Word: eastern
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...International Rescue Committee estimated that 5.4 million people have died in the various wars - and their related effects - that have torn through Congo since 1998. The country's agonies are far from over - their latest twist is the epidemic use of rape as a weapon of war in eastern Congo - but, in Bryan Mealer's new book All Things Must Fight to Live, they now at least have their definitive account...
...young freelance reporter based in Nairobi when he was first sent to the D.R.C. by the AP in 2003. The job repeatedly put him on the front line - his book opens with a long description of a brutal gun battle between two tribal militia groups in the eastern town of Bunia. It then moves to the capital, Kinshasa, where Mealer was posted by the Associated Press wire agency in 2004, and covers the bumpy transition from war to peace. After that, it's back to more fighting in the east, before Mealer embarks on two long journeys across the country...
...claustrophobia and surrealism that permeates Congo's jungles builds in the tense run-up to the presidential elections of June 2006. Mealer finds himself in eastern Congo waiting for the possible emergence of Commander Cobra, a mysterious militia leader in charge of 2,000 soldiers, mostly children, who are ruled through fear and black magic. Fighting between the government and Cobra has displaced tens of thousands, and Mealer teams up with a pastor whose experience of war only makes his faith burn brighter. The pastor acts as Mealer's translator through the refugee camps where people are dying from disease...
...Cedar Rapids, some residents and business owners have reacted with anger and frustration when denied access to their flooded neighborhoods, which officials say remain unsafe. Flood waters that have already ravaged many cities are moving downriver toward the already swollen Mississippi, threatening still more communities. For eastern Iowans like Dave Metzler, who was evacuated late Thursday night from the bowling alley he owns and lives above in Coralville, near Iowa City, life is now an anxious waiting game to learn the full extent of the damage. "I not only lost my business, I lost my home - I got the double...
...Here in Des Moines, we've had flooding in pockets but have fared relatively well so far, compared to eastern Iowa (and to the 1993 flood). There's relief that the downtown area has largely been spared major damage, thanks to bolstered flood protection post-1993. But feverish attempts to bolster a levee near a neighborhood north of downtown ultimately failed. Watching televised scenes of water rushing over destroyed sandbags into streets where people live and work was not what my teenage son and I, among hundreds of volunteer sandbaggers in Des Moines, had hoped to see. But like many...