Word: placide
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...believe their ears. "At 4:35 a.m.," a local radio station reported, "a tornado hit the Rockford, Ill., weather office. The entire town of Rockford has been demolished. If you are in the path, go to a basement shelter." Gazing out their windows, the town's citizens discovered a placid dawn scene. Not even a tree branch was down...
...behind the placid routine lie the very particular shadows and superstitions of Cambodian culture. May sets his story against the backdrop of his country's night world, a place of sorcerers and omens, in which dreams of blood mean money on the way and the hooting of an owl portends miscarriage. One day he drops in on a friend to find the boy spouting gibberish while a cross-legged magician tries to exorcise his "evil spirit" with the branch of a star-fruit tree...
...placid corridors of the United Nations had suddenly been transformed into a war zone. "You bandits, get out of here!" angrily shouted one diplomat. The objects of his wrath: two startled representatives of Afghanistan's U.S.-backed mujahedin groups, who had shown up for a press conference. The aggressors: several members of Kabul's delegation, who began pummeling the mujahedin...
...Hunts' current crisis began last March when Placid, an oil exploration and development firm, defaulted on some $1.1 billion in bank loans. The Hunts and their lenders had not been able to agree on a plan to renegotiate the debt. The Hunts wanted Placid to hold off on making any bank payments so that the company could go ahead with aggressive off-shore drilling projects. The brothers were especially keen to develop a tract called Green Canyon, off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. But the bankers insisted that Placid should accelerate, not halt, its debt payments...
...silver-related debt, the Hunts borrowed $1.1 billion. Eventually they owed money to banks ranging from Texas institutions to New York's Citibank, the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Bank of Scotland. To secure the loans, the Hunts pledged as collateral much of their wealth, including assets from Placid Oil, their main holding company...