Word: burma
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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GESTURES: Your mother was right. Don't point. But if in Singapore you must, use your thumb, not your forefinger, lest it be taken as an insult or obscenity. In Russia, don't shake hands across a threshold; it might invite bad luck. In Buddhist lands like Burma, don't pat a child on the head; it's the spiritually highest part of the body...
...into making the finished product and better tracking of money-laundering operations. He wants to offer farmers a viable substitute for the lucrative poppies and coca that produce heroin and cocaine. Close to 90% of the opium used to make heroin comes from tightly confined areas in Afghanistan and Burma. "Not only can we spot all the growing areas by satellite," says Arlacchi, "we can also see the alternative areas growers could move...
Similar substitutions have been tried in the past, but Arlacchi insists they were never systematically carried out. In Burma, Wa tribesmen stopped growing opium poppies altogether, but when an alternative-development program that had been promised was delayed two years, the tribesmen went back to poppies. Laos, which used to produce 3.5 tons of opium annually, recently switched to coffee, rice and chili farming under a U.N. pilot project. So far this year the Lao have cut opium production to a few hundred pounds. In Peru crop substitution has cut coca production 40%. "A million dollars," says Arlacchi, "can have...
...activists, joining the strong opposition to the Chinese president's visit around the country, presented a united front of rebellion to the Asian president's visit. Representatives from 11 Boston and Harvard organizations--including Harvard Students for a Free Tibet, the Harvard branch of Amnesty International and the Free Burma Group--met to draw out plans in late October...
...Burma achieves independence from Great Britain...