Word: herdsmen
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...border between Kenya and the Sudan, soldiers with submachine guns halt all traffic, including nomadic herdsmen who usually cross at will with their goats and sheep. In neighboring Zaire, alarmed officials seal off part of their northern frontier. At airports in Africa and Europe, passengers suddenly find themselves subjected to unusual scrutiny and occasional detention. These grim security measures are aimed not at halting some new eruption of guerrilla terror but at containing a possibly greater menace: a killer fever that has been spreading ominously in equatorial Africa, causing as many as 300 fatalities, including the deaths of four Belgian...
...Masai herdsmen looked on in horror, the inevitable finally occurred last week: the first fatal crash of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Seconds after takeoff from Nairobi, Lufthansa Flight LH 540 en route to Johannesburg shuddered violently, then sank tail first from an altitude of less than 200 ft. Lufthansa reported that for reasons still not clear, the leading-edge wing flaps were not in the extended position after takeoff. Thus, the aircraft did not have enough wing lift to climb...
...sandy roads in neighboring Mauritania, the skeletons of hundreds of cattle bake in the sun, picked nearly clean by vultures. Hundreds of other cattle, sheep and goats lie on the parched sand, eyes glassy and ribs protruding, too weak to move. Soon they also will die. In Senegal, desert herdsmen, short of water and grazing land, are driving their scrawny herds to Dakar in a desperate effort to sell the animals before they die. The price for cows these days is as low as $3 a head...
...major reason for the drought is man's neglect of the land. Goats and camels have denuded millions of acres of savanna. In order to feed their animals, herdsmen cut off the tops of trees, halting their growth. Weather experts believe that this systematic stripping of land has altered the climate and brought about an unmistakable decline in the rainfall. As a result, the Sahara is spreading south at a rate of more than half a mile each year...
Stitch Job. The Scythians were not always preoccupied with war. Besides tippling, they apparently liked tripping. Ancient bronze vessels found in Scythian graves in the Altai mountains, near China and Mongolia, still contain remnants of the nomads' favorite hemp seeds. They were also highly successful herdsmen and farmers who traded their grain to indulge their taste for expensive jewelry, such as a magnificent gold pectoral ornament recovered from the new-found grave in the Ukraine. Crafted by Greek goldsmiths, who probably lived among the Scythians along the Black Sea, the chestpiece contains no fewer than 44 exquisitely carved animals...