Last year, it made an abortive attempt to rescue Telecom Italia, Italy's former monopolist, from the clutches of Olivetti.

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Mulholland cites an abortive attempt by a French newspaper to let machines loose on creating English versions of its pages, replete with mangled headlines.

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In early 1998, as more bombs were found, and after an abortive attempt to filter out the ammunition, the navy abandoned the beach-replenishment project, dumping the sand into the sea instead.

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They follow an abortive July attempt by Morsy to recall the parliament that the generals ordered dissolved in late June, a challenge to military authority that was halted by Egypt's highest court.

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From the introduction of user-friendly labels like "My Computer, " through the abortive "Microsoft Bob" project (an attempt to build an extra, easy-to-understand layer on top of Windows -- an interface for an interface, if you will), the software giant has been waging a war to get the geekiness out of its operating system.

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Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has not tried to launch an attack on a target in the West since its abortive attempt to bring down cargo planes bound for the United States more than two years ago, so the campaign does appear to have suppressed the group's abilities to attack overseas.

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