Local teen listens to life in Afghanistan's war zone

sfgate: "On the first day of class this fall, Hyder Akbar's college literature teacher had an idea for an icebreaking exercise. Students would come up with two truths and one lie about themselves. Then the others would try to guess which was the lie.

This is what Akbar wrote: 1) 'Although I am 18, I am often mistaken for someone older; 2) I play guitar in a rock band; 3) Three weeks ago I got ambushed by al Qaeda in Afghanistan.''

Akbar says his friends would have spotted the fabrication immediately.

'Actually,'' he admits, 'I don't even play the guitar.''

But the ambush? Absolutely. He can not only tell you about it, but he also has an audiotape. And you can hear it at noon Saturday on KQED when the Concord teenager makes his second appearance on the award-winning national radio documentary show 'This American Life.'' Akbar won a documentary award for his first audio diary, called 'Come Back to Afghanistan,'' which was the story of his trip to Kabul in the summer of 2002."

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New York Post Online Edition

news : "December 29, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Startling new Army statistics show that strife-torn Baghdad - considered the most dangerous city in the world - now has a lower murder rate than New York. The newest numbers, released by the Army's 1st Infantry Division, reveal that over the past three months, murders and other crimes in Baghdad are decreasing dramatically and that in the month of October, there were fewer murders per capita there than the Big Apple, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The Bush administration and outside experts are touting these new figures as a sign that, eight months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, major progress is starting to be made in the oft-criticized effort by the United States and coalition partners to restore order and rebuild Iraq. 'If these numbers are accurate, they show that the systems we put in place four months ago to develop a police force based on the principles of a free and democratic society are starting to

Forum: The fish that threatened national security : "At La Guardia we proceeded to security and the X-ray inspection point run by the Transportation Security Administration. I have learned by now that, post-9/11, a traveler is better off safe than sorry when proceeding through security. I wasn't prepared, however, for the TSA to stop me right at the entrance, proclaiming that no small pets, including fish, were permitted through security. I had, however, just received the blessing of the ticket agents at US Airways and pre-assured MJ's travels with Pittsburgh International Airport security weeks before our travel date. I tried to explain this to the screener who stood between me and the gates, but she would have none of it. I was led back to the US Airways ticket counter, stocking-footed and alone, where the agents reasserted that they did not see a problem for me to have a fish on board, properly packaged in plastic fish bag and secured with a rubber band as MJ was.

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