Aid agency Oxfam doesn't seem to really believe it:
Jo Leadbeater, head of advocacy in Oxfam’s Brussels Office said: “A genuine offer to eliminate all export subsidies would be cause for great celebration. The European Union must make this pledge a reality as soon as possible, and encourage the US to follow suit.
“We want to see a definite date set for the elimination of export subsidies. This could give a real boost to stalled WTO negotiations and be a big step towards making trade work for the poor.”
She went on: “Export subsidies exacerbate poverty in the developing world by enabling EU farmers to dump their excess produce overseas at prices that undercut local producers.
Exactly. But I don't believe it before I see it, either. Expect massive protests from farmers if the EU should try to implement some sanity.
A drug is under development that treats obesity by destroying the blood supply to fat cells. It is still only in the mice-testing phase, so it's certainly too early to say whether it will work on humans at all, and no less say it will be safe, but it is obviously an interesting development.
Sucha drug would be a great benefit to many. but also a tremendous risk. It's not really obesity that kills per se, it is being in bad shape. And such a drug could be an excuse for people to live a very unhealthy lifestyle without the bad effect to their appearance. Not to mention how many 10 lbs "overweight" people who will misuse it.
Daemon Tools is a great virtual CD/DVD player, or CD/DVD emulator if you will. You can make rips (like, .iso format) of your CDs and DVDs and store them as files on your disk, and quickly mount them as if they were real drives. It also, ahem, works to circumvent certain copy protection schemes.
Shiite radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is being forced to push south, according to analysts, because US pressure on his Mahdi army is working. And there is yet more evidence that Iraqis increasingly turn against him, even as he tries to make the most of the prisoner abuse scandal.
"The Coalition has to tread a very fine line," says a Western adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in southern Iraq. "Often Iraqis say, 'You must act against these people.' But if you do, they stop you, and ask, 'What are you doing?' "
As the conflict burns on, though, Sadr's own tactics may be harming his standing among Iraqi Shiites, who are tired of the constant political and military skirmishing.
British and Iraqi forces at dawn on Saturday in Amarah cleared buildings that had been used to launch militia attacks, including the local library, labor union, and telecom-ministry office. A raid on the provincial Sadr office yielded four truckloads of ordnance, including surface-to-air missiles. Similarly, on a tip from Iraqi citizens in Diwaniyah, according to the US military, at a girls' school that the Sadr militia had ordered closed two weeks earlier, US and Iraqi forces found 35 mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, and other ordnance.
"Every cache reveals that Sadr hides under the cloak of religion, and has an aggressive military intent," says the CPA adviser. "It is undermining his credibility among Iraqis."
Sadr's brand of open confrontation has won him little popular support in Najaf and Karbala, long bastions of the quieter branch of Shiite Islam in Iraq that follows the example of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's preeminent theologian in Najaf. Business has dropped dramatically in both cities because of the unrest, and many blame Sadr.
Even Sadr's Iranian mentor, the hardline Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, has made clear his displeasure with Sadr, stating through a spokesman that Sadr is not authorized to make political decisions or wage jihad against coalition forces in the ayatollah's name - the second time in a year that Mr. Haeri has disassociated himself from the junior cleric.
His attempt to take over Basra from the British backfired badly. Unfortunately, as long as al-Sadr himself is hiding in the holy sites that are inaccessible to coalition forces, it will be difficult to bring this to an end.
A bomb blast killed the pro-Moscow president of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, and also killed and injured an unknown number of others. An explosion, apparently caused by a landmine under the VIP seating area in the main stadium in Grozny, during the celebration of the victory in WWII (which Russia celebrates one day after the west).
Some reports said that Gen Valery Baranov, the commander of the Russian troops in the rebel province, had also been killed, but others say he is still fighting for his life in hospital.
It is astonishing that rebels managed to place a landmine under the VIP area in the stadium just ahead of such a high profile event with some of the most obvious targets present. Either the security forces are massively infiltrated, or they are totally incompetent, or a combination of the two.
Since the Russians only have two modes of conduct in the Chechnya war — brutal and very brutal — there is little doubt what will happen next.
