21.   His immediate predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, held conversations through an American businessman, Ronald Lauder.

22.   In the academic year just beginning, the varsity teams from Princeton will be challenged to equal or exceed the record of their immediate predecessors.

23.   In their first few months in office, President Bush and his foreign policy advisers proclaimed a harsher line toward China than their immediate predecessors.

24.   In Washington he will undoubtedly appear less forthcoming and collegial than his immediate predecessor.

25.   It has been built back, beginning with my immediate predecessor, Jim Rill.

26.   It is also a reminder that Bush, like his immediate predecessor, is a boomer president facing boomer credibility issues.

27.   Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, like his immediate predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, has asked that the prison term be shortened.

28.   That leaves her just one title short of equaling the prodigious output of her immediate predecessors at the top, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

29.   The difference between her and her immediate predecessor, the patrician Sir Patrick Mayhew, could not be more pronounced.

30.   Their status will be in marked contrast to the fate of their immediate predecessors, the Florida Marlins.