Word: backdrops
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...September 1932, against the backdrop of a great and deepening depression, presidential candidate and New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that Americans must "recognize the new terms of the old social contract." Today, amidst the currents of global economic transformation, our challenges are no less substantial. We must again renew the tenets of a timeless bargain, but for a very different future...
...next week. But the mini-controversy that has surrounded his planned visit highlights the mix of admiration and suspicion with which Berliners view presidential pilgrimages to their city. The current source of dispute is Obama's purported desire to give a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate, the backdrop for Reagan's 1987 address. Through a spokesman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she regards the possibility of Obama's speaking there "with a certain bewilderment ... No German politician would come up with the idea to do such a thing at the National Mall...
...WEST German authorities with the idea of Reagan's speaking in front of the Reichstag or the Brandenburg Gate, in view of the Wall. The Berlin officials adamantly opposed the idea, fearing disturbances on the eastern side of the Wall. Once they got a glimpse of the Brandenburg backdrop, though, Reagan's men knew they had their site. "I've always felt that the content was driven by the location," says Jim Hooley, the head of Reagan's advance office. "The speechwriters came away inspired by the fact that Reagan would be giving the speech with the Wall...
Indeed, this isn't the first time Al-Faw or the Shatt al-Arab waterway have been the backdrop to tense exchanges between the two neighbors. "Al-Faw is dear to all Iraqis because it still holds the bodies of the martyrs from the war with Iran," said Talaa. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the stretch of coastline was the site of several devastating battles between the two sides, including one in 1988 in which the Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian troops. Today Tehran's friendly relationship with Iraq...
...rough-hewn setting for Irvine Welsh's 1993 novel Trainspotting, the decayed dockside district of Leith, Edinburgh, provided a wonderfully seedy backdrop for a grim tale of nihilistic, drug-addled youth. But today, just 15 years later, Welsh's characters would struggle to recognize the Scottish capital's old port area. That's because over the past decade Leith - lying two miles (3.2 km) northeast of the city center - has experienced a rapid renaissance thanks to the closure of the docks and the cleaning up of once polluted waterways. The addicts have been replaced by white-collar workers, who live...