Word: punjab
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...crisis stemmed from the March elections, in which Bhutto's ruling Pakistan People's Party yielded only 36 of the 200 National Assembly seats to the opposition. The P.P.P. polled an incredible 93% of the vote in Punjab, the country's most populous province and an opposition stronghold. It was a dazzling victory-except that practically everybody in Pakistan assumed that the elections had been massively rigged by Bhutto's zealous supporters. Accordingly, the opposition alliance immediately embarked on a campaign of rioting, looting and strikes, which carried with it a threat of civil war. Nearly...
Among other things, the opposition had demanded that the government act to reinforce Pakistan's character as an Islamic state. Last week Bhutto announced that he would introduce legislation to ban alcohol, gambling and nightclubs. He also offered to hold new elections for provincial assemblies in the Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier. If the National Alliance got a majority of votes in the polling, Bhutto promised, he would then dissolve the National Assembly and order a new general election...
...overwhelming victory-taking 155 parliamentary seats, v. 36 for the National Alliance-was outrage and disbelief. General strikes called by the opposition shut down the cities of Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi and the capital of Islamabad. National Alliance candidates boycotted the subsequent provincial elections in the Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier, even though they were favored to win majorities in the last two provinces. In addition, the opposition demanded 1) Bhutto's resignation, 2) the disbanding of the election commission for failing to conduct a fair election, and 3) dissolution of the National Assembly pending...
...most threatening effect of the power shortage is on agriculture. This year, the combination of drought and fertilizer shortages is likely to hold India's grain harvest low enough to cause near famine; the power scarcity worsens the situation by making electric irrigation pumps all but useless. In Punjab state, wealthy farmers had purchased diesel pumps to use when the electric pumps failed, but the oil troubles have made diesel fuel scarce too. Gas stations selling diesel fuel have to be protected by policemen from mobs of farmers who wait for days for tank trucks to arrive and then...
...Ward, a younger version of Hunt himself (they both went to Brown University), and a casual, thrill-hunting Washington C.P.A., Steve Bentley, who describes the nation's capital as "a great town if you've got the stamina of a Cape buffalo and the wealth of a Punjab prince." Most of the books are predictable concoctions of espionage and sex in exotic settings. Hunt is said to earn $20,000 a year from his writing...