Speaking in Paris at the weekend, Mr Chirac said France would show "rock-hard firmness" in defending its interests in World Trade Organisation negotiations.
Saudi officials will query President Obama and his team about how they intend to reconcile engagement of moderate Iran with firmness with hard-line Iran, which clings to its goals of regional hegemony via Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and the Gulf region through Bahrain and Saudi's Eastern Province.
Raúl Castro has mostly praised him for his hard work, and his "ideological firmness" — more than enough to attract the ire of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans who have already criticized him for being a Castro protégé.
Below those high notes, the lower part of her voice was so lacking in firmness that it became hard to hear in the quieter parts of Brünnhilde's immolation scene.
Hard-boiled – yolk is cooked to firmness.
The considerable variances in the mass removal of tooth substance in individual teeth may be explained by the individual firmness of the tooth's hard substance.
But what Ms. Rose grasps, with riveting firmness and clarity, is Maggie's hard-driving sense of purpose.
Dove-Edwin served in London for six years, the longest any Nigerian ambassador has stayed in the British capital, and he is still recalled with affection by many as someone who worked hard for the improvement of relations, while retaining a calm firmness in protecting national and African interests.
As dense smog this week choked Beijing and several other cities, China's press has had unusually free rein to complain about air pollution.The firmness of Mr Xi's grip on policymaking is hard to divine.
No one in the group seemed to question the chairman's authority, and I, too, in the course of the meeting, came to be powerfully impressed by the strength and firmness of his character, although I would have been hard put to it to say how he communicated these traits, for he never raised his voice and most of the time a mild, kindly smile lingered on his moon-shaped face.
And the gloomy truth, for anybody brave or rash enough to take the job, is that Kosovo will be devilish-hard to govern with anything like fairness as well as firmness for many years yet.Dr Kouchner has certainly notched up some worthy achievements in Kosovo, to add to his great feat, back in 1971, of forming the redoubtable humanitarian doctors' group, Médecins sans Frontières.
