Masoud, Ahmad Shah

Afghan resistance leader and politician (b. 1953, Bazarak, Afg.—death reported on Sept. 15, 2001, Takhar, Afg.), was a military leader in the Afghan mujahideen, first against the Soviets and the Soviet-backed Afghan government (1978–89) and then against the Taliban (from 1992). Masoud, an ethnic Tajik, studied engineering before the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and then moved to Pakistan for military

United Nations

Under an agreement signed on July 3 on Governors Island, N.Y., by Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cédras, the Haitian army commander, and the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the president deposed in September 1991, UN personnel were supposed to help the transition to democratic government by separating the police force from the army. On October 11, however, 40 or 50 "toughs" protected by police prevented

Icarus

In Greek mythology, son of the inventor Daedalus who perished by flying too near the Sun with waxen wings. See Daedalus.

Kharijah, Al-

Town, capital of the muhafazah (governorate) of Al-Wadi al-Jadid (Arabic: “New Valley”) and chief town of Al-Kharijah (Kharga) oasis, Egypt. The town's history dates back to the 25th dynasty (c. 750–656 BC), though inscriptions record that the oasis was a place for political exiles from Thebes in the 21st dynasty (c. 1075–c. 945 BC). The town flourished under Persian and Roman rule, and there are extensive ruins of those

Amorphous Solid, Models of atomic scale structures

Amorphous solids, like crystalline solids, exhibit a wide variety of atomic-scale structures. Most of these can be recognized as falling within one or another of three broad classes of structure associated with the following models: (1) the continuous random-network model, applicable to covalently bonded glasses, such as amorphous silicon and the oxide glasses, (2) the

Icarus

Thomas E. Watson,

Chile, Political uncertainty, 1920–38

In the decade following World War I, falling saltpetre sales and rising inflation fueled dissatisfaction among the middle and working classes. They supported the election of the reformist president Arturo Alessandri Palma in 1920. When the legislature blocked his initiatives, discontent spread to middle-class army officers. They intervened in 1924 to force parliamentary

Spanish Literature, Drama

With the new century, drama achieved renewed vigour under the stimulus of Jacinto Benavente y Martínez, a prolific playwright noted for his craftsmanship and wit. A social satirist preoccupied with ethics, Benavente stopped short of alienating the sympathies of his devoted upper-class public, as, for example, in Los intereses creados (1907; The Bonds of Interest). The bourgeois

Szczecinek

Szczecinek is the commercial centre for the surrounding district; its industry includes dairying,