The leaders also carefully avoided the question of which nation should lead the world out of an economic slowdown.

Of equal importance, West German leaders should avoid playing on their own people's fears.

By now, China's leaders can hardly avoid acknowledging that the party has harbored many bad apples.

The two leaders avoided direct answers when asked if the meeting had restored the personal trust between them, which has suffered badly in recent months.

Western leaders have generally avoided China since the democracy movement was crushed in early June.

But so far, provincial leaders have avoided a confrontation.

Until now most Arab leaders have avoided taking sides in the dispute.

Its only use - an important one, however - is to help leaders avoid similar mistakes and warn them against misleading historical parallels.

While other military leaders avoided the image of being "soft", Yamamoto continued to practice calligraphy.

The two leaders avoided an open clash, but they did so by steering widely around a patch of volatile political territory.