Word: lasts
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...After weeks of intemperate rhetoric on both sides of the Pacific - on issues ranging from trade to the Dalai Lama to Taiwan - cooler heads in both Beijing and Washington now seem to be back in control. Barack Obama and Hu Jintao had an hour-long phone conversation last week, after which the Chinese President agreed to attend a nuclear summit in Washington. And on the volatile issue of trade, a grand bargain of sorts now appears to be taking shape: In return for delaying a decision on whether to list China as a "currency manipulator" - long a dream of protectionists...
...Those reasons extend beyond an overstimulated domestic economy. The geopolitics of the move are also pressing for Beijing. Though exports collapsed last year as the world plunged into recession - China's current account surplus declined by about half as a percentage of its overall economy - that adjustment phase is over. Exports will again add to GDP growth in China this year, and in an era of high unemployment in the U.S. and Europe, the potential for a serious protectionist backlash is very real. (Indeed, a team from Treasury slipped quietly into Beijing recently to make just this point.) For administrations...
...explosion at the Massey Energy company's Upper Big Branch mine was the deadliest U.S. mining disaster in 26 years. The U.S. is one of the safest places for the profession; last year the country recorded 34 fatalities, an all-time low, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. China, one of the world's deadliest places for mining, has seen improvements in the safety of its mines, albeit from the high numbers of accidents in past years. In 2009, 2,631 people died in Chinese mines, down from a peak of 6,995 in 2002. (See pictures...
Despite the U.S. industry's good record, last week's disaster in West Virginia served as a wake-up call that it's not just Chinese operations that may be putting the bottom line before the worker safety. The number of government citations and orders issued for the Upper Big Branch mine more than doubled last year to 515, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration. But the mine continued to operate, raising questions about the quality of government supervision and Massey's commitment to safety. Congressman Nick J. Rahall, whose district includes the mine, has called...
...been engaged in a race against terrorists to gain control of the global supply of HEU - the compound from which a nuclear bomb can be most easily fabricated. President Barack Obama has said preventing terrorists from obtaining an atomic weapon is his Administration's top national-security priority, and last year he vowed that the U.S. would secure all vulnerable nuclear material within four years. On April 12, in one of the year's most important international meetings, Obama will host more than 40 heads of state for a nuclear-security summit in Washington, where he will rally support...