Word: block
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...deal appeared to be in doubt for much of Friday morning, after a small group of countries including Cuba, Sudan, Bolivia and Venezuela worked to block the accord. They complained that the deal brokered by Obama and his interlocutors lacked specific emission-reduction targets, and only included a vague pledge to attempt to keep global warming from rising above the upper safe limit of 2 degrees celsius. The dissenters also attacked the climate finance for poor countries promised in the deal - around $30 billion for the period to 2012, and $100 billion annually by 2020 - as far short...
...experts on the Internet in China point out that pornography crackdowns often ensnare many other types of speech that Beijing finds objectionable. This spring, for example, the Ministry of Information Technology launched plans for the mandatory installation of software on new computers that would block users from visiting porn sites. Studies of the sites that would be restricted by the software, known as the Green Dam Youth Escort, found that many of them were political and not pornographic...
More tactically, the Greek Cypriots also gained E.U. veto power, which they threatened to use last week to block the opening of five new chapters in the negotiations for Turkey's membership next year. "The problem as far as a deal is concerned is that Greek Cypriots are basically content. As it stands they are an E.U. member, they're happy and prosperous," says Munir. "They know that any deal will inevitably entail some loss for them and they don't like that idea." The Greek Cypriot leader who presided over that fateful referendum was Tassos Papadopoulos, the hard-liner...
...After a series of bad years for Hershey, however, the trust board briefly toyed in 2007 with the idea of selling its stock to Wrigley, famous for its chewing-gum brand, but backed down within hours of closing the deal. State and federal authorities had tried to block the sale, in part because of concerns about the size of a combined Wrigley-Hershey company. Residents of the town of Hershey, meanwhile, expressed outrage and even convinced a local judge to delay the sale, saying it would cause "irreparable harm" to the community...
Muslim and European leaders have denounced a Swiss referendum to block the construction of minarets--mosque towers from which Muslims are called to prayer--as discriminatory and xenophobic. More than 57% of voters supported the ban, put forward by the far-right Swiss People's Party. "It is a bad answer to a bad question," an official from the Organization of the Islamic Conference told reporters. "I fear that this kind of thing is simply a gift to extremism and intolerance...