Word: complained
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Foreigners are also feeling the heat. Expats in Beijing have reported greater scrutiny of their passports and residency permits, while international businesspeople complain about tightened requirements for renewing visas. Beijing's nightlife has been targeted as well. In April, police raided bars in the Sanlitun entertainment district, arresting 20 people - including eight foreigners - mostly on drug charges. The authorities said the raids were part of a standard antidrug campaign. A senior Western diplomat in Beijing reckoned, however, that the Sanlitun operation was more "political than criminal." He noted that the targeted bars were well known as expat hangouts; perhaps, said...
...many Western concerns are absurd. As a huge buyer of commodities, China has powered some of Africa's strongest growth since independence - hardly a negative trend. Cheap Chinese consumer goods have also stretched African shoppers' small budgets. Meanwhile, for a nation like France to complain about China's human-rights record on Africa seems beyond a pot-kettle comparison - France has long sponsored African "democrats" like former Central African Republic leader Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who was ultimately convicted of at least 20 murders. Likewise, the U.S. has close ties to Ethiopia's abusive regime, and to oil-rich...
Even where Iraqi troops are not in the thick of battle, their U.S. partners complain of incompetence and poor discipline. At a small desert outpost in the largely pacified Anbar province, an Iraqi police truck recently fired so close to a group of U.S. Marines that the round of bullets missed one Marine by only a few feet. After chasing down the truck, the lieutenant in charge of the Marines was shocked to learn the reason for the shooting. "Evidently, a car passing through the checkpoint in the other direction had honked its horn at the gun truck," he said...
...eight--hardly the best preparation to do battle with a bewildering array of enemies, ranging from al-Qaeda terrorists and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias to well-armed criminal gangs. Motivation is another problem: soldiers get starting salaries of $375 a month, policemen $95 a month. Iraqi commanders also complain that they are poorly equipped: they lack airpower and heavy weapons...
...probably not all that fair to employers, but it's become the rule," Guichard acknowledges. Meanwhile, with the Paris stock market booming and France's leading companies posting enviable profits, Guichard feels little sympathy for bosses complaining that pont weekends are picking their pockets. "How can companies complain too much about a few days lost to ponts when most in France are more profitable than ever...