Word: insistence
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Attention, culture warriors: 'Tis the season to be vigilant. An atheist group has plastered Santa-themed antireligion ads on Los Angeles buses. Retailers insist on greeting shoppers with a neutral "Happy holidays," despite threats of boycotts. And the annual ABC broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas was pre-empted by President Obama's address on Afghanistan. The war on Christmas is back. (See the top 10 YouTube holiday specials...
...Secret Service is investigating how a pair of socialites and aspiring reality TV stars crashed a White House state dinner. Michaele and Tareq Salahi, who met the President and Vice President at the Nov. 24 gala, insist they were invited; the two could face criminal charges...
Bachelet had promised before taking office in 2006 that she would not use the law in Mapuche cases. She and her government, however, insist they have no choice at this point. "We've decided to invoke the antiterror law to go after these groups of people who are set on perpetrating crimes, disorder and unrest in a region seeking peace and harmony," Chile's Deputy Interior Secretary, Patricio Rosend, said recently. (See why Chile's Atacama Desert has become a tourist destination...
...insurgents, too, insist that they only attack schools that are being used as "police camps." In the November 2008 bulletin of a banned Maoist political party, an unsigned editorial states, "You cannot show a single instance where we had destroyed a school that was really meant for education purposes." HRW researchers contradict that claim, and say the Naxals attack schools as a way of intimidating the local population to keep them from cooperating with the military, who badly need better local intelligence...
...There are also differences over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program. Although Turkish diplomats insist that Ankara is opposed to any development of nuclear weapons in neighboring Iran, Erdogan has in recent months strengthened diplomatic and trade ties with Tehran, which is a key gas supplier to Turkey. The Turks abstained last month in a U.N. vote condemning Iran's nuclear activities, despite China and Russia's support for it. Erdogan has also criticized Western leaders for turning a blind eye to Israel, widely seen as the Middle East's only nuclear power - albeit an undeclared one. Turkey...