The Egyptian contagion spreads...

These extracts speak for themselves:

Clamor for change now reaches Iraq

LA Times reports (February 6^th): Clamor for political change across the Arab world has reached Iraq, where protests against poor government services have broken out in the capital and other cities.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki vowed not to run for a third term, a day after he announced that he would cut his pay in half. Other officials agreed to decrease their salaries in a bid to stave off the kind of unrest erupting elsewhere in the region.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-iraq-20110206,0,1553404.story

Protesters in Iraq decry lack of basic services, shortages

 

CNN reports (February 3^rd): Hundreds of demonstrators were in the street in locales around Iraq, inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the region as they railed against the government's inability to provide basic services and complained of food, water and power shortages, officials said.

The biggest demonstration took place in al Hamza, a relatively poor town in a heavily Shiite region about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Baghdad. Two Iraqi interior ministry officials -- who, per policy, did not speak by name due to security concerns -- estimated that that nearly 1,000 people participated.

The protesters walked toward a local council building, trying to force their way in as they hurled rocks inside the compound and at police outside, the Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said. Some were heard shouting, "We've had enough" and "Where are your promises."

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/03/iraq.protests/index.html

One killed, four injured in Iraq protest

Al-Arabiya reports (February 4^th): Police shot randomly at hundreds of protesters in al-Hamza district in Iraq’s southern province of al-Diwaniya, killing one person and injuring four. 

The incident came after a statement released by the Iraqi parliament condemning the use of violence against demonstrators in Egypt and urged for the respect of human rights.

The protesters who followed up with their demands from a previous demonstration called for the removal of al-Hamza head official and for the Iraqi government to provide basic services.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/04/136241.html