Word: asia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...someone who is expected to meet with Hillary Clinton during her first trip to Asia as U.S. Secretary of State, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso appears to be a host not yet ready for the party. Japan's economy continues to shrivel, the government remains gridlocked as elections loom, and public approval for Aso's administration is plunging. Even influential former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is criticizing Aso's performance, though both are members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party...
...Romans themselves had few qualms about incorporating chemical warfare into their tactics. Roman armies routinely poisoned the wells of cities they were besieging, particularly when campaigning in western Asia. According to the historian Plutarch, the Roman general Sertorius in 80 B.C. had his troops pile mounds of gypsum powder by the hillside hideaways of Spanish rebels. When kicked up by a strong northerly wind, the dust became a severe irritant, smoking the insurgents out of their caves. The use of such special agents "was very tempting," says Adrienne Mayor, a classical folklorist and author of Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion...
...first six weeks of 2009, eight people have come down with bird flu, and five have died. Another thing is that while the disease has yet to go pandemic, as many doctors fear it could, it remains worrisomely persistent. Every year since 2003, about 100 people in Asia, the Middle East and Africa contract the disease. Last year, in a rare exception, the number dropped below...
...Mainland controls may be lacking another layer of more basic prevention in the way that live-chicken markets, prevalent throughout Asia, are inspected. Some worry that Chinese monitors may be calling for culls only when a large number of poultry become sick, as in Hotan this week, when 519 birds died. In contrast, last year Hong Kong culled thousands of birds after a regular inspection found only infected chickens in a wet market. The infected birds, experts say, showed no external signs of disease and could have been missed if inspectors were screening only birds that were dead or visibly...
...point is, this virus has not disappeared at all," says Malik Peiris, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. "It kind of dropped off the radar screen of media attention, but the virus itself has increased its spread. It's not only entrenched in Asia, the Middle East, in Egypt, Africa, parts of India and Bangladesh. It's really a problem...