WASHINGTON INSIGHT

PORK BY ANY NAME: The U.S. food giveaway to the Commonwealth of Independent States ran into a problem in the Muslim nations of what was formerly Soviet Central Asia. . . . Many meals contained pork, a forbidden food for Muslims. To avoid embarrassment, advance teams told the governments they had two options: to refuse the food shipments altogether or to allow distributors to sort out the pork and give it to the needy elsewhere. But the need for food is so great, several governments have opted to take whatever supplies the United States could offer. . . . Said one Central Asian leader: “We now call pork ‘white sheep’ here.”