Word: dam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...endless propaganda wars between North and South Korea, each side is constantly conjuring up new security threats, real and imagined. The South Koreans say the Communist North's latest weapon is water?tons and tons of it. The dispute involves the Kumgangsan Dam, now being built on the North Han River near the Demilitarized Zone. The facility will produce 800,000 kW of electricity and create a reservoir holding 20 billion gal. of water. South Korea charges that if the dam should ever collapse or be demolished by the North, the resulting flood would be a disaster. Thundering down...
After groundbreaking ceremonies for Kumgangsan Dam were held in late October, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Ki Baek ominously threatened "self-defensive measures." The actual South Korean response was less menacing: a "counterdam" that would be built 12.5 miles south of the North Korean one. Dubbed the Peace Dam, the $690 million wall of steel and cement would be the same size as its northern counterpart and thus would be able to stop any flood from across the DMZ. Its only purpose would be to sit, mutely vigilant, waiting for the Kumgangsan Dam to collapse...
...their faith directs. But after thousands of holy men threatened to boycott the six-week festival - one of the largest gatherings in the world - while others said they would commit the ritual suicide "jal samadhi" in protest, officials in India flushed the river with water from an upstream dam. Here's how other waterways have fared since their filthy conditions were plunged into the spotlight...
...After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the river, which flows near the reactor, became radioactive. With toxic silt still flowing downstream in the Pripyat, which is some 441 miles long, a dam on the left bank has been the only effective countermeasure, and dredging remains dangerous...
When the Massachusetts legislature passed an initiative to guarantee healthcare to almost all of the state’s uninsured, it knocked the first crack into the dam holding America back from universal healthcare. This week, California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, set the stage for the bulldozing of that dam by proposing to grant health coverage to all 6.5 million Californians who currently lack it. As with past Schwarzenegger acts, this venture has caught the public eye, and we hope it stimulates further national and state debate on how to fix the broken healthcare system...