Word: swath
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...rainiest swath of the country is running dry, facing a specter of structural droughts. And the dike around Lake O. is leaking so badly that water managers routinely dump billions of precious gallons out of the lake to avoid a 1928-style calamity, ravaging estuaries and draining the region's water supply. This spring the lake fell so low that 40,000 acres of its exposed bottom burned out of control, along with 40,000 acres of the perennially parched Everglades National Park...
...This year's edition of the Pew Global Attitudes Project - a worldwide survey that has been around since 2002 - polled more than 24,000 people in 24 nations on a wide swath of topics, from their opinions on Iran and its nuclear program to which nation they think is doing the most damage to the environment (answer: We are. Also China.). Many of the report's conclusions are fairly obvious - the majority of countries surveyed describe their economic conditions as bad, and many citizens in Muslim nations consider America to be their enemy...
...Field after field in this fertile valley has been abandoned, either left unplanted this year or with seedlings withering in the sun. A swath of young green cotton has an inky black stripe running through its middle; as the field becomes more stressed from the lack of water, the black will spread. Safflowers, which should be a brilliant gold this time of year, are limp and brown. Farmers pace the dusty fields, eyeing their almond trees and grape vines, both heavy with unripe fruit, trying to decide which ones to allow to die. "It's like which kid to keep...
...says the hotelier with an embarrassed laugh when I ask about the best tourist attractions in Burma's new capital. That's no surprise, really. Naypyidaw--the name translates as "Abode of Kings"--was built from scratch just three years ago on orders from the ruling junta. The vast swath of former scrubland didn't even exist when the latest Lonely Planet Burma travel guide was written, and there's not much tourist charm in a dusty bunker town whose sole purpose is the wish fulfillment of paranoid generals...
...quiet talks with everyone from the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah in 2004 to the "special groups" in Sadr City today. Our European partners meet surreptitiously with Hamas - the British diplomat Sir Jeremy Greenstock has publicly acknowledged having such meetings. Furthermore, talks with Hamas have been advocated by a broad swath of notable Israelis - including a former head of Mossad, a former foreign minister and Ariel Sharon's former national security adviser. Why should it be easier for an Israeli politician to favor talks with Hamas than it is for an American...