Food prices are rising and the world faces a food crisis but the US Department of Agriculture estimates that a quarter of all domestically produced corn this year will be used for ethanol production. Ethanol is seen as key to ending America's dependence on foreign oil but around the world, people are protesting about rising food prices and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports and a new politics of scarcity is emerging and ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century.
Severe weather in producing countries and growing demand from fast-developing nations has the world's wheat stocks at a 30-year low. Grain prices have rose for the last five years, ending decades of cheap food.
Drought, flooding , the falling value of the dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and the increasing use of farm land and stapples to produce fuel have all contributed to the food crisis. But population growth and rapid development of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors as better off people eat more .
World population is set to hit 9 billion by 2050, and most of the extra 2.5 billion people will live in the developing world. It is in these countries that the population is demanding dairy and meat, which require more land to produce.
"This is an additional setback for the world economy, at a time when we are already going through major turbulence. But the biggest drama is the impact of higher food prices on the poor," Angel Gurria, head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, told Reuters.
Global food prices have risen 65 percent since 2002.
with a checklist of what was included in the price two 10 mil phials of A-Zst 9
a syringe plus details of how to adminster the A-Zst 9 - one shot immediately and a booster shot 4 weeks after the first.
there was also a workout booklet details of future plans for a telephone support line and a return PO box address in China
I bought the kit on my credit card
it's the smartest 700 bucks I've ever spent
according to the leaflet I'm one of the few people who can genetically benefit from the treatment its something like only 3% of the population
who can enhance their intelligence and earning potential in this way I just wish i'd found out about this stuff sooner because deep down I've always been kinda focussed
always known I was pretty unique
yeah, deep down, I've always known that I was born to succeed
Whether genuine lawsuit or fiendishly elaborate April Fool hoax , New Scientist reports that campaigners are taking legal action in the US to delay the start up of CERN's Large Hadron Collider , a new particle smasher being built and tested near Geneva claiming the facility which is designed to smash particles into each other with enough force to simulate conditions a billionth of a second after the Big Bang may prove appallingly successful at this task and create ' a stable black hole' or 'strangelet' powerful enough to gobble up the earth and everything on it in a matter of minutes.
I think that outcome would be pretty cool but James Gillies a CERN spokesperson reportedly dismissed the 21 March lawsuit said to have been filed by Hawaii residents Luis Sancho and Walter Wagner against CERN and US contributors as ' utter nonsense' although to be fair, the safety record of the new collider has been blotched already following an explosion in a deep tunnel last year after some of the number crunchers set up the equipment wrong.
Sancho and Walter are alledgedly demanding that CERN and its US contributors do not operate the new particle smasher until they prove it is safe. The US contributors named are the Department of Energy (DoE), the National Science Foundation and Fermilab, an accelerator laboratory near Chicago.
The DoE and Fermilab will not comment on the case, insisting it is a legal matter to be dealt with by the Department of Justice.
Whatever the facts behind this case a rogue mini black hole would sure help put the current credit crunch into perspective and if it anihilated the world on a Monday morning as well it would be a real bonus.
Update.
apparently people both inside and outside the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe
In its quarterly report the CBI, the official Voice of British Business , has forecast that the UK's Financial Sector will shed 10,000 jobs over the next 3 months as the sector struggles to readjust to the credit crunch, the global instability triggered by huge losses on investments backed by US mortgages.
CBI Chief Economist Ian McCafferty said "This is a very serious crisis - some have suggested it's the worst financial crisis since the Second World War".
The employers organisations quarterly survey of the financial sector found that most companies believed the credit squeeze would get worse in the next six months.
The CBI report held back from saying that the UK economy is freefalling into recession but acknowledged that finance jobs are already being cut.
In Hong Kong, Asian shares plunged Monday posting their worst quarterly performance in over five years as the region struggles with the same credit crunch problems and the impact of weakening U.S. consumer demand on Asian exports.
In the U.S. the Federal Highway Administration confirmed that Americans had responded to record gasoline prices in 2007 by cutting back on driving with ( effectively ) travel journeys falling 3.9 % , the largest reduction in 20 years.
With gasoline prices still rising, other data shows Americans are responding by changing their gasoline consumption habits in other ways. Not only are they driving less, they are buying more fuel-efficient vehicles and utilizing more public transportation. Daily commuting on U.S. subways and public buses is at the highest level in more than 50 years.
Hit hardest by rising gasoline prices are businesses forced to rely on road transport , particularly small businesses that are not so able to pass on rising transportation costs to customers.
Over the weekend oil prices looked set to stabilise some with news of a negotiated end to or at least postponement of the Shiah rebellion in oil producing Iraq but the failure of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's last ditch attempt to impose order on Shiah militias loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr doesn't bode well and reminds us of the link between failed US foriegn policy and global recession and the extent to which so many of our current economic woes have been self inflicted .
A US state is running a lottery to allocate health insurance. 45 million Americans have no healthcare insurance and officials in Oregon say they have come up with a fair way of providing coverage for some of those who cannot afford it.
There are more than 90,000 people in Oregon applying for a maximum of 10,000 places in Oregon's healthcare plan but There are some 600,000 people uninsured in Oregon.
Being unable to afford medical treatment has become a function of the country's wider economic problems and is an important campaign issue for presidential hopefuls. Oregon's Director of Human Services, Dr Bruce Goldberg, hopes national leaders will take note of his state's efforts but not copy them.
"I hope what they're working for is not a national lottery..." he says.
"I think it's an issue about how to use this as an example of what the problem is.
Applications are randomely selected by a computer.
International environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth are putting together a DVD, 'World vs Bank', a critique of the World Bank's actions from people from some of the poorest countries it is supposed to be helping. The video footage is based on the Hearing on the World Bank in October 2007. Criticisms range from the World Bank simply acting as a front for multinationals through to allegations of political interference in emerging democracies and outright corruption.
The lack of accountability of the World Bank seems to be a recurring theme.
Whatever, its clear that inequality , injustice and poverty are not really being addressed on the global scale and that many people on the wrong end of this equation view the World Bank as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago.
Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds. 12
Hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food.
Friends of the Earth plan to make the video available in English and Spanish spoken, subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Dutch.
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