Word: favorered
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...soon to tell whether North Korea overplayed its hand by launching missiles in the hope of tipping the diplomatic balance in its favor. It has certainly drawn condemnation from all quarters, and squandered some of the advantage it enjoyed when Beijing and Seoul were becoming increasingly critical of the U.S. over the failure of the talks. But North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will certainly remember how his provoking of previous crises eventually brought diplomatic gains rather than punishment; North Korea's 1998 missile tests, for example, brought direct talks for Kim with South Korea and U.S. Secretary of State...
...succeeds him as the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq will not gain so much notoriety. Al-Zarqawi met no interference from Saddam Hussein before the invasion of Iraq, and afterward he had support from antidemocratic forces. His reputation as a hard-line Jordanian jihadist worked in his favor. There will never be another al-Zarqawi. Adnan al-Jamie Baghdad...
...Duma. "All power belongs to the President and his administration, and 1.3 million federal bureaucrats." People don't go to jail for expressing deviant views anymore (though a bill about to pass through the Duma will soon make that possible), but organized politics have been switched off in favor of direct rule. People can watch and read what they want, but the state apparatus controls all TV news and steers most newspapers. Many nongovernmental organizations (ngos) that might shine a light on official abuses have been curbed; George Soros' Open Society Institute was shut down. These restrictions, which Putin argues...
...Watch Your Language As a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Eastern Europe, I commend Charles Krauthammer for his excellent essay in favor of making English the official language of the U.S. [June 12]. I sometimes feel even more like a foreigner when I encounter people who have no intention of learning English and assimilating into this great society. Uncontrolled immigration is the major contributing factor to bilingualism. Although I am an immigrant, I still disapprove of our government's irresponsible immigration policy. Deian Stankov Clarksburg, Maryland...
...Some observers, however, question whether $10,000 of taxpayer money should be spent on a purely symbolic gesture that often is nothing more than a way for local elected officials to curry favor with voters. "City officials in California have a history of taking positions on national issues that have nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of the local government," says Mark Baldassare, director of research at the Public Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank...