Word: tourister
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Rick Steves, perhaps America's most accomplished European tourist, was looking for a cheap but charming steak place in the ancient Tuscan town of Montepulciano last month. Following a local lead, he ducked into an osteria he'd never noticed before: a vaulted medieval cellar jammed with locals sitting at a common table. A man worked an open fire at the back of the room. He carved chops from a huge side of beef lying on a gurney, presented them in butcher paper to each customer for inspection and then fired them one by one, seven minutes on each side...
Desperately poor, Laos abuts the Golden Triangle, a notorious opium-growing region. One of Laos' more furtive tourist attractions, despite attempts to crack down on the drug trade, is pizza and other Western foods laced with marijuana or other drugs. In some backpacker cafés, for instance, so-called happy food gets its kick from illicit materials. At the same time, drug convictions in Laos warrant heavy punishments, with the death penalty applicable for cases involving more than 500 grams of heroin. (However, the Laotian government says no one has been executed on such a drug conviction since...
...June 3 in Laos' capital, Vientiane, Samantha Orobator, 20, was handed a life sentence on a heroin-trafficking conviction, the final twist in a case that has drawn attention to a country that, despite its growing tourist appeal, is repressively ruled by one of the world's last socialist cliques. Although Orobator was arrested last August, she was for months denied any legal representation. Her trial was conducted behind closed doors, and Amnesty International said the British woman's case "highlights a justice system shrouded in secrecy." (See pictures of Mexico's drug tunnels...
Just about anywhere Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou goes these days, he ends up talking about China. On a Saturday morning in early May, Ma, casually clad in a red polo shirt and blue jeans, is marketing Taiwan as a tourist destination to foreign diplomats at a restaurant perched on a forested hillside in the county of Hualien on the island's east coast. The government, he tells them, is upgrading bike trails in the area and hopes to get World Heritage Site status for a nearby gorge, which Ma compares to the Grand Canyon. The diplomats chat about...
...With that in mind, Nasheed announced a contingency plan late last year that titillated the foreign press. From its tourist revenues, the Maldives would set aside a chunk of money each year. It would combine that with aid from richer nations and the Commonwealth, and build a sovereign fund that could one day go toward purchasing new territory for the country's climate refugees in far bigger nations like India or Australia. "At the end of the day, we are talking about needing dry land," says Nasheed bluntly. "It is a myth to assume that humanity has always been stationed...