Word: lite
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...every 4.3 French citizens now works for the government and the salaries of these fonctionnaires now eat up 43% of the national budget. Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy says reducing government employees is "a major objective," and has already announced plans to axe 5,000 tax inspectors. For an élite group of French men and women, the most egregious tax is the "solidarity tax on fortunes," probably the world's broadest tax on wealth, rather than income. Enacted in its current form in 1988 under François Mitterrand, the tax is a levy on anyone whose worldwide assets exceed...
...head when it said we have become victims of progress, an unhealthy diet and a sedentary lifestyle. In the past, heart disease mainly affected those in affluent Western countries. But today in South Asia, particularly in India, the rat race to attain and keep a place in the élite class has produced some bad results. The West has exported its diseases as well its technology. Our traditional diet and lifestyle used to keep us healthy, but junk food and irregular hours have made us prone to heart disease. Let us go back to a way of living based...
...business concept, the 12 Girls Band is more audacious than its pleasantly conventional music. The group was the inspiration of Beijing-based rock producer Wang Xiaojing, who several years ago hit upon the idea of forming a band by picking the prettiest women from China's élite musical academies. "First and foremost," says Wang, who in 2001 auditioned 4,000 women on the way to choosing his lucky 13, "they had to be beautiful. Twelve beautiful girls standing on a stage is a spectacle in itself, even without any music...
...particular held out the highest hope," says Mark Bowden, who wrote a landmark story about interrogation in the October 2003 Atlantic Monthly. "But the human mind is more complex than that. There's no magic bullet." Over time, most intelligence professionals have settled on tools in the torture lite category. The FBI's methods fall on the genteel end of the spectrum. "Convicted felons have explained that they more likely would confess to an investigator who treated them with respect," according to a November 2002 issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. The interview should be a seduction...
...horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime, the actions of U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib unquestionably violated international law. What's more, for two years reports have piled up about "stress and duress" techniques military and CIA officers are using on al-Qaeda and Iraqi captives. Those tactics--torture lite--also go against international rules; their practice may have encouraged the crimes at Abu Ghraib. --By Mitch Frank...