Word: slash
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...floods account for more than half of the world's total deaths from disasters, according to the United Nations. But unlike many other catastrophes, most water crises are man-made. Nature may bring the occasional monsoon downpour or dry spell, but environmentalists agree that global warming, dams, deforestation and slash-and-burn farming exponentially exacerbate these seasonal weather patterns. Inept and corrupt water management also contributes to the problem, allowing plentiful water to run off to the seas or leaving it to lie in floods on the land, while a few hours away, crops wither in parched fields. South Asia...
...months of the year, they lift empty oilcans on their backs and trek a kilometer to a stream to fetch water. "Still, there isn't enough," says widow Dorjon Nongrun. Once called the "Scotland of the East" by the British, Cherrapunji lost its trees and topsoil after decades of slash-and-burn agriculture. Today, fruit and vegetables are trucked in from hours away. It's a scene repeated across many arid parts of India and would be unremarkable but for one fact: with an average 12 m of rain a year, Cherrapunji is the wettest inhabited place on earth...
...rivalry among no-frills flyers is already getting brutal. Udom Tantiprasongchai, chief executive of Orient Thai Airlines, says fierce competition from AirAsia and flag carrier Thai Airways has forced him to slash the fare on his One-Two-Go budget service from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to less than $25, about 30% lower than he had planned. At that price, he admits he's losing money. But Udom has wreaked revenge. He says he routinely employs a team in his office to go on the Internet and buy up as many of the cheapest tickets on AirAsia flights as they...
...vitality to Europe's lackluster economy. In large and small ways, the heavily bureaucratic tax systems in place in most of the Continent are coming under attack - and even governments with the biggest budgetary constraints are being forced to respond. The Austrian parliament in May approved government plans to slash corporate taxes from 34% to 25%, beginning next year. Belgium last year cut its corporate-tax rate to 34% from 40%. Firms operating in Estonia now pay zero tax on profits they reinvest inside the country. In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised but then backed away from...
...centers are going to go abroad." While individuals have a hard time escaping income taxes, companies can vote with their feet. The Austrian Business Agency - which deals with prospective foreign investors - says it has been inundated with inquiries after the government announced its intention to slash corporate rates; in the first three months of this year alone, it dealt with 900 requests, a 77% increase in the number in the same period a year ago. Almost 700 of them came from Germany. A growing number of international companies - including eBay and General Mills of the U.S., and Japan's Unisunstar...