Word: landing
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Nearly 20 years on, the crisis is far from over. Eight hundred thousand acres (2 million hectares) of grassland continue to turn into desert every year, and climate change, bringing yet more drought to dry land, hasn't helped. Still, if there hasn't been sweeping progress, there has been -for better and for worse - a lot of action. Beijing has sunk millions of dollars into the effort to stop the advance of the desert and has set up a system of laws to manage the land from afar; herders are being relocated and it's now forbidden to graze...
...meantime, the scruffy acreage has given rise to a wave of environmental entrepreneurialism that has spun the badly hit steppes of Inner Mongolia into a hub of green research. Both Chinese and foreign scientists are stationed throughout the province, working to kick-start restoration through the right balance of land rehabilitation and social responsibility. "We're working with subsistence farmers," says Brant Kirychuk, a manager for the China-Canada Agriculture Development Program. "We can't just say, 'Man, there's too many livestock on the land. Cut them back...
...efforts have been executed with such sensitivity. As herders lose animals and income, some communities have been scheduled for "ecological emigration," moved by the government from their native areas to less distressed land and, in the bargain, put in training programs to learn new trades. In Xinjiang, another remote province due west of Inner Mongolia, some 600,000 of the region's one million herders are scheduled to be switched to farming or blue-collar jobs by 2010. In Inner Mongolia, human rights groups have criticized the relocations, saying that sticking herders into unfamiliar jobs only exacerbates the poverty everyone...
First, some history. Because Marines deploy aboard ships, the service's chiefs have always hungered for vertical lift - aircraft that could take off and land from small decks and fly far inland to drop off combat-ready troops. As the Marines' Vietnam-era CH-46 choppers became obsolete, commanders started to dream of an aircraft that would give them more options when considering an amphibious assault. The dreams intensified following the failed Desert One mission in 1980 to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. In the course of the operation, three helicopters broke down, leading to an order to abort...
...combat jets or helicopter gunships will shadow V-22s flying into dangerous areas. And backers say the V-22's speed will help it elude threats. It could, for example, zip into harm's way at more than 200 m.p.h. (320 km/h), convert to helicopter mode and then land within seconds. It could pause on the ground to deliver or pick up Marines and then hustle from the landing zone. Various missile-warning systems and fire-extinguishing gear bolster its survivability. If it is hit, redundant hydraulic and flight-control systems will help keep it airborne. Finally, Marines...