Word: westernness
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...supply nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its Western allies rely on road convoys with dozens of trucks to carry in everything from jet fuel to frozen pizza. But increasingly these convoys are coming under savage attack by the Taliban. And experts say that if the ambushes get worse, it could impair NATO's efforts to keep a supply lifeline running to its troops in forts and camps scattered across the mountainous country...
...main Kabul-Kandahar highway was once a showpiece for how Western aid would modernize Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Repaved in 2003, the 300-mile highway is now pocked with craters from roadside bombs. Travelers face three or four Taliban checkpoints along the way. A Western businessman says his trucking firm pays a local commander from $5,000 to $6,000 for the safe passage of each fuel tanker along the highway, a sum which he suspects the Taliban get a share of. He also claims that in order to ship fuel from Kandahar to a Dutch base...
...There's an obvious explanation why Hong Kong is suddenly terroir cognito in the wine world. The global recession has gutted the portfolios of wealthy Western investors who are cutting back on their lavish purchases, including spending on vintage wine. Not so for Chinese investors. China's economy has suffered less and bounced back faster from the financial crisis than the economies of the U.S and U.K. At the Sotheby's auction, a six-Liter bottle of 1982 Chateau Petrus Imperial - described as having a sweet leather taste and a pruney finish - was gaveled off to a mainland Chinese bidder...
...state dedicated to stopping its national-security secrets from leaking. The few journalists and academics allowed into Iran are sharply circumscribed in their contacts and the places they can visit. The quickest way to be arrested or escorted out of that country is to ask questions about its bomb. Western diplomats and intelligence operatives have only marginally better access. The IAEA knowledge of Iran's nuclear programs is limited to what Iran wants to let it know - although it keeps a close eye on Iran's main enrichment plant at Natanz, it had no idea until a week ago that...
...most Afghans, the face of Farida Tarana, 27, evokes her tumultuous 2006 ascent to the No. 8 position on the widely watched local version of American Idol. She was the first female competitor from the conservative western province of Herat, and while she charmed audiences nationwide with her joyful renditions of classic Afghan songs, she was persecuted by conservatives for daring to break cultural taboos against women singing in public. These days, however, her face, emblazoned on election posters and billboards across Kabul, symbolizes the shattering of new barriers: popularly elected women in politics. Last week it was announced that...