With the ECB determined to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro and the Fed promising to buy securities in the open market until the cows come how, world without end, Amen, then that chips some of the downside risk.

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We've been spending billions of dollars on school modernization for decades, and I suspect we could keep on doing it until the end of the world, without much in the way of academic results.

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He is acutely aware that the world has arrived at the end of the second era of globalisation without a plan and may fall back on the remedies of the first such era that produced even greater chaos than we are now witnessing.

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But no analyst in the world believes that banks can end their addiction to state-supported loans without there being a negative effect on credit provision for households and businesses.

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For example, much of the world will be able to see the space station Mir without a telescope through the end of August.

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He compared that kind of nationwide upping of security to what happened during World War II, though without any indication that this was a war that could ever end.

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We understand this is something that has never been done but in 1492 Christopher Columbus went out into the sea and everybody told him he was going to fall off the end of the world but with his risk and passion we now know the earth is round and without his will and guts we would not be where we are today.

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In July 2011, Albert gave an emotional televised address, appealing to political leaders to display "modern citizenship" to bring an end to a drawn-out crisis, which left the country without an elected government for a world-record one-and-a-half years.

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