Word: mattering
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...matter how many times I read predictions of China's bright future, I still worry about my country. As an overseas student whose parents are both laid-off workers because of China's economic reforms, I am not so optimistic. I believe that many people are so shocked by China's extraordinary rise that in some ways they ignore what hides behind the prosperity: the expanding income gap between rich and poor, a worsening environment caused by immoderate industrialization and corruption in the government. There are so many acute problems to be solved in modern China. The country is developing...
...does it matter who rules Turkmenistan? The country is home to the world's fifth largest natural gas deposits. It also borders Iran, where a radical regime covets nukes, and Afghanistan, where the Taliban continue to fight NATO forces. The specter of increasing Islamic extremism in Turkmenistan endangers energy markets and raises the possibility of a further breakdown of regional stability...
...matter of six months, possibly less, cartographers will have to make a small change in the political map of Europe: according to a U.N.-backed proposal unveiled Feb. 2, the formerly Serbian province of Kosovo is about to become an independent state. Ethnic Albanians, who make up the bulk of Kosovo's population, welcomed a plan that brings them to the brink of fulfilling their century-old dream; Serbia and Kosovo's Serb minority have already rejected it, and they're struggling in vain to prevent its implementation. But as the wheels of diplomacy spin, the impact of this change...
...little) and Serbs (who grieve that it takes away too much) don't seem to understand is how little real change independence will bring to people's ordinary lives, and how many of the present problems will remain. Kosovo will not fly to Venus and Serbia to Mars, no matter what diplomats agree in New York City, Brussels and Moscow. The truly lasting solution will be reached only when Serbs and ethnic Albanians sit down together and work it out among themselves. That will not happen soon, but one day it will. Ahtisaari's plan, provided it survives its first...
Sweden is rare in allowing entry to any Iraqis who can prove they have just fled central and southern Iraq, no matter what their political involvement or how they reached Scandinavia, according to Swedish Migration officials. (Some Iraqis have been returned to other countries under European rules requiring refugees to claim asylum in the first E.U. country in which they arrive.) As a consequence, Iraqis in Sweden range from Shi'ites like Alaa, who are fleeing Sunni militia, to Sunnis who for decades belonged to the Baath Party and supported Saddam's regime. Until the volume of Iraqis began...