Word: desert
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...another entry to the list of potential trouble spots around the world: the barren but mineral-rich Atacama Desert at the narrow border between Chile and Peru...
...side of the frontier (see map), the Peruvians have been moving troops, Soviet-built T-55 tanks and American-made armored personnel carriers into burgeoning military bases in the southern border provinces. On the other side, the Chileans, bracing for a possible invasion, are mining the desert, implanting tank traps and building fortifications. While tensions across this sere, sparsely populated frontier have smoldering for nearly a century, the situation lately has become especially volatile as Peru and Chile frantically...
Rich Deposits. The issue inflaming the Chilean and Peruvian nationalism, which is pulling the two countries to the brink of war, is possession of the Atacama Desert's rich deposits of copper, silver and nitrates. Peru lost the land to Chile during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). Since then, Peruvian leaders occasionally have talked about regaining the lost territory, hinting that this would be accomplished by the war's centenary-now only two years away...
Native ingenuity extends on an even larger scale. Agricultural feats, particularly in the southern Negev desert, have made Israel nearly self-sufficient in food and a leading exporter of fruits and vegetables to Western Europe. A global demand is growing for space-age military and communications hardware made in Israel. Helped by its continuing policy of "creeping devaluation"-just last month the pound inched down 2% to 8.9 to the dollar-Israel increased its exports $800 million last year, helping cut the trade deficit to $3.5 billion...
Well, at least Esther and John Norman get to put up an adobe house in the Arizona desert together before the sad end. They do it with the aid of a tractor and a cement mixer, in about half the screen time it takes Streisand to get through her everlasting final song. It must be said that, for all concerned, the song is harder work...