21.   Years of economic contraction, floods and drought have left North Korea in dire condition.

22.   However, others hoped Mubarak would concentrate harder on easing their dire living conditions.

23.   At the residential complex called Greystone, which is near the US embassy, tens of thousands of civilians are now living in dire sanitary conditions.

24.   The opposition holds the ruling Socialists responsible for the dire economic conditions gripping Bulgaria.

25.   Well educated and qualified Russians have long since fled such dire conditions, quitting key posts and compounding the general decay and disorganisation.

26.   Many of them live in dire conditions in the poorest suburbs of Athens.

27.   Prices would continue to slide, as dire economic conditions forced companies to cut more jobs, pushing the unemployment rate higher.

28.   Tens of thousands of civilians are now crammed into the complex amid dire sanitary conditions.

29.   The appeal of private agencies like theirs is strong among young people who find refuge in fundamentalism to compensate for dire living conditions.

30.   The exiles are living in dire conditions.