In Yingxiu Township at the Xuankou middle and high school, a moment of silence was held amid the ruins of collapsed buildings and debris.

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There are good pickings amid the ruins.

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Kerry took special note of one indelible image from the Bush presidency -- Bush, standing amid the ruins of the World Trade Center with one arm draped around a firefighter, declaring his resolve in the face of terror.

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An early research project was to interview all the surviving members of the national governments that sprang up in 1917 amid the ruins of the tsarist empire, only to be snuffed out by the Bolsheviks a few years later.

ECONOMIST: Sovietology

The chain of events is deeply contested, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports, but what is certain is that the Ossetians clutching candles and soaking up this music amid the ruins of Tskhinvali now have no desire to reunite their breakaway region with Georgia.

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Still, even if Caesarstone succeeds in expanding its U.S. business, the communal way of life might not survive much longer at the kibbutz founded in 1940 amid the Roman ruins of ancient Caesarea.

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Somewhere in New Mexico, Mr Shoumatoff visits the empty ruins of a hippie commune amid the pines.

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