The sale and run-off of non-core assets, first set out in early 2009 at the start of the RBS's three-to-five-year recovery plan, meant a fifth of the balance sheet was to be non-core, and the balance sheet was to be halved in size.

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Their governments also have a healthier balance sheet than those in the core economies.

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Several hours from the South Pole, in the barren expanses of western Antarctica, a small team of American researchers has just finished their second field-season with the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Ice Core project.

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