Word: wa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...territory, insists the Thai army, which on June 1 ordered the orphanage and more than 60 Shan families living nearby to move back into Burma?and closer to the scene of the fighting in April between the S.S.A. and the Burmese junta's ally, the 16,000-strong United Wa State Army (U.W.S.A.). "The Burmese army forced us to relocate," says Hku Hseng Lu, 21, who also helps run the orphanage. "Now the Thai army is doing the same. Where are we supposed...
...Thailand and Burma share a centuries-old enmity, and a porous, ill-defined border. Even in recent years there have been clashes between the Thai army and its Burmese and Wa counterparts, usually over drug smuggling. Today, Bangkok is pursuing a policy of closer ties with Rangoon. Besides sending back the Shan, the Thai authorities have cracked down on illegal Burmese workers, and moved Burmese exiles living in Thailand to overcrowded border refugee camps. Thai officials say better relations with the pariah regime will not only help solve cross-border problems, such as the trafficking of narcotics, but also encourage...
...S.S.A. claims it killed 337 U.W.S.A. soldiers in the April fighting. If true, this is no mean feat. Much feared for their ferocity in battle, the 750,000-strong Wa traditionally live along Burma's equally rugged border with China; some are former headhunters. The U.W.S.A. struck a cease-fire with the junta in 1989 in return for keeping the peace. It also kept its weapons and, free to run its home region as a semi-autonomous state, expanded its trade in heroin?the Wa hills are opium-growing territory?and later in methamphetamines. Today, the U.W.S.A...
...community centers where wakes and memorial services were taking place. But journalists remained barred from entering the services or going anywhere else on the reservation. "Sometimes the press works so hard to get the story that they step on people in grief," says Jerry Moberg, an attorney in Ephrada, WA who served as the lawyer for the Moses Lake School District after it experienced a high school massacre in 1996. "I know the press doesn't like it, but they have to respect the fact that they're covering a sovereign nation. I don't see anything wrong with what...
...experts were at a loss as to why al-Qaeda would want to strike South Africa, which has fiercely criticized U.S. policy and is a strong supporter of a Palestinian state. Contested Polls MALAWI Opposition parties filed legal challenges to the presidential elections after United Democratic Front leader Bingu wa Mutharika was declared the winner. A New Suspect PAKISTAN Security officials said that an al-Qaeda-linked militant thought to have helped organize the kidnapping and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl masterminded two failed assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in December. Musharraf earlier announced that junior military personnel...