Word: soils
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...evidence that an overseas group might have been funneling funds to militants in the U.S. prompted some experts to speculate that the bombing may represent the prototype for a new kind of terrorism, and not only because it was the first major attack on American soil. Before this incident, there was little evidence that terrorists had the infrastructure in the U.S. to organize and plan operations. "What the tower bombing suggests is that under our noses they've been building up," says Bruce Hoffman of the Rand Corp. "It may not be a typical Islamic terrorist organization that comes...
DUBBED A MERE "PLANNING CONFERENCE," THE gathering was in fact historic. When negotiations resumed near Johannesburg after a nine-month deadlock, the meeting included 26 delegates from the widest spectrum of antagonists ever put together on South African soil. Besides the African National Congress and the governing National Party, the talks included such ex-boycotters as the apartheid-forever Conservative Party and the black-power Pan Africanist Congress. The conferees reached agreement on the agenda's main item: a resumption by April 5 of formal talks on constitutional issues like power sharing. Said A.N.C. secretary-general Cyril Ramaphosa: "A torch...
AFTER THREE MONTHS ON SOMALI SOIL, THE U.S.-led forces are heading into the homestretch. U.S. special envoy Robert Oakley took his leave, pronouncing the success of Operation Restore Hope in saving thousands of Somali lives and in bringing an end to the clan warfare that has plagued the country for more than two years. He may have overstated the case. Though the famine has abated, peace remains elusive, and the new U.N. force in Somalia, UNOSOM II, will face continued trouble when it takes command...
WHEN SPANISH CONQUISTADORES ARRIVED IN MEXIco in the 16th century, they found a veritable Eden and quickly despoiled it. The Spaniards' introduction of the plow accelerated soil erosion; in contrast, indigenous farmers' low-tech methods kept the land in pristine shape. Or so environmentalists, who are urging a return to traditional farming techniques in many areas of the world, like to think...
...report in Nature suggests that such thinking is a myth. British scientists studied the pattern of soil erosion in the Patzcuaro basin, an area of southwestern Mexico that was a center of pre-Hispanic civilization. Sediment samples from the lake revealed that erosion rates were at least as high before as after the Spaniards' arrival. In fact, erosion appears to have fallen off after the conquest. The conclusion: a return to traditional farming methods is no guarantee of a return to Eden...