Word: ironed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Narinder Kumar wants to buy an electric steam iron. The 24-year-old dhobi, or washerman, earns his living ironing clothes with a coal-fired iron as his ancestors did, in the same shack in south Delhi's Lajpat Nagar district as his father and grandfather before him. It's hard to imagine a workplace with a smaller carbon footprint than Kumar's: At 6 by 4 ft., it consists of only four iron poles holding up a roof made of plywood and corrugated iron. There's one electric fan for the summer days when the heat from the bulky...
...Kumar has heard of global warming, but to him it's incomprehensible that the live coals in his iron are partly to blame for it by producing black carbon, or soot, a greenhouse gas considered more destructive than carbon dioxide. Though he would like to stop using coal - "an electric iron would be so much more convenient," he says - the upgrade is too expensive. But he is saving up for one, and once he does, he will move from using coal to using electricity produced with coal, the source of more than 60% of India's electricity. (See pictures...
...violent assaults and robberies on Indian students over the past 18 months that have strained relations between Australia and India, triggered riots and mass protests in Sydney and Melbourne, and threatened Australia's $15 billion international education sector - the country's third biggest export income earner after coal and iron...
...situation appeared to be calming on Friday, after unrest had erupted in Gabon's cities the previous afternoon with the announcement that Ali Ben Bongo had won the election to succeed his father Omar Bongo, who died in June after having ruled the nation with an iron fist for 41 years. On Thursday, opposition supporters clashed with security forces in the capital, Libreville, while others in the main economic city of Port-Gentil ransacked shops, set fire to the French consulate and attacked the compound of French oil giant Total. Their grievances were clear: after having helped Omar Bongo squash...
...contrast to Thaksin's iron-fisted approach, the current government led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has adopted a far more conciliatory attitude toward Thai Muslims. He has unveiled a $1 billion-plus economic stimulus plan for Thailand's deep south in an effort to counter deep-seated Muslim antipathy toward the central government. But despite the rubber-plantation and road projects, these three southernmost provinces have also turned into a giant militarized zone over the past couple years. Some 60,000 Thai military and police forces patrol the region, a troop surge that has frightened many locals who complain...