Word: majors
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Then, to complicate matters, Chávez mandated this year that the state own a majority stake in heavy-oil developments. Two major investors, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, walked away, taking critical technology with them. Abandoning its Petrozuata and Hamaca heavy-oil ventures, plus an offshore project, cost Conoco $4.5 billion in impairment charges. The French oil corporation Total signed a deal earlier this month to help fill the void. Still, Venezuela's output "is declining," says Rafael Quiroz, an oil economist at Venezuela's Central University. "If it dips below 2.1 m.b.d. ... it could bankrupt the industry...
...These days, hurricanes are studied in exacting detail, but scientists used to describe the storms in one of two ways: major or minor. In 1969, South Florida structural engineer Herbert Saffir came up with the idea of a five-category scale as part of a project commissioned by the United Nations. Later expanded by National Hurricane Center director Robert Simpson--and dubbed the Saffir-Simpson scale--it is now the standard guide to a hurricane's expected impact. Saffir...
...From Dec. 3 to 14 on the island of Bali, environmental ministers will meet to try to hash out the start of a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The world will be represented, but the shape of any deal will be decided by a few major carbon emitters...
...including the Archbishop of Canterbury, for his exploration of spiritual issues. "I suppose if you are interested in religious questions, that makes you religious," Pullman muses. "I am. What I am not is a believer in the sorts of gods that seem to be on offer from the various major religions...
...Balancing security and cultural ties to the U.S. with economic ties to China is a major preoccupation for Australia. Howard worked hard at it, and in 2003 invited Hu and President George W. Bush to address joint sittings of Parliament. Rudd shares Howard's vision of Australia as a bridge between the U.S. and China. On his first trip overseas as opposition leader, he addressed Washington's Brookings Institution on the implications of China's rise for U.S.-Australian relations. As a junior diplomat and later a business consultant, Rudd lived in China for a few years...