In lawless Baghdad, however, safety is now more prized than freedom.

"We have heard of many problems for the children -- and girls in particular -- of abductions, vendettas, children of former Baathists being targeted," UNICEF's Dhayi said.

The true extent of the danger remains unclear, but many parents aren't taking chances.

"Our girls are not safe, not here, not anywhere," said retired military officer Abdel Jaba, 53, as he waited with more than 20 mothers and fathers at the entrance to al-Makasib school for their daughters to finish classes.

Like many of the parents, Jaba escorts his 13-year-old daughter, Yasmin, to school every morning and remains there until she finishes at 12 p.m. He then takes her back to their house, where she stays until the next day.

media whores? here!

Fast food joints may soon get singled out by U.S. health czar Tommy Thompson if they don't shape up and stop feeding the country's obesity problem.

CHIMPS ARE FAMILY

A new study has kicked up a controversy by claiming that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than previously thought, that in fact they are homonids, a genus we used to believe we inhabited alone. "Historically, the philosophy behind how we group organisms was flawed," said Morris Goodman, one of the authors of the report. Our "anthropocentric" worldview led to "exaggeration of the differences between humans and their relatives," he said, acknowledging that the new classification would have "political implications, challenging our long-held view of the boundary between humans and other animals." Let's hope so, since that view is mercenary at best, and violently delusional at worst.

Is this a private fight,
or can anyone join in?"
-old Irish saying

The warning is intended to stop villagers turning mosquito nets into cheap bridal gowns in the on-going mass weddings ahead of Christmas.

The God-fearing but poverty-stricken villagers are being encouraged by their parish priests to graduate from their customary marriages to Christian weddings so that they spend the coming Christmas holidays as special people in the eyes of God.

While the bridegrooms are finding it easy to buy second-hand coats and neckties for the ceremony, the brides appear to have difficulty raising money to purchase sparkling-white wedding gowns.

They have therefore resorted to pulling down the spotless white mosquito nets in their bedrooms.

And the tailors in the villages have turned the mosquito nets into simple, but impressive bridal gowns.

The most impressive display of the gowns made from the mosquito nets was witnessed in the border town of Malaba last Sunday.

Nearly all 29 brides at the ceremony sported sparkling white gowns that were originally mosquito nets.

There was a similar display of the unique gowns in several churches in Tororo town.

Mass wedding

Now Tororo Director of Health Services Dr David Okumu has issued a warning to the village communities to stop turning the mosquito nets into cheap bridal gowns.

Preachers are urging people to have church weddings before Christmas
from the BBC

According to Dr Okumu, mosquito nets are the best weapon for fighting mosquitoes that transmit malaria, and should not leave the village bedrooms.

He told me that aid organisations like Plan International, who are giving the properly treated nets to impoverished families free of charge, are bound to get upset if the villagers continue misusing the nets.

The born-again pastors in Tororo are planning another mass wedding next Saturday.

Baboons "protesting" at the killing of one of their group have disrupted traffic on the busy Tororo-Jinja highway in eastern Uganda.

Baboons: Unimpressed by Ugandan drivers
This is the second time the animals have behaved in such a manner on the same road.

The trouble began after a speeding lorry ran over a huge female baboon, who died instantly in the Busitema Forest Reserve, 15 kilometres from the Uganda-Kenya border.

According to eyewitnesses, the driver deliberately swerved across the road to hit the female who was eating white ants.

Soon afterwards, an infuriated group of baboons converged at the scene of the killing and surrounded her body.

They sat in the middle on the road for about 30 minutes causing a temporary traffic jam.

'Hunger-strike'

A similar incident happened on this very stretch of the road late last year, when baboons hurled sticks and stones at motorists after a baby baboon was knocked over and killed by a vehicle.

When I arrived at the scene of the incident early on Wednesday afternoon, I met an evidently angry family of young and adult baboons sitting close to the body of the dead female.

Usually, the baboons in this forest area rush to pick up any edible items thrown to them by motorists and other road users.

But this time, the story was quite different.

I threw a piece of sugarcane to the bereaved baboons, but none of them rushed to pick it up.

Later in the afternoon, some unknown person managed to wrap the lower part of the baboon's body with a spotless white cloth of the type used for burying human beings in the region.

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

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