HOW TO AVOID THE TOURIST HORDES

The first tourist to set foot in Iraq since 2003 has been put on a plane and sent back home after a short tour of Baghdad and Falluja. Somehow the 33-year-old Italian man acquired a visa for Iraq in Turkey and managed to travel 200 miles overland to arrive at the Coral Palace hotel in Baghdad. The shocked hotel manager called the military police for advice on how to handle the western tourist, and after making sure that he wasn’t some crazy terrorist they allowed him to take a short sightseeing trip through the cities of Baghdad and Falluja before forcing him to take the first flight back to Italy. (Herald Tribune)