During the month of November, IF's executive director, Rend Al-Rahim, appeared on CNN's This Week at War, Al-Iraqiya News, and was interviewed for an upcoming documentary on women in Iraq. On November 18, Ms. Al-Rahim appeared on CNN's This Week at War with host Tom Foreman and CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware. In the program, Ms. Al-Rahim discussed the prospects and challenges of national reconciliation and bringing Sunni tribes into the political landscape. To read a transcript of the program, please follow this link. The following week, on November 20, Ms. Al-Rahim appeared on the Iraqi news program Al-Iraqiya.

Ms. Al-Rahim was interviewed for the documentary Full Cover Girl, a documentary about women and democracy in Iraq. Scheduled for release on March 8th, 2008, director Folke Ryden explores the role of Iraqi women in the political process and their differing views on democracy, nation building and women's rights. For more information on the documentary, please visit the Full Cover Girl Website.

From November first to the Fourth, the Iraq Foundation completed a four day meeting on combating corruption and promoting transparency. This initiative is part of the Iraq Anti-Corruption and Transparency Project (ACT) launched in March 2007 and aims to support anti-corruption efforts by mobilizing Iraqi public opinion against corruption and encouraging transparency and accountability in government.

The meeting, which was held in partnership with the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity and Transparency International's Palestine chapter, the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN), was held in Beirut, Lebanon and hosted a group of ten Iraqi parliamentarians and nine representatives of non governmental organizations that have been working on corruption issues across Iraq. An Iraqi general inspector from the Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing and a representative from Transparency International also participated in the meeting, which took advantage of Palestinian expert experience in the field of transparency and anti-corruption to strengthen the exchange of information and experiences in the field of corruption.

In addition to media and parliamentarian monitoring activities, the Iraq Foundation's Pledge for Iraq (PFI) team arranged and participated in several meetings to promote the PFI campaign in November. The Pledge for Iraq, established in March, 2006, proposes a platform of five laws to guarantee freedom of expression, the integrity of the judiciary, and protection of human rights. The goal of this campaign is to institutionalize this agenda across a broad social and political spectrum. IF's PFI team met with Member of Parliament Dr. Saleem Al-Jubori, co-chairs the Legal Committee, on November 20th to follow-up on PFI's proposed laws, the equal opportunity and freedom of expression laws, currently under review by the Human Rights Committee. Later in the month, on November 29th, IF staff met with Dr. Ibriham Ja'afri, the former prime minister of Iraq under the Iraqi Transitional Government, to discuss PFI's platform and ways in which Dr. Ja'afri could support the work of PFI.

As part of the Human Rights Education (HRE) Project, IF began broadcasting a new cycle of eight radio programs this November, including programs on women's rights, citizenship rights, youth rights, and constitutional amendments that promote freedoms and rights, among other human rights issues. IF's radio programs aim to reach a larger, more diverse audience across Iraq. The Foundation added the human rights education radio programs to the HRE workshops programming in October 2006. To date, IF has completed the first cycle of radio programs, producing and broadcasting eight programs on various Iraqi media outlets.

The Human Rights Defenders Network (HRDN) published its ninth newsletter in October. These newsletters report on the human rights situation in at least 12 different governorates of Iraq each month. Formed in December 2006 by the Iraq Foundation, HRDN monitors, documents, and advocates for human rights in Iraq's governorates. Published in Arabic, HRDN's monthly newsletters are available on our website. Some newsletters are also available in English. To learn more about the HRDN project click here.