Word: la
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Similar despair is felt by Angelo de la Cruz, the 46-year-old truck driver and father of eight who became famous last month for being kidnapped in Iraq. De la Cruz, who was released after Arroyo agreed to pull the country's 51 troops out of Iraq, risked his neck driving oil tankers in battle-scarred cities like Fallujah for $8 a day because he could find no equally lucrative work in the Philippines. "I knew Iraq was dangerous," he says, "but I had no choice." Back home in his ramshackle village of Buena Vista, his high profile hasn...
...country's 86 million people are compelled to seek work overseas, often in miserable or dangerous circumstances. Jobs are in such short supply that street demonstrators in Manila last week protested a government ban on sending workers to Iraq?a ban Arroyo enacted after Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was taken hostage by Iraqi insurgents on July 8 and threatened with beheading unless the Philippines withdrew its soldiers. The protesters were undeterred by the bloodshed and kidnappings?they said they were willing to risk their lives for relatively high-paying jobs abroad...
...Just an hour's drive from Phuket airport lies Khao Lak on the mainland and better known among divers as the jumping-off point to the Similan Islands. It's now also home to La Flora, Sanctuary's sleek, 68-room resort. Staff members are clad in black, and so is much of the property. The style: contemporary Thai. Room rates start around $85 a night. Meanwhile, a 30-minute speedboat ride away from Phuket's main town, on Racha Island, lies the Racha. Fronting one of Thailand's most pristine beaches, this Sanctuary resort boasts 70 villas. Some...
...That mix is best encountered at La Refuge, tel: (223) 223 3799. It has no street address, so taxi drivers might have trouble finding it. So listen out for the chocolate-smooth, Cuban rumba drifting out from the rutted lanes, a stone's throw from the Rue N'Tomicorobougou. At La Refuge, in a courtyard lit by a lone fluorescent strip, middle-aged couples dance beneath a huge Sahelian moon. Neighborhood goats wander past. And a Malian band, replete with tom-tom, lilting flute and wheelchair-bound keyboardist, will likely be crooning in Portuguese about "Comandante Che Guevara...
...Music is important," says local veteran musician Amadou Bagayoko. "Every celebration is an opportunity to party." And what opportunities. La Refuge is just one gem in Bamako's brilliant music scene, which easily rivals that of Dakar, its more famous neighbor. If you're Bamako-bound, you'll find the beat here...