News From Iraq

- Tens of thousands of Iraqis are leaving the country each month. More than one million Iraqis now live in Syria, plus 750,000 more in neighbouring Jordan. The movement of Iraqis is being called the biggest displacement of people since Palestinian refugees and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

- Last Wednesday, a series of bombings in Baghdad killed more than 200 people in the worst day of violence since the US-led "surge" began in mid-February. That's the same as 400 people dying in a country the size of Britain, or 2000 people dying in the US. How much coverage do you think it received in the US, compared to the Virginia Tech shootings?

- The new big US solution to the violence unleashed in Baghdad are Berlin/Belfast style walls between neighbourhoods. However:

"Erecting concrete walls between neighbourhoods is not a solution to the collapse in security and the rampant violence," housewife Um Haider told AFP news agency. "If so, Baghdadis would find themselves in a maze of high walls overnight."

Another resident, Mustafa, said: "I resent the barrier. It will make Adhamiya a big prison."

- Oliver Stone is to direct an advert for a campaign calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. It'll focus on the views of servicemen and women who have served in Iraq.