Word: tighten
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...noon, and another round of shelling has begun in Komura. As the earth shudders, men drop into bunkers near a thick stand of bamboo trees. Nobody talks, but with each blast, the muscles in the men's faces tighten. Saw Klee Moo's face, however, remains smooth. When a rocket explodes nearby, shaking the ammunition crate where Saw Klee Moo crouches, he smiles. Saw Klee Moo is nearly 15 and certain that he will never be hit by a bomb...
...spite of Saddam's noisy saber rattling this year, Washington has done nothing to tighten controls over exports of equipment with potentially dangerous applications. The State Department has not declared Iraq a "country of concern," a classification that would impose tighter export controls on a long list of items that might have military applications. In the absence of such a classification, the Commerce Department is currently considering "on a case-by-case basis" 63 applications for licenses to export suspect equipment. The department did belatedly drop Iraq from the itinerary of a special aerospace trade mission by American firms...
...democratization and glasnost. We are committed to that. We'll be guided on that path by the rule of law. That means there should be one law for everyone; everyone should be equal before the law. Nor should we yield to pressure from those who would like us to tighten the - screws, as they put it. Of course we'll find some screws loose, and they will have to be tightened. But repression, witch-hunts, the search for enemies -- all that is unacceptable. It's not what we want, and it's not what our people want...
...three years Colin Richardson faithfully made every payment on the $125,000 mortgage on his small auto-repair shop in Lexington, Mass. But last February the Bank of Boston suddenly called in the loan. The bank, which was responding to pressure from U.S. regulators to tighten credit standards, relented only after an outraged Richardson went public with his plight by telling it to reporters in a one-man media blitz. Says he: "It would have made no sense to close my doors and sell everything off just to pay back the bank. How absolutely ridiculous and astounding for a little...
...more aliens in. Illegals now make up as much as 6% of the U.S. work force. Some immigration experts, most notably Julian Simon, a professor of business at the University of Maryland, predict that as the baby boomers age and the birthrate falls, the labor market will tighten and "employers will cry out for workers." The Kennedy-Simpson bill being considered by the House sets an annual "flexible" cap of about 630,000 legal immigrants per year, far less than the U.S. economy could absorb. Moreover, several new books refute the contention that immigrants displace U.S. workers or burden...