So this rainwater is flooding down the hillside, carrying with it sediments from the construction site, smothering the coral and killing it.

Other threats to the marine and coastal ecosystems from marine litter include smothering of the seabed and disturbance of habitats from mechanical beach cleaning.

But, instead of devouring the people in the shop, what it's doing is overgrowing and smothering virtually all of the bottom dwelling life of the entire northwestern Mediterranean Sea.

Before doing anything else, we must relieve some of the balance sheet pressures on sovereigns, households, and banks that risk smothering the recovery. Advanced countries need credible medium term plans to stabilize and reduce public debt.

For weeks, central Russia has been in the grips of its worst ever heat wave, which has caused probably thousands of fatalities. As a result of drought and heat, more than 500 wildfires have raged out of control, smothering Moscow in smoke and threatening several nuclear facilities.

Recent events suggest one possible explanation Burma s rulers have grown wary of China s almost smothering embrace a result of the country s international isolation. Indeed, public protests against China s commercial exploitation of Burma s natural resources became so widespread that the government called a halt to construction by Chinese investors on the huge and environmentally damaging Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy River.