg into low-Earth orbit (LEO).

Assembly of the first Falcon 9 at SpaceX’s new launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida, should be complete by 31 December 2008.

“To external appearances, it looks like something from the Apollo programme, or Gemini, or Soyuz. But the materials are much more advanced, it’s designed to be reusable – which is an important characteristic,” Mr Musk told BBC News.

Inflatable hotel

Falcon 9 is the intended launch vehicle for a capsule, called Dragon, measuring some three and a half metres (12ft) in diameter. Dragon is designed to carry more than 2,500kg of cargo, or a crew of up to seven, into LEO.

DRAGON CAPSULE Pressurised capacity of 2,500kg or 14 cubic metres Crewed version will carry up to seven astronauts Highly heat resistant material protects craft on re-entry Designed for water landing with parachute

It is capable of carrying both pressurised items – those that need to be kept at Earth pressure and are to be used inside the space station – and unpressurised cargo – to be used outside the ISS, such as control moment gyros.

“The Falcon 9-Dragon system is intended to replace the function of the space shuttle when that retires in 2010,” says Elon Musk.

Falcon 9 will place Dragon in an initial parking orbit. From there it will manoeuvre towards the ISS. Dragon will make a slow approach and, once in range, will be grabbed by the space station’s robotic arm and berthed.

During the high speed return to Earth, Dragon will be protected by a heat shield made of phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA). This highly heat-resistant material is barely scathed at heat fluxes that would vapourise steel.

The capsule will parachute down to the sea for recovery.

Safety is of paramount consideration: the manned version will have an escape tower to rescue the crew if something goes wrong – a feature absent from the space shuttle.”

“Hopefully we’ll do the first demonstration flight next year of the Falcon 9-Dragon system, then particular demonstrations in 2010 and start doing operation missions possibly by the end of 2010,” Mr Musk told BBC News.

A heatshield made of PICA protects Dragon during re-entry

First of all, Dragon will carry astronauts from Nasa and from other space agencies to the ISS. But Mr Musk hopes also to transport space tourists to private orbiting stations.

One company, Bigelow Aerospace, is planning to assemble an orbiting “space hotel” based on a series of inflatable modules.

“We have also thought of perhaps carrying private space adventurers on a loop around the Moon,” says Mr Musk, adding that this would probably cost on the order of $40m-$50m per person.

“I think there is a wide range of applications. Perhaps the Falcon 9-Dragon system will ultimately evolve into something that will take people to Mars.”

‘Big empty can’

The other winning bid in Nasa’s cargo re-supply contract was made by Orbital Sciences Corporation, based in Dulles, Virginia.

Orbital’s vehicle consists of a medium-lift rocket called Taurus 2 which will be used to launch the Cygnus capsule. Unlike Dragon, Cygnus will only carry cargo – not astronauts.

CYGNUS CAPSULE Pressurised capacity of 2,000kg, or 18.7 cubic metres Service module contains propulsion, power and avionics Accommodates pressurised, unpressurised and cargo return modules Space station robotic arm used to berth capsule

Launching from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the medium-lift rocket will be able to ferry 5,500kg into LEO. Orbital is due to carry out a demonstration flight in the fourth quarter of 2010.

“We took a bunch of existing parts but combined them in a way that is very, very efficient,” says Dr Antonio Elias, Orbital’s executive vide-president, who is overseeing the development of the new system.

Cygnus is based around a common service module, containing the vehicle’s propulsion, power systems and avionics. To this common module is added one of three types of specialised cargo modules – each designed for different mission scenarios.

One of these specialised modules will carry pressurised cargo, another will transfer unpressurised cargo, and a third type of module will return cargo items from the space station to Earth.

“The one that will be used the most, I believe, is the pressurised cargo module,” Orbital’s executive vice president told BBC News.

Dr Elias describes this module as a “big empty can”. It is “volumetrically efficient and light” because, says Dr Elias, “all it has to do is bring cargo up”.

The task is significantly bigger than anything either company has ever done John Pike, GlobalSecurity.org

“It gets attached to the station, the hatch opens and crew empty the pressurised ‘can’ of its contents. They fill it up with trash, close the hatch. The service module backs it out of position and de-orbits it over the Pacific Ocean. Both can and service module then perish in a fiery ball of plasma,” Dr Elias told BBC News.

The unpressurised module is less efficient because some complex, heavy mechanisms are required to attach cargo: “The boxes you carry have to be very far apart because the (ISS robotic arm) has to come around and handle them. You have to give it lots of clearance,” says Dr Elias.

The efficiency of the cargo return module, he says, is relatively low because of the shielding, parachutes and other paraphernalia required. He expected only a fraction of re-supply flights would require the use of this module.

Orbital says this approach of using specialised modules keeps development costs low.

Rocket origin

Dr Elias was chief designer of Orbital’s Pegasus rocket, the first privately developed launch vehicle, which made its maiden flight in 1990.

A few years ago, he says, Orbital came up with an idea to re-supply the space station using Pegasus. But, at the time, the benefits were not clear to either Orbital or Nasa.

In fact, the origins of Orbital’s Taurus 2-Cygnus system can be traced to the demise of the Delta 2 rocket.

For two decades, the Delta 2 had been the US fleet’s most reliable medium-lift launcher for military, scientific and commercial payloads. It is still a perfectly good rocket, but Nasa plans to make its final Delta 2 launch at the end of the decade, shifting more of its medium-lift launch traffic to the Atlas 5 or Delta 4 heavy launch vehicles.

The SpaceX HQ occupies 50,000 sq m in Hawthorne, California

The US Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), though significantly bigger, are expected to be comparable in cost in the long run – if not cheaper – than the Delta 2.

“We became concerned that the US government satellites we were bidding for, winning and building in this class would disappear for lack of a launch vehicle,” Dr Elias explains.

“We were concerned this would favour the larger spacecraft launches on [EELVs] and that the market would go to the big companies, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman.”

Orbital began designing a successor to the Delta 2 with its own money. Although the company was on solid financial ground, finding a market to justify the expense was not easy. But a new opportunity was about to present itself.

Market forces

In August 2006, Nasa selected two companies – SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler – to develop and demonstrate orbital re-supply vehicles under its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme, setting the firms aggressive timelines.

The space agency dropped Rocketplane Kistler a year into the programme; the company reportedly failed to meet a development milestone to Nasa’s satisfaction.

“We decided to make an offering whereby Orbital would provide out of its own funds not only the additional money to develop Taurus 2, but also a space vehicle that would be suitable to provide those services,” said Dr Elias.

Cygnus will be grabbed by the space station’s robotic arm

Orbital filled the void left by the departure of Rocketplane Kistler, winning a Nasa contract under Phase II of COTS.

Each of the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts awarded to SpaceX and Orbital in December is worth a potential $3.1bn (£2.1bn). But the market itself remains very small.

“I don’t think the market can support more than two companies. And it’s going to be hard for it even to support two,” Dr Elias told BBC News.

“However, as prudent businessmen, we did not embark on this venture believing we would grab 100% of the demand. So we are willing to be profitable in a situation where we only have half of it.”

Orbital’s Taurus 2 rocket uses tried and tested technology

Observers point out that Nasa is betting on vehicles which do not yet exist, an approach which presents a major risk for the space agency.

Not only is it relying on two companies to keep supplies coming to the ISS, Nasa hopes the rocket and cargo vehicles can be developed in months – not the years it has usually taken other agency programmes.

“The task is significantly bigger than anything either company has ever done,” John Pike, a space policy analyst for GlobalSecurity.org, told the LA Times.

“All of these things strike me as significant challenges for even the biggest aerospace companies.”

But Nasa is not putting all its eggs in one basket. It can still barter for cargo space aboard the European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and Japan’s H-2 Transfer Vehicle, or HTV, which is due to enter service in 2009.

Europe also plans to modify the ATV so that it can bring cargo back from the space station, a capability Nasa is eager to have.

Announcing the award of the CRS contract, Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa’s chief of space operations, said: “This is a pretty monumental thing for us, this is a contract that we really need to keep space station flying and to service space station.”

He added: “I think it’s exciting we’re doing this from the commercial side. We’ve got some good proposals and we’ve chosen the two winners.”

Pinochet-era ‘disappeared’ found

Gen Pinochet died in 2006 without facing trial for human rights abuses

Three people listed as “disappeared” in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet’s military rule have been found or died in other circumstances, it has emerged.

Their names surfaced as investigators looked into a previous non-victim who has lived in Argentina for 35 years.

Gen Pinochet’s supporters have long said reports of the missing, officially put at more than 1,183, are false.

President Michelle Bachelet, who was detained the 1970s, said these cases must not cast doubt on Chile’s missing.

“Speaking as a woman who herself suffered this pain and as president of the nation, I am not going to accept that the suffering of families who are still awaiting truth and justice be taken advantage of nor much less played with,” said President Bachelet.

She said she hoped all political forces would oppose any attempt to manipulate or score points over a subject that Chilean society had confronted with “responsibility and maturity”.

The cases have given ammunition to supporters of the late Gen Pinochet who have long argued that cases of the “disappeared” are ficititious, says the BBC’s Gideon Long in Santiago.

They have also embarrassed the state which has handed out thousands of dollars in compensation to the victims’ families, he adds.

Special payments

The first case came to light in November when it was discovered that a person on the official list of missing, German Cofre, had been living in Argentina for the past 35 years.

He had supposedly been abducted and killed by Gen Pinochet’s forces in 1973, the year the general took power in a military coup.

The three new cases emerged over the weekend.

Edgardo Palacios, a Socialist activist, died in 2006 while Carlos Rojas Campos was located in Buenos Aires.

The third, Emperatriz Villagra, died in childbirth in 1955, according to her family, who were not paid any compensation. It is not known how her name came to be put on the list of victims.

Officials have suspended special benefit payments to the families of Palacios and Rojas Campos.

A judge has been appointed to see if there are more people listed as missing who are alive or died in different circumstances.

Official lists put the number of victims of the military dictatorship at 3,195, of which 1,183 are listed as “disappeared”.

bbc world news

Analysis: Kirkuk faultline

Ethnic tensions and a dispute over control of oil fuel the violence in Kirkuk

By Humphrey Hawksley BBC News, Baghdad

The suicide bomb attack on an upmarket Kurdish restaurant near Kirkuk underscores the tension still wracking the ethnically-mixed and oil-rich province in northern Iraq.

While violence in most of Iraq is down by up to 80%, Kirkuk remains restless.

It is the centre of northern Iraq’s oil industry yet no workable agreement has yet emerged as to how the wealth should be shared.

The popular restaurant commanding stunning views from a hill top just north of Kirkuk was packed at the time of the attack.

Kurdish and Arab leaders, attempting to find some lasting reconciliation between the communities, were reportedly having lunch there at the time.

Some are among the casualties, together with women and children from families celebrating the Eid al-Adha festival.

Arabisation programme

Much of the political tension between the Kurds and Arabs stems from an Iraqi-government programme of the 1970s – under Saddam Hussein – that moved thousands of Arab families to the province and expelled Kurdish and other ethnic groupings from their homes.

Known as the “Arabisation of Kirkuk”, the aim was to ensure Arab control of the oil fields that were first discovered in the 1920s and are connected by pipelines to Mediterranean ports.

It is this issue, together with historical grievances, that is still being played out today.

Iraqi Kurds believe they should control the city because of the demographic distortion caused by Saddam’s Arabisation, and therefore retain much say over the oil.

But the ethnic Arabs, together with the Turkmen community, maintain the oil should be a national and not a regional resource. Therefore, they say, Kirkuk should remain outside the Kurdish semi-autonomous area and under control of the central government.

Referendum plan

There had been plans for a referendum on the issue, but steps to prepare for it have not yet materialised.

Arab families who had been moved there under Saddam Hussein were to go back to their original home areas, after which a census would be carried out and then a referendum.

While that remains pending, Kirkuk – together with the three Kurdish-controlled provinces – has been excluded from provincial elections due to be held in January.

During the years since the US-led invasion of Iraq the Kurdish provinces have been relatively peaceful.

But many Kurds believe Kirkuk is their historical capital, with ruins in the area dating back some 5,000 years.

In Iraq, where history and past grievances plays such a key and often violent part in political negotiations, Kirkuk remains a fault-line that will have to be dealt with substantively in the very near future.

With fragile reconciliation beginning in much of the country, the die-hard remnants of the suicide bombing insurgency are looking for new issues and targets for their violence.

bbc world news

Iraq at the crossroads

The level of violence in Iraq has fallen during 2008, raising hopes of a calmer 2009. The BBC’s Andrew North, who has reported from the country through the year, looks at what lies in store for a still-troubled country.

Violence in Iraq is down tenfold from the peak of 2006-2007

A sharp wind kicks up the dust in the empty dead-end street beside Baghdad’s main morgue. A solitary woman in a brown headscarf turns quickly into the building.

Two years ago, at the height of the sectarian fighting, this was a scene of almost biblical misery.

Crowds of desperate, tear-lined faces filled the street, hoping to find the remains of loved ones inside.

Every few minutes yet more bodies would arrive, in flimsy wooden coffins or wrapped in carpets, often mutilated beyond recognition by torture or torn apart by blasts.

There were often 100 corpses a day coming into the morgue, week after week – so many that officials were using one of the parking bays as overfill storage when we visited in the summer of 2006.

“We usually receive about 10 to 15 bodies a day now,” says Ra’ouf Rasoul, deputy director of the morgue.

Car crashes now make up more of the morgue’s caseload. Baghdad’s is starting to become a typical big city morgue once more.

Unclaimed corpses

But if Baghdad’s main morgue is an example of how much has changed, it also shows that the conflict in Iraq is not over yet.

Victims of shootings or bombings are still brought in every day. And in a small unmarked room, hidden behind dark curtains, is a reminder of the still-unhealed wounds.

The woman in the headscarf had come to look through the morgue’s photo database of unclaimed corpses from the violence of the past few years – several thousand of them in this morgue alone.

Whether this is just a long lull in Iraq, or the beginnings of real recovery, we will know more clearly in the coming year – particularly with Iraqis due to go to the polls three times.

There will be provincial elections on 31 January, a July referendum on the security pact with the US, and a general election in December.

Virtuous circle?

The atmosphere has changed palpably in the past year.

Violence is down tenfold from the peaks of 2006-2007, according to Iraqi government records. Economic activity has picked up in turn.

Iraqi security forces have taken more responsibility in Baghdad

The Americans hope a virtuous circle has set in, through the continuing ceasefires, local deals and side-switching which have underpinned the drop in violence – in other words that people who used to fight may now have more interest in co-operating with the authorities.

There are signs of this. The process of transferring to Iraqi control tens of thousands of former insurgents and tribesmen who have joined local US-backed militias, or Awakening Councils, has gone more smoothly than expected.

Without this support base, al-Qaeda in Iraq and those insurgent groups still fighting have been weakened considerably.

Much the same applies to the Shia Mehdi army militia of the anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Many believe its continuing ceasefire – crucial to the fall in violence – is as much a reflection of its own internal problems.

Hit by relentless US and Iraqi assaults and discredited in many areas because of its role in the sectarian bloodshed, it has been finding it harder to recruit new members.

Light brigade charge?

At the same time, the past year has seen Iraq’s army and police grow in size, confidence and competence.

While they may be down, groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq, or the Mahdi army militia are not out Iraq presents a lesson from history Analysis: Kirkuk faultline

Spring saw Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ordering his “Charge of the Knights” operation against Mehdi army elements left behind in Basra after the British pullout.

In fact, it almost became a modern-day Charge of the Light Brigade until US reinforcements were rushed in.

But even if they do still have a lot to prove, most agree Iraq’s security forces have made progress since.

It tells you a lot that they are now hit twice as often by roadside bombs as coalition forces.

But the fact there are still bombs and other kinds of violence every day says even more.

There may be less killing, but Baghdad remains one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Not voting

At the end of a shoe, US President George W Bush got a taste of the deep anger that many Iraqis still feel towards the Americans for the chaos their invasion has unleashed.

Bush dodged a shoe thrown in anger at the US role in Iraq

To the north, a battle drags on for control of Iraq’s third city, Mosul. Moreover, while they may be down, groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq, or the Mehdi army militia, are not out.

There is still no real consensus between Iraq’s different groups which could lay the foundations for eventual peace.

For a second year running, despite the improved security, there has been no progress at all on key reconciliation issues such as a framework for distributing oil and gas revenues and power-sharing.

Another festering problem is the northern city of Kirkuk and its oil-rich hinterland – jointly claimed by Arabs, Turkomans and the Kurds.

Only by excluding Kirkuk from the voting was it possible to agree on holding the provincial elections at the end of January.

The three Kurdish provinces will also not be voting then.

There are mounting strains, too, between the Kurds and the Shia parties at the heart of Iraq’s coalition government.

Refugee trickle

Whatever happens next, the international military coalition will have progressively less influence, as its withdrawal begins in earnest this coming year – all British combat troops out by the middle of 2009 and all Americans by the end of 2011.

Refugees have been returning to Iraq from Syria, Jordan and Egypt

If he sticks to his plans, US President-elect Barack Obama may speed things up.

The flip side of this for the Iraqis is that they will get progressively less help if the violence surges again.

All this uncertainty is reflected in the trickle of returning refugees.

They come back from time to time sniff the air and decide whether to come back permanently.

But many still get the feeling things could collapse again, so they hold off, keeping their place in Syria or Jordan.

At Baghdad’s morgue, Rasoul Ra’ouf says: “We can only pray the worst is over.”

bbc world news