Word: dire
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...Common Market, of course, thrives on crises. Almost every breakthrough has been preceded by dire warnings of the EEC's impending doom and all-night bargaining sessions that finally produced the necessary compromise. Even now, cautious optimism is detectable on both sides. French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann said casually: "There are really no serious problems with Britain's joining. We want Britain, and all we ask is that . . . she become a club member within the rules." Geoffrey Rippon, Britain's chief negotiator, struck a still cozier metaphor. "Reasonable men, given enough coffee and cognac," he observed...
...mysterious explosions have sunk three tankers off the coast of Africa. Last week four crewmen were killed when a Swedish tanker blew up in a Hamburg drydock. Loaded, the Europoort carries enough oil to pollute beaches from Holland to Spain, though Esso strictly bans any ocean discharges except in dire emergencies. Empty, the ship is as potentially explosive as nitroglycerin, with a rich mixture of oxygen and oil fumes in its massive tanks. To prevent inadvertent explosions, a Japanese company has designed an automatic system that forces inert, nonflammable gas into emptying tanks, thus displacing oil fumes. But such devices...
Expected negative alumni reaction will have to be countered with discussion and debate. (Though the prospects of alumni disowning the place may not be as dire as the soothsayers would have it. Yale hasn't seen decline in alumni contributions accompany the appearance of women on its campus.) In the long run, in fact, a serious attempt to educate women, who are simultaneously developing new lifestyles now that it is no longer demanded they become "housewives-and-mothers," would logically result in an entire new source of alumni contributions...
...there is some doubt as to the immediate benefits for Chile: the world price for copper has tumbled from 88? to 48? per pound in the past year. That drop could further worsen Chile's current 9% rate of unemployment, already up from 6.4% in November because of dire business uncertainty about Allende...
Even so, the older generation may find comfort in the fact that all those dire predictions of a day when half the population will be under 25 are not coming true. Though Americans aged 14 to 24 now constitute 20% of the population, the birth rate is falling. As a result, the nation's median age is expected to rise from 27.6 to 30 in the next 15 years. The people most likely to achieve mutual understanding, says University of Michigan Sociologist Theodore Newcomb, are "the educated young and the educated...