links for 2008-05-08

• Worker Productivity Up: Good or Bad News - pgl
• Blogonomics: Impersonating Journalists - Felix Salmon
• Can You Catch Up on Lost Sleep? - Scientific American
• Did McCain Vote for Bush (Politics) - Matthew Yglesias
• Individual income tax revenue - CBO Director’s Blog
• Avoiding disorderly deleveraging - Vox EU
• Blame the models - Vox EU
• FuzzCharts: Is the US Now Just a Service Economy? - pgl
• "It's the Economists Stu***!" - BeThink
• The 18-Cent Solution - New York Times
• Fuel prices at record highs, ethanol producers struggling? - Daniel Gross
• The Tax Trickery Spreads - New York Times
• Food prices and poverty: confusion or obfuscation? - Dani Rodrik

Comments

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/science/08platypus.html

May 8, 2008

Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

If it has a bill and webbed feet like a duck, lays eggs like a bird or a reptile but also produces milk and has a coat of fur like a mammal, what could the genetics of the duck-billed platypus possibly be like? Well, just as peculiar: an amalgam of genes reflecting significant branching and transitions in evolution.

An international scientific team, which announced the first decoding of the platypus genome on Wednesday, said the findings provided “many clues to the function and evolution of all mammalian genomes,” including that of humans, and should “inspire rapid advances in other investigations of mammalian biology and evolution.”

The research is described in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature by a group of almost 100 scientists led by Wesley C. Warren, a geneticist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The single subject of the study was a female platypus named Glennie, a resident of Glenrock Station in New South Wales, Australia, whose DNA was collected and analyzed.

The platypus, native to Australia, is so odd that when the first specimens were sent to Europe in the 19th century, scientists suspected a hoax. It was classified as a mammal, one of only two monotremes (echidna is the other) living today that are offshoots of the main mammalian lineage. The divergence occurred some 166 million years ago from primitive ancestors combining features of both mammals and reptiles.

“What is unique about the platypus is that it has retained a large overlap between two very different classifications, while later mammals lost the features of reptiles,” Dr. Warren said in an interview.

In their investigation of the platypus genetic blueprint, the scientists found that its genome contains about 18,500 genes, similar to other vertebrates and about two-thirds the size of the human genome. The platypus shares 82 percent of its genes with the human, mouse, dog, opossum and chicken. Some repeated elements in the genome, the scientists noted, hold hints as to the chronology of changes in the platypus.

Of particular interest, the researchers reported, the analysis identified families of genes that link the platypus to reptiles (like those for egg-laying, vision and venom production), as well as to mammals (antibacterial proteins and lactation). The platypus lacks nipples; the young nurse through the abdominal skin.

One surprise was finding genes responsible for sensitive odor receptors. As a primarily aquatic animal, the platypus was already known to rely on electrosensory receptors in its bill to detect faint electric fields emitted by underwater prey. So why the considerable ability to sense odors? The scientists speculate that it may involve sexual communication or the use of water-soluble odorants in navigating and hunting underwater....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/opinion/l08cuba.html

A New Opening in Cuba

To the Editor:

"In Stores, Hints of Change Under New Castro":

In my three trips to Cuba this year — before, during and after the election of Raúl Castro — Cubans were talking, with greater candor and hope than I've encountered during more than 30 trips since 2001.

The signal sent by the reforms, such as moving control over agriculture from Havana to the municipal level or allowing Cubans to buy cellphones or stay in hotels, is that after 50 years the path forward is now toward decentralization and honoring the desire of Cubans for more autonomy.

What catches the attention of Cubans is that they asked for these changes in a continuing national debate, the government is responding, and they now expect that these reforms will produce an even greater opening.

Rather than condemning the reforms as cosmetic, as our government does, our foreign allies are commending Cuba's government to encourage it to do more. By contrast, no Cuban tells us that United States policy has a constructive role. As one said, "You don't understand what's going on here, and we don't care."

Sarah Stephens
Director, Center for Democracy in the Americas
Washington, May 2, 2008

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/world/americas/02cuba.html

May 2, 2008

Stores Hint at Change Under New Castro
By MARC LACEY

HAVANA — Can a rice maker possibly be revolutionary?

There they were, piled up one atop another, Chinese-made rice makers selling for $70 each. Beside them, sleek DVD players. Across the well-stocked electronics store were computers and televisions and other household appliances that President Raúl Castro recently decreed ought to be made available to average Cubans, or at least those who could afford them.

Since finally succeeding his ailing 81-year-old brother, Fidel, in February, Mr. Castro, 76, who appeared before hundreds of thousands of Cubans at a May Day rally on Thursday here in the capital, has been busy with a flurry of changes. In the last eight weeks he has also opened access to cellphones, lifted the ban on Cubans using tourist hotels and granted farmers the right to manage unused land for profit.

More is on the horizon, government officials say, like easing restrictions on traveling abroad and the possibility of allowing Cubans to buy and sell their own cars, and perhaps even their homes. Each of these changes may be microscopic in contrast to the outsize problems facing Cuba. But taken together, they are shaking up this stoic, time-warped place.

Just how far Mr. Castro will be willing to tinker with the country his brother left him and what, if anything, he is using as his playbook nobody knows for sure. Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to reinvigorate the ailing Soviet system led to its collapse and its abandonment of Cuba. More inspiring is the mix of consumerism and pragmatic authoritarian politics that energized growth and reinforced Communist Party rule in China and Vietnam.

China is now Cuba's second largest trading partner, and Vietnam is one of the first countries that Mr. Castro has said he will visit. Leaders from both countries visited over the last year and had sessions with both Castro brothers. Cuba analysts say that Raúl Castro, as the longtime defense minister, has maintained close ties to both countries' militaries and has close aides who know the countries well.

"This is the Asia model," said Robert Pastor, a professor of international relations at American University. "Still, the signals he has sent are so faint and so tentative that it's not at all clear where he wants to take Cuba or where Cuba will go."

Marifeli Pérez-Stable, vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue, said: "He's never going to say. I'm not sure he even knows it. But he is following China, and even more so Vietnam," meaning that Mr. Castro was hewing to a more go-slow approach.

As in those countries, economic freedom is one thing, and political liberty something else. On the latter, Cuba's government has given every sign that it is intent on holding the line....

[anne]

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000796.php

May 7, 2008

US Presidents-To-Be in Denial: McCain, Obama and Clinton silent on Iraq exit
By Dahr Jamail - Le Monde Diplomatique

As soon as it was clear that the presidential primaries would be the news story of the year in the US, Iraq was dropped by the media. The occupation and the campaign for the presidential nominations were de-linked almost from the start. So we don't know what the potential candidates would do in Iraq. But pulling troops out doesn't seem to be an option for any of them.

Amman, April 2008: the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, said he wanted "to highlight the gravity of the humanitarian situation in Iraq" (1).

New Hampshire, January 2008: the Republican presidential candidate John McCain said: "President Bush has talked about our staying [in Iraq] for 50 years, maybe 100. We've been in Japan for 60 years, in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or killed" (2).

Baghdad, April 2008: in an interview with Al-Jazeera, an Iraqi government employee said: "There is no improvement in Baghdad on the security level. All of it is getting worse. We hear about it on TV, but on the ground we see nothing. No services, no security in the streets" (3).

Infrastructure in Iraq is currently far worse than it was under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, which overlapped with nearly 13 years of severe economic sanctions. The average Iraqi household has fewer than three hours of electricity a day, at least 40% of people have no access to safe drinking water, and unemployment is between 40% and 70% (4).

What worsens these hardships is the complete lack of security. The propaganda accompanying the surge of US troops claimed a dramatic decrease in violence, but facts indicate otherwise. The ministries of the interior, defence and health in Iraq said 33% more Iraqis were killed in February than in January. In March the figure was 31% higher than in February. In April, because of the debacle of the offensive by US-backed Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki against the militia of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the numbers will increase again.

The UN figure of displaced Iraqis is 4.9 million, and nearly half of those have fled the country. A UNHCR/IPSOS survey of Iraqi refugees in Syria in March found that only 4% were planning to return to Iraq. Oxfam International claims another 4 million are in serious need of emergency aid without which they will probably die. On 12 April the Iraqi parliament urged the government to reallocate $5bn earmarked for investment in infrastructure and services to social welfare programmes and a functional food rationing system for nearly 2.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

A study in The Lancet in October 2006 estimated the number of Iraqis who died as a direct result of invasion and occupation to be 655,000 or 2.5% of the population. This figure (now very out of date), plus the number of displaced Iraqis and those in need of emergency aid, means nearly 10 million of 27 million citizens are dead or displaced or living in the worst conditions (5).

Silence is censorship

Yet the three US presidential contenders, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, have been mostly silent on the Iraq issue, with tacit support from the media. Their silence is censorship....

[anne]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7192/abs/nature06936.html

May 8, 2008

Genome Analysis of the Platypus Reveals Unique Signatures of Evolution

Abstract

We present a draft genome sequence of the platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus. This monotreme exhibits a fascinating combination of reptilian and mammalian characters. For example, platypuses have a coat of fur adapted to an aquatic lifestyle; platypus females lactate, yet lay eggs; and males are equipped with venom similar to that of reptiles. Analysis of the first monotreme genome aligned these features with genetic innovations. We find that reptile and platypus venom proteins have been co-opted independently from the same gene families; milk protein genes are conserved despite platypuses laying eggs; and immune gene family expansions are directly related to platypus biology. Expansions of protein, non-protein-coding RNA and microRNA families, as well as repeat elements, are identified. Sequencing of this genome now provides a valuable resource for deep mammalian comparative analyses, as well as for monotreme biology and conservation.

[anne]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i9Yu5GxrnxcFXqr-4soLErbMrAUQ

May 8, 2008

Seven Killed in Baghdad Battles
By AFP

BAGHDAD — Fresh gunbattles between Shiite fighters and US forces in Baghdad's Sadr City killed seven people and wounded 20 others, Iraqi security and medical officials said on Thursday.

A security official said the clashes erupted before midnight and continued until Thursday morning.

A medic at Al-Sadr hospital, one of the main medical facilities in the impoverished Shiite district of some two million people, said seven bodies had been brought in.

The US military was not immediately available for comment.

Since March 25, US and Iraqi forces have been battling militants, mostly from anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. Hundreds of people have been killed.

[We must leave Iraq, now.]

[anne]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD90HB6MG0

May 8, 2008

Residents Says Iraqi Soldiers Warn Them to Leave Sadr City
By Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Local residents say Iraqi soldiers are warning people to leave their homes in Sadr City for security reasons.

They say the warning is the first time residents are being told to flee the embattled Baghdad district.

The residents say soldiers using loudspeakers are telling people to go to nearby soccer stadiums. But most residents still have not left.

Thursday's warning signals that U.S.-backed forces are preparing to launch a new push into the area to clear pockets of Shiite extremists who have been battling U.S. soldiers for almost seven weeks.

UNICEF says about 6,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Shiite militia stronghold.

[Why, why, why?]

[wjd123]

From Jon Danielsson' "Blame the Models." He means that literally.

Foolish sophistication

Underpinning this whole process is a view that sophistication implies quality: a really complicated statistical model must be right. That might be true if the laws of physics were akin to the statistical laws of finance. However finance is not physics, it is more complex, see e.g. Danielsson (2002).

In physics the phenomena being measured does not generally change with measurement. In the finance that is not true. Financial modelling changes the statistical laws governing the financial system in real-time. The reason is that market participants react to measurements and therefore change the underlying statistical processes. The modellers are always playing catch-up with each other. This becomes especially pronounced when the financial system gets into a crisis.

This is a phenomena we call endogenous risk, which emphasises the importance of interactions between institutions in determining market outcomes. Day-to-day, when everything is calm, we can ignore endogenous risk. In crisis, we cannot. And that is when the models fail.--Jon Danielsson

[AllanW]

I can only suggest that Jon Danielsson has not read about the issues of measurement in Quantum Dynamics if he thinks that financial modelling is more difficult than physics.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-measurement/

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/world/asia/08myanmar.html

May 8, 2008

French Official Urges U.N. to Force Aid on Myanmar
By STEVEN ERLANGER

The French foreign minister said that the U.N. should invoke its "responsibility to protect" civilians as the basis for a resolution to force delivery of aid on the military government.

[Huh???]

[anne]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD90H0NP01

May 7, 2008

Aid Groups: Humanitarian Woes Grow in Baghdad's Sadr City
By BRADLEY BROOKS – Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Entire sections of Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district have been left nearly abandoned by civilians fleeing a U.S.-led showdown with Shiite militias and seeking aid after facing shortages of food and medicine, humanitarian groups said Wednesday.

The reports by the agencies, including the U.N. children's fund, add to the individual accounts by civilians pouring out of the Sadr City area as clashes intensify.

U.S. forces have increased air power and armored patrols in the attempt to cripple Shiite militia influence in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people that serves as the Baghdad base for the Mahdi Army led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The battles started in late March after the Iraqi government opened a crackdown on militias and armed gangs in the southern city of Basra, including some groups Washington says have links to Iran.

Claire Hajaj, a UNICEF spokeswoman based in Jordan, said up to 150,000 people — including 75,000 children — were isolated in sections of Sadr City "cordoned off by military forces."

She said about 6,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and that some areas of southeastern Sadr City were virtually abandoned.

The U.S. military is trying to weaken the militia grip in the slum and disrupt rocket and mortar strikes from Sadr City on the U.S.-protected Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy and key Iraqi government offices.

The fighting has prevented aid workers from reaching residents of the neighborhood, and in past weeks has led to shortages of water, food and medicine, Hajaj said....

[Where are the French?]

[AllanW]

French Official Urges U.N. to Force Aid on Myanmar
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Anne;
[Huh???]

Just off the top of my head I can think of two reasons for this plainly manufactured ruse.

1. Allows the UN to repair some of its shattered image of late by being the nice guy despite the repressive regime in place in Myanmar.
2. Allows the placement of operatives into the country under the guise of aid efforts.

I’m sure a moments’ contemplation by someone with at least a passing knowledge of the region will be able to provide many more conjectures.

[anne]

May 7, 2008

Aid Groups: Humanitarian Woes Grow in Baghdad's Sadr City
By BRADLEY BROOKS – Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Entire sections of Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district have been left nearly abandoned by civilians fleeing a U.S.-led showdown with Shiite militias and seeking aid after facing shortages of food and medicine, humanitarian groups said Wednesday.

The reports by the agencies, including the U.N. children's fund, add to the individual accounts by civilians pouring out of the Sadr City area as clashes intensify.

U.S. forces have increased air power and armored patrols in the attempt to cripple Shiite militia influence in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people that serves as the Baghdad base for the Mahdi Army led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The battles started in late March after the Iraqi government opened a crackdown on militias and armed gangs in the southern city of Basra, including some groups Washington says have links to Iran.

Claire Hajaj, a UNICEF spokeswoman based in Jordan, said up to 150,000 people — including 75,000 children — were isolated in sections of Sadr City "cordoned off by military forces."

She said about 6,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and that some areas of southeastern Sadr City were virtually abandoned.

The U.S. military is trying to weaken the militia grip in the slum and disrupt rocket and mortar strikes from Sadr City on the U.S.-protected Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy and key Iraqi government offices.

The fighting has prevented aid workers from reaching residents of the neighborhood, and in past weeks has led to shortages of water, food and medicine, Hajaj said.

[Compare.]

[anne]

[Posting problem, test.]

[anne]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/election-fundamentals-continued/

May 8, 2008

Election fundamentals, Continued
By Paul Krugman

Alan Abramowitz * has some useful charts:

First, another growth-voting scatterplot:

Growth is good [Chart]

Second, presidential approval (actually, net approval: approval minus disapproval) versus election results:

So are popular presidents [Chart]

Also, a number of models find that there’s an 8-year itch: voters tend to turn against the incumbent party if it has held the White House for two or more terms.

Right now, GDP is flat (falling in the monthly estimates); Bush has a negative net approval of 30 percent or more; and people are tired of Republicans. So it ought to be a smashing Democratic victory. When I plug current numbers into the Abramowitz model (making a guess about 1st-half GDP and assuming that Bush approval in June will be about where it is today), it says 57-43 Democrats.

What about current polls showing a race that could go either way? Never mind, say the poli-sci people: GE polling this early tells us almost nothing.

And yet ….

* http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V92-4S32DBK-2&_user=1082852&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000051401&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1082852&md5=b70e35e43a6ef2df10544944abcb5dd1

[anne]

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/8/headlines#2

May 8, 2008

Sadr City Residents Told to Flee Homes
By Amy Goodman

In Iraq, residents of the Sadr City district of Baghdad say they’re being warned to flee their homes in advance of an intensified US-led assault on Shia fighters. Sadr City has seen relentless violence in a nearly two-month campaign against followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. UNICEF says around 6,000 people have already been forced to flee. Up to 150,000, half of them children, are said to be cut off from aid in areas isolated by the US military. Medical care has declined following Saturday’s US missile strike that damaged several ambulances at Sadr City’s main hospital. At least four people were killed and thirteen injured in fighting overnight. At the White House, the veteran correspondent Helen Thomas questioned Press Secretary Dana Perino about the killing of innocent Iraqis.

Dana Perino: “Helen.”

Helen Thomas: “Yesterday, according to the New York Times, we dropped a bomb on a home in Sadr City and burned alive a pregnant woman and her children. How long is the siege of Sadr—how long are we going to keep bombing Iraqis?”

Perino: “Well, I’m not aware of that particular report. I have not—I’ve not seen it.”

Thomas: “Well, it was pretty buried in the stories.”

Perino: “OK. Well, the operation against the militias in Sadr City will continue until they root them out. And that is expressly in order to protect people like you just mentioned.”

Thomas: “Root who out? The Iraqis? In their own country?”

Perino: “It is Prime Minister Maliki’s government which is going after the militia, which is appropriate.”

Thomas: “Why are we bombing these people?”

Perino: “Any time anyone that is an innocent civilian is hurt in a conflict, we obviously regret it, and we go out of our way to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

[anne]

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/8/headlines#2

At the White House, the veteran correspondent Helen Thomas questioned Press Secretary Dana Perino about the killing of innocent Iraqis....

Perino: “OK. Well, the operation against the militias in Sadr City will continue until they root them out. And that is expressly in order to protect people like you just mentioned.”

Thomas: “Root who out? The Iraqis? In their own country?”

Perino: “It is Prime Minister Maliki’s government which is going after the militia, which is appropriate.”

Thomas: “Why are we bombing these people?”

Perino: “Any time anyone that is an innocent civilian is hurt in a conflict, we obviously regret it, and we go out of our way to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

[Why, why, why?]

[anne]

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/7/headlines#7

May 7, 2008

US Re-establishes Navy Fleet in South America
By Amy Goodman

In military news, the Pentagon has announced the re-establishment of a US Navy fleet to oversee activity in the Caribbean and Central and South America. * The Fourth Fleet has not been used since its disbandment in 1950.

Some critics warn the fleet's renewal could be seen as a warning to governments seeking greater regional integration to counter US influence, most notably Venezuela.

* http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h_JBgvVKHyAqwABeqWcoA54ZVz1Q

[Huh???]

[Warland]

From "The 18-Cent Solution:"

"The first [argument in favor of suspending the gas tax] is that the tax holiday is a relatively cheap symbolic gesture that makes truly bad policies less likely."

This guy wants to implement a pointless policy response as a foil against the possibility of harmful policy responses? Is he serious?

His second reason, that we need to somehow appease and reassure oil producers in the midst of their record profits, is arguably even more ridiculous...

Warland

[anne]

http://www.juancole.com/2008/05/violence-in-lebanon-courtesy-al-hayat.html

May 8, 2008

Violence in Beirut
By Juan Cole

First, the General Confederation of Labour Unions * in Lebanon called a strike to protest the failure of the government to agree to a substantial rise in the minimum monthly way. Then the strike turned violent, as the Hizbullah joined in. People closed off roads and set out burning tires. The airport was badly affected, stranding 200 passengers. Aljazeera says that the airport is closed on Thursday. Arab satellite channels were showing streets crowded with Lebanese army and police, with staccato machine gun bursts in the background. About 10 people were lightly wounded.

It isn't really clear what the relationship is between the labor unions and their strike for better wages, and the military confrontations with the strikers.

I do know that on the other side, the Bush administration has worked hard to polarize Lebanese society and security, rather than working for a national unity government.

* http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h6GsJxBkNDV5xxnN8JtHYBx-AG9w

[anne]

"First, the General Confederation of Labour Unions * in Lebanon called a strike to protest the failure of the government to agree to a substantial rise in the minimum monthly [p]ay."

http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=78100

May 8, 2008

High prices, Low Wages Feed Violent Political Stand-Off
By IRIN

BEIRUT - Ramzi Ali was nearly 13 when his parents took him out of school to work as a motorbike mechanic.

"Conditions are hard, and political tensions are destroying the country," said Ali, now 14, as he manned a barricade of burning tyres in central Beirut on 7 May. "My parents just couldn't afford to keep me at school any more."

Anti-government protesters blocked roads with burning tyres across the Lebanese capital on 7 May after Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah, and an allied Christian party, threw their weight behind a general strike called by the country's union federation to demand higher wages and decry high prices.

A pall of smoke hovered above a city of shuttered shops and empty roads, as workers either obeyed the strike call or stayed at home for fear of the sectarian violence that flares up periodically in Beirut and stokes fears of civil war.

Gunmen exchanged fire in central areas of Beirut that are mixed Sunni and Shia Muslim, and therefore divided between supporters of the Sunni Future Movement, part of the pro-Western governing coalition, and the Shia opposition Hezbollah and Amal parties.

The strike was called by labour unions after rejecting a last-minute government increase in the monthly minimum wage from US$200 to $330. Recent research by Lebanese economic consultancy InfoPro found that wages averaged $500 while the actual minimum wage was around $320, making the increase irrelevant to most workers.

Prices up

A grocer in Ras al-Nabeh neighbourhood of Beirut said a bottle of cooking oil had risen from $4 to $6.5, while the price of sugar had doubled. Where one dollar used to buy 1.5kg of bread, it now buys 1.1kg. Chickpeas and grains that are a staple of Lebanese diets, meat and vegetables have also risen.

According to the consumer association, prices have risen by 43 percent over the past 21 months, while the official unemployment rate stands at 10 percent. Independent estimates put it at 20 percent.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh also said last week that the inflation rate had risen by 10 percent, due to a rise in oil prices on international markets, food prices and the weakening of the dollar against other currencies....

[anne]

May 8, 2008

US troops deny asking Sadr City residents to leave

Baghdad stadium to shelter Iraqis fleeing Sadr City danger

Baghdad's Sadr City residents fear intensifying

Offensive on Iraq’s Sadr City imminent, residents asked to leave

[Oh well, I get it.]