Word: ganges
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With his cap visor pulled low over his face, Jalson Espinoza watches a group of gang members from a rival neighborhood push through a massive throng of Sandinista supporters gathered to hear President Daniel Ortega speak. To the outside observer, many of the other young men in the crowd looked just as tough and menacing, dressed in bandanas and going shirtless to show off their tattoos. But very few of them are true gangbangers, Espinoza says. "You can tell who the real vagos are by the way they walk," he says in a raspy voice, using the Nicaraguan term...
...Espinoza should know. At 26, his street resume makes America's most notorious gangsta rappers look pampered by comparison. In a decade of gang life, Espinoza has been jailed 14 times, shot twice, had his jaw broken with a machete, and lost an eye to a rock fired from a slingshot...
...attracting tourism: they're an anticrime initiative. Philadelphia has grappled with a murder-a-day crime rate that is among the highest in America's big cities. For many years, the city's rampant graffiti problem was seen as closely linked to more violent crimes, whether explicitly as gang markings or simply as a sign of neighborhoods in disrepair. But in 1984 then mayor W. Wilson Goode made a fateful decision: instead of declaring war on the spray-painting vandals, he would offer them amnesty. Goode gave Jane Golden--a petite, white, high-energy, Stanford-educated muralist--a six-week...
...financial as much as political gain. "Rumors are going around that the Koreans are worth $1 million a head," says Parliamentarian Khalid Pashtun. "So of course this is going to encourage more kidnappings." At this point it's unclear if Meier's abductors are insurgents or simply a criminal gang going for a more lucrative target. But unlike cases of kidnapped locals, Afghan security forces have already launched a massive operation to retrieve the missing German. With 3,000 German troops in the country, Afghanistan can't afford to lose favor with one of its strongest supporters...
...Kabul-based businesswoman, are the very people who are essential to Afghanistan's success. "These are the people who are driving Afghanistan's economy: the entrepreneurs, the business owners. Once they are under attack, what hope does Afghanistan have?" Local entrepreneur Nasrullah Rahmati was assaulted by a kidnapping gang last year while driving with his brother in an affluent part of town. They both managed to escape but his brother was wounded, and the would-be kidnappers made off with $3,000 in cash. Rahmati reported the incident to the police, but nothing came of their investigation. "My every moment...