Word: clear
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...need for stricter control of the Puer industry became clear two years ago, when the Puer market went on a destabilizing roller-coaster ride. Some Chinese buy tea as an investment, much like Europeans buy wines. In the early part of the decade, thousands of cash-rich urbanites poured their savings into the Puer, causing prices to double, then triple. "People were buying anything," says David Lee Hoffman, a California collector. By 2007, the finest aged Puer was - quite literally - worth its weight in gold. As demand soared, however, quality suffered, fakes flooded the market and prices fell...
While more powerful reformists than Karroubi have stuck to vague appeals for justice, Karroubi is confronting the government with specific charges and has advanced a clear political platform, making himself a lightning rod for criticism from within the regime. And it's far from clear that Karroubi's more confrontational approach will yield results against a government willing to deploy overwhelming force to maintain its grip on power. Over the weekend, in fact, opposition activists were dismayed to hear reports that former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had called for unity and for all Iranians to follow Supreme Leader Ayatullah...
That Karroubi is a different kind of reformist became clear during this year's presidential campaign. While Mir-Hossein Mousavi became the opposition front-runner in large part because he was the best-known reformist in the race, his popularity in Iran stems mostly from the fact that he is not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On the other hand, Karroubi, though less well-known, attracted a circle of advisers from among the country's most respected reformist technocrats, and ran on a specific program of reforms targeted at specific electoral groups such as women, students and the non-Persian minorities who make...
...says. But Morch is encouraged by the fact that as soon as the incident was made public, the central government fired off a stern warning to the local authorities that they had violated the law, and they wanted assurances that this will not be repeated. "The law is crystal clear and the policy is crystal clear," says Morch, which shows incredible progress. "Now it really is a question of parents understanding. They need to be educated, and we have a long ways to go on this in Vietnam...
...Environmental groups in Greece complain that in the wake of the 2007 fires, there have been no substantial education initiatives or forestry work. They also blame land developers for setting fires to clear land, especially in the heavily populated areas near Athens. Greece bans building in forest areas but has no official record of which areas are protected, along with a poor record of enforcing the ban in areas devastated by fire...