Word: opium
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...maneuver in the north. Armed with assault rifles, grenades, recoilless rifles and rocket launchers, the men clambered aboard trucks and rode all night through the newly harvested rice fields of central Thailand. Finally the trucks began to growl up the narrow roads that climb to the Golden Triangle, the opium-rich territory where the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos converge...
...daybreak the convoy reached the border town of Ban Hin Taek, the fortified mountain stronghold of Khun Sa, the most powerful opium warlord in Asia. Their objective: capture the town and crush the 2,000 mercenaries of Khun Sa's Shan United Army, who ran the opium refineries and ruthlessly held sway over the entire region. The Thai soldiers promptly took up battle lines on one side of the town's main street. Ten yards away stood the surprised drug traffickers, many of them routed from bed and still in their underwear-but heavily armed with automatic weapons...
...house-to-house battle for the town late last month lasted three days. Only with the support of OV-10C aircraft, which strafed the dense surrounding jungle, were the government forces able to defeat the opium mercenaries, who fled across the border into Burma. At least 51 mercenaries and 16 Thais were killed in the fighting. When the Thai soldiers picked their way through the rubble afterward, they were amazed to find that Ban Hin Taek in no way resembled a jungle village. It was a modern town with tennis courts, a soccer field and shops stocked with electric guitars...
...proved as elusive as ever. Born in Burma to Chinese parents, he turned to soldiering at an early age and adroitly manipulated a princely marriage for his mother and connections with the Burmese government to set himself up in the drug trade. Since 1964, he has successfully challenged the opium operations of several now aging Nationalist Chinese generals, who with their armies sought sanctuary in the triangle in 1950 and developed the lucrative drug trade...
...link between ovulation and exercise may also involve a natural opium-like substance, beta-endorphin, that pours into the bloodstream during stressful workouts. Beta-endorphin has been shown to suppress female hormones regulating the menstrual cycle. In any case, for women runners being treated for infertility, good advice seems to be: stop running...