Word: visitations
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...prowess with rocket-propelled grenades and spent eight months in detention after U.S.-led forces drove out the Taliban in 2001. Now, as a member of the Afghan parliament, he encourages his former Taliban comrades to reconcile with the government of President Hamid Karzai. But he can't visit his constituency in the southern district of Zabul because security is terrible and he's received too many assassination threats. Rocketi is grateful for foreign aid, but frustrated that donors regularly cough up so much less than promised that the country's development can't really take off. "We live like...
...surface, which is the only part of most major cities that tourists visit, New Orleans seems to have cleaned itself up quite nicely in the year since Katrina. French Quarter businesses have swept their stoops and hung banners, and bawdy Bourbon Street is awash in neon; Creole stalwarts like Galatoire's and Arnaud's are once again dishing up gumbo and crawfish etouffe, and live music spills nightly from funky clubs Uptown and on Frenchmen Street, an entertainment strip adjacent to the French Quarter; even the mammoth Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which became a symbol of human suffering...
...travel that very evening to Shandong to meet several victims, including one woman who had to abort her baby two days before her due date. (Night reporting is a popular tactic for foreign journalists in China. The dark affords us anonymity in places we are not supposed to visit under stringent Chinese Foreign Ministry regulations; more importantly, it protects our sources from possibly being thrown into jail for talking...
...discreet is this steady creep toward Talibanism that it only hit me last week, after a visit to the beauty salon. Usually, framed photos of coiffed brides adorn the walls, but I arrived to find the coffee-colored walls blank, save a clinical advertisement for fungus-fighting nail polish. Authorities had raided the salon two weeks prior, declaring images of unveiled women illegal and demanding they be taken down. In Iran, women's hair salons are off limits to men anyway, so it makes little sense why photos of coiffed women should be banned in a room full of women...
...That same week, I showed up at the gym wearing the standard uniform of young, urban Iranian women: a veil, short coat and jeans. The receptionist told me the authorities had also paid them a visit; unless their women patrons started dressing more conservatively, the gym would be shut down. Again, the official warning was smoothly delivered via a civilian intermediary without ugly confrontation, and was perhaps even more effective for its underlying threat: if you don't dress the way we want, we will take away your ability to exercise. At the same time, authorities have targeted retailers...