So far, it is unclear whether they will fully back DaimlerChrysler: although they have in effect washed their hands of Mitsubishi, they might still block reforms such as aggressive job-cutting if they felt these might tarnish the group brand.

ECONOMIST: Daimler and Mitsubishi Motor

It also closed the private Spanish Hospital, a complex that covers an entire city block, after waters rushed into the basement, cutting power and destroying X-ray machines and other diagnostic equipment.

NPR: Argentina: Flooding From Torrential Rains Kill 52

Thus, politicians rarely rouse themselves to do much to help, and when budget-cutting time comes, what little assistance there is often ends up on the block.

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It has expressed its anger with Russia not by invoking sanctions like the cutting back of the G8 to the old G7 without Moscow or by seeking to block Russian entry into the World Trade Organization, but by promising to help reconstruct a ravaged Georgia.

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