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Disfigured fruits and vegetables could be allowed in stores after most European Union members voted to loosen restrictions on produce, officials say. Misshapen bananas and cucumbers could be in stores by next year if reforms on produce rules are carried out, The Telegraph reported Thursday. The Telegraph said produce standards are so strict, many edible foods are discarded by farmers. European agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said she thinks some regulations should also be thrown out for onions, garlic, cauliflower and spinach. In this era of high prices and growing demand, it makes no sense to throw (misshapen fruit and...

ONCE you become accustomed to gas at $4 a gallon, brace yourself for the next shocking retail threshold: bananas reaching $1 a pound. At that price, Americans may stop thinking of bananas as a cheap staple, and then a strategy that has served the big banana companies for more than a century — enabling them to turn an exotic, tropical fruit into an everyday favorite — will begin to unravel. The immediate reasons for the price increase are the rising cost of oil and reduced supply caused by floods in Ecuador, the world’s biggest banana exporter. But something larger is...

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is formally opposing the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power facility in Buchanan. Cuomo cites terrorism and earthquake threats in addition to an inadequate evacuation plan. PRESS RELEASE FROM ANDREW CUOMO: GOVERNOR SPITZER AND ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO ANNOUNCE EFFORT TO HALT INDIAN POINT RELICENSING ~ Nuclear Regulatory Commission Should Consider Threat of Terrorism, Earthquakes, and Adequate Evacuation Plans; Westchester County, A.G. Blumenthal Join Filing NEW YORK, NY (December 3, 2007) - Governor Eliot Spitzer, New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, and Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano today...

Frontal Assault on Freedom: FBI Raids Liberty Dollar Posted by BJT on Nov 15, 2007 Read this email closely. I just got it this morning. Those of you who consider the gold standard a quaint anachronism, pay extra close attention. If Ron Paul supporters, gold standard advocates and the Liberty Dollar were nothing but harmless kooks, why would the FBI raid their offices when no crime was ever committed? This is a currency competing with the USD, yes, but they never, but never make the claim that it is legal tender or anything other than what it is: private currency....

Lindsay Weiss of Overland Park is the grand prize winner of the Southern Living Cook-Off. She was awarded $100,000 for her recipe Roasted Banana Ice Cream with Warm Peanut Butter Sauce, which is now featured on Southern Living magazine’s Web site, www.southernliving.com. “My husband and I sat through the entire ceremony — two and a half hours — and when my name was called, I was in complete and utter shock,” said Weiss, who traveled to Birmingham, Ala., for the contest. “I was not expecting it at all.” The mother of two created her recipe last spring when she was...

This e-wire / report ultimately makes two points: 1. The voting process at the Iowa Straw Poll was a fraud, wrapped in lies. (Whenever those running any kind of an election use police power to hide all the ballots from the people, and then announce results (?) when supposedly (?) only they have seen the ballots – those people are frauds, are acting like Stalin-esque tyrants, and their organization is a fraud. That award goes in our current drama to the Iowa GOP leadership, namely Ted Sporer, Chuck Laudner, Mary Tiffany, Craig Robinson, and Chairman Ray Hoffman. What they did...

A rumour spread by text message has badly hit the price of bananas from China's Hainan island, state media say. The messages claim the fruit contains viruses similar to Sars, the severe respiratory illness which has killed hundreds of people worldwide. Producers in Hainan say the resulting price slump is costing them up to 20 million yuan ($US2.6m) a day. China's Agriculture Ministry has dismissed the Sars claim as baseless. Police are investigating its source. "It is utterly a rumour," a Chinese Health Ministry official was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. "There has not been a case in...

Music mystery of Da Vinci Code chapel cracked By Richard Alleyne Last Updated: 2:05am BST 01/05/2007 A Scottish church featured in The Da Vinci Code is embroiled in a fresh mystery of secret codes and heretical knowledge - but this one could be more than mere fiction. An ex-RAF codebreaker and his composer son say they have deciphered a musical score hidden for nearly 600 years in the elaborate carvings on the walls of Rosslyn Chapel. Rosslyn Chapel, theories connect it with the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant and the head of Christ The pair believe the tune...

October 27, 2006George Allen: You Have Not Earned the Right to Question Jim Webb’s Recollections of War – So Just Shut UpAnd to Chris LaCivita, Who Did Serve, You Should Know Better – Shame on You To: George Allen and his campaign From: Steve Jarding Re: Shame on both of you George Allen and his campaign hit men this week chose to again attack Jim Webb and his military experiences, this time by taking passages from Webb’s novels to try to suggest that the explicit war time experiences Webb writes about are demeaning and repugnant. On their attacks, I would...

Republican calls president 'derelict' in duty: 'This is not Ellis Island, this is an invasion' Author Pat Buchanan says President Bush should be impeached for failing to stop the invasion of illegal aliens across the U.S. border with Mexico. "I think he's committed an impeachable offense in refusing to enforce the immigration laws and in failing to uphold the Constitution by defending the states against this invasion," Buchanan told radio talk-show host Curt Smith this weekend on National Public Radio stations in upstate New York. "When you have 6 million people apprehended on the border and several million got in...

NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is seeking damages totaling more than $1 billion as part of an arbitration claim against the Ecuadorean government for seizing its assets, a company spokesman said on Thursday. The U.S. oil producer has also terminated all local employees in Ecuador and is relocating its expatriate staff, the spokesman said.

Venezuela and Mexico are among the potential strategic partners for joint operations in the fields that used to be developed by oil corporation Oxy. The corporate agreement to drill oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon was made null and void, the Ecuadorian Government disclosed Tuesday. "There is the possibility of forming a strategic alliance with a state company, as set forth in the regulations," Ecuadorian Minister of Energy Iván Rodríguez said. Additionally, there is the possibility of "contracting directly a state company of a foreign country to reinforce technically Petroproducción. The subsidiary of state oil company Petroecuador will be responsible for...

Latin America: Ecuador's government deserves all the trouble it's got coming now that it's decided expropriation is the way to get rich. But the trouble won't come from the U.S. It's headed their way from Ecuadoreans....The loss of Ecuador's hard-won free-trade pact with the U.S., something it was on the razor's edge of signing, is virtually guaranteed. Ecuador also will probably lose all practical access to U.S. markets when its 2006 Andean trade preferences expire.Two free-trade-pact neighbors, Peru and Colombia, will gladly help themselves to Ecuador's market share in exports of flowers, shrimp and other regional specialties. About 60% of...

Stocks go up and down, but eventually, most go up. So if you invest and hold on, odds are you'll do quite well. As my former Princeton economics professor, Burton Malkiel, told me, "The stock market is like a gambling casino with the odds in your favor. Over the long pull, it beats inflation, and beats it by a great deal."If you want to beat other investors, too, it's logical to think that you should turn to the most visible specialists for advice. These men and women make their living studying stocks, and they sound so confident on CNBC. You'd...

A future with no bananas? 11:00 13 May 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition. Go bananas while you still can. The world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop of any sort is in deep trouble. Its genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed. Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. Three years ago, New Scientist revealed that the world Cavendish crop was threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus. The...

Woke up this morning and it was rank. What causes that smell?

Belafonte: Bush kept him from King rites Legendary entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte on Tuesday explained his absence from Coretta Scott King's funeral. Belafonte told reporters before a speech at Case Western Reserve University that President Bush influenced the King family to disinvite him from the funeral in suburban Atlanta on Feb. 7. Belafonte, known to be a friend of Martin Luther King Jr., said he was told about the decision the day before the funeral, at which he had been scheduled to speak. The King children made the final decision, Belafonte said, but they were "fiercely intimidated...

NEW YORK (NNPA)— “I don’t know if President Bush is the greatest terrorist— I’ve not met them all, but he’s damn sure in the running.” As mild and gentile as you want to be, that’s what civil rights activist and beloved performer Harry Belafonte said as he addressed the audience at the Canaan Baptist Church annual King Day celebration. Introduced by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Belafonte was a surprise guest speaker at an event attended by ambitious politicos like Democratic New York Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, and higher-office hopefuls like Jeanine Pirro, Thomas Suozzi, Mark Green and Eliot...

Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, compared the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo on Saturday and attacked the president as a liar. "We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended," Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference. "You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel," said Belafonte. Belafonte's remarks on Saturday — part of a 45-minute speech on the role of the...

Panama, Nov 1 (Prensa Latina) A US presidential visit to Panama may be received by angry banana growers in front of that country´s embassy here. George W. Bush will arrive in this capital next Sunday for a less-than-24-hour visit, and although the government has worked hard to present the US statesman´s stopover as a step forward in bilateral relations, rejection prevails. The Cooperative of Multiple Services of Puertos Armuelles (COOSEMUPAR), in the province of Chiriqu¡, has some issues with the US transnational banana company Chiquita Brands International, and has asked the Panamanian government to get back four million dollars worth...

EU defeat in banana export battle "Banana wars" have been rumbling on since the 1990s A new European Union tariff on imported bananas has been declared illegal by the World Trade Organization (WTO).The WTO backed a claim brought by Latin American countries, who argued the EU tariff would have a "devastating effect" on their economies and exports. Under a EU system set for launch in January 2006, imports faced a tariff of 230 euros ($280.30; £158.50) a tonne. The new tariff had aimed to safeguard exports from countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group. Most were former...

A shortage of coffee and bananas has pushed up prices for UK shoppers, it emerged today. Nescafe instant coffee has gone up by around 10%, while loose bananas have jumped an average 14% per kilo, The Grocer said. Poor coffee growing conditions in countries such as Brazil, Colombia and Vietnam coupled with increased demand have pushed up the price of a jar of instant, according to the industry magazine. Meanwhile, an EU-wide shortage of banana supplies have caused an average 11p per kilo price rise for the fruit, bringing it to an average 85p. The Grocer’s price survey shows...

Latin America: The past week's high political turmoil in Ecuador is about more than oil or bananas. It's about a terrifying descent into instability that could hit every country in the hemisphere. The turmoil in the tiny South American country shows no sign of ending. Another president was thrown out — the third in a decade. His successor is widely regarded as an ignorant weakling. And no one thinks he's going to last. After all, Ecuador has had seven presidents since 1995. Maybe that's why Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turned her attention from a milestone NATO treaty signing in...

Where bananas never end The shriek of microphone feedback, the screech of fingernails on slate, the rippling reaction to an Atlanta-area woman's complaint about Columbus police officers' eating bananas at a Jan. 15 civil rights march. Each is going to grate on people's nerves, over time, so there's a "make it stop" plea I'll obviously be ignoring by writing this. But I don't really control the microphone, or the slate, or the way talk radio and the Internet can amplify a whine into a squall. And I certainly have no control over a congressman.

"This is exactly the kind of issue that I think can be brought up in the contested-election statutes," Reed said. But why did he certify the election if the numbers are in doubt? "What I signed was a certification for the numbers that were submitted to us by the counties," he said. "I am not in a judicial or an investigative role here." The latest questions about King County came after the elections office released on Wednesday a list of all registered voters in the county, broken down by those who voted and those who didn't. The Republican Party, among...

GUILDERLAND, N.Y. -- Mark Van Wormer is a fair trade coffee guy. He drinks it at home. He persuaded the private school where he teaches to make the switch. And he always requests a fair trade blend at Starbucks. "I was very attracted to the notion of buying a product that could actually put a little bit more money in the pockets of the smaller farmers," said Van Wormer, an Albany area resident. Socially conscious consumers like Van Wormer have made fair trade brews a rapidly growing niche of the coffee market. The beans can now be found on supermarket...

A BANANA WAR IN HONDURAS (Senate - June 12, 1990) [Begin insert] Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues to a serious situation which has been developing into a crisis for Honduras. The crisis involves a group of small independent banana growers in Honduras who are trying to break a virtual monopoly enjoyed by Chiquita Brands International, based in Cincinnati, OH. In recent months, the world market for bananas has been expanding dramatically, particularly with the opening of the Eastern European markets. Over the past several months, small banana growers in Honduras...

<p>The media often go bananas over a sensational topic, but this time they literally did so. "Yes, we'll have no bananas: A fungal disease could make the tasty fruit extinct within 10 years," one newspaper exclaimed. "Bananas in crisis: We unpeel the truth," declared one punny headline, while another detailed: "Why bananas are fighting to save their skins."</p>

Buy your bananas now. Scientists warn today that the world's favourite fruit could be extinct within 10 years because it is unable to fight off a rampaging plague of pests and disease. Emile Frison, head of a worldwide network of banana researchers, warned that the world's favourite fruit was at crisis point, with yields in decline in much of Africa, Asia and central America. He and other scientists warned that the regions most dependent on the banana, relying on the fruit for up to half their daily calories, are facing the tropical equivalent of the Irish potato famine. The doomed...

Philadelphia, Pa. - The next time you order a banana split or sip on a banana daiquiri by the poolside, make sure you savor the sweet taste of the popular yellow fruit, because it may go the path of the mighty dinosaurs - extinction. That's right, the crescent-shaped fruit, which is one of the largest agricultural products in the world, is in for the fight of its life against a plague of pests and diseases. The banana's biggest foe is Black Sigatoka, a fungal disease that affects the fruit's all-important leaf area, causing premature ripening and reducing the productive life...

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<p>Those were the items blown up by the Cincinnati Fire Department's bomb squad Monday afternoon after a suspicious suitcase was found near a local restaurant.</p> <p>The suitcase was found at about 2:25 p.m. in front of the Fuddrucker's restaurant on Madison Road in the Rookwood Pavilion shopping center.</p>

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GM bid to save 'infertile' bananas By Severin Carrell and Geoffrey Lean 19 January 2003 GM bananas are being grown in East Anglia in a government-funded bid to save the fruit from extinction. The banana trees – developed in test tubes in Norfolk and now several feet tall – are part of a multimillion-pound project by Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, to rescue the fruit from pests and diseases sweeping through the world's plantations. They represent an apparently beneficial application of GM technology, though environmentalists warn they may yet pose health dangers. Scientists warned last week...

  Science - Reuters Bananas' Days May Be Numbered, Scientist Says Wed Jan 15, 3:34 PM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo! LONDON (Reuters) - It is one of the world's favorite fruits, but the banana hasn't had sex in years and its days may be are numbered. Without scientific help the sterile, seedless fruit could disappear with 10 years, according to a Belgian plant pathologist. Emile Frison, the head of the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain in Monpellier, France, said the fruit lacks the genetic diversity to fight off diseases and pests...

Bananas may be on the road to extinction The banana could be on the verge of extinction, claims new research. Scientists believe the world's most popular fruit could disappear within 10 years, unless it is rescued by biotechnology. Since edible bananas are sterile mutants, new varieties cannot easily be produced by natural methods. This leaves the banana open to attack by pests and diseases at plantations and farms in central America, Africa and Asia. In the 1950s the Gros Michel banana was wiped out by Panama disease, caused by a soil fungus. Its successor, the Cavendish, is now threatened by...

Across America and around the world, liquefied natural gas is fueling more power plants, industrial operations and commercial vehicles than ever before. To bring LNG to California from Asia., the world's energy giants are moving to build three new terminals, including one on Vallejo's Mare Island that would be the nation's biggest. Five more are slated for Baja California to serve Mexico and the United States. But even in the midst of an unresolved power crisis in which natural gas supplies are critical to building new plants, community opposition may kill the Vallejo project and Northern California's chances for an...