1.

It is clear that continental voters are no longer content to be run by

those who tolerate fraud, incompetence and nepotism.
2. There is now a recognition [in Singapore] that history is best not
paved over: that it is part of a sense of patriotism and national identity
— qualities the government certainly does want to inculcate.
3. Reforms are hard to do at national level, but one virtue of the euro is
that it imposes obligations at a European level which countries can use
as a pressure to force domestic changes.
4. The unprecedented destructive power of modern means of warfare
demands that the main actions should be directed towards preventing
war.
5. One trouble with EU as a whole is that what served a club of six or
nine well enough no longer looks adequate for a club of 15. Let alone
one of 20 or 25, especially one with so many responsibilities.
6. Tuition fees were introduced by the Blair government. The argument
is that money is needed to finance the expansion of the higher education
system and that students should contribute to the cost of an education
that will benefit them financially in later life.
7. Industry executives said an «Intel» endorsement could have a big
impact on a market that has taken off slowly, because the company helps
define PC specifications and sells about 85 million chips a year.
8. The American Medical Association's decision to fire the editor of its
leading scientific journal exploded into a collision between medicine and
US politics that reflects the 152-year-old organization's struggle to find
its role in the rapidly changing health-care system.
9. The big surprise isn't that the companies (in China) are doing badly
but that they are admitting it.
10. The European Commission has asked Japan to relax some
restrictions on banking activities that it feels are hindering the growth of
foreign banks' business in Japan, Commission sources said Monday.
11. The report estimated that there were more than 4,000 foreign
companies, which do not trade in Britain, that enjoy virtual taxfree
status.
12. As Prof. T. sees it, there are two related problems that the
international financial community must soon address.
13. Last week, the Greek government announced a series of air traffic
control measures that are expected to facilitate Turkish flights over the
Aegean.
14. The proposed amendment is a fake. When the political will exists to
balance the budget, it will be balanced. When that will does not exist,
there are innumerable ways to make an unbalanced budget appear
balanced.
15. Childhood is the only time and place that grows larger as it is left
behind.
16. East Asia's current woes are in large part the price of its previous
success — and that success itself has been much misunderstood. This
survey will debunk many old myths about it, including the belief that all
these economies are highly flexible and well-governed, and that high
investment is always a sign of strength. But the biggest myth of all is
that of a single Asian economic model.
17. The saddest thing about the budget fudge is that it brought to an end
a fortnight in which Europe suddenly seemed to be making progress,
ridding itself of a tired commission and agreeing smartly on a
heavyweight reformer, Italy's expremier to run the new one.
18. «The weakness of the European [film] industry was that it was based
on a core fantasy, which is that there was a group of artists that could put
together a rather expensive product and hope that somewhere out there it
might find an audience.» (David Puttnam).
19. These political shenanigans have postponed for another few weeks
voting on a crucial one of those reforms: that of pensions.
20. Stressing that the salaries were not as high as those paid «in certain
sections of industry)), Deputy Leader of the House said that the Power
Minister had referred to the possibility of a review of salaries in other
nationalized industries.
21. For the few that have ruled modern Japan the political struggle that
really counted was that carried on among themselves for wealth and
power.
22. The depressing economic news out of China has been building for
months, so that when China recently announced a 7.8 per cent annual
GDP growth rate, even its Prime Minister admitted that the figure lacked
credibility because of bogus reporting at the local level.
23. Britain has been enviably stable. But that is because it has been
governed pragmatically, by politicians prepared to adapt the system in
response to popular pressure — for example in the series of reform acts,
which widened the franchise and ushered in mass democracy.
24. Japan's central bank has the power to buy up the country's entire
national debt, if necessary, and pay for it with new currency and bank
reserves. That would be wildly inflationary of course. But it makes the
point that low interest rates do not make a central bank helpless.
25. That devolution will allow different political cultures to flourish was
evident even at the formal oath-taking by members of the Scottish
Parliament.
26. Iran offered itself as a «safe bridge» between the Caspian and the
Gulf, but oil companies rejected that, preferring to create routes through
Russia and Georgia to the Black Sea.
27. Though he gets more credit for radical reform than he deserves that
is very much the sort of work that governments want to have done now
at the European Commission.
28. The complaint that the French judiciary is under the thumb of
whatever government may be in power is scarcely new. According to
legal historians, it is a complaint that goes back for centuries — at least
to the time of Louis XIV, whose ministers centralized the legal system,
subordinating local and church law to that emanating from the royal
court.
29. The European Union, now that it has launched its common currency,
is due next to forge a common foreign and security policy.
30. Now that Mr Gingrich has announced that he will leave the
speakership and Congress, Ms Dunn has decided to gamble her own
leadership post.
31. He resigned as Secretary of State last May. It was not that he
disagreed with the President, although that might have been enough. It
was that his judgement on a critical policy matter was rejected.