Word: tractored
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...afterward. "If I'd known it was going to be like this, I probably wouldn't have come," grumbles Private Shamsuddin, a square-jawed 22-year-old from Faryab who was expecting pay of $250 a month. He is debating returning home to his job as a tractor driver. The Americans are also watching their recruits to see if any are potential sergeants. The pickings are slim; about 70% of the trainees are illiterate...
...professor of animal science at Oregon State University, pointing to the number of field animals inadvertently killed during crop production and harvest. One study showed that simply mowing an alfalfa field caused a 50% reduction in the gray-tailed vole population. Mortality rates increase with each pass of the tractor to plow, plant and harvest. Rabbits, mice and pheasants, he says, are the indiscriminate "collateral damage" of row crops and the grain industry...
...Thanks to over-zealous Afghan recruiters, many had only a vague idea what they were signing up for. Private Shamsuddin, a square-jawed 22-year-old ex-tractor driver from the northwestern province of Faryab, left home with dreams of foreign travel and what by Afghan standards counts as serious money. "They told us we'd be getting $250 a month and that training would be in Turkey," he says. Shamsuddin has since discovered he's actually making $30 a month ($50 once he's completed training) and the only bright lights he gets to see once a week...
...hills near Trapani on the far western tip of Sicily - decided that the Mob needed to cool its killer instincts after the state cracked down in response to the magistrates' slaying. In a move that symbolizes the shift in the Mafia's strategy, Provenzano - once known as the Tractor for clearing away rivals - is now referred to as the Accountant. Dino Paternostro, a Corleone native who has written several books on the Mafia, said Provenzano has succeeded in returning the Mafia to a state of normalization: "Now we come to the point where people start saying the Mafia...
...Shreeram Shankar Yadav, 68, was supposedly one such enemy. A former Nepali Congress Party chairman in his village of Hasarapur on the border with India, he refused to pay rebel "taxes" or surrender his tractor to the guerrillas. In December, he went further, helping his son and nephew capture two Maoists and take them to a police station. On Jan. 8, the rebels took revenge. "About 250 of them surrounded the house," recalls his brother, Bisseswar Yadav. "They came into the house and tied all the adults' hands. They demanded to know where the guns were and, when we didn...