Word: april
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...over the past several months, the prices of oil, copper, palm oil and others have rallied. This shouldn't be happening given the parlous state of the world economy. The International Monetary Fund in April cut its global growth forecast for 2009, predicting GDP would contract by 1.3%, the most severe recession since the 1930s. Yet oil is some 60% more expensive now than in December. Palm oil, which is used in a wide variety of manufactured foods, has surged more than 50% this year. "The only area of the world economy I know of where the fundamentals are improving...
International health officials who had been on high alert since reports of a new influenza virus first surfaced in late April had also begun to relax--just a bit. Scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found few serious or deadly cases outside Mexico and little evidence of sustained spread of the disease in most countries. Though by May 6 the virus had infected 1,516 people in 22 countries--including 642 in the U.S., where two people have died from it--and the world was still officially on the brink...
...California Schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell said that last week teachers reminded students that if they have to sneeze, to put their mouths into the crook of one of their elbows. 'The students started calling that the Dracula Sneeze, and we picked up on that,' O'Connell said." --Reuters, April...
Here's the not-so-bad news: We are nearing a bottom. Housing prices are falling, but not as rapidly. Consumer confidence is up. Banks are earning money. The stock market in April had its best month in nine years. Even Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor known for his dire economic predictions, thinks we are on the mend. Sort...
...hope appeared. Two days after his Inauguration, Barack Obama made his campaign pledge to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, into an Executive Order. Quickly, the prison's backers made a new pitch: Why not house some of those 240 detainees at Two Rivers? On April 21, Hardin's city council passed a resolution to entice the detainees its way, saying it could provide a "safe and secure environment, pending trial and/or deportation...