Word: grips
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...close aide to Damascus to serve as French ambassador and a team of technocrats to assist Assad's reform efforts. Rafik Hariri, then Lebanese Prime Minister and close friend of Chirac, was instrumental in building France's relations with Syria, hoping in exchange that Damascus would ease its tight grip on Lebanon. That was not to be, however, and by 2004 Chirac had lost patience with Damascus and joined the U.S. in demanding a withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. After Hariri was assassinated three years ago in a truck bomb explosion - for which Damascus is widely accused - French-Syrian...
...Washington struggled to come to terms with Bhutto's death - the White House hoped she would share power with Musharraf and had made her the centerpiece of its latest plan for Pakistan. While the White House continued to back Musharraf's grip on power as the best near-term key to Pakistan's survival, others are more blunt in their assessment. Anthony Zinni, former chief of the Pentagon's Central Command, whose remit includes Pakistan, warns that extremist groups are "trying to ignite Pakistan into the kind of chaos they need to survive, and create a fundamentalist, even radical, Islamic...
...Musharraf's iron grip on power that has made Washington's own policy toward Pakistan such a target of criticism. While Washington has publicly extolled the virtues of democracy and hoped that Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October would usher in a power-sharing deal with Musharraf, it was also clearly nervous about the instability if the country's strong man were to lose power entirely. Pakistan - the world's second-most-populous Muslim nation, with elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban controlling lawless mountainous pockets in the northwest - is also the only Islamic state with a nuclear...
...hockey was on the line in Durham, N.H., on Friday night in the most anticipated matchup of the season: between No. 1 Harvard and No. 2 New Hampshire. And just 6:16 into the game, the Crimson (11-1-0, 9-0-0 ECAC) began to lose its grip on the top spot. Wildcats forward Courtney Birchard capitalized just 17 seconds into a power play to give UNH (17-3-0, 9-0-0 Hockey East) an early 1-0 lead en route to a 4-1 victory. “They exploited some of our weaknesses...
...ropes in a sort of life-or-death trust fall. In testimonials printed on FOP’s promotional materials, this should have been the moment when I rose to the challenge, mastered my fear, and remained changed forever. In real life, I shouted a few profanities as my grip on the rope slipped and the team leader was forced to lug me across the river with...