Word: old
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last September Obasanjo ended the nation's twelve-year-old ban on political activity, and more than 55 parties exploded into noisy life. But only five, among them Shagari's National Party of Nigeria (N.P.N.), could generate a following wide enough to qualify their presidential candidates. The freewheeling and occasionally violent campaign that followed persuaded some Nigerians that the experiment with democracy was premature. Said a professor: "There are two kinds of people here, the pessimist who says civilian rule will fall apart before it begins in October, and the optimist who says that it will fall apart...
...contrast with the old Saigon could not be more striking. Even toward the end of the war the southern capital exuded raffish energy from its thriving markets and lively night life. There are no cabarets in Hanoi, and since the departure of the city's Chinese, almost no restaurants. One can visit the Thuy Ta floating cafe at night to drink iced coffee and watch the moon glisten on the Lake of the Returned Sword, but many Hanoi residents consider that an extravagance. On humid summer evenings the largest crowds gather at the grassy esplanade in front...
Though it is swept clean several times each day, Hanoi appears dull and mummified. The once luxurious mansions along the graceful promenades and eucalyptus-shaded boulevards of the old colonial city look as though they have not been painted since the French defeat in 1954. Inside, families are packed two or three to a room: some even occupy old bathrooms from which the plumbing has been removed. With the exception of a Soviet-financed development called the Kim-Lien subdivision, little new housing has been constructed in 25 years...
...seven-year-old Machhu dam had been designed to cope with an average annual rainfall of 22 in. The storm that precipitated the collapse dumped 28 in. of rain on the region in less than 24 hours. Water was already lapping over the top of the dam when engineers rushed to try to open the sluice gates. But some of the gates stuck, for reasons still unexplained, and thus India's "Paris" was doomed...
...many Aussies, a Sydney Morning Herald columnist groaned that the "half-witted" promotion seemed "calculated to appeal to a backward rural electorate in India." Worse still, critics quickly noted that Project Australia, as it is called, has some imported features: the new pep song is borrowed from the old American folk favorite Big Rock Candy Mountain, and the promotional pens being handed out are stamped MADE IN U.S.A. So far the drive has succeeded mostly in inspiring derisive parodies, including one mock slogan that concludes: "Project Australia is a failia...