Word: aridities
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...Viet Luong, the commander of U.S. forces in the Samarra area, says insurgent violence has increased dramatically in Samarra and the arid plains surrounding the city. In the last two weeks, attacks have risen threefold in Samarra and the areas just outside the city, says Luong. There used to be roughly two attacks per day in Samarra and the farming towns around it. Now there are five to six attacks per day in the same radius, Luong says. Moreover, the insurgents on the scene around Samarra now are fighting with better tactics, a sign to Luong that experienced newcomers...
...hotelier's family is typical Rajasthani aristocracy, a fixture of the majestically violent landscape that has drawn tourists to this arid northwestern state of India for decades. But there is a difference, at least in this remote Shekhawati region of Rajasthan where Mandawa sits, a scorching five-and-half-hour drive through the desert from New Delhi. But rather than reminisce about the martial adventures of his forefathers, Kesri Singh is preoccupied these days with his former subjects, the "Marwari" merchants who were once moneylenders and traders in the dusty camel-filled town that sprawls around the ramparts...
...Instead, the great hulk of Chittorgarh offers less tangible pleasures. Stoically enduring above arid plains, it embodies Rajasthan's tragic mystique better than any other monument. Facing certain defeat on three separate occasions, Chittorgarh's fierce Rajput occupants donned saffron robes and rode out from its iron-spiked gates to their deaths. Not to be outdone by the sacrificial heroics of their menfolk, the women chose jauhar, or self-immolation in a fiery pit, over captivity. Such tales have cloaked Chittorgarh in an aura that it retains to this day. My guide waxes romantic over the spot where the beautiful...
...Indeed, Ethiopia's much-touted tourism campaign hasn't borne much fruit over the past few years. That's too bad: The country, like Kenya to the south, boasts remarkable wildlife and photo-friendly tribes. Ethiopian Orthodox Churches in the arid north - some of the oldest Christian churches in the world - are hewn straight out of rock, with wild Biblical murals that make a Pink Floyd album cover look staid. Yet, for most people around the world, Ethiopia is still associated primarily with famine and despair. And who wants to holiday in other people's misery? My guide in Bahir...
...typically characterized as genocide, waged by the Arab Janjaweed and their backers in the Sudanese government, against Darfur's black Africans. But what is often overlooked is that the roots of the conflict may have more to do with ecology than ethnicity. To live on the poor and arid soil of the Sahel--just south of the Sahara--is to be mired in an eternal fight for water, food and shelter. The few pockets of good land have been the focus of intermittent conflict for decades between nomads (who tend to be Arabs) and settled farmers (who are both Arab...