Reporters on the Job

• Chauffeured Interview: Reporter Fred Weir had tried to get an interview with Russian presidential candidate Sergei Glazyev (this page) for quite awhile. But Mr. Glazyev is a rising star with little time for the foreign media. Finally his press secretary, Nelli Orlova, told Fred to come to Moscow's House of Friendship, where Glazyev was scheduled to speak, and she'd find a way to get Fred 10 minutes with the candidate.

Fred arrived, but as Glazyev finished speaking, and was making for the door, he was surrounded by supporters all pressing forward to shake his hand and say a few words. "It became clear that it would be impossible to take him aside even for a second," says Fred. "So Nelli pulled me outside and thrust me into the back seat of Glazyev's chauffeur-driven limo. Moments later, the candidate got in, and looked a bit surprised to see me there, but was happy to chat. The car took off through Moscow traffic, and I interviewed him on the fly."

• United Nations Mess Tents: The reporting for today's story about the apparent link between US casualty rates and cash flow for Iraqi development (page 1) was sparked by conversations Dan Murphy had with US commanders in Mosul, Tikrit, Baghdad, and Tall Afar. In his travels, Dan noticed another quirk about a soldier's life in Iraq. "The food service contractors hired by the US military, all employ non-Iraqi foreigners to do the cooking and waiting. Maybe they don't hire Iraqis for security reasons," says Dan. "At the Tall Afar base in northern Iraq, I ate in the mess tent with a US soldier who was practicing his Hindi with an Indian waiter. In Mosul, I felt quite at home with the Filipino cooks and servers, having recently covered the Philippines. And in Tikrit I was served by a young man from Bangladesh."

David Clark Scott
World editor