Word: km
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...world might never understand the violence Prabhakaran stood for, but its imprint on Sri Lanka is wide and deep. At the height of his power, just before the 2002 cease-fire, Prabhakaran was the unquestioned leader of a de facto government that controlled more than 15,000 sq km of territory in the north and east of Sri Lanka and had its own system of taxes, roads and courts. By the final weeks of conflict, he was believed to be using thousands of Tamil civilians as human shields against the advance of the Sri Lankan military. At the time...
...sleepy fishing island with sand-packed streets and pens for livestock, only reachable after a perilous weeklong journey by ship from Colombo. Now, most people there sport flashy cell phones; at night, a few Porsches and Maseratis rev their engines impotently around the 500-acre (2 sq km) capital's congested roads...
...resorts and buildings," says Aishath Velezinee, a journalist and consultant for the U.N., "but he didn't develop people." After 30 years of Gayoom's rule, the Maldives still has no university. The absence of a public ferry system makes travel to India or Sri Lanka, 400 miles (640 km) northwest, more affordable for some Maldivians than going to other islands in their own country. Many of the outlying atolls lack basic sewage-treatment facilities, while in Malé, political power and privilege have until recently remained tightly clustered around a coterie of Gayoom's family and friends...
...European Space Agency's (ESA) twin telescopes, named Herschel and Planck, are being carried on an Ariane 5 launcher to take up a vantage point 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. From there, they will gaze across the farthest corners of the cosmos to try to learn about the physics and chemistry behind the Big Bang. (See pictures of the Hubble telescope's achievements...
...LTTE holds only this small strip of territory on Sri Lanka's northeastern coast within an area designated by the Army as a so-called safe zone. Over the weekend, the Army announced that it had re-demarcated the safe zone, chopping it down to just 2.5 km long. The Army did not specify how it informed civilians that their safe area had been shrunk; in the past, it would use loudspeakers positioned on the front line...