Reckless Reality |

New police officers demonstrate their martial arts skills during a graduation ceremony at a police academy in Najaf, 160 km (99 miles) south of Baghdad, November 20, 2008. About 969 police trainees graduated on Thursday from the police academy in Najaf after two months training, police said.

A U.S. soldier waves to residents at the newly-opened Mithaq swimming pool in Baghdad’s Sadr City August 30, 2008. 

Iraqi officials are planning on having a ferris wheel built as a tourist attraction to the nation’s capital, Baghdad. The wheel would be called ‘Baghdad Eye’ and is planned to sit over 650ft above the Tigris River.

Adel al Ardawi, a Baghdad municipality spokesman said that “This wheel will be taller than the iconic 443-foot London Eye.” He failed to comment on construction cost or a time line of how long it would take to build the wheel.

The London Eye in London, England sits 443ft over the River Thames. It has attracted more than 27 million visitors since its formal opening on December 31, 1999. Read the rest of this entry »

Iraqi police remove a suicide vest from an Iraqi girl in Baquba in this handout photo from the Iraqi police taken August 24, 2008. A teenage Iraqi girl wearing a vest packed with explosives turned herself in rather than go through with a suicide bombing in a violence-torn city north of Baghdad, police and the U.S. military said.

On average, the cost of ammunition has increased by 67 per cent between 2004 and this year, said the state General Administration office, which negotiates contracts with suppliers for state and local agencies. “It’s expected to get worse,” he said. Contributing to the ammunition price increase are skyrocketing prices for copper and lead, prompted in part by higher demand for those materials from China, a country Read the rest of this entry »