Word: ussher
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...that all was not well with Iceland's banks. As early as Jan. 30, credit-ratings agency Moody's Investors Service said it was placing on review for possible downgrade Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir, another Icelandic bank. It did indeed downgrade all three a month later. In July, Kitty Ussher, then Economic Secretary to the Treasury and now a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, was quizzed by an influential House of Commons committee after newspapers reported that the Icelandic Deposit and Investors Guarantee Fund had insufficient resources to cover its potential liabilities. "Are you satisfied, Minister, that...
...possible and should always check the credit ratings of the institutions. "At the time of making the deposits [on fixed terms of between 364 days and 2 years], the ratings were good," says Chard. He stresses that the council has no immediate liquidity problems but points out that Ussher made no distinction between private savers and wholesale investors in her evidence to the House of Commons committee...
When the dust settles, the committee might want to revisit Ussher's words and maybe even question the wisdom of the rules governing local-council investments and how local councils interpret them. For the moment, Britons' ire is directed outward: at Iceland's hubris in allowing its banks to expand imprudently. There are also mounting concerns about how Iceland's economic meltdown will affect British Main Streets. Icelandic investment companies also own significant shares in famous retailers such as Debenhams, Hamleys and Oasis, and an Icelandic entrepreneur even owns the East London premiership football club West Ham United...
...universe? The question has perplexed scientists, to say nothing of theologians, at least since the 17th century, when an Irish divine, James Ussher, used the Bible to calculate the world's birth date as 4004 B.C. Since then, astronomers contemplating far-off stars and galaxies through powerful telescopes have steadily increased Ussher's figure. Today many scientists agree the universe goes back as far as 20 billion years, when it was created by an explosion irreverently referred to as the Big Bang...
...evidence of man amidst the fossilized bones of long-extinct animals-and the growing sophistication of geologists and biologists? had all but discredited the Ussher-Lightfoot calculations by 1859, when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Although Darwin did not discuss man in this work, the theory of evolution of species through natural selection suggested that human beings had evolved from some lower form of life. By implying that man was related to apes and monkeys, the great naturalist incurred the derision ?and wrath?of millions round the world. "Descended from apes!'' exclaimed the wife...