But its booming economy of recent years has increased the purchasing power of its population and moved an estimated 20 million out of poverty, with the majority of the population now in the middle class for the first time ever.

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With the boom in global demand for alternative-fueled vehicles, now may be a good time to break out your Periodic Table of Elements from science class.

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Rossi, who failed to make the podium for the first time at Estoril in the premier class, seemed out of sorts on his Yamaha - eventually finishing 23 seconds adrift of Lorenzo.

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Viacom's main class of stock briefly hit an all-time high after the results came out.

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Perhaps conflict may rear its head once more if the class action produces a big bundle of money, and the time comes to sort out who gets how much of it.

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Part-time volunteers, who in the West are often middle-class people who want to help out in their spare time and are often the mainstay of charities, are all but unknown in Russia.

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While the currency asset class is taking a time out, investors continue to pile into European equities now that the worst of the Euro crisis seems to be over.

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What will happen over time is that a new class of institutional investor will move in as the old class moves out.

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Back then, pop-folk music and its lifestyle were associated with the mafia-dominated nouveau-riche class that sprung out of the marriage between capitalism and lawlessness in the region's nascent democracies but, over time, it crossed over into the mainstream.

BBC: Bulgaria's chalga pop-folk: A cultural rift