Iraqis protest over oil jobs for Asians

Around 500 Iraqis demonstrated Monday in the southern capital of Basra against the employment of Asian oil workers by the US company Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), an AFP correspondent reported.

"No to foreign workers at the expense of our workers," read one banner outside the headquarters of British coalition forces in the city.

"It's our country and it's up to us to rebuild it," chanted the protestors in a demonstration organised by a "democratic workers' union".

The first Asian workers, particularly Indian, have been spotted here, employed by Kuwait's Al-Khorafi company which has been sub-contracted by KBR to renovate a pipeline.

They'll grow accustomed to being lied to. If they emulate the citizenry of their American occupiers they'll even defend them.

Welcome to the world turned inside out where everything you once recognised becomes unfamiliar as it's diffused in the prism of Bush spin.