The World is Talking About…

Basra is Talking About...Man-eating Badgers

British blamed for Basra badgers

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area," says UK military

From BBC News

Basra, Iraq - British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.

Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic.

But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers.

The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport.

UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area. We have been told these are indigenous nocturnal carnivores that don't attack humans unless cornered."

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The USMC is Talking About...Letter from Iraq

This item isn't from the media -- at least, not directly, though part of it was published in Time magazine. I learned of it courtesy of Kevin Drum's "Political Animal" blog, and think it's worth, part of fine tradition of U.S. military service personnel writing about the stresses, oddities, and absurdities of being on the front lines. Here, a Marine officer based in Iraq writes home about his day-to-day realities. He begins:

All: I haven't written very much from Iraq. There's really not much to write about. More exactly, there's not much I can write about because practically everything I do, read or hear is classified military information or is depressing to the point that I'd rather just forget about it, never mind write about it. The gaps in between all of that are filled with the pure tedium of daily life in an armed camp. So it's a bit of a struggle to think of anything to put into a letter that's worth reading. Worse, this place just consumes you. I work 18-20-hour days, every day. The quest to draw a clear picture of what the insurgents are up to never ends. Problems and frictions crop up faster than solutions. Every challenge demands a response. It's like this every day. Before I know it, I can't see straight, because it's 0400 [four o'clock in the morning] and I've been at work for twenty hours straight, somehow missing dinner again in the process. And once again I haven't written to anyone. It starts all over again four hours later. It's not really like Ground Hog Day, it's more like a level from Dante's Inferno.

Rather than attempting to sum up the last seven months, I figured I'd just hit the record setting highlights of 2006 in Iraq. These are among the events and experiences I'll remember best.

Some highlights:

Most Surreal Moment - Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. I had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels.

Most Profound Man in Iraq - an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines (searching for Syrians) if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you." [Can't argue with that.]

Best Piece of U.S. Gear - new, bullet-proof flak jackets. O.K., they weigh 40 lbs and aren't exactly comfortable in 120 degree heat, but they've saved countless lives out here.

Best Piece of Bad Guy Gear - Armor Piercing ammunition that goes right through the new flak jackets and the Marines inside them.

Favorite Iraqi TV Show - Oprah. I have no idea. They all have satellite TV.

Biggest Ass-Chewing - 10 July immediately following a visit by the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Zobai. The Deputy Prime Minister brought along an American security contractor (read mercenary), who told my Commanding General that he was there to act as a mediator between us and the Bad Guys. I immediately told him what I thought of him and his asinine ideas in terms that made clear my disgust and which, unfortunately, are unrepeatable here. I thought my boss was going to have a heart attack. Fortunately, the translator couldn't figure out the best Arabic words to convey my meaning for the Deputy Prime Minister. Later, the boss had no difficulty in convening his meaning to me in English regarding my Irish temper, even though he agreed with me. At least the guy from the State Department thought it was hilarious. We never saw the mercenary again.

Read the whole thing here. Trust me, it's worth it.

Kabul is Talking About...Muppets

Muppets Teach Children a Land Mine Lesson

A British charity helps avert tragedy with a children's video on how to spot mines buried throughout Afghanistan.

By Rachel Morarjee, Christian Science Monitor

Kabul, Afghanistan  - "Bang!" The little puppet boy steps on a mine, and now he only has one leg. The Afghan children watching the video at a school on a Kabul hillside gasp.

Puppets have long been used to entertain and to teach children basic lessons such as how to count and the letters of the alphabet.

Now in Afghanistan the creators of Muppet stars Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear have teamed up with two charities to teach children a lesson in survival: how not to get killed or maimed by the millions of land mines still buried in the Afghan soil.

"The Story of the Little Carpet Boy," loosely based on Pinocchio, is the brainchild of No Strings International, a British charity set up to reach children in war-torn areas and teach them vital life lessons through puppetry.

"It's hard to get a crowd of children to listen to an adult, but the minute you bring a puppet out, kids just light up," says Johnie McGlade, founder of No Strings.

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Baghdad is Talking About...Booksellers

Violence Changes Fortunes Of Storied Baghdad Street

Mutanabi Street is a link to Baghdad's past glory, less a place than an extension of Baghdadis' souls.

By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post Foreign Service

Baghdad , Iraq - A silence has fallen upon Mutanabi Street.

In the buttery sunlight, faded billboards hang from old buildings. Iron gates seal entrances to bookstores and stationery shops. On this Friday, like the past 13 Fridays, the violence has taken its toll. There is not a customer around, only ghosts.

Perched on a red chair outside a closet-sized bookshop, the only one open, Naim al-Shatri is nearly in tears. Short, with thin gray hair and dark, brooding eyes, his voice is grim. This is normally his busiest day, but he hasn't had a single sale. A curfew is approaching.

Soon, his sobs break the stillness. "Is this Iraq?" he asked no one in particular, pointing at the gritty, trash-covered street as the scent of rotting paper and sewage mingled in the air.

It is a question many of the booksellers on Mutanabi Street are asking. Here, in the intellectual ground zero of Baghdad, they are the guardians of a literary tradition that has survived empire and colonialism, monarchy and dictatorship. In the heady days after the U.S.-led invasion, Mutanabi Street pulsed with the promise of freedom.

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See also

• From December 2003, " The Booksellers of Mutanabi Street", by Jackie Lyden, National Public Radio

Paris is Talking About...A Holocaust Symbol

In a Holocaust Suitcase, a Question of Memories

Historical baggage, in more than one sense

By Alan Riding, International Herald Tribune

Paris - Old suitcases gathering dust in the homes of many second- or third-generation immigrants around the world are mementoes of journeys that changed the lives of parents or grandparents. No longer used or even usable, perhaps with yellowing stickers recalling the names of long-deceased forebears, they survive as family relics.

Yet still more powerful symbols, not least for European Jews, are suitcases separated from their owners.

Jews rounded up in France during World War II, for instance, were frequently encouraged to pack a suitcase, presumably to deceive them into believing they were heading for internment or labor camps, not death.

The French artist Christian Boltanski once evoked the one-way journeys of these deportees in a touching installation of battered and antiquated suitcases. With the suitcases displayed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, though, there is no ambiguity: All once belonged to Holocaust victims

This is the story of one such suitcase - and the memory it still carries...

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Beirut is Talking About...Environmental Damage

Beirut's Anger Over Lasting Damage

Major environmental damage caused by Israeli bombing

By Chris Morris, BBC World Service's From Our Own Correspondent

Beirut, Lebanon - The port of Beirut has welcomed its first big cargo ships since Israel lifted its eight-week blockade of Lebanese territorial waters and air space on Friday imposed after the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants.

While the lifting of the embargo is clearly a significant step for Lebanon, Chris Morris has been finding out that the repercussions of the conflict are still keenly felt, even outside those areas most badly damaged in Israel's military offensive.

Abu Ali is 49-years-old. In a small open boat, he has been fishing off the coast of Beirut for a quarter of a century. It is a familiar routine - make money in the summer when the fish are plentiful and the seas are calm. It helps tide you through the winter.

But there has been nothing familiar about the summer of 2006.

The small port of Dalieh is a tiny inlet, little more than a stone's throw from the posh sea-front apartment blocks of West Beirut. About 100 fishermen usually set out from here, Abu Ali among them, to ply their trade in the Mediterranean.

But Dalieh has died, it has been smothered.

Everything is covered in a thick slick of heavy fuel oil. The smell sticks in the throat, the oil sloshes against blackened boats and rocks, polluting everything it touches. It is filthy, it is toxic, and it is right in the heart of the city...

Read more..., or listen to the story at the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent.