The crisis deepens - significantly

In meeting with UK PM Brown at Camp David yesterday, George Bush said at a press conference, that "freedom and justice" was something all people of the world aspired to.

How the Iraqis are supposed to respond to that is hard to fathom given that the country, thanks to the invasion of the country, has created apparelled hardship for the citizenry. Things were certainly not that bad before the Coalition's Shock and Awe attack on Iraq.

The latest report by Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq paints a bleak picture of the devastation wrought on the people of Iraq - as this Guardian Unlimited piece explains:

"One third of the Iraqi population needs emergency aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by war and ongoing violence, according to a new report.

Around 8 million Iraqis are in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter, a joint report (pdf) released today by Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq said.

The document said that although armed violence is the greatest threat facing Iraqis, the population is also experiencing another crisis of "an alarming scale and severity".

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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