Stories from 2003-06-08

"For nearly three weeks, hundreds of villagers who live in the shadow of the high earthen berm and barbed wire fences that surrounded the labyrinth of the Iraqi nuclear program here bathed in and ingested water laced with radioactive contaminants from the barrels." [more]

"The prevailing military regime with a civilian facade is the optimal combination for us to strike a deal with. The Indian illusion needs to be buried once for all: that a democratic government, as we understand it, can ever be conjured into existence in Pakistan. The army is the largest political party by far and it has conquered the only country it is capable of conquering — its own." [more]

"In the small town of Hit, soldiers responded to a rocket-propelled grenade attack two weeks ago by staging a house-to-house search for weapons. The raids unleashed a furor in the religiously conservative area, as men expressed outrage over soldiers' barging into homes where the women were, in the Iraqis' view, immodestly dressed. That was all it took to spark a furious attack on the local police station, where Army officials were meeting. Before it was over, two soldiers were wounded by a grenade tossed into the compound and Army reinforcements fought their way in to rescue the injured; after they left, demonstrators ravaged the abandoned compound." [more]