my heartiest laugh of the day
this headline did it for me:
Karzai’s brother calls for U.S. to shore up Kabul Bank as withdrawals accelerate
By Andrew Higgins and Ernesto Londoño
Thursday, September 2, 2010; 10:57 AMDUBAI – As depositors thronged branches of Afghanistan’s biggest bank, Mahmoud Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a major shareholder in beleaguered Kabul Bank called on Thursday for intervention by the United States to head off a financial meltdown.
"America should do something," said Karzai in a telephone interview, suggesting that the U.S. Treasury Department guarantee the funds of Kabul Bank’s clients, who number about a million and have more than a billion dollars on deposits with the bank.
[…]
"If the Treasury Department will guarantee that everyone will get their money, maybe that will work," said Karzai, who holds 7 percent of the bank’s shares, making him the third-biggest shareholder. […]
as is the tradition, the article smuggles in some sense after the “objective” bit (i.e., framing state as problem solver):
[…] At a nearby branch where many government workers cash their paychecks, tellers were giving out no more than $1,000 to each customer. Zaburzay, 40, a surgeon who works at a government hospital, said he gave up on trying to withdraw his money because the branch was too crowded and tellers were only giving out $20 notes.
"All these people are thieves and we don’t trust them," he said. "Whether or not it collapses, I want to take my money out." […]