Word: life
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...island of Borneo, are a people under siege. They have watched in horror as logging companies inexorably cut down the forests that supply the tribe with food, medicines and even the poison for blowgun darts used to kill monkeys and hornbill. Outraged at seeing their way of life destroyed, the Penan have periodically blockaded roads leading into the forest in a losing effort to keep the loggers out. Says Penan headman Asik Nyelit, who has twice been arrested by Malaysian authorities for his role in the blockades: "If we just sit, we are going...
...interfering with domestic industries is perhaps most pronounced when it comes to fishing, which provides a staple of the country's diet. Japan is currently embroiled in a dispute with the U.S. and several Pacific nations about the charge that the Japanese squid fishermen inflict untold damage on marine life with their drift nets. Taiwan and South Korea also have extensive drift-net operations, but Japan's are the largest. And though U.S. fishermen, as the Japanese are quick to point out, use drift nets, they tend to be much smaller than the Asian variety...
...LaBudde, a biologist with Earthtrust, a Honolulu-based wildlife protection group, describes drift nets as "the single most destructive fishing technology ever devised by man." Drift nets work by entangling sea life in their nylon mesh. Ships later reel in the nets, taking out the squid or fish and discarding unlucky marine bystanders. It is like hunting for deer by poisoning every animal in the forest...
What sounds like a fictional thriller about a globe-trotting takeover artist is the real-life adventure of T. Boone Pickens, the Amarillo oilman and corporate raider. Pickens was in prime form last week as he challenged corporate officers at the annual meeting of Koito Manufacturing, a Tokyo-based automotive-lighting maker in which he controls a 20% share. "Do you treat all owners this way? Or is it just American shareholders?" Pickens asked, grilling the nervous Japanese board members...
Evelyn Waugh said that punctuality is the virtue of the bored. In Naipaul's case, arrivals and departures constitute the story of his life, and tardiness disrupts the narrative. "If one is not on time, things won't go right," he warns, though one learns quickly not to take the author's fretful comments personally...