Word: elements
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...democratic element of Iran's system has functioned as an important safety valve for clerical rule by creating a managed channel for the release of popular frustrations. But now the Supreme Leader appears to have thrown his weight solidly behind what many are charging is a carefully staged putsch by Ahmadinejad. "The willingness of the regime simply to ignore reality and fabricate election results without the slightest effort to conceal the fraud represents a historic shift in Iran's Islamic revolution," Columbia University Iran expert and former National Security Council official Gary Sick wrote in a web posting. "All previous...
...Earth scientists have discovered a way to solve the planet's energy crisis: harvest an element called helium-3 from the Moon. Apparently this vast effort requires only one human: Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), who's nearing the end of a three-year contract working alone in a station on the lunar surface. All that time alone, with only a talking computer and some old TV shows as company, has made Sam edgy; he can't wait to be picked up and taken back to Earth, to his loving wife and child. His anxiety escalates to horror when he discovers...
...their bills. When Putin came in to save the day, he saw p.r. potential in Pikalyovo's distress. During a nationally televised meeting in the town, the Prime Minister scolded local officials and factory owners, including billionaire tycoon Oleg Deripaska, a onetime Kremlin favorite whose investment company Basic Element owns the town's BaselCement factory. "You have made thousands of people hostage to your ambitions, your lack of professionalism - or maybe simply your trivial greed," Putin said...
...right. Pikalyovo is one of hundreds of cities across Russia whose populations are supported by just one factory or one industry. If that factory or industry is wiped out by the global economic downturn - as Pikalyovo's was when the price of cement dropped and Deripaska's company Basic Element put half its workforce on forced leave - the whole town is sent into a tailspin. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...Gavrilova's cousin called from the Siberian city of Irkutsk to ask if Pikalyovo was "leading a civil war" and to say that the situation was similar in her city, where workers were holding a hunger strike over unpaid wages at the local pulp mill, also owned by Basic Element. This time it took no prodding from Putin for Deripaska to announce plans to pay out some $2.8 million in back wages to about 2,000 workers. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...