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Saddam
lived in squalor
Iraqi students protest against Saddam’s arrest
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Bali
bomber vows fresh attacks
Bangladesh
welcomes PM’s single currency proposal
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Ad Dawr, December 15 “God Bless our Home,” says in English sign hung in a tiny garden outside the corrugated-roofed dwelling, set in a orchard of rotting fruit. Garbage is strewn about mixed with a jumble of old clothes. A picture of the Last Supper and the Virgin Mary also adorn the yard. Inside, beyond the makeshift kitchen in a tiny bedroom, hangs a 2003 calendar showing pictures of the Noah’s Ark. In the fridge sat canned Bounty bars of chocolate and a can of Seven Up lemonade. Dried sausage hung just outside the door, along with cooking implements. The “rat-hole”, where US troops captured Saddam on Saturday night ending eight months on the run, is just outside, under a date-bearing palm tree. Held together by wooden beams and bricks, it is big enough for a man to lie in and boasts an electric strip light and a ventilator, while a styrofoam lid covers the entrance, like a trapdoor.
— AFP |
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He is not cooperating, says USA Washington, December 15 |
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Iraqi students
protest against Saddam’s arrest Tikrit (Iraq), December 15 Before being dispersed by the Iraqi police and US troops, who struck and arrested several people, they shouted the usual Iraqi slogans, “With our blood, with our soul we will defend you Saddam Hussein.” “All Iraq sings the glory of Saddam Hussein”, they chanted. Some demonstrators wept and many carried old dinar notes bearing Saddam’s face. Najla Hussein, 21, studying education, said she turned out “to condemn the arrest of our President Saddam Hussein.” “We demand his immediate release,” she added.
— AFP |
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Bali bomber vows
fresh attacks Bali, December 15 “Even if 1,001 Saddam Husseins were arrested it would not weaken our struggle,” Ali Ghufron shouted to reporters as he left a court on the resort island. “If God wills it, Muslim fighters will continue the fight against America.” He did not say whether he was referring to the insurgency in Iraq, or terrorist attacks elsewhere in the world. Ghufron had been summoned as a witness in the trial of a minor suspect in the October 12, 2002, bombings that killed 202 persons, mostly foreign tourists.
— AP |
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Indian students in the US miss
mom’s Beloit (Wisconsin), December 15 My favourite one is depressing, for the food is just that. Depressing. Forced to eat the same dry and insipid meals day after day can dampen the spirits of anyone. After a lifetime of good, home-cooked desi meals, the fare is not something one enjoys. Guys, you’ll never miss your mother more, I guarantee it. Food in cafeterias is generally cooked several days in advance, and is often recycled for a couple of days. This combination ensures that what little taste the fodder contained initially vanishes. Rice is often dry and undercooked. Spaghetti, lasagna or other Italian dishes are accompanied by cold congealed sauces. For those of us brought up on sambar, curry, or even a simple daal-saabzi, the memories of those dishes bring a tear to our eyes. Members of the international community generally try and find some means of securing home-cooked food, whether it be stalking international professors or donning a chef’s hat themselves. For those with eating restrictions, the task becomes much harder. Beef is present at every meal and pork at every other. Seventy-five per cent of the dishes contain one form of meat or another, so the reluctant vegetarian is forced to turn to the salad bar. However, there is little comfort to be found there. Lettuce is chopped into large unmanageable portions and left out to dry. Mushrooms, onions and beets, all ingredients of a decent salad, suffer from the same lack of taste that plagues other foods. Indeed, one is almost forced into using obscene quantities of salad dressing in order to gain some satisfaction from the meal. The days of mooli, kheera, gajar or pyaz salads with a little nimbo juice seem far away indeed. Some of my friends have bizarre coping strategies. One drinks four cups of milk with every meal, while another seems to survive on nothing but soup and crackers. While I don’t encourage parrot-like behaviour, some steps do need to be taken by the student. The easiest and best of these would definitely be learning how to cook before arriving on foreign shores. Ingredients are available and relatively cheap while cooking utensils can be borrowed or brought from home. Given the popularity of Indian food, one will never lack for friends, and indeed, the potential for making a tidy sum on the side always exists. If you choose not to, then tighten your belt and head into the bleak wasteland of American college cuisine.
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Bangladesh welcomes PM’s single currency proposal Dhaka, December 15 “It is a good proposal, we welcome it....both the proposal and the spirit in which Mr Vajpayee made them are welcome, “Foreign Minister Morshed Khan said adding, it has to be seen how this proposal would be implemented and how the countries would benefit. “We will be benefited (by the proposal), but the task of confidence building would have to be done by the big countries,” he was quoted as saying by the daily Janakantha. He said Mr Vajpayee made the proposal on the lines of the European Union. The big countries of the EU had to win the confidence of the smaller nations, he said, adding that similar moves had to be taken in South Asia by bigger countries like India in assuring that single currency and dismantling of borders would be beneficial to them, the report said.
— PTI |
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Beirut, December 15 |
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