Word: riche
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Deeper divisions exist between the developed and developing world. Under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - the highly acronymized organization that oversees climate diplomacy - rich and poor nations have what is called "common but differentiated responsibilities" on cutting carbon. Decoded, that means rich nations have to take the lead on reducing emissions - as seems fair, since most of the carbon in the atmosphere has been put there over the past 200 years by the developed world - but poor nations need to take some action as well. Fine, but the emergence of China, already the world's biggest carbon...
...University of Washington's Bezruchka, a medical doctor and scholar in public health, says the link between economic contraction and mortality rates is part of "a wide range of research studies of rich countries that have revealed that greater national wealth, by nearly any measure, does not lead to better human welfare." He believes that governments in wealthy countries should take steps to rein in excessive wealth among individuals and redistribute resources through social spending. While he acknowledges the political difficulties of wealth redistribution, he says, "As a doctor, I recognize that an unequal society is the biggest contributor...
...india is a place where humanity's worst is on display. In her new book of essays, Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy (which for some reason has its title and subtitle reversed in the U.S.), the country isn't merely sundered into the worlds of the rich and the poor. It is a lawless dystopia, plagued by rapacity and violence: "In eastern India, bauxite and iron-ore mining is destroying whole ecosystems, turning fertile land into desert," she writes in the introduction. And in an essay, about the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat: "Women were stripped, gang...
...Listening to Grasshoppers is powered by a thorough critique of Indian democracy. Free elections, she writes, have failed to challenge the rich and powerful. "The hoary institutions of Indian democracy - the judiciary, the police, the 'free' press and, of course, elections - far from working as a system of checks and balances, quite often do the opposite." But there is more passion than reasoned argument here. Urbanization, for example, may be destroying rural communities, but it also liberates people from the appalling restrictions of village life. Roy couldn't care a whit for such subtleties - yet to fault her for that...
...first Ramadan is thought to have occurred during the middle of summer, explaining why the root of its name translates into Arabic as "the scorcher." A typical day starts as early as 3 a.m. with the predawn meal called the sahur, usually rich in protein and carbohydrates to get the faster through the long, foodless day. The rest of the day is spent reciting prayers, abstaining from bad deeds and reading the Koran. Fasters are expected to read the entire holy book within the month, and many mosques have taken to splitting it into 30 even portions recited in daily...