Word: coal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...investments, all recommended by an attorney who is supposed to protect her anonymity and interests. The two of them are forced to flee from their village and hide in the capaciousness of the capital: "Long before I saw London I smelt it in the bitter smoke of sea-coal that began to prickle my nostrils and the back of my throat, and then I saw the dark cloud on the horizon that grew and grew and that was made up of the smoke of hundreds of thousands of chimneys...
Details of the agreement were kept secret, but it is believed to contain a promise of continued health benefits for Pittston's 130,000 retired workers and a profit-sharing program for current employees. Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole helped satisfy the coal company's health-coverage concerns by appointing a commission to examine the mining industry's difficulty in paying what it says is the increasingly high cost of insurance premiums...
There is no certainty that commercially valuable deposits of minerals exist. Surface rocks contain traces of iron, titanium, low-grade gold, tin, molybdenum, coal, copper and zinc. Gaseous hydrocarbons, sometimes associated with oil, have been found in bottom samples taken from the Ross Sea. But in most cases, says geologist Robert Rutford, president of the University of Texas at Dallas, who did research in Antarctica for more than 20 years, "minerals are less than 1% of the total rock sample analyzed." Moreover, the vicious Antarctic climate would make exploration dangerous and expensive...
Life in the shacks is much more healthy than in the coal mines, these strikers are quick to point out. In the mines, sickness is almost inevitable. One striker noted a study which shows that workers who wear masks may reduce their chances of contracting lung diseases, but they also increase the likelihood of suffering from heart ailments...
...that may be impossible in the mines. The harder and more efficiently miners work, the faster they deplete the coal reserves. And the bleaker their prospects for job security become...