Word: vital
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...economic recovery Naimi so optimistically predicts would certainly be vital to oil-producing countries, whose own economies would be imperiled by a drawn-out recession. Oil demand in rich countries has crashed since the onset of the economic crisis last year, and is now at its lowest level since about 1981, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. U.S. oil inventories - the stored surplus - this month reached their highest level since the 1980s. And about 2.6 billion barrels are currently stored in commercial tankers around the world. "There is some risk we will run out of storage space...
...sober minds are needed. Despite the dwindling turnout, the Parliament is still a powerful legislative body. MEPs debate, amend and either reject or approve E.U. legislation on vital and concrete issues like climate change, immigration, financial regulation and employment. But in Utrecht, few seem to know or care what MEPs do. That makes campaigning much tougher, of course. "People should be interested," says Judith Merkies, a candidate for the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA). "It is about their lives, their place in the community and the world." At the same time, she accepts that voter apathy is a message in itself...
...Obama Administration is fielding fire, too, ironically from groups on the left. Burma is one particularly sore point; another is Clinton's comment that pressing Beijing on human rights "can't interfere" with policy on a number of global crises, like climate change, where cooperation with China is vital. This appears to be part of the Administration's strategy to emphasize rights where it can make real progress, and not just for rhetoric. But in the past, activists say, they expected new Presidents to talk tough on rights first and then, if necessary, throttle back. Obama, they complain, has sold...
...Still, at least Southeast Asia is no longer off the U.S.'s map. Issues in the region are not as pressing or as vital to American interests as they are in, say, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But precisely because they aren't, Southeast Asia is where Washington can win easy points at a time when it needs as many as it can score...
...attempt to paper over the extent of their losses, the Communists have been quick to point out their vital influence in shaping the policies of Singh's past government. The rural upliftment schemes that many believe won Congress this election, for instance, were pushed and prodded along by Communist support. "They have an effect that goes beyond their electoral strengths," says Jayati Ghosh, a professor of economics at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University and a prominent left-wing columnist. But the country's focus now is more on the effect of the Communists' absence. Unshackled from leftist dogmas against free...