Word: bhutan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Change is a word often used at election time, but in Bhutan you can sense it at every political meeting and on every door-knocking drive. In the run-up to the country's first-ever general election on March 24, voters and politicians had to figure out how democracy works and, more important, how to import the concept without hurting their traditions. A few weeks ago, in Khuruthang, a town in the verdant Punakha Valley, workers from the People's Democratic Party--the older (at just over a year) of Bhutan's two main parties--pitched a tent...
They have to. In 2005, Bhutan's fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, announced that he would abdicate in favor of his son and that the country, after nearly a century of mostly benign royal rule, would become a constitutional monarchy with a popularly elected parliament. Most Bhutanese were horrified, fearing that democracy could lead to instability, as it had in neighbors such as Nepal and Bangladesh. But the King insisted, explaining that no nation should be in the hands of one person and that change should happen while the country was still peaceful and prosperity was growing...
...course, as the author proceeds to interview the good people of Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India and the U.S., he begins to acknowledge what he and all of us were aware of from the start: there is no single road to happiness. Heavy drinking, for instance, seems a benign diversion in Iceland but has ground Moldova to a depressed halt. The Swiss consistently say they are happy, but Weiner finds the country well run and well behaved to the point that two dogs he observes in a park one afternoon are "not on leashes...
PASHAKHA, BHUTAN...
...most people with dengue, the striped Aedes aegypti, does better in warm, wet weather. Regions experiencing rising temperatures and longer rainy seasons are seeing large outbreaks year after year, and what has previously been thought of as a tropical disease is popping up in more temperate regions. Nepal and Bhutan saw their first cases in recent years, as did isolated spots such as Easter Island. Today, an estimated 2.5 billion people live in areas where dengue is endemic. The WHO expects millions more will be added in coming years. "Dengue is an evolving situation," says Dr. Jai Narain, director...