Word: difficult
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...will be difficult. Greece's tax-collection system is an antiquated mess. The state's various financial-information databases are haphazard and fragmented. No single program can pull up all the data about a single taxpayer; without tedious manual cross-checks, there's no way to flag the Kolonaki doctor who is declaring a pittance but living in a multimillion-dollar apartment. So decentralized is the whole system that until recently, Greece's government didn't even know how many people it had on its payroll. (See 10 things to do in Athens...
...Khan was transfixed. He had been an indifferent student at college in Jaipur, but now pursued a spot in the National School of Drama in New Delhi with single-minded devotion. "My father died the same year, and I was the eldest," he recalls. "Morally and socially, it was difficult to leave." Withstanding family pressure, Khan reasoned with himself that he would end up demoralized, bitter and unable to support them if he stayed. "So I left...
Other measurements are a lot more difficult, though. It's reasonable to expect, for example, that ecosystems will change as plants and animals respond to a rising thermometer - but how do you measure the change of an ecosystem that may consist of hundreds or even thousands of species? (See pictures of the effects of global warming...
...plug and socket. Germany, with Renault's support, is pushing its seven-point version to be the standard, but other countries have their own ideas of what the connectors should look like. "Because Europe is fragmented and countries are putting forth their cars, it's going to be more difficult to come to a federal conclusion," says Calum MacRae, an automotive expert with PricewaterhouseCoopers in London. "Obviously, if you standardize [the connectors], you bring the cost down." And when it comes to selling the public on electric cars, price will be crucial...
...another matter. The areas's residents are Pashtuns, who share tribal links with the Taliban. Anywhere between 400 to 1,000 Taliban fighters are said to be holed up in Marja's dusty maze of lanes and high, mud-walled homes. Now the coalition forces face the difficult task of threading through minefields, and a dense warren of houses, to hunt down the Taliban fighters...