Word: localized
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...Given the risks of wild harvests, it's little wonder that the smart money has moved into the more genteel birdhouse business - although here, too, there are complications. Swiftlet condos have become local eyesores. Because nest theft is common, the untreated concrete structures often resemble secret weapons facilities, their roofs adorned with barbed wire and electric fences. Bird droppings are a potential health threat, too, while in some towns, the constant noise from Swiftlet Bazooka Tweeters and other callers has become "unbearable," admits...
...ignore, and there are signs that it might not stay lightly regulated for much longer. Last year Malaysian forestry officials and police raided more than a dozen illegal swiftlet farms across Sarawak, a state where only two of an estimated 1,500 birdhouses have licenses. The rest contravene local wildlife-protection laws that forbid swiftlet farms in urban areas. Sarawak's once profitable industry is grounded for now. But with unflagging demand from China, and increasing numbers of birdhouses popping up in Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, the regionwide trade in birds' nests is heading in only one direction: upward...
...Xinjiang is also China's most troubled region. The Uighurs, who are Muslim and of Turkic origin, are the single largest ethnic group. But over the years, their culture has undergone a whittling away, amid a steady influx of Han Chinese, who now dominate the local economy. Today, about 70% of Urumqi is Han. The result: resentment and unrest. The past decade has seen a string of bombings by suspected Uighur separatists - the U.S. has classified one organization, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, as a terrorist one - and stern crackdowns by the Chinese authorities. Around last year's Beijing Olympics...
Patricia Portela is one of those people who, not too long ago, might have splashed out on a discreet tattoo. On a warm March afternoon, the 20-year-old met some friends in Vigo's waterfront promenade. Portela works in a local clothing store and hopes to be a designer some day; her three friends are in college. Their shiny hair and fashionable clothes betray their prosperous, middle-class background, but even these women are feeling the pinch. Asked how the financial crisis is affecting them, they enumerate a long list: the clothing they can no longer buy, the vacations...
...Vigo, the local government has attempted to make it easier for young people to start lives of their own by building subsidized housing. Located at the side of the freeway, the Navía development consists of brightly colored high-rises, many of them still under construction. There are a few shops and cafés, and lots of families with young children to fill the new playground. One restaurant, sensitive to financial constrictions, offers meals - three courses, plus wine and coffee...