Word: primed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...question is whether the IMF is up to the job being thrust upon it. The huge boost to its reserves exists on paper, but it's not yet clear where all that money will come from. Japan has pledged $100 billion. Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister who hosted the G-20 summit, said the European Union would put up $100 billion and that China would provide $40 billion. But Chinese officials wouldn't confirm that amount - and even if the money is forthcoming, it still leaves $260 billion unaccounted for. At a time when governments are financially overstretched, that...
...Buddhism forbids intoxication. Yet excessive drinking is deeply rooted in the culture. "Thais are fun-loving people," said a recent editorial in the newspaper Thai Rath. "We all know that a party is not complete without drinks." This perhaps explains the ban's lukewarm reception from British-educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government. The Tourism Minister claimed it would drive away foreign visitors and further damage a vital industry already reeling from global recession and the shutdown of Bangkok's two airports by antigovernment protesters last year...
...storm of controversy continued to rage on Monday, after Royal revealed that she'd written to Spain's Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to apologize for the "insulting" comments Sarkozy purportedly made about the Spanish leader last week. On April 16, French daily Libération reported that Sarkozy had described Zapatero as "not very clever" during lunch with a group of legislators the previous day. According to the paper, he also made belittling comments about U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, landing himself in the middle of an embarrassing international press frenzy. Addressing Sarkozy...
...Nikkei Brazilians, Peruvians and others who have lost their jobs go home, what will Japan do? Last week, Prime Minister Taro Aso unveiled a long-term growth strategy to create millions of jobs and add $1.2 trillion to GDP by 2020. But the discussion of immigration reform is notoriously absent in Japan, and reaching a sensible policy for foreign workers has hardly got under way. Encouraging those foreigners who would actually like to stay in Japan to leave seems a funny place to start...
...When Vladimir Putin was appointed Russian prime minister in 1999, Chechnya was a de facto independent region where Russia had already fought one bloody war. One of Putin's first moves, before he became President, was to launch the Second Chechen War. Kadyrov's father, Akhmad, was installed by Moscow as part of its new strategy of "Chechenization" of the conflict: turning power over to local rebels-turned-allies...