Word: ethiopia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Paleontologist Gen Suwa was walking across the pebble-covered desert of north- central Ethiopia under the searing midday sun, peering carefully around him for ancient bones. Then he saw it: the telltale gleam of a fossil tooth partially exposed on the rocky ground. "I knew immediately that it was a hominid tooth," says the University of Tokyo scientist, "and one of the oldest ever found...
...poet discovered his fountains both in the great, welling springs of north Florida (in his Travels, William Bartram wrote of them that "the ebullition is astonishing and continual") and in Abyssinia or Ethiopia. Alexander reports ruefully that the Ethiopian fountain, at a place called Gishe Abay, was thought to have magical properties, but may no longer; as a female, she unknowingly defiled the flow with her touch. Or so she was assured by locals...
Considering the "compassion fatigue" of the United States and other nations, armed intervention is unlikely and wisely unadvised. The failure of similar missions in Bosnia, Somalia, and Ethiopia have lead to and illustrate the limits of potency and the limites of US willpower. With luck and hard work, the conditions will improve and disaster will be averted, but the situation will not be resolved. Sadly the Rwandan situation will linger...
What gives his first book an added dimension, though, is that Verghese is an Indian Christian, born and raised in Ethiopia, and arrived in the U.S. at almost exactly the same time as the foreign disease. He brings to his new home all the attentive relish of an affectionate visitor, savoring the local talk of "horny pills" and "smiling mighty Jesus" and rolling on his tongue the names of the towns where he works: "Mountain City, Tazewell, Grundy, Norton, Pound...
...former colonial powers that used to intervene regularly have devolved responsibility to the U.N. European leaders agree with the U.S. that African nations should take the lead in policing Rwanda, even though they lack the money and equipment to carry out such a perilous mission successfully. Ghana, Ethiopia, Senegal and Zimbabwe have promised troops, and the U.N. hopes Egypt and Nigeria will also contribute. That only intensifies suspicion that the white West's refusal to come to the aid of black Africa is racist. Wrote columnist Simon Hoggart in the British daily Guardian: "Nobody you know has ever been...