Word: cementing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first civilizations. Ancient Mesopotamian kings lined their cities and citadels with friezes depicting glorious conquests - often using the common visual theme of a giant potentate in front of his army, literally stomping on the heads of his foes. The effect was to boost a monarch's prestige and cement his political authority. Through the sacred Gate of Ishtar in Babylon, returning warrior kings would march into the city down a passage flanked by 60 giant lion statues on either side, with murals of the gods smiling upon them...
...recent U.N. report estimates that 1,387 civilians lost their lives, and much of the Gaza Strip's infrastructure was destroyed, in Israel's January invasion. The government and aid groups have been unable to rebuild because of an Israeli blockade that bars the import of cement and other building materials. The U.N.'s Ging says it was local frustration with the blockade - now in place for more than two years - that led to the spike in Hamas rocket fire, which in turn sparked Israeli bombardment in late December 2008 and invading troops on Jan. 4. Now, he warns...
...increasing its energy efficiency, reducing the amount of energy required to produce a unit of GDP. Indeed, China's energy efficiency has improved in each of the past two years, a trend likely to continue, because a huge surge in investment in energy-intensive industries like steel and cement in the early part of this decade has run its course. New housing developments all over the country are also far more energy efficient. With that new energy efficiency, Hu said, will come a reduction in China's carbon intensity, the amount of CO2 it emits for every unit...
...least likely Senator to help Barack Obama win a major legislative victory, Alabama's Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, would be a fine choice. Once a "boll weevil" Democratic opponent of Bill Clinton, Shelby became a Republican in November 1994, helping the GOP cement its hold on the Senate at a crucial moment. He has had a near perfect record of conservatism on social and foreign-policy issues since then. The tall, drawling former prosecutor questioned Obama's citizenship this past February, and when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner first unveiled the Administration's sweeping plan...
...American coal-fired power plants produce 130 million tons of fly ash every year. Industry reuses some of it for asphalt, cement, and brick manufacture, but 57 percent of fly ash is disposed of in hundreds of landfills across the country. Astonishingly, the Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate fly ash, which contains arsenic, lead, mercury, and uranium, as a hazardous material. It recommends that coal plants store fly ash in insulation-lined landfills to prevent leakage but has no mandate to actually enforce this suggestion...