Perhaps most seriously, there is Mr Chernomyrdin's cosiness with Gazprom, the country's most powerful company, which he used to run and which thrived, lightly taxed, under his prime ministership.

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Yet it admits that its lightly armed men had run out of ammunition.

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The religious scholars he studied at Harvard, such as Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (1878--1965), helped this devout Episcopalian articulate what is in essence a Buddhist worldview: Business is interdependent with everything around it, and hence it must tread lightly alongside nature, so both can remain healthy and sustain each other in the long run.

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But if Perry does run, American voters will have a real choice: A principled conservative who has kept his state fiscally sound, lightly regulated, a magnet for business and a place where Americans increasingly want to live.

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