Word: take
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...lose our will. But Ronald Reagan didn't bludgeon Mikhail Gorbachev into submission; he seduced him with intensive diplomatic engagement and arms-control agreements that thawed the Cold War. It was only after that thaw that Gorby let Eastern Europe go free. Eventually, it will probably take a similar thawing to get regimes like Iran and Syria out of the terrorism business...
...diplomatic muscle to cut deals that don't look like abject American defeats. It's a risky strategy, since there's no guarantee that the bigger sticks will work, and if they don't, pulling back will be even harder. But it's a gamble Obama may have to take. The harsh truth is that the U.S. is significantly weaker in the Middle East now than it was in 2002. For close to a decade, our adversaries have not only survived our efforts to destroy them; they've also realized that conflict with the U.S. has its advantages. Now Obama...
...while these controversies attract attention, there are also efforts to work out solutions to living with religious differences in Europe. Take a recent book by French anthropologists Dounia and Lylia Bouzar, Is There Room for Allah in the Workplace? The book offers legal guidelines on how work-religion conflicts might be examined, as well as practical suggestions on resolving them. "Paradoxically, as the question of the visibility of religious practice crops up regularly in the media, it remains a total haze in the professional world," the book notes. (See pictures of Islam's soft revolution...
...Previous research indicates that almost a third of French companies are grappling with how to respond to requests from Muslim employees for prayer breaks, Islamic holidays, halal options on cafeteria menus and adapting work assignments to take into account the effects of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. In their study, which involved over 350 interviews with employees and managers from dozens of companies, the Bouzars found most bosses have tended to improvise reactions to such demands, producing two contrasting excesses. "Managers have tended to either adopt laxity, reasoning 'We've got to accept their differences and avoid perceptions...
...many societies, photos of four-member families wouldn't be much to stop and take notice of. But as of this year, Taiwan has the lowest birthrate in the world, with just one baby born per woman. According to the Population Reference Bureau's 2009 annual report, Taiwan has now surpassed both Macau and Hong Kong, which have held the lowest spots on the world chart for the past five years. (See pictures of this year's deadly typhoon in Taiwan...