Word: civilizations
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...nature of the state itself. Over the past couple of decades, the Burmese army has more than doubled in size, to over 400,000 men, and is today one of the largest armies anywhere. In many ways, the army is the state in Burma. Other institutions of government - the civil service, the health and education systems, local administration - are either extremely frail or virtually nonexistent. Insurgent armies still hold sway over parts of the borderlands. And in some other areas there simply isn't much government at all; perhaps an army battalion to keep down any potential dissent, but almost...
...First, there's the civil war. For nearly half a century, the Burmese army battled an array of communist and ethnic-minority rebellions, growing bigger and tougher in the process and seizing power along the way. About 15 years ago, the government and most of the rebel groups agreed to a historic set of cease-fires. But these are just cease-fires, and the international community has done little or nothing to encourage efforts toward a just and sustainable peace. The civil war is at the center of Burma's problems; it's what has brutalized and impoverished the country...
...January. A growing number of New Hampshire Republicans are fiscal conservatives who are leery of the social conservative arm of the party that they feel have steered the leadership away from the GOP's roots in recent years. New Hampshire recently voted - without too much drama - to allow gay civil unions. It's also one of the most liberal states on abortion issues, perhaps a reflection of its libertarian heritage, and has a growing high-tech economy that has brought in more moderate or liberal-leaning voters from neighboring states like Massachusetts. "One of the reasons that...
...many French voters this pay-off seems to be getting more remote. Last week news came down that a mere 3,700 jobs were created between April and June - the lowest number since 2005. That shortfall sounded even grimmer against the government's announcement in July that 22,700 civil service jobs will be eliminated next year. The French then learned that second quarter 2007 economic growth was half of what had been expected, causing many economists to openly doubt that official growth forecasts of 2.25% for the year could be met. Then, as panicked world financial markets reacting...
...grew up with state propaganda about what's called here the "American War." Still, most Vietnamese I've spoken with echo the sentiment of their neighbors in postwar Cambodia, where I lived in the late 1990s. Cambodians routinely told me their greatest fear was a renewed civil war, even more than political repression, which while wrong and reprehensible, can at least be avoided by keeping your head down...