Word: fallout
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Most of all, it requires international cooperation on an unprecedented scale. No nation can cordon itself off from the effects of its neighbors' pollution. Radioactive fallout from Chernobyl swept across most of the European continent. Canadian lakes are being poisoned by the belchings of U.S. smokestacks. The torching of Brazil's tropical forests each year accounts for some 6% of all the CO2 that is pumped into the atmosphere. Deforestation in Haiti and drought in Africa have prompted large cross-border refugee movements -- just a foretaste, perhaps, of the mass migrations that could result if runaway population growth outstrips world...
...capitalist outlook is still so new to India that no mainstream leader is quite ready to renounce socialism for the C word. Even Gandhi, who godfathered the middle-class surge, fears the fallout when less fortunate voters go to the polls later this month for parliamentary elections. For the past six months, he has turned his attention to promoting vast poverty relief and local rule schemes. Still, Gandhi's advisers say that if the Prime Minister is returned to power, he will push forward with deregulation and other reforms. If Gandhi is defeated, his successor may have little choice...
...colleagues that he is called "Sir Sangfroid"; an irritable trader who throws a phone at his clerk every time he passes; and a bond trader who thrives on global catastrophe. Minutes after the Chernobyl disaster, this fellow advises, "Buy potatoes." Lewis suddenly understands: "Of course. A cloud of fallout would threaten European food and water supplies . . . placing a premium on uncontaminated American substitutes...
...remaining hard-line regimes have become as a result of the year's dramatic political changes elsewhere in the bloc. The obdurate rulers in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Rumania refuse to imitate their reformist neighbors but can't help looking anxiously over their shoulder. "They are all worried about the fallout from change elsewhere," said a Western diplomat in the region. A Bulgarian proverb captures the fears: "When the Gypsy's bear is dancing in your neighbor's yard, you know it will soon come to yours...
Opponents charge that a disaster during launch could spew large amounts of radioactive fallout throughout Florida and cause 2,000 cases of lung, bone and liver cancer. The danger, they say, does not end with a successful takeoff. To gather momentum, the Galileo spacecraft will first make a swing around Venus and two around the earth before hurtling off to Jupiter. Critics are concerned that the vehicle could collide with the earth during close flybys...