Word: majors
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...like most industries, defense contractors like backing winners. There is also scant difference between the two candidates on major Pentagon contracts. Both have promised to study the military budget with an eye toward scrapping, or scaling back, big-ticket items like the Army's $160 billion Future Combat Systems. Beyond that, McCain has angered some big defense companies - most notably Boeing - with his wire-brush scrubs in the Senate of proposed Pentagon expenditures that have led, among other savings, to the scrapping of a Boeing-Air Force tanker deal. In fact, the resulting investigation ended with a Boeing executive...
...Tallinn seems made for such spooky tales. The medieval city is one of the best preserved in Europe, its 13th and 14th century gabled buildings built when Tallinn was a major link in the chain of Hanseatic trading centers that stretched across the continent's north. As the days grow gloomier in October, the atmosphere lends itself to the appearance of apparitions-imagined or not. Low clouds scud across the gray Baltic waters. The streets empty out as summer visitors who came for the parties and cheap beer head home. Centuries of sieges, plagues and political intrigues leave a catalogue...
However, analysts say that for Calderon to be able to touch the sacred cow of Mexican oil at all is a major advance, which could open the door to deeper changes in the following years in Mexico, the third biggest supplier of crude to the United States after Canada and Saudi Arabia. "The law creates a very important framework on which more regulations can be developed," said energy analyst David Shields. "It allows for contracts with foreign companies that can be much more flexible than anything we have seen before...
Calderon finally got his reform through by forging an alliance with the moderate wing of Lopez Obrador's party, some of whom have accused the leftist leader of being too authoritarian and confrontational. Following a series of backdoor meetings, the majority of leftist lawmakers not only ignored calls to blockade the podium again but actually voted in favor of the bill. The result was thus seen as a major political victory for the president, who built a consensus on a difficult issue and isolated the hard left. "With this reform the national economy wins; all Mexicans win," Calderon said...
...everyone is optimistic about Mexico's future following the reform. Political analyst Federico Estevez said that it could be too little, too late and lead to major losses in oil revenue before more radical legislation is implemented. Furthermore, he said that far from becoming isolated, Lopez Obrador and the hard left have kept themselves in a powerful strategic position if the global economic woes hit Mexico hard. "Lopez Obrador is sitting pretty for when things go bad for the economy here - and they will go bad," Estevez said. "If people lose their jobs, they are not going to care that...