Both plans, Mr. Gore said, would risk plunging the government back into deficit and do nothing to address the long-term problems facing Social Security and Medicare.

In December 2004, Putin criticised the Rose and Orange Revolution, according to him: "If you have permanent revolutions you risk plunging the post-Soviet space into endless conflict".

If Ms. Messinger's fortunes do not improve, she risks plunging into the same kind of political tailspin that Elizabeth Holtzman began after her 1980 Senate loss.

But a likely consequence of that move would have been to lower the state's credit rating, even now considered precarious, and to risk plunging the state into a fiscal crisis.

However, Patrice and the scientists were given a 2-month time slot for capturing the beast; afterwards, a change of government would risk plunging the country into civil war.

Business groups have warned the chancellor that he risks plunging the UK economy into recession unless he finds cash for tax cuts and investment projects.

He could not risk plunging the land back into civil war by voiding the treaty.

Saddam Hussein needs to understand that either he complies in full with the UN resolutions or he risks plunging his own people, once again, into the suffering of war.

Every time I probe at the block, I risk plunging you into a coma . . . or worse.

He wasn't used to feeling like this, as if the world were an uncertain place and he needed to feel his way carefully or risk plunging into an unknown abyss.