Word: basic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...forces rolled into downtown Baghdad, they headed straight for the Oil Ministry building and threw up a protective shield around it. While other government buildings, ranging from the Ministry of Religious Affairs to the National Museum of Antiquities, were looted and pillaged, while hospitals were stripped of medicine and basic equipment, Iraq's oil records were safe and secure, guarded by the U.S. military. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had an explanation: "I think it's, as much as anything else, a matter of priorities...
...orderly neighborhoods in Baghdad may well be in the Shiite ghetto known now as Sadr City, where local imams, acting on orders from the clerical hierarchy in Najaf and for the most part ignoring coalition troops and administrators, have organized local militia to stop looting, provide security and restore basic services. But given the strong influence of Islamist radicals among them, these are not the elements the U.S. had hoped to see fill the power vacuum left by Saddam's overthrow...
...Bremer is also moving quickly on a number of other fronts to speed the delivery of basic services to Iraqis, to demonstrate that the coalition is in charge and that it is pursuing plans to make life better in Iraq. It's not yet clear how he plans to manage the establishment of an interim government, although that may become clearer after he meets on Friday with the seven-member leadership council tapped by Garner to organize the process. The political landscape remains uncertain, particularly in respect of the majority Shiite community, many of whose clerical leaders are rejecting...
...have come to naught, and if anything, the conflict is even more intractable now. The "roadmap" concept may be an attempt to bridge Israeli and Palestinian concerns by linking a cease-fire to a "political horizon" for Palestinian statehood, but it contains no new magic formula for resolving the basic standoff over security...
...availability of physical comforts beyond basic necessities is also growing. Lower prices of raw materials and energy signal that they are less scarce, easier to find and cheaper to produce. Aluminum was considered a rare precious metal on par with gold and silver only 100 years ago, but technology has made its extraction cheap and its supply essentially unlimited. Demand for just 12 metals makes up more than 99 percent of world demand for all metals, and supply of those 12 is now considered inexhaustible. Oil prices have fallen over tenfold in the last century while the amount of proven...