In British Columbia, for example, illegal felling of species such as the western red cedar is a growing problem.

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Specifically, he is looking at Hungary, the Ukraine and Lithuania as potential problem areas if Western Europe heads into a recession.

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Mr Schleicher says this is also a major problem for other Western economies, such as France and Germany.

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As it was assumed that a weakened dollar would solve the problem, in 1985 the leading western democracies and Japan announced the Plaza Accords to systematically push down the dollar against the Japanese yen and the Deutsche mark.

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