Word: maras
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most famous exports of El Salvador are rivals. Unfortunately, they are also ferocious gangs: Mara 18 and the Mara Salvatrucha. They have exported their gang culture - learned by expatriates returned from undocumented existence in the big cities of the United States - to other countries in Central and South America, re-exporting their influence back to the U.S., moving beyond petty thievery, flashy tattoos and thuggish violence, to drug-trafficking and large-scale extortion...
...last three decades, successive Salvadoran governments have tried to curtail the two Maras. In the 1990s the Salvadoran government instituted a policy that became known as the Mano Duro (Strong Hand), that saw thousands of gang members jailed. But Mano Duro has not stopped the gangs. Corruption at the highest levels of government has allowed many leaders to go free or conduct business from behind bars. Saul Turcios Angel, also known as the "Pitbull," ran a kidnapping and extortion ring as part of Mara Salvatrucha. He escaped from a Salvadoran prison last year and was apprehended in Nicaragua earlier this...
...Liasson, Mara • absurd comparison by of the minimally glitch-ridden but definitely successful cash-for-clunkers program to the unprecedentedly disastrous government response to Hurricane Katrina...
...Observations from one "climate witness," a farmer in Kenya's Mara Basin: "When I was young, we used to have regular rains, but now it rains any time of the year. These changes started about 20 years ago. Food production in the area has gone down because people are not sure when to plant, and even when they plant, they may not get rains at the right time. Farming in our area is not only for our food, we depend on agriculture for income too. Some people have even had to resort to food donations from the government, something that...
...West. He uses international diplomacy to practice his best and worst one-liners; he flaunts his wealth and insults the many magistrates who persistently investigate his business dealings; and, as of late, he has boasted of his Casanova charms, publicly swooning over a former showgirl turned politician, Mara Carfagna, whom he appointed his Minister of Equal Opportunity last year. (His trusted ally Umberto Bossi referred this week to Berlusconi's reputed use of Viagra...