Word: cambodia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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This year, the cows had no good news for Cambodia's farmers. Each year before the planting season commences, all eyes in the capital turn to a pair of hungry royal oxen for guidance. Placed before the sacred beasts are seven golden trays bearing, respectively, rice, maize, sesame, beans, rice wine, water and grass. What the cows eat - and don't eat - during the ancient Royal Plowing Ceremony predicts the upcoming year's harvest. Munching on rice is good, a signal of a bountiful crop to come. Forgoing water for rice wine could presage a drought, along with a possible...
...Cambodia's economy may have grown 10.4% last year, fueled by an influx of Chinese investment and strong clothing exports, but the country is still heavily dependent on agriculture - more than 80% of its 14 million citizens are farmers. Cambodia's population has doubled since 1975, and most of these extra mouths are in the countryside. In Phnom Penh, the tree-lined colonial avenues are being transformed by rapid construction that is uprooting fragrant frangipani trees in favor of glass-plated office buildings. The newfound wealth, though, hasn't extended much past city borders, and the disparity between rural residents...
...economic reality made the results of the Royal Plowing Ceremony even more bitter for Cambodia's deeply superstitious farmers. A member of parliament watching the recalcitrant cows said he thought it was the most pathetic display of bovine appetite in more than a decade. (Making the sting more painful: royal cows at a similar ceremony in neighboring Thailand a few days later ate grass, corn and rice with gusto...
...this one holding a pool of oil. By 2010, a cluster of offshore fields should begin pumping oil and natural gas, radically changing the Cambodian economy. Optimistic estimates suggest that future oil revenue could dwarf the country's current GDP. But will any of this money trickle down to Cambodia's poor? Economists aren't sure, warning of a Nigerian-style oil curse that could simply make a privileged few very rich and leave the vast majority of people penniless...
...tame. Starting in 1967, when she arrived in Saigon, the enterprising reporter earned acclaim for her coolheaded front-line chronicles of the carnage, plus her empathic portraits of innocent victims. In 1971 the raspy-voiced New Zealander was captured by the North Vietnamese while covering a battle in Cambodia. Before she and her five colleagues were released from their 23-day ordeal, a media report suggested that her body may have been found. The resulting attention --including a family memorial service and an obit in the New York Times--was awkward for the modest Webb, who recently referred...