In The Independent, David McKittrick reports on a group of citizens who are attempting to reach reconciliation in Northern Ireland. The group includes people from all sides of the conflict. McKittrick writes:
For two years, behind closed doors, they have united to tackle one of the most deep-seated, difficult and potentially dangerous issues: how to help in healing the thousands of people on whom the Troubles inflicted emotional lacerations.
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Anna Badkhen tells the story of civilian workers in Iraq. Many are suffering from combat trauma, but they lack the support systems available to military personnel. Badkhen writes:
No one knows how many of them have been injured and killed. No one keeps track of how many contractors there are in Iraq. And when they come back, many find themselves abandoned.
"Nobody ain't doing nothing for us," said Thompson, 43, who for six months in 2004 drove a supply truck in Iraq for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, the largest corporate contractor in Iraq.
Thompson was paid $1,850 a week while he was there -- far more than he had been earning before the war. "And I'll tell you right now, it wasn't worth it," he said.
Lewiston (Maine) Sun Journal editorial page editor Anthony Ronzio reports on World War Two veterans who attend group therapy sessions at a Vet Center. Many of these veterans have only recently sought treatment for their combat-related psychological injuries ...
Christian Science Monitor correspondent Katharine Houreld reports from Tine, Sudan, a town on the border between Darfur and Chad. Houreld reports that the Sudanese government has apparently remobilized the janjaweed militias, despite a peace agreement signed last May. Houreld writes:
Once home to 70,000 people, Tine has been emptied by a series of bombing raids and Sudanese government attacks over the past two years. Today, its terrified inhabitants huddle on the other side of a dry riverbed under flimsy stick-and-plastic shelters in a camp that marks the border with Chad. From just a few hundred yards away, they watch their abandoned adobe homes collapse with the passing seasons.
In a four-part series, Boston Globe reporter Thomas Farragher and photographer Dina Rudic profile the soldiers who made up "Chaos 4," a three-man squad that patrolled the road to Baghdad International Airport. One of the men was killed during a nightly patrol in October 2004.
