Word: symbols
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...after the quake, this self-styled "village architect" used Japanese and Indonesian aid money to build more than 130 shelters. He hoped the design of the rough-and-ready structures would serve as models for local villagers, encouraging them to give up their attachment to concrete - seen as a symbol of modernity and affluence - and return to the kinds of building materials used throughout the archipelago for centuries. Eighteen months later, the shelters are still occupied...
Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, once referred to his uniform as a "second skin." In Pakistan, where the military is the most powerful institution and where generals have ruled longer than civilians, that skin is a symbol of supreme authority. But on Wednesday, yielding to pressure from his own people as well as from his strongest ally, the U.S., Musharraf shed his uniform. In an emotional ceremony at military headquarters in Rawalpindi, a tearful Musharraf handed the baton to a loyalist, General Ashfaq Kyani, saying, "I have loved this army...
...motorbike is the symbol of Vietnam's economic transformation over the past 20 years thanks to reforms allowing private enterprise. Often as not, a newly moneyed family's first major purchase was a shiny Honda Dream. Fifteen years ago, the country had only 500,000 motorbikes; today, there are 22 million. But Vietnam's love affair with the motorbike has come with a price: besides the death toll, the non-profit Asia Injury Prevention Foundation reports, a further 23,000 riders each year suffer debilitating brain damage from injuries that could have been prevented by helmets...
...Afghanistan, have taken advantage of the porous border between the countries to regroup in the remote, mountainous tribal areas of Waziristan. But Swat is different. The virtual takeover by extremists of a populous, settled area so close to Islamabad marks a significant advance in local militancy. "Swat is a symbol," says a Western military official based in Islamabad. "Mullah Fazlullah's influence is spreading - it doesn't look good...
...environmental industries were worth more than $50 billion in 2005, a figure expected to grow to $94 billion by 2015. And politicians on both sides of the aisle compete to look greener. David Cameron, the young leader of the Conservative Party, even changed his party's traditional freedom-torch symbol to an oak tree to trumpet his environmental credentials. Green living is "just higher up on the agenda," says Alex Harvey, a Canadian environmental activist who moved to Britain four years ago. "People are looking at lifestyle and consumption, across-the-board issues...