Word: kingpins
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...wish to try their luck abroad are encouraged by the snakeheads -- who then link them with underground networks. Most of the arrangements are done by international crime syndicates, which cut deals with desperate families, then draw up the escape plan, procure the forged documents and furnish the transportation. One kingpin of the racket is Big Boss Ma (not his real name), a Thai gangster of Chinese descent who funnels mainland Chinese through Bangkok. Seated in the lotus position on a teak sofa at home in Mae Sai, a northern Thai town, Big Boss exudes confidence and affluence. His gold front...
...suddenly, an enormous amount is riding on it. NBC, the onetime kingpin of prime time, has seen its fortunes turn sour almost overnight. Its biggest hit of the '80s, The Cosby Show, took early retirement last spring, while several other veterans -- The Golden Girls, Matlock and In the Heat of the Night -- were given their unconditional release. (All were later picked up by rivals.) The network's last remaining Top 10 hit, Cheers, will call it quits at the end of this season; highly regarded younger shows like Seinfeld have not lived up to ratings expectations; and with the loss...
...attempt to head off armed resistance, U.S. officials are meeting in Ethiopia with representatives of the major Somali factions. Some clan leaders, including the Mogadishu kingpin Mohammed Farrah Aidid, claim that they welcome U.S. intervention; Aidid even staged pro-American parades last week. But Western analysts suspect he simply hopes to improve his own position. If he and his rivals feel power slipping away, their attitude could quickly change. Clan chieftains do not, in any case, control all the thugs marauding through the country...
...mother of all blues jams. Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) and the Blues Brothers Band kick off the show, followed by delta blues musician Honeyboy Edwards and Robert Johnson's stepson, Robert Lockwood Jr., who learned guitar from the Great One himself. Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, a Chicago guitar kingpin who has shared the stage with the likes of Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, the Allan Brothers and the Rolling Stones, sweats out the loudest set of the evening. It's already steaming hot, but Luther's loud, raucous performance pushes the temperature even higher. Mercifully, someone opens a window...
THERE IS A LIMIT TO JUST HOW MUCH VIOLENCE even battle-hardened Colombians can take. Since drug kingpin Pablo Escobar escaped from his maximum-security prison in July, security forces have rounded up or killed dozens of his cronies and relatives; in retaliation, traffickers assassinated 29 police officers over the past two weeks alone. Quite apart from the drug wars, leftist rebels, who so far this year have killed more than 1,000 police, soldiers and civilians, set off a series of bomb explosions and terrorist attacks that left 30 dead, then murdered 26 police guards at a remote...