Word: rangoons
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Jeeps left over from the war, 1955 Chevrolets, 1953 Czech-made Skodas and armies of dilapidated jalopies jounce and judder through the broad avenues of Rangoon, Burma's capital. In the distance, red-brick Victorian steeples poke up among the golden domes of the pagodas, and along the road, great white-columned English mansions stand empty like haunted houses, their walls mildewed, their gardens overrun with weeds, moisture dripping from their eaves. In the Strand Hotel, a grand monument to colonial decay, ceiling fans turn lazily above a lost-and-found case still stuffed with pince-nez, ladies' compacts...
...booming Asian powers like Singapore and Japan have had to bear the costs of sudden prosperity, Burma has remained serenely on the geopolitical sidelines, at peace. Only once in recent years has it hit the head-lines: in October 1983, when North Korean terrorists planted a bomb in Rangoon that left four members of the visiting South Korean Cabinet dead. Of late, Burma has stepped up its dealings with China, just a shade, and edged away from the Soviet Union a little. Generally, however, it remains equally indifferent to both East and West: a founding member of the non-aligned...
...Rangoon street hopes, a little wistfully, that his government may in time choose to emulate China's new liberalism and throw open its doors to the West. But that, most foreign observers agree, represents the triumph of optimism over realism. For the moment, it seems, Burma will continue to remain a never-never land where history is held under house arrest, and all the clocks have stopped...
...Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who spent her birthday on Sunday under house arrest in Rangoon. Over the past 16 years she has been detained for a total of nine years and eight months 1,350 Number of political prisoners in Burma, according to Amnesty International...
...chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year, its neighbors are trying to persuade the country's military dictators to "voluntarily" give up their turn, so as to avoid the embarrassing prospect of the U.S. and E.U. boycotting the forum's meetings. On that, at least, Rangoon appears to be listening: Sihasak Phuangketkeow, Thailand's Foreign Ministry spokesman, told TIME the generals had agreed to "bear in mind the larger interests of ASEAN." But that's unlikely to include the interests of Burma's people...