Word: punishingly
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...significant tools of its foreign policy. The clearest sign came last winter, when the state-controlled gas behemoth Gazprom shut off supplies to Ukraine for several days, in what the Russians described as a price dispute but Ukraine and many others took to be a crude political move to punish Kiev for embracing Western institutions such as nato. More recently, Russian government officials have talked tough with West European leaders, raising the prospect that they might divert energy supplies to China and the U.S. if the Europeans don't meet their demands for better access to Western markets, including ownership...
...case, the desire to improve political ties with China outweighs commercial considerations. Yet by contrast, Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent member of the Duma, reckons that the key driver of the Ukraine conflict earlier this year was Gazprom wanting better prices - "not some willingness to revive the [Russian] empire or punish [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yushchenko." A former Russian Deputy Energy Minister, Vladimir Milov, reports that top officials from Putin down spend a lot of their time fretting about corporate matters. "I was surprised to realize that the lion's share of our President's office work was detailed involvement...
...kidnapping; Israel believes the perpetrators are hard-liners taking orders from exiled Hamas leaders in Syria, who oppose the reported shift towards moderation and compromise by Haniyeh and others in government. Whether or not leaders of the Palestinian government are assassinated, the likelihood is that Israeli actions to punish Palestinians for the kidnapping are likely to be met by further escalation from the Palestinian militants. And the playing out of that familiar vicious cycle will likely keep Israeli forces active in Gaza for a long time to come...
...second lady sailed through without a thought. How unfair, unprogressive and - in the original sense of the word - un-American, was the way in which Rosa was penalized by our system for doing well. So here's the issue: We need a medical safety net that does not punish people for doing good things like earning their own living and taking care of their children...
...What can the Democrats do? They can play politics or be responsible. The political option is to embrace "cut and run"; call for an immediate withdrawal, as Kerry did; and hope the public is so sick of Bush and sick of the war that it will punish the g.o.p. in the fall. But embracing defeat is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic. In fact, the responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed. This time...