May 5, 2003	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 2, 1424

KUWAIT CITY, May 4: Kuwaiti opposition MPs on Sunday angrily protested against a scheduled visit here by Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, describing it as an “insult” to the Kuwaiti people and equating him with a “rotten egg.”

Lawmakers Musallem al-Barrak and Waleed al-Jari were firing the slurs as part of a broader, protracted condemnation of the Lebanese government for taking what they perceived as a pro-Iraq stance in the build up to the US-led war on Iraq.

“When Hariri comes, the government will hold lavish banquets ... We tell him that, to the Kuwaitis, you are worth no more than this rotten egg,” Barrak told a press conference, holding up an egg.

“This is what you are worth Hariri, a rotten egg, presented to you from the Kuwaiti people,” he shouted.—AFP