Afghan government corrals beggars

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/chitribts/20050613/ts_chicagotrib/afghangovernmentcorralsbeggars;_ylt=A86.I1EqI7FCRJ8AaAHpbr8F;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

The men grab the woman in the dirty blue burqa and pull her toward them, but she falls to the ground and starts to scream. "For God's sake, leave me alone," she says, sobbing.

But these men have no patience. They yank her toward a bus, ripping her burqa. She is dumped on a seat inside, and the bus starts moving again, stopping here for an old man, there for a blind man and his little sister. The bus picks up a woman in a wheelchair, a boy with a white bandage on his forehead.

Many passengers start to cry. Nobody wants to ride this bus. They might look like kidnap victims, but they are not. This is a bus filled with beggars, and the Afghan government wants them to stop.

"I'm sick," says Shazia, the woman in the dirty burqa, who has only one name as many Afghans do. "Yesterday I gave blood. My daughter is in the hospital. I will not beg again. I swear, I will not beg again. I have high cholesterol, I swear. If you catch me again, you can put me in prison. You can cut me into pieces. I have high cholesterol."

Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, begging has turned into a major problem in the capital...

[neweurope]

1. Ah yes, the country that the US brought freedomanddemocracy to.

Arresting the poorest of the poor; that's the way to go. Now they MUST be throwing flowers soon!

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[oscar111]

2. Gobble/starve is what bush is spreading

a design for society that is

gobble/starve.

Not freedom.. "the poor man is everyone's slave".