Word: beset
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...think we know this about Italy's social topography: the north is efficient and prosperous, the south beset by poverty, mobsters and bad governance. But it was never that simple, as Amendolara demonstrates. This generally well-run coastal town is in the most troubled southern region of all: Calabria, the toe of the Italian boot, where the baleful influence of the crime syndicate 'Ndrangheta is pervasive, the infrastructure is dismal, and the unemployment rate is 13% - double the national average. Amendolara partakes of some of that woe - it's still underdeveloped and isolated...
Bush's Treasury Department unveiled proposed changes in the regulatory scope and power of America's corporate and financial overseers Monday that are beyond anything seen since Roosevelt warned Americans beset by failed banks, food lines and 30% unemployment that they had nothing to fear but fear itself. With today's markets jittery and average homeowners facing increasingly tight times as inflation and mortgage payments rise while home values fall, the Bush Administration is casting itself as a regulatory savior bringing some rationality to a dangerously complex and outdated system...
...decline into a crisis that killed Bear Stearns was the way many financial firms (hedge funds and investment banks, especially) generate their profits: by making bets with borrowed money. To borrow that money, they have to put up collateral--for example, mortgage securities. Lately, many firms have been simultaneously beset by bets gone bad and skittish lenders' calling in loans or demanding more collateral...
Paterson's personal charms are not in question, but he faces massive political challenges. He inherits a budget gap of more than $4 billion, a sagging economy and an atmosphere beset by partisan gridlock. His temperament suited the state legislature, where he supported stem-cell research and alternative energy and championed female- and minority-owned businesses. Will it play as well in the chief executive's seat? "David Paterson is going to be overwhelmed. He's never had any executive experience whatsoever," says Wayne Barrett, who reports on state politics for the Village Voice. "He's an incredibly congenial...
...Kubodera may be an exceptional student, but his decision to seek higher education overseas is all too common among Japanese youth these days. Japan's universities have fallen on hard times, their reputations so dented that many ambitious students no longer consider them even as a last resort. Beset by international competition, hampered by outmoded curriculums and cloistered, change-resistant administrations, universities are seeing enrollment and tuition revenues decline. The total number of higher-ed students in Japan fell from 2.87 million in 2005 to 2.83 million last year, a loss of some 37,000, according to Japan's Education...