Word: droughts
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...Saharan Africa, at least -- has begun to look like an immense illustration of chaos theory, although some hope is forming on the margins. Much of the continent has turned into a battleground of contending dooms: AIDS and overpopulation, poverty, starvation, illiteracy, corruption, social breakdown, vanishing resources, overcrowded cities, drought, war and the homelessness of war's refugees. Africa has become the basket case of the planet, the "Third World of the Third World," a vast continent in free fall...
Calaveras County was once the heart of the Gold Rush. This August the rush has been for the exits. Stubborn forest fires swept through drought-stricken timber and brush, threatening a score of scenic small towns, once made famous by Mark Twain and Bret Harte, and forcing nearly 14,000 residents to flee. Nearly 4,000 fire fighters labored throughout the week, bringing the flames under control just as another wildfire broke out in Northern California's Shasta County...
...months, the mythical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- Conquest, Slaughter, Famine and Death -- have run wild in Somalia. After 19 months of war and a long drought, 1.5 million of the country's estimated 6 million people face imminent starvation. Only an urgent plea by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali prompted the U.N. Security Council to authorize a broad plan to break the stranglehold that armed factions have on the African nation. Under its terms, if the Somalis refuse to accept a U.N. force to protect supplies and relief workers, the U.N. "would not exclude other means" of carrying...
...weather is such an inescapable part of life in the Pacific Northwest that the Seattle tourism industry touts it as "liquid sunshine." This year, though, the slogan will have to be shelved in the face of the worst regionwide drought in decades. Along with other legendarily soaked cities like Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, B.C., Seattle has imposed water restrictions, urging citizens to take shorter showers and banning the use of lawn sprinklers. The lush, green vegetation has begun to turn brown. Mule deer does are having trouble finding enough food in the woods to produce milk for their fawns...
...drought, earthquakes, fire and floods weren't enough, there was the recession and the riots and, now, for the first time since the Great Depression, no more money. The beleaguered state of California has run out of cash and is paying its bills with IOUS...