Against a backdrop of such thorny issues, the question of mobile roaming charges was a relatively easy and straightforward one for Mr. Barroso to highlight.
But there was something to be said for the toughness of a team that recovered from the playoff heartbreak of 2003 against the backdrop of such tortured history.
Against a backdrop of such nervous stillness, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, is even more animated than usual; no mean feat for a man once described as Boko Haram's "craziest" commander.
With soccer's world and European governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA, under pressure to act more aggressively against a wave of racial incidents among players and spectators, the game — and the remainder of Sunderland's season — seem likely to be played against a backdrop of such protests.
Against the backdrop of such uncertainties, the Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, and his Federal Open Market Committee colleagues decided at their meeting this week, on Tuesday, to keep interest rates at 1.25percentt, just as they had done at the meeting before, in late January.
Against the backdrop of such events as the dirty protest and the republican prisoners' 1981 hunger strike in which 10 men died, Lynch gives an inside view, exploring the human impact on the inmates, many of whom were imprisoned there in the prime of their lives.
