Word: burma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Burma may not be a charter member of the "axis of evil," but it surely deserves a dishonorable mention. Controlled by a clutch of generals since 1962, the country has devolved from Asia's breadbasket to an economic basket case, known for its brutal repression of ethnic minorities, imprisonment of human-rights activists and, most recently, rumored attempts to develop nuclear capabilities with the assistance of North Korea...
...head General Than Shwe, though not an official visit, may signal a shift in U.S. policy. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that U.S. sanctions have done nothing to moderate the junta's behavior, in part because nations like China and India have poured investment into Burma. After his mission, Webb told reporters, "Isolation is only preventing [Burma] from developing economically and politically...
Some exiled Burmese dissidents have criticized Webb for lending legitimacy to the generals. But Webb did, at least, extract one concession from the junta. When the Senator's plane left Burma on Aug. 16, it carried an extra occupant: John Yettaw, the American sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labor for his midnight swim to Suu Kyi's home. His saga--that of a middle-aged Mormon from Missouri who used homemade flippers to visit the world's most famous political prisoner--is stranger than any fiction, even that of Senator Jim Webb...
China's border with Burma is a porous demarcation, with everything from tropical timber and rubies to heroin slipping across with little oversight. But August brought a more unusual Burmese import: thousands of Kokang hill-tribe members fleeing violence in their small enclave in Burma's northeastern Shan state. By late August, the U.N. estimated that some 30,000 refugees had poured across the border into China's Yunnan province, as the Burmese military routed a small rebel force that had laid down its arms for two decades before a cease-fire crumbled in early August...
...Experts also have doubts that Chinese regulators can get enough control over the Puer market to build a premier brand. Beijing's standards only apply to domestic producers; competitors in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Burma can continue to grow and sell their own "Puer" tea. Hoffman, the collector, predicts that fakes will persist and urges caution. "This has always been a buyer-beware market, and it will always be thus," he says.(Read "Will China's New Food-Safety Laws Work...