Word: desertions
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...testimony to China's long struggle to protect the Middle Kingdom from the nomadic barbarians. But the wall was no obstacle to the heirs of Genghis Khan and their marauding Mongolian warriors, who finally conquered Beijing in 1267. Still, in the khans' time it was an arduous trek over desert and mountain to journey between the Mongolian heartland and Beijing. These days the trip is considerably easier; China United Airlines flies into a number of small commercial and military airports in Inner Mongolia. Or if time isn't an issue, you can take an 11-hour train ride from Beijing...
...Shan Plain, some 700 km from Hohhot, the Helan Shan range rises to 3,600 m, and the landscape suddenly blooms with a stunning array of alpine trees, grasses and flowers?an almost overwhelming riot of color for eyes accustomed to the dun of the desert. A new Buddhist temple nestles just below the summit. The Tibetan-style structure, painted in dazzling primary colors, was built to replace the previous temple, which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution...
While the food and drink are generous, good shopping in Inner Mongolia is scarce. Aside from dealers offering polished desert stones and ridiculously cheap rice whiskey, there is little more to bring home than memories of the wide open grasslands and the charm of Mongolian nomads and herders. And soon even those delights may be hard to find. Despite the grandeur of the desert landscape, it is impossible not to notice the growing environmental catastrophe. Countless hills and rangelands are giving way to erosion, as millions of sheep and goats eat the sparse vegetation and lay the ground bare...
...work last Thursday in the office of his headquarters, a huddle of mud huts in the southern Afghan desert, in Shahwalikot, Hamid Karzai had no reason to be concerned by the rumble of a B-52 bomber overhead. The Americans were his strong supporters. Just outside his window there were U.S. commandos working with anti-Taliban Pashtun fighters. Besides, he had plenty of other things on his mind. The night before, the soft-spoken Pashtun tribal leader had received word that he had been chosen as Afghanistan's interim Prime Minister by the U.N.-sponsored gathering of Afghan factions...
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke from his Negev desert ranch by phone Friday with TIME's Jerusalem bureau chief Matt Rees. Excerpts...