Word: middings
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...calm of recent years may have been due to the dominance of one local overlord. Paramilitary leader Diego Fernando Murillo, a.k.a. Don Berna, had a monopoly over the drug trade, ruling his empire and followers even from prison. But when Don Berna was extradited to the U.S. in 2008, mid-level narco-traffickers started fighting to fill the power vacuum the capo had left. "Little cats became tigers," says a former drug trafficker. Many demobilized paramilitary fighters picked up arms again instead of pursuing the work training and education opportunities offered by the government...
Even if McChrystal's officials are a huge success, two other crucial planks in Obama's plan to start pulling U.S. forces from Afghanistan in mid-2011 already look worm-eaten. One is the creation of a legitimate, reliable government in Kabul: since Karzai's contentious election late last year, Afghanistan's President has shown little inclination to ditch his corrupt cronies. Nor is there yet an Afghan security force capable of taking over from the Americans. Although U.S. commanders carefully talk up the contributions of the 4,500 Afghan National Army soldiers (two had been killed) and police...
...opposition may want to test the government further, however. Talk on the street is that the next opportunity for protests may come with an ancient Zoroastrian fire festival that takes place in mid-March, just before the Persian New Year, around the start of spring. Meanwhile, opposition websites and social-media channels cited a meeting between Mousavi and Karroubi this week that had Karroubi calling for a referendum on the popularity of Ahmadinejad's government. But that muffled noise is all that can be mustered nowadays. Speaking via official media, Rafsanjani may be signaling, louder than he has since...
...Nordic combined, the sport with the terribly unsexy name, started in mid-19th century Norway. It is an anomaly in the Winter Olympics because it mixes two wildly different disciplines. Yes, both ski jumpers and cross-country racers wear skis. But other than that, you might as well mix ice dancing with speedskating and call it a day. Cross-country racing requires extreme endurance, while ski jumping requires insanity. "It is kind of stupid," says Finland's Janne Ryynaenen of the odd combination. Ryynaenen nailed the longest leap of the day, 138.5 m from the takeoff, during the ski-jumping...
...have been concentrating on the ice dancing in Vancouver. Or you're one of those people who can't tell a silly mid-off from a backward square-leg. So it's possible you missed the breaking of one of sport's long-standing barriers: India's Sachin Tendulkar scored a double-hundred against South Africa in a one-day match on Feb. 24, 2010. For the 1.5 billion people who follow cricket - making it, by some reckoning, the world's second most popular sport after soccer - it was a moment to match Roger Bannister's 4-min. mile...