"International supervision over the issue of US dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country, " the commentary said.

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Engineers are racing to avert a nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi, badly damaged by Friday's quake and tsunami.

BBC: Japan earthquake: Anger over Fukushima evacuation plan

On May 6th, just a few days ago, President Obama declared emergency declarations for Louisiana, which allows for emergency measures to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the designated areas.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

America must obviously be the judge of its national security, so the administration seems to be outlining for itself the right to attack any country on the basis of its own judgment, and presumably on a calculation that it is more likely to win a conflict and avert catastrophe if it strikes earlier (pre-emptively) not later.

ECONOMIST: The war on terror

Right now, Wall Street is resisting reforms that might possibly help the country avert the catastrophe that overwhelmed us a couple of years ago.

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What can outsiders do to help avert a full-blown humanitarian and political catastrophe?

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Our carbon emissions would have to be slashed with strict targets set and met by 2050 to avert catastrophe but this was essentially a man-made problem with man-made solutions.

CNN: Climate change action: Too little, too late?

One obvious way to do this is with nuclear weapons, a method that has the pleasing symmetry of using one potential catastrophe to avert another.

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Consider what would be necessary to slash global greenhouse-gas emissions just 50% below 2000 levels by 2050--a far less aggressive goal than what the enviros say is necessary to avert climate catastrophe.

FORBES: Uncommon Sense

But he is gratified by the fact that I think half the House Democratic caucus and substantially more than half of the Senate Democratic caucus thought that this was a significantly positive compromise and an essential one, because we needed to avert this catastrophe and we needed to get some deficit reduction.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

But the broad scientific consensus is that serious climate change is a danger, and this newspaper believes that, as an insurance policy against a catastrophe that may never happen, the world needs to adjust its behaviour to try to avert that threat.

ECONOMIST: Getting warmer