That is a gross imbalance, with wealth and influence hoarded among the few.

Beyond the loya jirga, a secondary problem of gross imbalance remains: ministry staffs are now dominated by Northern Alliance or former Communist personnel.

For him not to have spotted such a gross imbalance would have been like-well, like forgetting to breathe.

"It seems a gross imbalance," said Gail Nayowith, the executive director of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York.

The Government has started redressing the gross imbalance in its allocation of educational resources to segregated schools for white, black, mixed-race and Indian children, who now share the same core curriculum and standard examinations.

"The system does not work when there is a gross imbalance of legal resources," Mr. Nader said.

That Congress has done nothing to correct this gross imbalance is certainly evidence of the continued value we place on property in contrast to persons.

"To the extent that we see gross imbalances, then we're going to have to act," he added, though he seemed to back away from that a bit by the end of the hearing.

The mechanism behind kindling is sensitization of some neuronal systems and desensitization of other neuronal systems which leads to increasingly gross neurochemical imbalances.

The frontier conflict in Tasmania between Europeans and Aborigines has been alleged to have been marked by violence, cruelty, and abduction and rape of women, with a gross imbalance in weapons.