Power shortage drives Iraqis to frustration, fury

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5981441&cKey=1122984315000

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - It's five o'clock in the morning, the temperature is 40 degrees (100 fahrenheit), and a five- month-old baby is crying. Her parents try in vain to calm her down by fanning her face with a palm leaf.

Almost every night in summer it's the same. Iraq's rickety electricity grid, damaged in the war and only partly rebuilt, is unable to meet soaring demand for power -- especially for airconditioners. In the sweltering heat, Iraqis' frustration rises by the day.

Rather than rely on the grid, those that can afford it buy power from neighbourhood generators, but they often break down or run out of fuel, an irony in oil-rich Iraq. It's a domino- effect that leaves overheated residents close to despair.

"We didn't have electricity all last night," says Abu Zainab, the father of the screaming child, exhausted and frustrated from another sleepless night. "The neighborhood generator is broken. My family and I couldn't sleep at all."

[Mika]

1. Freedom (FROM A/C) is on the march. n/t

[CrispyQ]

2. Thank you! I'm sending to everyone in my address book.

snip...

Some families have taken to moving everyone -- parents, grandparents, children -- into one room that is kept cool. The grid is either too weak to cool the whole house or they can't afford to buy the extra power needed.

And those are the lucky ones. Most Iraqis have to rely solely on national power, which runs for only a few hours a day.

"We only get 15 minutes on and then its mostly six hours off," says Nadia Murad, a 35-year-old woman, dismissing U.S. officials who say Baghdad power is now on for up to eight hours a day -- two hours on followed by four hours off.

Some Iraqis in the south say they get only one hour a day.
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Imagine the whining & outrage if Americans were asked to get by like this in 100 degree heat for even a week!

[slackmaster]

3. California is perilously close to a similar situation

People get testy when the air conditioning doesn't run.

[Mari333]

4. Meanwhile, Bush sips lemonade at his fake ranch

[bushisanidiot]

5. Did AWOL Bush put Ken Lay in charge of Iraq's power supply?

just asking..