Word: borneo
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...bizarre case of ecological damage from DDT occurred in Borneo after the World Health Organization sprayed huge amounts of the pesticide. The area's geckos, or lizards, feasted on the houseflies that had been killed by DDT. The geckos, in turn, were devoured by local cats. Unhappily, the cats perished in such large numbers from DDT poisoning that the rats they once kept in check began overrunning whole villages. Alarmed by the threat of plague, WHO officials were forced to replenish Borneo's supply of cats by parachute...
...with family quarrels in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The group is a promising experiment in political and economic cooperation, but today four of its five members find themselves involved in bitter nationalistic disputes. Malaysia and the Philippines are squabbling over Sabah, a small state in Borneo that now belongs to Malaysia but is claimed by the Philippines. Indonesia and Singapore are at odds over the Singapore government's execution of two Indonesian saboteurs three weeks ago. Only Thailand is still friends with all its ASEAN partners...
...Philippines' claim to the Malaysian state of Sabah. The dispute is one of the more complicated quarrels on the international scene, but is not without a certain fascination of its own. The plot goes something like this; Sabah is a 29,000-sq.-mi. chunk of Borneo, rich in timber, rubber, tobacco and untapped mineral wealth. It is located in the Sulu Sea only 20 miles from the southernmost Philippine Islands. Once a haunt of Moro pirates, Sabah was signed over in perpetuity to the British in 1878 by its ruler, the Sultan of Sulu, in return...
...roll on the ground, tussling, teasing each other and gleefully aping their elders. They climb the tropical trees with abandon and plunge happily into cooling water-holding their noses when they dunk. Despite the similarities, the equatorial playground, at the edge of a 12,000-acre forest preserve on Borneo is no boys' camp. It is the Malaysian state of Sabah's experimental center for the rehabilitation of orangutans...
...orangutan-Malay for "man of the forest"-is badly in need of a helping hand. Once these big red-haired primates (an adult male stands about 5 ft. tall, weighs 150 lbs.) inhabited the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra by the tens of thousands. Today, only 6,000 or so are left. Spreading farms and logging operations have driven the survivors ever deeper into the rain forest; native hunters shoot the mothers and carry off the young orangutans for illegal sale to foreign zoos (price: as much as $4,000 apiece). To save this vanishing Asian cousin of Africa...