1. The authorities have begun to issue ration cards.

2. The government ration card system allows an urban family to buy a case of imported beer for about 400 Kwanza.

3. Rodriguez said his monthly government ration card plus his and his wife's meager salaries only covered two weeks' worth of food.

4. The government offers meager help: a $130 annual payment to each widow, and a ration card for rice and oil.

5. People in the poorest fifth are the least likely to have any kind of ration card (the key to public handouts ), whereas the richest fifth are the most likely to.

6. "Until they repay me, " he said, "I keep their ration card. "

7. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card.

8. Inside the district hospital, Mr. Bhuria said he had applied three times for a food ration card, but the clerk had failed to produce one.