Word: nationalism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...past, African nations have resisted an ivory ban, but increasingly they realize that the decimation of the elephant herds poses a serious threat to their tourist business. Last month Tanzania and seven other African countries called for an amendment to the 102-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that would make the ivory trade illegal worldwide. The amendment is expected to be approved at an October meeting in Geneva and to go into effect next January. But between now and then, conservationists contend, poachers may go on a rampage, killing elephants wholesale, so nations should unilaterally forbid imports...
...international laws govern the christening of countries: the label that sticks is determined by the tastes or even the sanity of its rulers. Anti- colonialism, however, is the most common rationale for national renaming. During the 1950s and '60s, anti-colonialism swept through the newly independent nations of Africa. The Gold Coast dubbed itself Ghana, in honor of an ancient African empire that was located hundreds of miles from the modern nation. When the Belgian Congo became independent in 1960, it renamed itself the Republic of the Congo. Eleven years later, President Joseph Mobutu rechristened it the Republic of Zaire...
...last week, "must stand wherever, in whatever country, universally for human rights." But it also has an interest in maintaining ties to regimes that occupy vital strategic positions. Never, though, has the U.S. faced that dilemma on the scale posed by today's China: the world's most populous nation, an important counterweight to the Soviet Union, until recently a force for stability in Asia and now a regime guilty of a massacre of its own people that has enraged Americans far more than anything ever done by Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines or Chun Doo Hwan in South Korea...
...decades of the nation's fuming debate over nuclear power, opponents had never spoken with such indubitable authority as Sacramento voters did last week. They became the first ever to vote, by a solid 53.4%, to shut down a functioning nuclear power plant. The decision, in a special referendum, put an end to the operations of the 15-year-old Rancho Seco facility owned by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Within twelve hours after the polls closed, SMUD directors, who had pledged in advance to abide by the decision, had started shutting down the plant 25 miles southeast of California...
...doubling of electricity rates. Said Bob Mulholland, who headed the campaign to close Rancho Seco: "It's the first time the debate over a nuclear plant has focused on economics rather than safety. It doesn't mean that others will vote to close plants, but it does mean the nation will take notice...