Word: regions
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...most cosmopolitan outposts of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 4th centuries A.D. was Egypt's Faiyum region, about 60 miles south of Cairo on the Nile. A fertile farming and business community, it was settled by many retired Roman legionnaires, along with emigrant Greeks, Jews and native Egyptians. It became, according to Egyptologist William Peck, 34, a "prosperous, highly civilized region with a well-developed bureaucratic system of local government, and an elaborate social structure, fairly comparable to Detroit." By a fluke of custom and climate, the residents of Faiyum are today among the best known...
...most official documents are written in Serbian, 90% of the Yugoslav diplomatic corps is Serbian and the army is dominated by Serbian officers who give orders in their mother tongue. The Croats, on the other hand, have lately become more powerful because of rapid economic development in their northern region, part of a broad industrial step-up in Yugoslavia (see WORLD BUSINESS). Deciding that Croatian deserved more recognition, 17 Croatian organizations, led by the Croatian Writers Union, recently demanded a constitutional amendment making their tongue an official language separate from Serbian...
...usually lead straight to trouble, and that is just what was brewing last week in Africa's most populous nation. For months Nigeria has teetered on the edge of civil war, its fate hinging on relations between two young, untested leaders. Colonel Ojukwu, 33, governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria, afraid of a repeat of recent massacres of his fellow Ibo tribesmen, is demanding more legal autonomy from the central military government headed by Colonel Gowon, 32. Ojukwu vows to seize more autonomy whether Gowon approves or not-and last week he took a step in that direction...
Economically, Nigeria needs the East far more than the East needs it. Ojukwu complains that his region contributes 35% of the nation's tax revenues and gets back only 14% in federal outlays. With coal reserves, a palm-oil industry and abundant oil along the coast near Port Harcourt, the East has the potential to go it alone as a viable state. Its population of 12 million (including 9,000,000 Ibos) is larger than that of either Kenya or Ghana...
...least of the region's assets are the Ibos themselves. Early contact with Christian missionaries gave them more savvy in Western techniques than other tribes. Forced by a land shortage in the East to seek a livelihood in other regions, they usually settled in tribal enclaves, invested their earnings and established powerful tribal associations. When Nigeria became independent in 1960, the Ibos controlled most of the black-owned businesses. When the British left, they stepped into top posts in universities, business houses and the civil service. But the Ibos have usually been resented, especially by the Hausa Moslems...