Word: aid
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...second-largest foodmaker revealed on Monday, Sept. 7, that it had launched a $16.7 billion bid for British confectioner Cadbury, a bold effort to create "a global powerhouse in snacks" worth $50 billion a year in revenues. Cadbury rejected the offer, but Kraft, maker of Oreo cookies and Kool-Aid, showed its sweet tooth. The firm is "committed to working toward a transaction," it said in a statement, "and to maintaining a constructive dialogue...
...even with federal assistance, the California fiscal crisis - and in particular July's $1.9 billion raid on local government finances to help balance the state budget - could threaten the system of mutual aid between fire departments across the state. For example, several fire departments in northern California went south to help out with the Angeles National Forest blaze. As the fire season continues, however, budget cutbacks may force some local fire departments to stop participating in mutual aid. "Local agencies may have no choice but to hold back. A fire department's first responsibility is to protect the home front...
...fact, it reminds me a lot of how Kabul was when I was last here. The foreigners - diplomats, aid workers, journalists, assorted mercenaries and adventurers - disported themselves quite oblivious to the fact that this was a conservative Muslim country just emerging from the Taliban's medieval totalitarianism. You could find booze in shops. On weekends, you could go picnicking and horseback riding in the country. Many embassies moved into gaudy narco-mansions rented out by warlords loyal to President Hamid Karzai. For dining, you had a choice of Mexican, Balkan, Lebanese, Indian, Thai, American and Chinese restaurants. The Chinese places...
Three years on, Kabul has become a more sober, watchful city. The walls around embassies, aid offices and foreigners' guest houses have sprouted to around 15 feet high, and are often crowned with razor wire. After a few foreigners were kidnapped and shot by drive-by gunmen last year, it is now considered foolhardy to walk around the streets of Kabul. Booze is no longer sold openly. Many, but not all, of the brothels were shut down and the girls rounded up and flown back to China...
...have it both ways. In the future, restless militaries in other countries may look at the U.S.'s Honduras ruling and decide coups are worth chancing as long as they don't install a guy wearing epaulettes in the president's chair. In that scenario, a full-bore U.S. aid cut-off won't kick in by default - and there's always the possibility, they'll reason, that the White House won't adopt enough punitive steps to make them cry uncle...