Word: stations
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...Biao stands in front of the Guangzhou train station with an umbrella in his hand, staring into the crush of people ahead of him. The 27-year-old has spent the past year hard at work in a cosmetics factory in this southern Chinese city, and now he's trying to get back home for the holidays. The trip to his hometown outside the central city of Suzhou takes more than 20 hours - if he can board. Around him, hundreds of people push towards an opening in the barrier surrounding the station. A police officer standing behind a fence shouts...
...While many have heeded the large red banners urging them to avoid traveling and instead cash in their tickets for refunds, several thousand remain around the station as their hopes diminish. They stand underneath umbrellas and in flimsy ponchos, seeking some shelter from the rain and temperatures in the mid-40s. Puddles grow to ankle depth, and staying dry is difficult. Thousands more gather beneath an elevated highway, some huddled under blankets, but most just mill aimlessly about and talk...
...fishing tackle factory sit at a high table and ponder their options. They had showed up early in the morning for a 6.30 p.m. train home to Chongqing, but despite a day of waiting on line, they still couldn't get through the throng into in the station in time. "We're wondering if we should stay or go," says Jiang Jinan, 30. "If we go home, it should be this week," says Liao Guoli, 33. "But if we can't go back we'll just celebrate here...
...Mohammad reserves his biggest criticisms for the National Police (not to be confused with Saha's own Iraqi police), with their paramilitary ethos and long history of pulling Sunni families from their cars or homes and shooting them execution style. On the day TIME stopped by Mohammad's station he had just returned from defusing a standoff between his Iraqi policemen and a few dozen National Police...
With luck, some of these groups may consolidate or disappear. One day, for example the Americans may go home. The National Police may draw down, the Iraqi police step up and shape up, the quick reaction force remain at the station unless otherwise needed, and the CLCs integrate into the Iraqi army and police. But for students of history and armchair generals, the parallels with Beirut, circa 1975, may be striking: More sectarian-aligned groups are organized and armed and funded now than at any point...