Word: southeast
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...nearly a year after 9/11, in conversations throughout Southeast Asia, I encountered sympathy and admiration for the U.S. "Where are you from?" a diplomat or a street vendor would ask. "America," I'd reply, "New York City." This would elicit expressions of outrage at the terrorist attacks, generous inquiries into the well-being of my friends and family and then perhaps a mention of the war in Afghanistan. From the impoverished or oppressed, a request often followed: please tell your President to send help. A faint belief that he might was detectable. A sense that he could, through benign gestures...
...witnesses to the devastating effects of smoking opium, the resin of the same poppy plants from which heroin is derived. In the early 1950s, newly communist China took draconian steps to rid its population of addicts, but the vice lingered for another decade in the expatriate-Chinese communities of Southeast Asia. Thailand was the last place in the world with licensed opium dens. In 1959 those licenses were revoked; the Heng Lak Hung on Bangkok's Charoeng Krung Road?said to be the world's largest opium den, with more than 5,000 users in residence?shut its doors...
...eradication of opium smoking in the mid-20th century, antique opium pipes, lamps and the sundry trappings that surrounded the habit in China and Southeast Asia are now quite rare. Only since the early 1990s has more-lax enforcement of laws in China allowed these treasures to be traded as antiques...
Following 9/11, the U.S. wasted little time identifying and pursuing entities thought to be funding al-Qaeda. But half a year after the bombings in Bali alerted the world to a lethal terror threat in Southeast Asia, intelligence officials and regional diplomats say that a complex web of charities, front companies, Islamic organizations, and individuals suspected of financing Jemaah Islamiah (JI)?the al-Qaeda-linked network blamed for the Bali attack and numerous others?remains largely untouched. For months, say U.S. officials, Washington has wanted to issue a list naming terror backers in Southeast Asia, thus freezing their assets...
...with the process. Opposition to publishing the names came primarily from the State Department and the CIA, says a State Department official. The diplomats worried that they didn't have enough evidence, particularly when it came to influential businessmen and religious figures whose inclusion could sour relations with some Southeast Asian governments. The CIA contends that going public will push JI's funders underground. Better, they argue, to keep them where their dealings and associates can be monitored...