Word: civil
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...fend for themselves, residents of Rangoon rushed to the markets to stock up on plastic sheeting, food and water. In just two days, prices of some basic commodities had already quadrupled. Even before the cyclone hit, Rangoon was reeling from the price hikes that had sparked last year's civil protests; additional increases could push tens of thousands of shantytown dwellers from chronic malnutrition to starvation. Outside Rangoon, the fate of millions remains largely unknown, since roads are blocked and telephone lines are down. In a frightening glimpse of the storm's destructive power, the country's state media reported...
...place that the cyclone spared was Burma's new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, which was carved out of the jungle by the ruling junta in 2005. Burmese civil servants who had to move from Rangoon to the new capital were given no explanation for the shift. But some local journalists in Rangoon speculated that junta leader Than Shwe had been swayed by soothsayers who predicted that civil unrest and a natural disaster would soon strike the city of roughly 5 million. In September, the monk-led protests made the first part of the prophecy come true; the cyclone fulfilled the second...
...exception was Hyde Park, a small, integrated, partially gentrified neighborhood of professionals and University of Chicago professors, with a long tradition of independent politics. Obama moved there as a newly minted lawyer specializing in civil rights cases and lecturing at the university's law school. In 1996 he won his first political election to represent Hyde Park in the state senate, using legal challenges to keep rivals off the ballot. But after three years in the state capital of Springfield, he got restless and turned an eye to the seat for the First Congressional District of Illinois...
...Last summer, I had planned to work with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a non-ideological organization dedicated to the protection of human rights in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. This region is known for its large number of rural and forest-dwelling communities as well as for its rich mineral deposits. The day before arriving in Chhattisgarh, I learned that Dr. Binayak Sen, the human rights activist and doctor I had been planning to work with, had been arrested on counts of terrorism. He is still in jail today, nearly one year later...
...Chhattisgarh has imposed one of the most stringent anti-terrorism laws in India. Passed in 2005, this law defines terrorist activity to encompass even tendencies toward interference with public order or administration of law, though how this tendency is defined or proven is unclear. It also prohibits encouragement of civil disobedience, which makes free speech and political dissent tricky. In addition, national anti-terrorism legislation expands police powers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism and allows for extended preventative detention without charge...