Canada is a country of ferocious northern winters, whose stoical people are used to battening down their hatches.

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Because, in the wake of a major financial crisis, households, companies and banks are all battening down the hatches.

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In Goma, the UN - which has faced a backlash for failing to protect civilians - was battening down as people flooded in the city.

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Despite its ethos of transparency and a mission to make the world more open, Facebook seems to be battening down its hatches as it comes under FTC scrutiny for privacy concerns.

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Israel's generals are already battening down the hatches.

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Banks have been battening down the hatches when it comes to capital, Mr Tucker noted, partly because UK regulators had urged them to, but also because the eurozone crisis had made the world a rather scary place.

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Here on Washington Avenue, a group of residents is hard at work battening down the circus float they made the other week, emptying the built-in cooler of Miller-High Life and assembling board games for the long nights to come.

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"Each network doesn't have to have its own man or woman on the scene at every river that overflows its banks, every border where there's a skirmish, every town up and down the coast battening down for a hurricane, " Hewitt said Thursday at the Frank Gannett Lecture series at the Freedom Forum.

CNN: Showbuzz