In this arid state, where water has long preoccupied people, early findings suggest it's a dominant story for the resident birds and mammals, too.
After the Ukraine showdown, the central Europeans may also find it easier to push the EU's foreign policy in two directions which have long preoccupied them.
With these recent works, Mr. Koons has continued to tap the cultural reservoir of glossy surfaces, hedonistic excess and swollen materialism that has long preoccupied him.
The work touches on issues that have long preoccupied him: artistic freedom, American politics and rights of gays and other minorities.
The psychosexual mysteries of his own personality and family background have long preoccupied Mr. Maddin, most recently in the feverish "Brand Upon the Brain".
There are two extended riffs in this volume where Mr. Franzen momentarily puts aside his fascination with himself to give the reader some wonderfully observed musings on two subjects that have long preoccupied him: Peanuts cartoons and bird-watching.
The Guardian continues: "Nor would readers of Nikkei be acutely aware that Japanese-made airbags have been blowing up in the US since 2004, a story that has long preoccupied the New York Times.
The American effort to muster Chinese backing for South Korea is emerging as a test case for how the Obama administration handles China, a nation that is more assertive on the world stage, yet possessed of some of the same insecurities and internal divisions that have long preoccupied its leaders.
"They are more important to me, because Sellers was asking people to pretend that everything was fine when it wasn't". The question whether Sellers was a malign madman and fantasist who boasted of bedding Princess Margaret and Sophia Loren, or a hapless "simpleton" swallowed whole by celebrity, has long preoccupied his fans and biographers.
