Word: demanding
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...Today, the tigers are being tripped up by that same lifeline. As consumer and industrial demand dries up in recession-wracked Western countries, East Asia's export-led nations are proving to be extremely vulnerable to a synchronized global slowdown. Among the tigers, overseas trade is shrinking with frightening speed: Taiwan's exports in January plunged 44% from the same month a year earlier, while Singapore's fell 35% and South Korea's 33%. Overall economic growth is following suit. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Taiwan's GDP contracted 8.4% from the same period a year earlier, the worst...
...First, the Taliban in the Swat Valley announced an indefinite cease-fire, but only after the army had agreed to halt its counterinsurgency operations and the government caved in to the militants' demand for the imposition of Islamic law. Then it emerged that the Taliban and the army would both be observing a four-day truce in Bajaur, the tribal area along the Afghan border that has seen the fiercest fighting in Pakistan's domestic campaign against extremists. And on a more ominous note, last weekend at an undisclosed location deep in Waziristan's mountains, Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud...
...true not just in Florida but the entire country. A lack of affordable homes helped spawn the economic crisis in the first place. The past two Presidents made growing homeownership rates a core goal, but to achieve that, they allowed overly loose lending standards. That caused a spike in demand for houses, which in turn raised home prices so steeply that the modest-income people whom Washington hoped to add to the homeowner rolls couldn't afford them - or eventually couldn't afford the monthly payments they had taken on. Meanwhile, affordable home construction became passé. What developer wanted...
...This affluent mindset will have to change. The boom did raise the national homeownership rate from 60% to more than 67%, but the bust is bringing it right back down again - probably to less than 60% by the end of the year. As a result, demand for affordable rental units (meaning less than $1,000 a month for two bedrooms in South Florida) is bound to rise. And no amount of empty five-bedroom, three-bath dream houses is going to satisfy...
That remains to be seen. Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author of a best-selling book about the Taliban, says the recent cease-fire is merely the calm before the storm. "The Taliban do not stop at one demand," explains Rashid. "All this points to a collapse of will of both the army and the government to deal with this in a more logical manner...