Politics

On the next Your Call, it's our Friday media roundtable. This week, Rupert Murdoch's bid for the Wall Street Journal was accepted, the House passed ethics reform, and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testified at a hearing about the death of Pat Tillman. Joining us to discuss the news of the week is Robert Hodierne of Army Times, David Enders, independent reporter in Iraq, and Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch. What was your story of the week? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar.

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

lights stutter on and off.
the sun rises and sets behind heavy curtains
while thousands of ants slowly inherit this tile and plaster to the desert.

Abbas Ibn Fernas' wings spread like a warning.

in the smooth marble stomach of our abandoned cities,
brush the flies away from the corner of his mouth.

'what kind of men lived and worked in buildings like these?'
'strange to know that they were us.'

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Basra, Iraq

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA -- Dressed in a black Adidas track suit and seated amid a comfortable clutter of term papers and political science tomes in his modest office at Addis Ababa University, Prof. Merera Gudina hardly looks like a menace. But, ever since he was elected to parliament two years ago, people have been avoiding him.

There was, for example, the time that local mechanics were too terrified to repair his car when it broke down on the way back from his mother's funeral east of Addis.

black smoke billows into a starless sky.

we were the ones who dried the canals and planted death in the river bank - powder and steel among the reeds. smallpox in a dakota blizzard. boot leather on the slave-bricked streets.

custer's 7th cavalry dismounts in fallahat.a hand pressed to the heart, just above his 9.

black points float in clear blue irises.her rank is missing from her uniform.

why does nothing taste good?

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

black smoke billows into a starless sky.

we were the ones who dried the canals and planted death in the river bank -
powder and steel among the reeds.
smallpox in a dakota blizzard.
boot leather on the slave-bricked streets.

custer's 7th cavalry dismounts in fallahat.
a hand pressed to the heart, just above his 9.

black points float in clear blue irises.
her rank is missing from her uniform.

why does nothing taste good?

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

I filmed this kid after a car bombing on Sunday. He died at the hospital later of internal injuries.

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

The break in blogging is due to Rick and I being on an embed and not having the time to blog or a regular internet connection. But as we come off the embed, I want to address that subject. Some people still maintain it is impossible to tell an accurate story embedded, I see it as the only way possible to find out what's going on with the military.

U.S. forces have brokered an agreement between Sunni and Shi'ite tribal leaders to join forces against al Qaeda and other extremists, extending a policy that has transformed the security situation in western Anbar province to this area north of the capital.

The extremists struck back yesterday with a suicide car bomb aimed at one of the Sunni tribes involved in the deal, killing three militiamen and wounding 14.

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

land smears into sky without a seam
diesel generators shudder and spit
tar softens in the cracked streets
women, habayas billowing black, carry water over the river of sewage in shola
poison leaches into the ground.

headed south
the tigris rolls slowly to basra
bloated with corpses,

A boy injured by a car bombing last Sunday, July 22, 2007. He later died of internal injuries.

Enders comments on what it means to report in Iraq, what "security" means in the safest neighborhood in Baghdad, the role of militias and more.