Word: chain
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...precisely 3:45 p.m., three devices explode in five seconds: a normal fission bomb, a low-yield bomb for tactical battlefield use and something like a hydrogen bomb, which U.S. officials later insist could have been only a less powerful "boosted" weapon using tritium fuses to amplify the fission chain reaction. Altogether they unleash around 80 kilotons of atomic power, six times as powerful as the Fat Boy dropped on Hiroshima. The ground shakes sharply beneath the village of Khetolai, cracking houses and crashing plates to the floor. Eyewitnesses see a 325-ft.-high dust cloud "blossom like a lotus...
What is seriously troubling about the week's events is the prospect of an unstoppable chain reaction of proliferation. Plenty of other nations have just as much pride, insecurity and ambition to be global players, along with entrenched faith in the curative power of nuclear possession. If the five acknowledged nuclear powers couldn't keep democratic India from blasting into the club, how can they keep anyone else...
Credit risk is the problem that American banks are facing. Buried deep within the arcane bank statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is evidence of a potential chain reaction of derivatives heading toward an explosion. "I've been an analyst for almost 20 years now," says Charles Peabody, of Mitchell Securities, a brokerage firm in New York City. "Analysts like myself are learning for the first time how derivatives behave in bad times. I think we've just seen the tip of the iceberg of the problems with derivatives...
With Indonesia aflame, a virtual depression in Japan and both Malaysia and Thailand still struggling, the Asian economic crisis is far from over. In the worst- case scenario, one or more large derivatives defaults from Asia and sets off a chain reaction of failures. In the meantime, Howard Greenspan still awaits information to see if his bank will suffer from the fallout. "In the final analysis, this has little to do with Asia," says Greenspan. "It's derivatives themselves. We are into the age of global financial risk...
...stick as close to the President as the body men in the "protective detail," and therefore may not require the same legal privileges. But Starr is unlikely to keep his hunt narrow; if Johnson rules in his favor, he is certain to work his way up the Secret Service chain of command...