No amount of money will allow European leaders to fudge this issue.

There is no room for fudge and, equally, no room for any continuation of paramilitarism or criminality.

The likeliest outcome of the current flurry of diplomacy will be a fudge, which both sides will present as the best result possible.

The result, often enough, is a climate within which managers begin to feel that it is acceptable to skirt the edges of the law or to fudge company accounts.

Brazil has a variety of candies such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with a guava jam known as goiabada).

The hostage rescue mission has also forced Chávez, still recovering from his failed power grab referendum of last year (a moment when Chávez s own army high command allegedly refused his demand to fudge the result) onto the defensive.