Word: scant
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...from the Soviet Union and East bloc countries, seeking a winter refuge, come in droves. As current allies, they have the clout to book the downtown hotels, while Americans are often relegated to the Tan Binh, a tedious, hour-long pedicab ride from downtown's central market. Among the scant diversions of the place: tasty, small loaves of French bread, pint bottles of dreadful Vietnamese vodka and a nearby tennis club. For a pack of American cigarettes, the local pro will cheerfully run you into a puddle of perspiration on the single cement court...
...down to 23, eliminating 3,000 jobs. Some analysts speculated that the referendum defeat was actually welcomed by certain factions within the regime, including an odd coalition of hard-liners who resist any liberalization in Poland and ardent reformers who want even more drastic measures. But the outcome provided scant encouragement for those hoping that the belt-tightening reforms would allow the country to begin chipping away at the burden of its $34.5 billion foreign debt...
...toward cities and old buildings seems altogether uncharacteristic of the U.S. -- delightfully un-American, in fact. Americans are supposed to have a deep distrust of cities and a Babbitty, hard-charging faith in the new and improved. Indeed, preservation on today's scale was an unthinkable Luddite fantasy a scant generation...
...Indaba, a South African observer wroterecently, continues to define political rights inracial terms, and involves "the maintenance ofeconomic structures and political control by ahighly conservative alliance with scant regard fordemocratic processes." (14) In fact, it looks verymuch like the "elite conspiracy" to whichHuntington referred back in 1981, as the probablypreferred outcome for his government-imposedreforms. Here we have assorted elites, negotiatinga settlement to which they plan to hold theirfollowers. The only difference is that theprocess, as he says in his 1986 article, can nolonger rely on a cooperative 'reformist' nationalgovernment...
...making season in Moscow, and unhappy housewives find themselves in a jam. There is no shortage of strawberries or currants. What is in scant supply is granulated sugar. As it turns out, authorities are rationing sugar, but not because they have initiated an offensive against tooth decay. According to Izvestia, Soviet officials are convinced that citizens are getting around the recent crackdown on vodka by making moonshine at home, with sugar as a prime ingredient. Caught between low supplies and high demands, the Soviet housewife can hardly be blamed if her mood lately has been less than sweet -- especially...