Word: bled
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...keep China's farmers in a state of virtual feudal peonage, enriching themselves while imposing oppressive taxes on the very people the communist revolution was meant to uplift. Some officials practice simple extortion; others resort to embezzlement schemes straight out of Gogol. In the poorest areas, peasants are literally bled dry, forced to sell plasma to pay their tax bills. In other cases, farmers who stand up to bullying local officials are murdered. Since Chen and Wu first reported on the problem, China's government has taken steps to reform rural taxation. But with violent protests now commonplace, the anger...
...head start in industrializing, and the plan was just to keep staying ahead of the value-added-production curve. But China has leapfrogged in front, and now there is a 50% overlap in Mexico's and China's exports. As a consequence, the maquila operations along the border have bled 800,000 jobs in recent years. Infrastructure investment has dropped off so much in Mexico that for relatively light goods, it is just as cheap for the U.S. to import from China as from southern Mexico. And although a Mexican wage earner is paid three times as much...
...phone number--why I didn't have any," he says. "They just wouldn't believe me." Every session would end with threats of more beatings and torture. He was told of other captives who had died grisly deaths and was shown stains on the floor where they had bled. The strong smell of chemicals began to make sense. They had been used to cover up the smell of vomit and dried blood. But, says the U.S. official, the threat of death was probably no more than just that. "They were already invested in this guy, having paid the people...
...joined forces at the third annual “Life is good Pumpkin Festival” to shatter the Guinness World Record for most pumpkins lit in the same place at the same time. Boston’s fierce competitor for the pumpkin champ title, Keene, N.H., has proudly bled orange since lighting a record 28,952 jack-o’-lanterns in 2003. Although the town of 22,000 people lit more than its population in pumpkins, Boston ultimately came out on top. According to the James S. Laughlin, head of the Festivals Divison and Director of Communications...
...post-war politician in Sao Paulo state won three terms as mayor and governor with the dubious endorsement that "he steals, but he gets things done." Former president Fernando Collor de Mello was impeached in 1992 over a corruption scandal, and in 2001 it was revealed that fraudsters had bled an astonishing $2 billion from two government agencies established to help the country's poor...