Word: recentered
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...explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines was the largest eruption in recent memory, and its effects on the atmosphere are still being measured. The 1883 eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa led to a global cooling and the deadly winter of 1886-87 that wiped out the short-lived open-range cattle bonanza of Montana Territory. In 2000, Ken Wohletz, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, postulated that an even bigger Krakatoa eruption in 6th century A.D. may have sent a tall plume of vaporized seawater into the atmosphere, causing the formation of stratospheric ice clouds with superfine hydrovolcanic...
...Even in India, the terror attacks in Mumbai uncovered a deep well of anger against the democratically elected government for its failure to carry out a fundamental function: protect citizens from harm. And Japan, the region's oldest democracy? In recent years the country has cycled through Prime Ministers nearly as quickly as fashion fads...
...allowed to metastasize, Asian nations could tire of the notion of democracy altogether because it's considered too messy, ineffectual or corrupt. In South Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines, a study by the governance-tracking Asian Barometer Project found that more citizens believed that the nations' recent democratic transitions had brought no improvement to their lives than those who saw positive changes. With time softening the memories of autocratic rule, nostalgia for overthrown dictators is spreading. Some are even calling for a resurgence of so-called "Asian values," a mix of paternalistic discipline and market economics that fell...
...Such sentiments weren't so controversial when regional growth rates marched upward with metronomic precision. But as Asia faces a global financial crisis, flexible and responsive leadership is all the more crucial. While the specter of economic mayhem catalyzed one of the most dynamic presidential campaigns in recent U.S. history, it has done little to spur Asia's democracies into action. Japan's parliament is unable to decide on an economic-reform package, while Malaysia and Thailand engage in partisan politics that has little to do with how to shield these export-led economies from a slowdown in the West...
...their former overlords' expectations. The target of Mill's doubt, India - with some 3,000 castes, 22 official languages and at least 10 distinct faiths - is the world's most populous democracy, despite the efforts of insurgents and religious extremists to derail it. Indeed, in the aftermath of the recent Mumbai terror attacks, the city did not erupt in sectarian riots as some had feared it would. Back in 1949, B.R. Ambedkar, the low-caste architect of India's constitution, called democracy "topdressing on Indian soil." Yet today, Mayawati Kumari, a member of a Dalit, or untouchable, caste...