Word: juntas
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...tropical cyclone tore across the country May 2-3, killing more than 22,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands more homeless in the Irrawaddy Delta and the commercial capital of Rangoon, Burmese couldn't help but note the curious timing: On May 10, the country's 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...
...Ruled by a clique of reclusive generals since 1962, Burma, also known as Myanmar, has degenerated from a resource-rich country that upon independence from the British 60 years ago was hailed as a model for modern Asia into an economic disaster zone. So paranoid are members of the junta about any outside influence that in recent years they have severely curtailed movements by foreign aid groups, forcing several organizations, including the International Committee for the Red Cross and the French arm of Doctors Without Borders, to abandon their field offices. While some NGOs reported that their foreign workers were...
...waiting Tuesday for permission from the country's ruling junta to send in medical teams, but demolished infrastructure would likely hamper early efforts, said Vismita Gupta-Smith, spokeswoman for WHO's regional office in New Delhi...
...place that the cyclone spared was Burma's new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, which was carved out of the jungle by the ruling junta in 2005. Even Burmese civil servants who had to move north to the new capital were given no explanation for the shift. But some local journalists in Rangoon speculated that junta leader Than Shwe had been swayed by soothsayers who predicted that civil unrest and a natural disaster would soon strike the city of 5 million. In September, the monk-led protests made the first part of the prophecy come true; the cyclone fulfilled the second half...
...separated by a heavily guarded buffer zone manned by U.N. peacekeepers. The southern, primarily Greek part of the island joined the European Union in 2004; the northern, mainly Turkish part has been an international pariah since 1974, when Turkish forces invaded the country after Greece's then ruling military junta vowed to annex the island. Only Turkey recognizes the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; Greek Cypriots refer to it as "occupied territory." The North has just one extradition treaty (with Turkey), and scant police and prosecutorial cooperation with the outside world. "It's a legal black hole," says...