Word: bettering
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...That rise in indebtedness is now giving way to what looks to be a long slide. At least, it had better be; if consumers start piling on debt again, we'll just have another, bigger credit crisis in a few years. But if they keep increasing their savings rate and reducing their debt loads, that's bad news for corporate profits, not just bank profits. Anybody who makes things that in recent years were bought on credit, from houses to washing machines to cars, is likely to be affected. So are stock prices. "Higher borrowing produces both higher profits...
...analysis of people ages 1 month to 89 years, children under 5 suffered 13.4% of all injuries. Also among this age group, 76% of all recorded incidents involved head injuries, which was five times the figure for adults. Children ages 5 to 9 fared somewhat better, with 62% of accidents resulting in head injuries...
...which are gradually becoming known to the world. Indeed, Kim and others believe that while the two women will be treated differently, they will still probably be sent to a regular prison - called a kyohwaso, or reformatory - rather than a prison for political prisoners, where conditions are relatively better. Kyohwaso life is extremely harsh: scholars estimate only 50% of prisoners survive their first year. One of the first accounts of the North Korean prison system, a 2000 memoir called The Aquariums of Pyongyang, tells of routine torture and deprivations on par with those of Nazi concentration camps. The book...
Meanwhile, better surveillance technology is catching the enemy in the act. Balloon cameras afloat along the most at-risk stretches of road now keep 24-hour watch. When bomb teams are caught on roads at odd hours of the night, unmanned aerial drones can be summoned to strike with Hellfire missiles within half an hour. Demartino says that during one week last summer, six IED teams were killed this way, one of which was comprised of Pakistani Taliban. It was a "train the trainer" team that was moving around the region to teach locals how to emplace bombs, he says...
...frustrated South Koreans seem content to wait until North Korea shows some signs it is more willing to cooperate. Kim Jong Il "is like a frog in a well living in his own world," complains Kim, the retiree. "If he opens up, the North Koreans would be better off, and we would be better off, too, but he doesn't seem to understand that." Until he does, the conflict on the Korean peninsula will remain as it has for so long - stuck in time...