Word: bankes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Perhaps because his thoughts dwelled so much on the West Bank last week, Begin seemed strangely impervious to his coalition's defeat in the Knesset over an amendment to the country's abortion law. Agudat Israel, an orthodox religious party, had joined the Begin bloc in exchange for the Premier's support of its campaign to limit abortions. A motion to tighten the country's laws on the matter was defeated in a tie vote, 54-54, when four members of Begin's own Likud Party voted against it. Agudat Israel huffed that its four...
Fishermen have always called it Georges Bank. The origin of its name is obscure, possibly tracing to one of the British kings of colonial times. But its status is clear: it is one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Located in a West Virginia-sized patch of the Atlantic continental shelf, it harbors a cornucopia of yellowtail, cod and haddock, lobsters and scallops, swordfish and squid-some 200 species in all. Supporting a $1 billion a year fishing industry, it provides 17% of America's saltwater catch, 14% of the world...
...Georges Bank may have another natural resource: oil. That has put it at the center of a bitter legal campaign between the U.S. Department of the Interior, which wants to lease drilling rights to private oil companies, and an alliance of fishermen, environmentalists, and the Attorney General of Massachusetts, who fear an oil spill that could devastate the area. Now the pro-oil forces have swept away a major legal roadblock. Barring a successful new attack by the fishing group, the leases will be auctioned off Dec. 18 at a hotel in Providence...
...courtroom arguments in favor of drilling, no one knows how much oil can really be tapped from the shoals of Georges Bank. But even oil industry experts admit that the yield from the tracts to be auctioned will probably be far less than from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay or the Gulf of Mexico. Best guess: 123 million Barrels over the 20-year lease period. Brought up in a single haul, that would provide the U.S. with only about one week's supply of oil. If not oil, then natural gas could be drawn from Georges Bank...
...potential havoc of an oil spill on Georges Bank is considerably greater than at other drilling sites. Attorney Douglas Foy of the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston predicted in court that at least one major spill would occur over 20 years. Worse yet, warned Foy, would be the almost continuous discharges from day-to-day operations. Adds Biologist Howard Sanders of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: "There is a very real danger to Georges Bank fish from low-level chronic pollution...