Word: primed
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...veil: visible signs of Islam's presence and thus sites for tension between Muslims and non-Muslim traditionalists. A recent report from the London-based Institute of Race Relations chronicles scores of campaigns against plans to build mosques across Europe. In 2007, a petition posted on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's website calling for the government to scrap plans to build a mega-mosque on an 18-acre (7 ha) plot near the site of London's 2012 Olympics drew over 275,000 signatures. That same year, members of Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League party "blessed," as they...
...lives. Supporters say the measure will stop 2 million kids from lighting up and spur about 1 million adults to quit, but the sharp hike has some smokers fuming. Cigarette taxes, detractors argue, are a way for governments to line their coffers by legislating personal choice--and a prime example of a regressive "sin tax," the term often used for fees tacked on to popular vices like drinking, gambling and smoking...
...making visit to Tel Aviv Wednesday morning. "Nobody saw this coming," said Mark Burnes, a State Department analyst who monitors Syrian affairs. "We knew that they were close to a deal, but the Israelis didn't tell us how close."... Official sources say that earlier that same morning, [Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu] had himself embarked upon an epoch-making visit to Syria, touching down in Damascus International Airport only six minutes after President al-Assad arrived in Tel Aviv...." [April Fools!] (Read about the top 10 April Fools' pranks in history...
...asked President Barack Obama directly about the elephant in the room on Wednesday. But he brought it up anyway, during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. A British reporter asked Obama about the proper size of government stimulus spending, and the U.S. President decided to talk about the perilous balance of global trade...
...media sputtered when the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, briefly put her hand on the back of Queen Elizabeth II as the two chatted at a reception. Etiquette is quite stern about this ("Whatever you do, don't touch the Queen!"). In 2000 John Howard, then Prime Minister of Australia, got plenty of criticism for apparently putting his arm around the Queen to direct her through a crowd. He denied actually touching her, but photographs suggest that he came quite close. (Another former Australian Prime Minister did put his hand on the Queen in a similar circumstance...