Today, reports indicate that central Cairo is cleaner than ever, thanks to loads of volunteers who chipped in.

Slowly but surely, throughout 2006 and 2007, Jordanian intelligence, working with Iraqi Sunni tribes, chipped away at al Qaeda.

But the prospect of war in Europe now seems like a remote threat, and the varnish of the EU s past success seems to have faded, even to those who have not forgotten the bloodstains beneath.

What about Westerners accepting their Muslim fellow citizens' culture beneath their own varnish of human rights, asked a young Swedish Palestinian journalist. No doubt guidelines for further discussions on this topic will be useful to politicians of the European Union.

Slowly but surely, throughout 2006 and 2007, Jordanian intelligence, working with Iraqi Sunni tribes, chipped away at al Qaeda. Moreover, quiet efforts were made in the Arab world to curtail the recruitment and funding of suicide bombers headed to Iraq.

To say that we faced high doses of skepticism in those early years is just a huge understatement, but we were so convinced that we might be able to make this work that we chipped away with incremental modifications to this system.

But every major international crisis since then has chipped away at its authority. The 1997 1998 Asian financial crisis undermined its legitimacy in Asia, as many governments in the region believed that the crisis was being exploited by the United States and US financial institutions.

The design of the round can include features to prevent these failure modes such as the application of some form or waterproofing coat such as varnish shellac around the primer, and the application of a suitable crimping pressure to ensure a tight fit of the projectile in the cartridge case.