Word: browns
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...sprawling high-altitude mass of air pollution that stretches from the Arabian peninsula to the western Pacific Ocean - has long captured the curiosity of scientists. A report released in the Jan. 23 issue of Science breathes fresh air into that ongoing study, confirming that the mass, nicknamed the 'Brown Cloud' but comprised of several small, local clouds, is soot from human burning of wood, dung and crop residue, as well as industrial processes and traffic pollution...
...information about the mass for years. A 2008 study by the United Nations Environment Program, for instance, warned that 340,000 people in China and India alone die annually from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases that can be traced to human-induced emissions of combustible particles in these atmospheric brown clouds. It concluded that regional pollution's impact can go global since winds blow soot across the world within weeks, and it, too, noted that brown clouds exacerbate deadly flooding and droughts...
...Brown and Darling gathered on Monday to unleash a slew of new schemes, the stakes for the Prime Minister - and the British economy as a whole - could scarcely have been higher. Central to those plans is the creation of a bumper insurance scheme that will permit banks to buy cover against losses on bad loans in the hopes that this will encourage banks to start lending to Britain's cash-strapped companies and consumers. Also announced: a $74 billion scheme allowing the Bank of England - Britain's lender of last resort - to buy high-quality assets directly from financial institutions...
...losses for 2008 could be as high as $41 billion - by some stretch the biggest loss in British corporate history. Much of that loss is due to RBS's ill-timed acquisition of Dutch lender ABN Amro in 2007. "Yes, I'm angry at RBS and what happened," Brown conceded. But, he added, "We have to recognize anger is not enough...
...Whether Brown's policies offer better solutions remains to be seen. While there's little more it can do to boost domestic banks' lending, the government is still "doing everything on an ad hoc basis," reckons Simon Maughan, banking analyst at MF Global in London. "There is a serious risk that if Gordon Brown's poll rating falls, then he'll do something else, but it won't necessarily be constructive. We're going to have a recession, and at some point, you've just got to suck...