If the country were to fall into chaos, the suffering would be grievous and could spill across borders.On paper, Mr Assad accepted the Arab League's sensible if optimistic plan to bring the fighting to an end.
The petrol containers from Uzbekistan that line the roads of southern Kirgizstan leave little doubt that smuggling continues.The days when borders existed only on paper are long gone.
This works great on photo mats because you can draw a border on your paper and it appears to be a frame for the photo.
"This is negligence on a scale that borders on the criminal," the paper said in its editorial, recalling how survivors said "the gunmen, who killed scores of students with obvious relish, took their time".
As a series of similarly bordered, skittery, black ink drawings on paper inspired by the calligraphy of a Sung dynasty letter suggests, this framing device is meant to evoke the Chinese practice of mounting drawings on larger pieces of fabric for formal display.
On paper, the border is supposed to be secured by joint patrols with soldiers from both countries.
For a measured response to a serious scientific paper this borders on the facile, but highlights the yawning gulf between the two sides.
On paper at least, the border surrounding the city of Melilla seem unassailable.
Some of these snippets of text are scrawled directly on the wall; others, drawn on paper and adorned with floral borders, bring to mind embroidered samplers.
Correction: November 6, 2001, Tuesday A front-page article on Oct. 21 about the Pashtun, the ethnic group that straddles the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, referred incorrectly to the border, which many in the tribe consider simply a line on paper.
