But Mr Sharif had advantages which no previous civilian leader had enjoyed: an outright parliamentary majority; an independent-minded media; and an opposition that was unlikely to be beguiled by military plots, having suffered from them itself.Yet a year on, his attempt to make Pakistan into a country where civilians are supreme is foundering.
The Chinese firm may agree to a deal to help to alleviate Rio's debts which were taken on before the credit crunch led to a foundering world economy.Rio's debt pile of some $40 billion was mostly run-up through its purchase of Alcan, a Canadian aluminium firm, in 2007.
Since saving forests is often the cheapest way to tackle carbon emissions, funding it this way makes sense.With global climate-change negotiations foundering, the prospects of raising cash for REDD that way look poor.
Indian diplomats "swagger around like viceroys," complains Ramesh Nath Pandey, a conservative former foreign minister.Meanwhile the peace process is foundering, dragging both sides into the mire.
The efforts of defined-contribution plan sponsors to educate people on the correct investment decisions are foundering even now.John WebsterGreenwich, ConnecticutSIR – You claim that "it is wrong that...so many retirees should rely so heavily on the state".
He presents himself as a sound manager who can turn the economy around, citing his 15 years as boss of Bain Capital, a private-equity firm, and his success in righting the foundering Salt Lake City Olympics.
Colombians elected Mr Uribe last year because he promised to restore order to a democracy foundering under the violence of two guerrilla armies and another one of rightist vigilantes, all of them financed by drugs, kidnapping and/or extortion.
If there is one thing Mr Romney seems to have learned at Bain, it is how to turn around a foundering enterprise.
Yet that agreement is also foundering thanks to Indian opposition to agricultural rules included in the deal.No such efforts look likely to yield anything like the commodities boom and hyperglobalisation of the turn of the century.
Its five-year-old policy in Afghanistan is foundering on the country's lawless border.
On November 29th George Osborne used his autumn statement to confirm that a foundering economy had thwarted the government's central mission: to eliminate (just about) Britain's structural fiscal deficit by 2014-15, theveve of the next election.
