We prepare to enter a new year with all of the pages still blank, in readiness.

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This is a top-level event and we all want to see where we are in readiness for the season.

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The new capital equipment takes a certain amount of time (about two years in all three cases) to reach production readiness.

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All the militaries in the region are now at top readiness.

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The various emerging economies are in different states of readiness, but the cumulative impact of all this will be enormous.

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In particular, they will be haggling over the criteria for battle-readiness which all the big countries want to establish as a way of encouraging more sensible defence spending.

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All will require of President Bush a readiness to incur political costs and to assume risks far in excess of those his handlers were comfortable running before the election.

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