The plan also calls for reconciliation efforts that could include holding talks with Taliban factions willing to abandon the insurgency.

VOA: standard.2009.03.28

Critics say many public health facilities already are under strain and fear more professionals will abandon the public system for private practice.

VOA: standard.2009.12.23

Instead of pushing women to abandon it, those who wear the veil may simply stay at home.

VOA: standard.2010.01.30

As some advertisers abandon Super Bowl ads for new media campaigns, newcomers and smaller companies take their places to advertise on the big game.

VOA: standard.2010.01.27

But he says they could turn back toward the Taliban and other extremist groups if they believe the West is planning to abandon them.

VOA: standard.2009.10.16

He says there are many good students attending less prestigious universities who have been forced to abandon their educations because they simply cannot afford them.

VOA: standard.2010.02.02

Crist was forced to abandon his quest for the Republican Senate nomination because he was badly trailing former state legislator Marco Rubio in the primary race.

VOA: standard.2010.05.04

About six years ago,the U.S., Russia,China,South Korea and Japan began trying to persuade North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits.

VOA: standard.2009.12.11

But political activists and lawyers are vowing they will not abandon their cause.

VOA: standard.2009.03.15

The captain ordered passengers and crew to abandon ship about an hour later.

VOA: standard.2009.09.06

But he added that, just as the United States must change the way it conducts itself in the world, so too must its neighbors abandon old attitudes.

VOA: standard.2009.04.17

Congressman Boehner of Ohio. "If we abandon Afghanistan, it will return to a safe haven for the Taliban and al-Qaida to plan and execute more attacks on Americans,"

VOA: standard.2009.09.28

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was still hopeful that talks with the Japanese would lead to a negotiated settlement whereby Tokyo would abandon its annual hunt in the Southern Ocean.

VOA: standard.2010.02.20

Since Ethiopia's withdrawal in January, al-Shabab began cooperating with another Islamist group called Hisbul Islam to topple the U.N.-backed, but weak transitional federal government, and to force more than 5,000 AU peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi to abandon their mission.

VOA: standard.2009.08.21

Administration officials say they are prepared to negotiate with Congress on final budget numbers, but will not abandon national goals Mr.Obama set forth during his presidential campaign last year: promoting energy independence, reforming America's health care system, and boosting educational opportunities.

VOA: standard.2009.03.22

"We want to reintegrate those people who are today perhaps part of the insurgency but prepared to abandon violence and prepared to join the political process and we want to ensure that the Afghan government is free of corruption and therefore able to be a strong authority against any Taliban insurgency in the country."

VOA: standard.2009.11.10

Does it need refinement in some way?" "And if it does need some adjustment in light of the events that have taken place over the last number of months, including the election and so on, and then what are the implications of that in terms of General McChrystal's resource request?" The secretary said the United States will not abandon its core mission in Afghanistan, which President Obama described as the destruction of the al-Qaida terrorist network, because it is "critical" to U.S.national security.

VOA: standard.2009.10.23