Word: gripped
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...military junta descended on the village. Were they coming to bring badly needed food, water and building materials to the people of Too Chaung? Hardly. Instead, the government men forced villagers to participate in a constitutional referendum that critics have labeled a sham dedicated to legitimizing the military's grip on power. Two days earlier, Min Soe shook his head when I asked whether the plebiscite, which Burma experts believe will be rigged if the results aren't to the ruling generals' liking, would go ahead in Too Chaung. "No, they cannot do so," he said, incredulous at my ridiculous...
...timing: exactly a week later, on May 10, the country's thuggish ruling junta was set to hold a constitutional referendum, a step toward what the military has called a "discipline-flourishing democracy." Critics dismissed the plebiscite as nothing more than a political ruse to legitimize the military's grip on power, noting that the proposed constitution reserves a hefty chunk of parliamentary seats for the army and bars top opposition leaders from holding office. Then the heavens opened and the winds lashed. The gods, it appeared, weren't happy either with where Burma's leaders were taking their country...
...global warming we need to fight, or global cooling? That's if we humans influence the climate at all, an open question. Recent years have seen global average temperatures leveling off or declining. For most of the past 2.5 million years, the Earth has been in the grip of ice ages, broken by relatively short warm periods lasting 10,000 to 15,000 years. We are lucky to live in such a period. Dietrich E.Koelle, Germany...
...situation in the country was "returning to normal." This as the death toll from last week's cyclone is estimated, by some, to be as high as 100,000, as bodies float in waterways, as shortages of water, rice, medicine and fuel, as well as fear of disease, grip the populace and people swarm shops and and dash toward any location where they think they can find supplies to help them make it through the crisis...
...thuggish ruling junta was set to hold a constitutional referendum, the first step toward what the military has called a "discipline-flourishing democracy." Critics dismissed the plebiscite - which has been postponed because of the natural disaster - as nothing more than a political ruse to legitimize the military's grip on power, noting that the proposed constitution reserves a hefty chunk of parliamentary seats for the army and bars top opposition leaders from holding office. Then the heavens opened and the winds lashed. The gods, it appeared, weren't happy with where Burma's leaders were taking their country...