Amid all the gloom in Iraq, one thing is cheering everyone up. They've finally got Pop Idol - and don't even have to put up with Simon Cowell. Iraq Star started on satellite station al-Sumeria six weeks ago, attracting more than 2,000 contestants and almost 60% of the nation's viewers every night. Sadly only a handful of women have dared to brave the country's Islamist wingnuts 36 year old Nada had her Baghdad apartment trashed after her appearance, while her landlord cut off her electricity and water supply. The early favourites are a barber called Mohammed, who sang Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, dressed in fake leather jeans, platform shoes and a Star Trek t-shirt, and Bilal, a 12 year old boy from Mosul whose own composition about the war's destruction of Iraq had all the judges in tears. [Pop Bitch]