Word: opiumeators
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Beijing has declared war on Chen's world. Authorities kicked off a nationwide crackdown this month against China's estimated 150,000 unlicensed Internet cafes, comparing them to the opium dens where young men slowly destroyed themselves a century ago. In mid-June, 25 people were killed when a pair of teens torched a Beijing cybercafe that had refused them entry. It was the capital's deadliest fire in decades, and the central government used the blaze as an excuse to order the closure of thousands of illegal outlets...
...rights back. That kind of mass organization is just what frightens Beijing, which is leery of any gathering free of government supervision. Until then, Chen is happily playing computer games, interacting only with his avatar, a 19th century warlord. The name of Chen's online alter ego: the Opium Smoker...
...used as an ammunition dump: three buildings full of rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, tank shells and "enough AK-47 cartridges to last for 10 years," as one of his fighters told a TIME correspondent late last year. The ammo was enough to make Qadir, already rich from the opium trade, a power to be reckoned with not only in Jalalabad (where two other warlords laid claims to power in his absence) but in all of Afghanistan...
While it wasn't immediately clear who killed Abdul Qadir, he had lived a controversial life and left a long list of enemies. In 1996 he welcomed Osama bin Laden to the region and gave him refuge in the opium-rich area around Jalalabad. Some of Qadir's rivals say he took $10 million to give up Jalalabad to the Taliban. When the Taliban fell, he reclaimed the governorship and, as part of the "new" Afghanistan, helped lead a heavy-handed crackdown on narcotics...
...marked only by a parade of concrete pylons across the riverbed. Most importantly, says Noorzai, Uruzgan dam will reach its full capacity with additional U.S.-financed construction. Not only does he expect the dam to fill the irrigation channels of local farmers currently being encouraged to switch from opium to corn and wheat, but it will be capable of generating hydro-electric power, much like Kajaki dam in neighboring Helmand province. "By starting these projects," says Noorzai, "some of the people of this province who are jobless will find work which will obviously be good for the economy...