Word: fig
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...rape rate in the world, ethnic cleansing of white citizens, the national electricity provider unable to satisfy power needs, and more than half of municipalities approaching bankruptcy. Cynics now predict that South Africa will become the next Zimbabwe. This is Mandela's real legacy. He is the genial, smiling fig leaf that duped the world into believing South Africa would prosper under an ANC administration. Allan Banfield, Hatfield, England...
Despite Betancourt's obvious charisma and attractiveness, she had not a fig's chance of winning her 2002 campaign for the Colombian presidency at the time of her kidnapping. Her Green Oxygen Party had only one parliamentarian, who came from the area to which she traveled disastrously the day FARC rebels nabbed her. This past week Betancourt has said she does not know yet when she will return to Colombia, or what exactly her role will be. But she clearly has her eye on returning to Colombian politics, having penned a 190-point program while she was a hostage...
...Worse, it confirmed what many green activists had long feared - that the fig leaf Silva had provided her boss was stripped away, leaving his image unprotected and exposed, like the environment itself...
...settlement was hard for Mitzi to swallow. "It was against my basic philosophy and the principles of the Comedy Store that this settlement was made," she told the Los Angeles Times's William Knoedelseder. "You might say I was unionized into a corner." Mitzi got a fig leaf of satisfaction three years later, when an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the comedians, as independent contractors, could not be unionized. "In my personal view, workman's comp, benefits - those were always in the back of Mitzi's mind as something that would break the Comedy...
...become two-party talks - between Washington and Pyongyang. An opportunity could arise, however, if North Korea demands more aid as a condition for continuing with the negotiations. "For Japan to pay, something has to be paid [to them] for the abductees," he notes, "even if it is just a fig leaf." Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda broached the abductions issue with U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit in November, but Bush has made no promises regarding negotiations with the North. In the meantime, the general public continues to rally behind the abductees' families, who insist that Japan continue...