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read this in The New York Times online at

The only exceptions had been for Ceausescu’s whims, and Mr. Marinescu had been nowhere near the teams on whom such ruthless inspiration was bestowed.

“He would wave his arm and say, ‘I want a boulevard this way,’ and everything — churches, hospitals — all had to go. One time, there was a river in Bucharest. An open sewer, it smelled so bad. He said, ‘I want to see here clean water — with fish.’ They covered the river with concrete slabs and put a separate river, with fish, on top of it.”

maybe DBKL could do something like this with the Klang River? ;-)