Then their opponents became embroiled in a leadership contest so ludicrous that it preoccupied the media and left them to get on having a proper post-election holiday.
And it preoccupied Luis Alberto Moreno, who has advised Shakira and whose bank is one of the principal vehicles for Latin American development.
It preoccupied me all the more when I came to this country [in 1966], because in Manchester, I realised for the first time that these historical events had happened to real people.
Myanmar was at a low point under the generals, largely cut off by sanctions; Cambodia was barely recovering from a nasty civil war that had kept it preoccupied since the time of Pol Pot; Indonesia was still rebuilding from the overthrow of the dictator Suharto, and the Philippines was in chaos.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, suggested that the United States was halting its effort because it was preoccupied with the fallout from leaks of confidential diplomatic cables.
It can't do that if it is preoccupied with merging two very different cultures and paying less attention to the Web properties that Yahoo's business depends on.
It has preoccupied the site's guardian, English Heritage, for its entire existence, ever since it was created in 1984.
It seems preoccupied with internal problems, though its president goes to Moscow next week (see article).A a newly-built pipeline, connecting Tengiz with the Russian Black Sea port Novorossiisk, is due to start operations this summer and will be Kazakhstan's primary export route, but it is too small for all the oil that will be produced in the coming years.
"It's preoccupied me my whole life, long before Gary was executed, and it has occupied my creative energies for a great many years," he continues.
