11.   Anything else is just a futile exercise in public relations.

12.   Because the employed technique tends to have a homogenising effect on the end image, the cult of nationality is often a futile exercise here.

13.   It has become somewhat a futile exercise to criticize the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for their pitiful performance in dealing with the Bosnian conflict.

14.   Registering their wealth, therefore, is a futile exercise.

15.   This was a futile exercise.

16.   The election will be a futile exercise if the old faces, declared corrupt, are returned to the assemblies, he said.