Word: interiorities
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...environmental movement has marked its advancement in a series of caps and cutoffs and deadlines. On Jan. 9, one of those targets came and went: The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the Interior Department agency that evaluates endangered species, was due that day to deliver its ruling on the polar bear. Though FWS had already taken over a year to investigate the polar bear's plight - green groups sued the federal government two years ago to declare the animal as threatened under the Endangered Species Act - the day before the deadline, the agency announced that it would need another month...
...bears face another threat. On Feb. 6 - three days before FWS's new deadline - the Minerals Management Service (MMS), also part of the Interior Department, plans to lease 30 million acres for oil and gas drilling in the Chukchi Sea bordering Alaska, where one-fifth of the world's remaining polar bears live. Drilling - with the risk of spills and seismic damage - could further jeopardize the polar bear, and environmentalists consider it suspicious that FWS decided to delay its decision until after the lease sale. "It seems that every time there is a choice between extraction and extinction in this...
Speaking at the hearing, MMS Director Randall Luthi defended the lease sale, arguing that developing fossil fuels in the Arctic needn't hurt the polar bear - although an Interior Department study indicates there's a 33% to 51% chance of an accidental oil spill in the area. At the conclusion of the hearing, Markey introduced legislation that would force the Bush Administration to protect the polar bear before it allows further oil drilling in Alaska, setting up a showdown later this month...
...went up and there has been a crackdown on corruption. Per capita income is up from $700 a year in 2003 to the current figure of $1,500. The most astonishing achievement was Saakashvili's reform of the traditionally corrupt police forces. He disbanded the entire Ministry of the Interior - with recruitment based on the western testing system. It may come as a joke to those who remember the old Georgia, but most police do not take bribes now - they're well paid and their jobs are too respected to be lost in ignominy...
...plotted the assassination, that too is clouded by what many see as either government incompetence or a knee-jerk choice of "usual suspects." On Friday, the Interior Ministery claimed that investigators had intercepted a telephone call that proved that Baitullah Mehsud, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban thought to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, had instigated the attack. Ministry spokesman Cheema released a transcript of a purported conversation between Mehsud and a follower, offering congratulations for a job well done...