Word: localitis
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Even for a country long hardened to election violence, the massacre of at least 57 defenseless civilians on the main southern island of Mindanao, many of them relatives and supporters of a local politician and a large group of journalists, sets a new low. This troubled corner of the Philippines usually makes headlines for its long-running Muslim separatist rebellion. But the killings starkly exposed a nationwide malaise: the fierce competition for regional power among the country's small élite of a few hundred families and clans that control an inordinate amount of the national wealth - and the desperate...
Over time, we have become inventive foragers. Local wild mushrooms are a good substitute for porcinis in our cornbread stuffing. Market pumpkins roasted, peeled and pureed taste better than anything out of a can, and when mixed with maple syrup make an excellent pie. The syrup, in single serve packs, can be found at the "Bush Bazaar," named for the former President, an open-air market on the edge of town that specializes in goods pilfered from trucks heading to the U.S. military bases. It's a good place to pick up military ration packs as well - the vegetarian menus...
...were the occasional kidnappings or rocket attacks, but never did we feel antipathy from our Afghan hosts. The new expatriates moving in, usually as part of big contracting firms, are increasingly being funneled into isolated compounds surrounded by razor wire and concrete blast walls. They shop at PXs, not local markets. They go out in armored convoys that cause traffic jams. And the only Afghans they meet are hand selected. Of course there are security reasons for doing this. The Taliban insurgency has grown stronger. But this new isolationism will only make things worse. With limited interaction between expatriates...
...Local residents in Quince Mil have their own theories about the name. Some say a group of explorers passing through lost 15,000 pesos where the town now stands. The place was called 15,000 because that's what the explorers would ask for every time they came back to search for the cash. The town's name has become a synonym for bad luck. But malevolence may be at the origin as well. Fernando Farro, a local farmer, says Quince Mil takes its name from the amount of money the Peruvian government gave Russian fortune-seekers at the turn...
...Bonifaz, an economist at Peru's University of the Pacific, calculates in a new book that the road will generate close to $2 billion for local communities in the coming two decades. The government forecasts that the highway could add a full percentage point to GDP. Brazil will be the big beneficiary at the start, sending minerals, meat and soybeans through Peru for export to China, instead of using the Panama Canal. But local authorities expect the Peruvian entreprenerus to slowly catch up with exports headed across the Atlantic...