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CNN Live Event/Special

Showdown Iraq: View Online

Aired October 02, 2002 - 12:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: There has been a great deal of attention on the military and the political situation in Iraq. Now we turn to the culture and the people of Iraq, with the help of the World Wide Web.
Joining us now, once again, CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg.

Daniel, give us some information on this.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Wolf.

In our continuing search to find interesting Web sites related to Iraq, its people and its culture, we've come across one that really seems to cover all of the bases.

It's actually based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and it's called iraq4u.com. In the tradition of Internet abbreviations, it's actually Iraq, the No. 4, and the letter u.com.

Let's check it out. This is the main site here. We can see where there are all sorts of different links, categories and different sites that you can choose from: a news section that's actually updated quite regularly, music, videos, poetry and chats.

We're going to start off in the music section. And here, you can actually stream different Iraqi music onto your computer and listen to it. We streamed a track from Ali al-Asawi (ph). It was actually the No. 1 downloaded track when we listened to it. There are a total of about 151 different clips that you can get just from the music section on iraq4u.

Now we're going to move over to another site on the actual -- on iraq4u. This is where you can actually get some poetry readings from famous Iraq poets -- Iraqi poets. The one that we got is from Mohammed al-Jawahiri. He is considered one of the Arab community's finest poets. He died in 1997. The poem that he's reading was dedicated to the late King Hussein of Jordan. It's about ten minutes in length, and you can listen to it all online on the Web site.

And lastly, we're going to go to another page here, where you can listen to, and watch actually, some video from different TV shows that were based in Iraq and were popular at the time. There are a number of different ones here. The one that we looked at was a popular TV show, a comedy show, from the 1980s, and we got a few clips of it. There are quite a number of different ones here and all different links where you can go and watch these ones on your computer. Lastly, as an interesting side bar, there is a site here where singles, who are curious or looking for perhaps love online, can go and type in their preferences and search for a match, whether it's in Iraq or other parts of the world. And of course, with the depth and the breadth of the Internet, Wolf, you never know what you're going to find.

That's our "Wired Iraq" segment for today.

Wolf -- back to you.

BLITZER: All right, Daniel Sieberg, we'll have you back. Thanks for always -- thanks always for that informative information.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired October 2, 2002 - 12:49   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: There has been a great deal of attention on the military and the political situation in Iraq. Now we turn to the culture and the people of Iraq, with the help of the World Wide Web.
Joining us now, once again, CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg.

Daniel, give us some information on this.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Wolf.

In our continuing search to find interesting Web sites related to Iraq, its people and its culture, we've come across one that really seems to cover all of the bases.

It's actually based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and it's called iraq4u.com. In the tradition of Internet abbreviations, it's actually Iraq, the No. 4, and the letter u.com.

Let's check it out. This is the main site here. We can see where there are all sorts of different links, categories and different sites that you can choose from: a news section that's actually updated quite regularly, music, videos, poetry and chats.

We're going to start off in the music section. And here, you can actually stream different Iraqi music onto your computer and listen to it. We streamed a track from Ali al-Asawi (ph). It was actually the No. 1 downloaded track when we listened to it. There are a total of about 151 different clips that you can get just from the music section on iraq4u.

Now we're going to move over to another site on the actual -- on iraq4u. This is where you can actually get some poetry readings from famous Iraq poets -- Iraqi poets. The one that we got is from Mohammed al-Jawahiri. He is considered one of the Arab community's finest poets. He died in 1997. The poem that he's reading was dedicated to the late King Hussein of Jordan. It's about ten minutes in length, and you can listen to it all online on the Web site.

And lastly, we're going to go to another page here, where you can listen to, and watch actually, some video from different TV shows that were based in Iraq and were popular at the time. There are a number of different ones here. The one that we looked at was a popular TV show, a comedy show, from the 1980s, and we got a few clips of it. There are quite a number of different ones here and all different links where you can go and watch these ones on your computer. Lastly, as an interesting side bar, there is a site here where singles, who are curious or looking for perhaps love online, can go and type in their preferences and search for a match, whether it's in Iraq or other parts of the world. And of course, with the depth and the breadth of the Internet, Wolf, you never know what you're going to find.

That's our "Wired Iraq" segment for today.

Wolf -- back to you.

BLITZER: All right, Daniel Sieberg, we'll have you back. Thanks for always -- thanks always for that informative information.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.