"The Australian" - European drought raises fears of food riots

From: The Australian

May 31, 2011

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/european-drought-raises-fears-of-food-riots/story-e6frg6so-1226065963651

Bernard Maquis's cattle would normally be grazing in the lush green pastures of the Limousin region, in central France, at this time of year. Instead, they are eating hay intended for the winter after months of drought have turned the fields yellow.

He is wondering whether it might be better to sell his cows at a reduced price rather than find himself without fodder by the end of the autumn. "I'm starting to sleep badly," he said.

Mr Maquis is not alone. With northern Europe facing its worst drought since 1976, politicians in the West are expecting protests from farmers, consumer discontent and a strain on budgets. Third World nations are braced for riots as Europe's heatwave creates a rise in food prices and drives millions deeper into poverty.

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"Reuters" - Europe E.coli outbreak caused by toxic new strain

Reuters, June 2, 2011  8:36am EDT

HONG KONG/MOSCOW (Reuters) - A deadly outbreak of E.coli centred in Germany and spreading across Europe is caused by a dangerous new strain, Chinese scientists who analyzed the bacteria said.

The scientists said the outbreak, which has killed 17 and made more than 1,500 others ill in at least 10 European countries and is thought to come from vegetables, carried genes making it resistant to several classes of antibiotics.

"This E. coli is a new strain of bacteria that is highly infectious and toxic," said the scientists at the Beijing Genomics Institute in Shenzhen city in southern China who are collaborating with colleagues in Germany.

World Health Organization spokesperson Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said the WHO was waiting for more information from laboratories. "This strain has never been seen in an outbreak situation before," he said.

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"Ruth Conniff" - In the Midst of Economic Destruction, Inspiration

Published on Thursday, June 2, 2011 by The Progressive

http://www.progressive.org/rc060111.html

by Ruth Conniff

As things go from bad to worse in Wisconsin and other states, with massive cuts to schools, medical care, voter rights, and, as of last night in Wisconsin, the Earned Income Tax Credit, it's easy to feel overwhelmed.

It's a full-time job just to keep up with the coordinated assault on our democracy, our rights, our kids' future, and basic human services that make people's lives livable.

That's why gathering with people who have creative ideas and a ton of energy to help build a better world is both a relief and a big dose of inspiration.

Last night, across the street from the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, a group of progressives gathered in the boardroom of a large bank to talk about hopeful alternatives to the Republican model of budget slashing, inequality, and destruction.

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"Medical News Today" - Cellphones Possibly Linked To Cancer Risk In Humans, World Health Organization

Cellphones Possibly Linked To Cancer Risk In Humans, World Health Organization

Medical News Today,  31 May 2011   

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/227011.php

Cellphones have been classed in category 2B - possibly carcinogenic to humans - by the cancer arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), after an international panel of experts evaluated hundreds of scientific articles. The IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) was focusing on electromagnetic radiation, which emanates from radar, microwaves and cellphones (mobile phones).

Category 2B includes gasoline engine exhaust, glass wool, styrene, lead and DDT.

In a communiqué, WHO wrote:

"The WHO/IARC has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1, associated with wireless phone use."

The authors explained as background information that concern has been growing regarding the possible health hazards posed by radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, such as those emitted by mobile phones. There are estimated to be 5 billion cellphone subscriptions worldwide.

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"Alliance for Natural Health" - Genetically Engineered Food Alters Our Digestive Systems!

May 31, 2011

Alliance for Natural Health – http://www.anh-usa.org/genetically-engineered-food-alters-our-digestive-systems/

GE organisms actually become part of the bacteria in our digestive tracts and reproduce continuously inside us. But the USDA now wants to to remove all controls from GE corn and cotton! A new Action Alert. ^[1]

There are no human clinical trials of genetically engineered foods. The only published human feeding experiment revealed that genetic material inserted into GE soy transfers into the DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function ^[2]. Even after we stop eating GE foods, we may still have the GE proteins produced continuously inside us.

As the Institute for Responsible Technology has noted, the genetic engineering process creates massive collateral damage, causing mutations in hundreds or thousands of locations throughout the plant’s DNA ^[3]. Natural genes can be deleted or permanently turned on or off, and hundreds may change their behavior. Even the inserted gene can be damaged or rearranged, and may create proteins that can trigger allergies or promote disease.

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"Robert Scheer" - Geithner and Goldman, Thick as Thieves

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/geithner_and_goldman_thick_as_thieves_20110531/

Posted on May 31, 2011

By Robert Scheer

What was Timothy Geithner thinking back in 2008 when, as president of the New York Fed, he decided to give Goldman Sachs a $30 billion interest-free loan as part of an $80 billion secret float to favored banks? The sordid details of that program were finally made public this week in response to a court order for a Freedom of Information Act release, thanks to a Bloomberg News lawsuit. Sorry, my bad: It wasn’t an interest-free loan; make that .01 percent that Goldman paid to borrow taxpayer money when ordinary folks who missed a few credit card payments in order to finance their mortgages were being slapped with interest rates of more than 25 percent.

One wonders if Barack Obama was fully aware of Geithner’s deceitful performance at the New York Fed when he appointed him treasury secretary in the incoming administration. The president was probably ignorant of this particular giveaway, as were key members of Congress. “I wasn’t aware of this program until now,” Barney Frank, D-Mass., who at the time chaired the House Financial Services Committee, admitted in referring to Geithner’s “single-tranche open-market operations” program. And there was no language in the Dodd-Frank law supposedly reining in the banks that compelled the Fed to reveal the existence of this program.

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"The Peoples Daily" - Drought worsens fears of inflation

The Peoples Daily (PRC), May 31, 2011

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7395635.html

A rare drought that has wreaked havoc in central and southern China is expected to send grain prices soaring as experts predict the worst disaster of its kind in 50 years could offset the government's efforts to curb inflation and threaten its annual CPI target of 4 percent.

Five provinces in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River – Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu, a major grain-producing region – have suffered the most serious drought in decades.

The drought had affected 34.8 million people, over one million livestock, and 3.7 million hectares of farmland as of Friday, causing direct economic losses of 14.9 billion yuan ($2.3 billion), the Ministry of Civil Affairs said.

As farmers struggled to find new water sources for their crops, many fishing boats found themselves grounded as the river and lakes shrank, and residents in the region found the prices of vegetables, rice and aquatic products rising.

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"Robert Koehler" - A Bad Day That Never Changes

Published on Thursday, June 2, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/02-0

by Robert C. Koehler

I get so soul-sick of the war news because it’s a bad day that never changes. Over the weekend, NATO kills 14 people in an airstrike in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Ten of them are children. President Karzai cries, “No more!” A NATO spokesperson pats him on the head, regretfully shrugging that the alliance works hard to “limit” civilian casualties.

Oh sacred Earth . . .

I have a theory that it’s all related, and all speeding up at once: global climate change, endless war. We are reaping the seeds we began planting 10,000 years ago, when we left the Garden of Eden and set out to achieve dominion over Planet Earth.

Bill McKibben, writing with eco-irony, warns us to draw no link between the killer tornadoes that hit Tuscaloosa and Joplin; the fires that have scorched a million acres in Texas this spring; the drought in the Southwest; the record snow and rain in the Midwest; mega-flooding in Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan; drought in the Amazon. If we do draw a link, our ground of being gets spongy.

"And then,” McKibben writes, “you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.”

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"www.sciencedaily.com" - Melting Glaciers May Affect Ocean Currents

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110525110155.htm

ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — A team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and Bangor University have used a computer climate model to study how freshwater entering the oceans at the end of the penultimate Ice Age 140,000 years ago affected the parts of the ocean currents that control climate.

A paper based on the research, co-authored by Professor Grant Bigg, Head of the University of Sheffield's Department of Geography, his PhD student Clare Green, and Dr Mattias Green, a Senior Research fellow at Bangor University's School of Ocean Sciences, is currently featured as an Editor's Highlight in the journal, Paleoceanography. The study is the first of this kind for the time period.

The research found that freshwater entering the ocean from melting ice sheets can weaken the climate controlling part of the large-scale ocean circulation, with dramatic climate change as a consequence. During the period of the study, the experts noted that the global temperature dropped by up to two degrees over a few centuries, but changes were not uniform over the planet, and it took a long time for the climate to recover after the ice sheets had melted completely.

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"www.sciencedaily.com" - Overuse of Antimicrobials in Livestock Risks Human Health, Warn Experts

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601204052.htm

ScienceDaily (June 1, 2011) — Excessive use of antimicrobials in livestock promotes resistance and risks the future health of both animals and humans, warn experts in an editorial published by Student BMJ on June 1, 2011.

Jørgen Schlundt and colleagues at the National Food Institute in Denmark argue that the routine use of antimicrobials can be reduced substantially, while maintaining profitable animal production, and call for their use to be monitored in all countries.

Antimicrobials are essential for treating bacterial infections in humans and animals. Substantial amounts are used in modern animal production, but their use can result in bacteria that are resistant to treatment.

Resistant bacteria can spread from animals to humans, mainly through the food chain.

Three of four recently emerging infections in humans originate from animals: avian influenza H5N1, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and Salmonella.

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