Word: specter
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...just two but perhaps 20 nations face one another at the opposite ends of nuclear weapons, waiting on a hair-trigger to launch an atomic conflagration. An Iranian nuclear weapon would be the gravest threat to world peace since the fall of the Soviet Union and would raise the specter of a real nuclear conflict for the first time since the 1980s. Allowing a nation that actively funds and supports terrorist groups active in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories to develop nuclear weapons is simply unthinkable and does not coordinate in the slightest way with American foreign policy...
...while the specter of EPA regulation of greenhouse gases may not be the solution to global warming, it nevertheless constitutes an important victory for the White House. Until the interests can be aligned to pass a climate bill (and there is good reason to believe that won’t happen until 2010), the White House can use EPA regulation as an implicit threat: If Congress can’t get its own act together, the EPA will simply move forward on regulating emissions. It also buys time to build popular support and a political coalition to pass the imperfect...
...countries in the world sit upon as many layers of history and civilization as Egypt, from the pyramids of the Pharaohs to the archives of medieval Jewish merchants. But the specter of Cleopatra has loomed above it all. "Cleopatra has come to symbolize Egypt for a lot of people," says Joyce Tyldesley, an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool and author of Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, published last year. It's a symbol that has not always been flattering. Centuries of Western literature evoked Cleopatra as a lustful seductress, corrupting the stoic Roman men who strayed into her orbit...
...forgotten so easily. A recent trip to India by Gyanendra, who lives quietly in a private residence in the capital, prompted howls of outrage from members of the government who are wary of his dealings with Nepal's influential southern neighbor. The Maoists, observers say, need to raise the specter of royalist nefariousness to boost their own flagging support. "They need to create a sense of threat, of a larger enemy, to distract the people from their failings," says Dixit...
...going on in state legislatures, like New York's, where the draconian Rockefeller drug laws are up for review; in other states, from California to Massachusetts, various forms of marijuana decriminalization are being enacted. And it has reached the floor of Congress, where Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy. (See pictures of stoner cinema...