Word: blocs
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...airlines. With passenger traffic already down 9% from 2000, they're now caught in a nasty squabble over "open skies" agreements that would widen competition on lucrative transatlantic routes. E.U. courts banned the individually negotiated deals between 11 member states and the U.S., saying they should be arranged en bloc. When the U.S. appeared to undercut that decision by offering to sweeten the deals, François Lamoureux, the Commission's director-general for transport, threatened last week to drag into court any state that accepts. But E.U. efforts to draw up a new deal aren't expected to break...
...their dividends will not only nudge them back into the shaky market, proponents argue, but also encourage greater corporate responsibility by making CEOs focus on delivering a consistent return to investors rather than pushing for unrealistically high stock prices. It doesn't hurt that seniors, a crucial voting bloc, would receive about half the benefits from such an exclusion, say Administration officials...
...other chief result of the summit will have the same effect. After more than two years of tough negotiations, some of which went down to the wire last Friday night, the E.U. agreed the exact terms under which 10 candidate countries, most of them survivors of the Soviet bloc, will join the Union on May 1, 2004. "The deal that we have reached here in Copenhagen represents the E.U. at its best: leadership, solidarity and determination," said European Commission President Romano Prodi. The Union will need plenty more of the same. Pending ratification of the accession agreements by both...
...hanging from a tree in a forest in neighboring Belarus - added to the mounting feeling of insecurity within the media. Many Ukrainians fear their country may be slipping back into totalitarianism. "We have failed to create a system that guarantees democracy," warns Viktor Yuschenko, leader of the Our Ukraine bloc, the largest opposition faction in parliament, and a former Prime Minister removed by Kuchma in April 2000 for his modest attempts at reform. "We are not just close to a dictatorship; we are already in a serious phase of dictatorship." Don't expect to hear about this through the temniki...
...Vietnam's highlands are renowned for their spectacular scenery, waterfalls and rich hill-tribe culture. But there's another ubiquitous sight along the north's twisting mountain roads: the smoke-belching, gear-grinding, Eastern bloc motorcycle throwback that Vietnamese call con trau gia (the old buffalo). First imported from the Soviet Union in the 1960s, the Minsk's two-stroke engine and body have hardly changed over the years. Northern Vietnam has undeniably become Minsk country, and the old buffalo are used for everything, from personal transportation to hauling pigs, cows and chickens to hill-tribe markets...