Word: majority
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...might have seemed safe to assume that the drama of the U.N. Climate Change summit in Copenhagen had finally ended when President Barack Obama emerged from a last-minute bargaining session with leaders of major developing nations to announce a deal. Obama quickly left town, aides saying Air Force One had to rush to beat the major snowstorm bearing down on Washington. Having agreed terms with the leaders of the U.S., China, India, Brazil and South Africa - the major carbon emitters of today and, even more importantly, of tomorrow - the President would have seemed to have brought two weeks...
...hands grasping religious beads, were soon plastered across the Internet alongside triumphant declarations from Mexican officials. The marines had shot Arturo Beltrán Leyva, or "The Beard," one of the bloodiest and most powerful drug traffickers in Latin America, they said. This death, they claimed, marked a major victory in the war against the drug cartels that are wreaking havoc south of the Rio Grande. "This is a crushing strike against one of the most dangerous criminal organizations of the continent," an upbeat President Felipe Calderón said in a televised statement from the Copenhagen climate-change conference...
...also questions about how the nature of Beltrán Leyva's end will affect the drug war. Back in the 1980s and '90s, key Mexican kingpins were arrested peacefully by police officers. However, amid the militarization of the conflict under Calderón, the armed forces conduct most major detentions. In the operation to nab Beltrán Leyva, hundreds of marines swept on an apartment building in the spa city of Cuernavaca, an hour's drive from the capital. A two-hour battle ensued, involving grenades and mounted machine guns, before the drug lord, five of his soldiers...
...never pursued criminals to kill them," he said at a news conference. "Obviously, if [soldiers] are met by bullets, they have to respond to the aggression. That is what happened in this case." The lesson may persuade others to surrender rather than risk death. But the gunning down of major capos could alternatively trigger even more ruthless responses from kingpins against both officials and the civilian population...
...struggle to acquire new stock, some Chinese have grown desperate as they struggle for what they see as fair payment for their property - or simply want to hang on to their homes. The media often carries stories of the struggle getting violent. Late last month protesters shut down several major intersections in the southwestern city of Guiyang after a dozen residents were kidnapped so workers could demolish their homes. (See portraits of China's workers, from the 2009 Person of the Year special...