Let's start with those panoramic views: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia//041103-12p.htm These were done by the Washington Posts Travis Fox.

If you want to see a dynamic map of where the embedded journalists are in Iraq, try this poynter.org site: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=27071 You can find a journalist on the map, click on their symbol and get their latest dispatches via a google search.

Another very decent compilation of Iraq War journalist resources: http://www.journaliststoolbox.com/newswriting/iraq.html

Former Adversaries Join to Revive Neighborhood By Michael Slackman, Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD -- There was no electricity, no health care, no open shops, no sewage system, no police and no one to turn to for help. The people were scared, hungry and tired, and many children were falling ill. So religious leaders stepped in. From loudspeakers mounted atop mosques in the low-income west Baghdad neighborhood known as Tobchi, sheiks and imams sent out a call, not to prayer, but to work. They called on doctors, electricians, police, engineers, shopkeepers and laborers to help their community get back to life. By Monday, many had come forward. Sunni and Shiite. Agents of Saddam Hussein's regime and victims of its repression. If there is hope for a bright future in this city, still convulsing from the effects of war, a model might be this neighborhood of simple concrete apartment buildings and working-class people less than a mile from the Tigris River. "There are no Arabs, no Kurds, no Sunni, no Shia," said Sheik Mohammed Bakr Basri, 31, one of the organizers of the back-to-work campaign. "After Saddam we will all be united. The regime tried to divide us." Almost from the moment Hussein's government fell, this city of about 5 million people became unhinged with widespread looting, chaos and fear. People were paralyzed, and no one went to work. But there was no suggestion that the Iraqis bore any responsibility for what was happening on their streets. They blamed the U.S. for the upheaval and expected Americans to repair the damage. That attitude has begun to change in ways that are visible in many parts of the city, but especially in Tobchi, a neighborhood formally known as Al Salam. It was seen up in a cherry picker Monday, where two residents, one Sunni and the other Shiite, worked together to repair power lines. It was evident in a health clinic where a physician and a dentist volunteered to treat their neighbors. And it was there in the piles of looted goods that had been turned over to Sunni and Shiite mosques by residents who experienced a change of heart. "Saddam confiscated our capabilities and possibilities," said Sheik Mohammed Taqi, 27, a neighborhood Shiite religious leader. "After Saddam, brotherhood has been revived between the people." More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/inside/la-war-tobchi15apr15,1,24458.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000365.php This an amazing web journal of a couple of journalists who have just landed in Syria. "The Pitch Hi there! Thanks for stopping in. I'm Christopher Allbritton, former AP and New York Daily News reporter. Last summer I went stumbling around Iraqi Kurdistan, the northern part of Iraq outside Saddam's direct control, looking for stories. (Some might call it "looking for trouble.") Well, I've made it back. With the support of thousands of readers, I've raised more than $10,000 for this trip. "

US apology paves way for Iranian pistachios, carpets by Scott Peterson They were words that Iranians have long waited to hear from American officials, and they sounded very much like an apology. In an American initiative to boost the chances of Iran-US d�tente after decades of estrangement - and after elections in Iran last month that brought two decades of conservative control in parliament to an end - sanctions were lifted last week against Iranian carpets, pistachios, and caviar. But far more significant, Iranians say, is US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's attention, for the first time, to historical grievances of American meddling in Iran. "In the Iranian psyche, these issues are far more important than sanctions, so this will have a great impact," says Nasser Hadian-Jazy at the University of Tehran. He compares their importance in Iran with the days of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that few Americans can forget: the hostage-taking of US diplomats for 444 days. Despite certain opposition from hard-line clerics, who still consider the US the "Great Satan," this apology is "good enough to bring down psychological and symbolic barriers to improve relations," he says. Though the US still accuses Iran of what it calls "objectionable" policies of supporting terrorism, opposing the Mideast peace process, and pursuing nuclear weapons, Dr. Albright also struck a contrite chord that few in Iran thought possible. A CIA-backed coup in 1953, Albright said, was "clearly a setback" for Iran that partly explains continued resentment. "Sustained" US backing of the regime of the Shah, which "brutally repressed dissent," didn't help either. American backing of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, she added, has proved "regrettably shortsighted," and the US "must bear its fair share of responsibility" for the US-Iran hostility. More: http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/03/24/p9s2.htm