Word: unpopular
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...those rules must be approved by the European Council, composed of elected ministers representing all the member countries. The problem is that, in many countries, a politician is used to saying "I decided it" when a measure is popular and "Sorry, but Brussels has decided it" when it is unpopular, even though he had the same role in voting on it in the European Council. Jacques Scohy, BRUSSELS
...child. The government also insists that it has banned coercive birth-control practices in the countryside commonly employed by bureaucrats eager to comply with Beijing's population-control goals - and those practices have declined dramatically since the 1980s. The central government recognizes that coercive birth control is deeply unpopular and liable to cause the sort of demonstrations and other forms of protest that Beijing abhors as a threat to its authority...
...More broadly, the ruling Communist Party is having a difficult time coming to terms publicly with the idea that the one-child policy has been a failure and should be scrapped. Precisely because this is one of the Communist Party's most unpopular policies, "it would be very damaging to the Party to have to admit publicly that it was neither a particularly good idea, or even necessary," says Becquelin. Given that background, he concludes, it seems as though incidents of this kind will continue to occur for some time to come...
...project of the London Co., a group of merchants with a royal patent: Imagine that Congress gave Wal-Mart and General Electric permission to colonize Mars. But of necessity, the day-to-day decisions were made in Jamestown, and its leaders were always fighting. Leaders who were incompetent or unpopular--sometimes the most competent were the least popular--were deposed on the spot. The typical 17th century account of Jamestown argues that everything would have gone well if everyone besides the author had not done wrong. Smith, for instance, described his fellow colonists as "ten times more fit to spoil...
...Only Chicago and a few other Illinois communities have similarly sweeping handgun bans on the books; no state has followed Washington's lead. Gun-rights advocates believe that if the Supreme Court affirms the decision by June 2008, Democrats will be forced to choose between supporting an unpopular handgun ban and conceding that the right to bear arms is a fundamental right. But Supreme Court decisions often have unexpected effects, and a victory for gun rights might create a backlash that could ultimately help the cause of gun control rather than hurt...