Word: locusts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...saying a high unemployment rate is the fault of lazy welfare cheats. The forces putting farmers under have virtually nothing to do with their own efficiency, and everything to do with barriers to competition that would make Adam Smith very unhappy. Not only do farmers have to overcome drought, locust plagues, hail storms, and an uncontrollable international food market, but the numerous, relatively unorganized and competitive farmers also have to buy from and sell to aggregations of vast economic power in the shape of oligopilistic farm machinery companies, food processors, packagers, distributors and retailers. Worse still, all these steps...
...Their tragedy is that they blame themselves, rather than their false ideals, for the misery of their lives. Though none of the characters can find either happiness or justice, God ultimately passes his own judgment on their plight. Days of Heaven climaxes with a cleansing, Old Testament plague of locusts-a nighttime Apocalypse so damning that it makes the similar finale of Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust seem tame by comparison...
Along with other problems, the desert locust is back again
Those same locusts that plagued ancient Egypt and the Israelites -known to science as Schistocerca gregaria forsk-were back again. This time, the country under attack was Ethiopia. Last week agriculture experts reported that sections of the country's northern provinces were being devastated by 33 separate locust swarms, ranging in size from 5 to 40 sq. mi. Neighboring Somalia, meanwhile, reported 17 giant swarms of the buzzing, shell-covered creatures, which can sweep 100 sq. mi. of farm land clean overnight. Jean Roy, an expert in locust control operations for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization...
...proposed that Ethiopia and Somalia each declare states of emergency to combat the locusts. Cooperation in the battle against the insects seemed unlikely, since the two nations were still at odds because of an abortive Somali attempt to seize the Ogaden region; Ethiopia had repulsed that invasion with Russian and Cuban help. Meanwhile, the migrating locusts were slowly eating their way toward mountainous country in northern Ethiopia, where it would be much harder to locate and attack them with insecticides. The desert locust breeds every six weeks. If the swarms were not soon brought under control, Roy warned, their offspring...