KIDNAP ALARM IN IRAQ

It was the moment western visitors to the Middle East dread.    The taxi had driven a couple of miles out of the airport in northern Iraq when inexplicably it pulled into a carpark.    It drew alongside another vehicle and stopped.    The three of us were told to get out.    The driver ushered us towards another car.    We looked at each other.    There didn't seem to be any alternative but to do as we were told.    Our baggage was transferred from one taxi to the other. Nervously we asked what was going on. In broken English (our collective Arabic isn't crash-hot) we were told it was standard procedure. It was explained that taxis cleared to pick up passengers from the planes can only operate within the airport boundaries, and that another taxi has to take travelers further on. It sounded a bit unlikely. But doing a runner into the desert sands seemed futile. Reluctantly we got into the second car.  Kidnapped in Iraq - what it can be like. We were driven for miles through the outskirts of the city - past a mixture of oldblock-style, sandy-coloured Arabic buildings and newly emerging office towers. Eventually we pulled up outside a modern hotel. It had the same name as the hotel into which we had been booked.    Relief. And then the real shock. Before our arrival we'd been told the journey would be twenty-five American dollars. But the driver insisted it was thirty-five. I dug into my modest wad of greenbacks. Never has an extra ten dollars been handed over so happily. I was even given a receipt.  Welcome to Iraq.

THE RISING PARADISE OF NORTHERN IRAQ And that was as scary as it got. There were lots of soldiers, guns at the ready, guarding buildings. But we never saw a shot fired or a hint of trouble. So the strategic communications company we were working with, CB3, and their client, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, made an excellent locational choice. In fact the city of Erbil - in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region - was remarkably calm, well-organised and growing in prosperity. You could wander streets in the early morning and watch immigrants waiting patiently in the hope of being hired for their labour.  Would-be workers in Iraq awaiting opportunity You could peer inside the shop windows of bakeries and watch feverishly toiling bread-makers oiling trays, massaging dough and pulling out endless supplies of pancake-like delicacies with long handled kitchen implements. And you could visit the glitziest of shopping malls just like the ones that Middle Eastern shoppers and tourists so love in places like Abu Dhabi. An Erbil Shopping Mall The bustling new malls contrast happily with the ancient Erbil citadel where the dramatic walls rise upwards of thirty metres in order to protect the courtyards, alleyways and mosques within, as they've done for millennia. It's claimed to be the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in history - stretching back seven-thousand years and beyond. In that time the citadel has survived numerous sieges and other assaults - not to mention various rebuilds and refurbishments. Who cares if the current almost-as-new walls are only a mere several hundred years old? Amidst the ancient and modern, we were constantly reminded that Erbil isn't like the rest of Iraq - and views itself as largely separate from it. Its emerging reputation as an oasis of calm was why our United Nations hosts felt it the ideal place to convene the conference to enhance Iraqi journalistic skills where our team was contributing. Having been granted semi-autonomous status after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds are keen to tell you that you're not really in Iraq - you're in Kurdistan. It's rather like when you're not in England, you're in Yorkshire; you're not in Germany, you're in Bavaria - and, of course, you're not in Australia, you're in Queensland. The spirit of Kurdish separatism is encapsulated on the wall surrounding this school in the Erbil suburbs. A totally separate Kurdistan - the writing's on the wall! Somehow if feels as though a completely independent Kurdistan in some form will one day exist. Here's hoping it won't take the violence of former Yugoslavia in order to bring it about.  INVEST IN NORTHERN IRAQ NOW (IT'S GUARANTEED!!!) Iraqi Kurdistan is enjoying an impressive economic boom - allowing it to surge ahead of other parts of the country. To the annoyance of Bagdad, the Kurdish authorities are selling their oil on the international market - to the Russians among others - and this is helping to fuel other sectors like construction and even tourism. Inside a shopping mall we were almost enticed to buy palatial new homes off the plan. "They're 100 per cent guaranteed to double their value in the next two years", we were told by an enthusiastic sales rep. (He could prove to be right - though I vaguely remember hearing something similar in Dubai before the last bubble burst.) The rep insisted on taking my details to email more information, even though I confessed to being a pretty unlikely buyer. His killer line is that his offerings are right next to the Kurdish mini-Disneyland. California look out! TRANSFORMING YOUR COMMUNICATION SKILLS While northern Iraq transforms itself, equally dramatic uplifts in the field of your communications skills are also possible. The next open sessions on boosting your ability to get your message across are about to take place at the Royal Institute for British Architects in Central London. "Giving Great Answers To Tough Questions" is 9.30am to 12.30pm on Friday 30 November. "Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch" runs later on the same day from 2pm to 5pm. "Presenting with Confidence, Impact and Pizzazz" is being held all day on Wednesday 5 December. There's a soon-to-expire early bird offer for each on the website. Places can be booked by emailing michael@michaeldoddcommunications.com or phoning UK 07944 952835. Or you can book through paypal at http://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/presentation_training.php All sessions are guaranteed to be fun... even better than living next door to the Iraqi Disneyland! FUN AT THE DEAD SEA But you don't know what real fun is until you've been on the Dead Sea. I say "on" it advisedly. The Dead Sea water is so salty that swimming there is an incredibly buoyant experience. Its salinity is 33.7 per cent - making it more than eight times saltier than the ocean. This means you tend to float atop it rather than sink deeply into it - as demonstrated by this randomly-selected rugged human specimen reading the Jordanian Times. Photo Credit: York Smith Productions ( www.yorksmith.co.uk )  The Dead Sea is the earth's lowest elevation on land. It's 423 metres below sea level - lying between Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. I've been fortunate to be working beside the Dead Sea and in the Jordanian capital, Amman, for Pulford Global - helping United Nations agencies work on their international communications challenges over the past week. With the missile fire going on across other side of the sea - mercifully out of site and the line of fire - it's a great place for a conference where participants need to get away from it all! But don't take my word for it. King Herod the Great and the Egpytian Queen, Cleopatra, have luxuriated in the Dead Sea waters. They thrived on the experience. But the extreme saltiness means no animals or fish can survive in the Dead Sea waters. There's not much in the way of waves. But if you have a fear sharks, it's even better than Bondi! Keep smiling, Michael