Word: cracking
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...British aviation expert remained suspicious of the botched Osaka landing as a possible cause of Flight 123's crash. William Tench, recently retired chief inspector of accidents at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, said he knew of cases in which it took three years before a crack became visible after an aircraft was heavily jolted. Japan's Ministry of Transport promptly ordered that the tail areas of all 747s registered in that country be re-examined, with special attention to the link holding the fin to the fuselage...
...perhaps, in those of middle class Iranians, who have not been cowed or shorn of their natural bellicosity and are thus still suspect to many of the regime's leaders. They voice their criticism of the regime relatively freely, if privately. They crack jokes about the clergy, often at the expense of Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini's heir apparent, who is regarded as pious but simple. "The clerics are making a mess of the economy," says a businessman who complains bitterly about the shortage of foreign exchange. "They should stick to preaching and let us run the economy...
...main story line is sturdily intact, Dickens' cry of outrage at society's injustice is heard loud and clear, and some memorable characters are brought to glorious life. Rigg, as Lady Dedlock, is a model of aristocratic propriety starting to crack as her world threatens to unravel. Suzanne Burden as the heroine, Esther Summerson, is just as sweet, sensible and faintly dull as Dickens portrayed her. Den-holm Elliott, as Esther's kindly guardian John Jarndyce, invests a quiet role with remarkable compassion and grace...
...thought. Inside there would be black churning depths like bile, or bitter medicine." But it is his wary view of the adult world that lingers. Even a Punch and Judy show has an ominous significance: when Punch "began hitting the baby with hard wooden thuds I felt its skull crack and knew that none of us were safe while grown-ups thought that this sort of thing was funny...
Despite some crack agents and top-flight hardware, however, the job of Counterintelligence remains scattershot. Four million people in the U.S. have access to classified information, but only a portion of the FBI's 8,800 agents are charged with counter-intelligence. Says Webster: "Our strategy is to focus on the known and suspected hostile intelligence officers, and through a spider-web approach, become aware of contacts they might seek to make." Still, many of the initial clues in recent cases have been tips from a spy's suspicious friends or colleagues...