Word: islanded
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...Midway between Sicily and North Africa, the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa has long been a prime landing spot for illegal immigrants. Last month, protests erupted over plans to build a second detention center on the island, as locals fear that an already damaged beach tourism industry will be further hit. (Read a TIME story about Europe's immigration problem...
...Incredibly, India is putting up fencing on the islands, too. On Masalabari, the most stable of the char islands, huge concrete cylinders that will form the base of a 53/4-mile (9.3 km) length of fence are lined up on the sand. The Central Public Works Department carried them out by boat during the summer monsoon, when water levels were high enough to transport heavy equipment, and they will eventually support the fencing that will separate the Indian side of the island from Bangladesh...
...Scattered across the river like pebbles are tiny islands called chars - no more than the tops of sandbars churned up by the fierce currents. There are dozens of them, and with each monsoon season their boundaries change. Some disappear entirely. The people who live on them move from island to island, and the BSF officers make a point of knowing every person who lives in their territory. "We have to monitor the population," Hemram says. "If there are 10 houses on an island, and suddenly an 11th house appears, we have to find out, Whose is that 11th house? From...
There's nothing flashy about Lyudinovo (pop. 47,000), whose name translates roughly as People's Town. The central square is a traffic island with a Soviet T-34 tank on a pedestal, a World War II memorial. Next to it is a farmers' market, where local babushkas with woolly hats and dodgy teeth sell homegrown carrots and potatoes for 10¢ a kilo. But look closer and it's clear that even Lyudinovo isn't frozen in time. An emporium that opened a year ago sells South Korean refrigerators, French yogurt and fake Italian pumps. Several houses are being built...
...understand how far the LTTE has fallen, consider the situation just three years ago, when an internationally brokered ceasefire collapsed: At that point, the rebels controlled around 5,800 square miles (15,000 sq. km.) of territory in a mini-state in the island nation's north and east. They had a navy composed of a flotilla of gunboats and transports, and even launched daring strikes on Colombo with their own makeshift airforce. But a sustained government offensive has inflicted defeat after defeat, and that, in turn, has prompted widespread desertions. Today, just over 1,000 fighters, including the LTTE...