Word: civilizations
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Surrounded by a ring of mountains like a concert bandshell, Beirut has great acoustics. So yesterday's roiling street battles in the Lebanese capitol echoed through the city with a drumbeat of rocket explosions and a chorus of machine gun fire that sounded like the symphonic overture to civil war. When an early summer thunderstorm began overnight, it seemed as if the heavens themselves were taking up the ominous theme...
...place the cyclone spared was Burma's new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, carved out of the jungle in 2005. No official reason was given for shifting the capital from Rangoon, but locals have speculated that the military had been swayed by soothsayers who predicted that civil unrest and a natural disaster would soon strike the city. Within eight months of each other, both prophecies had come true. "People in Burma are angry about two things," says Aung Zaw, a Burmese in exile who edits a Thailand-based magazine called the Irrawaddy. "They're angry at the military for reacting so slowly...
After more than five years of sporadic terrorism and civil strife, few Ulstermen, regardless of their faith, had much hope that the slogan would ever reflect reality. This Christmas, however, promises to be a bit more tranquil than some that Northern Ireland has suffered in the past. Last week the leaders of the Irish Republican Army agreed to an eleven-day cease-fire starting Dec. 22. Terrorist operations were suspended, the I.R.A. announced, to let the British government consider the I.R.A.'s conditions for a permanent ceasefire...
...most of the struggle, the churches have seemed to be impotent bystanders, occasionally deploring the violence but grudgingly supporting the troops. The troubles began with a struggle by Ulster's 500,000 Catholics to gain equality with the 1 million Protestants, and the issues involve such conventional reasons for civil war as tribalism, economic injustice and political quarrels about who is to rule Ulster...
...Indonesian officials had been expected to issue an official ban this week, but delayed the announcement pending further study. Civil liberties groups argue that the Ahmadiyah are protected under Indonesia's Constitution, which guarantees the right to religious freedom. "The case should be taken to the Constitutional Court because any ban would violate their right to practice their religious beliefs," proposed Hendardi, a lawyer and head of the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace. "It also reflects decreasing religious tolerance in society worsened by the government's interference in people's private lives...