CHINA TYPHOON KILLS 11

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Eleven dead as tropical storm pounds Taiwan Fri Jul 18, 10:31 AM ET

TAIPEI (AFP) - Eleven people including a baby girl have been killed and three more are missing in Taiwan as Tropical Storm Kalmaegi brought strong winds and heavy downpours, rescuers said Friday. The one-year-old girl and her teenage uncle were killed when their house in the southern county of Kaohsiung was hit by a mudslide, the National Fire Agency said.The girl's pregnant mother was lightly injured and has been airlifted to safety with her husband.
It happened so fast... I didn't have time to save them, the husband told ERA News.In central Taichung, an army captain fell into a gutter in his barracks amid bad weather and drowned, the fire agency said.One couple died when the boat they were being rescued in capsized, it said.Rescuers have evacuated some 80 people trapped by mudslides or floods in the worst-hit central and southern Taiwan, where electricity and water supplies in hundreds of thousands of households were affected.Television footage showed residents battling rising floods and some roads were blocked or damaged by heavy rain.Kalmaegi also ravaged fields and farms, causing an estimated 111 million Taiwan dollars (3.65 million US) in damage, the government said.The storm was 70 kilometres (55 miles) north of Matsu island at 7:15 pm (1115 GMT), packing winds of up to 83 kilometres an hour, the weather bureau said.Kalmaegi was downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm as it bore down the east coast Thursday night, the bureau said.Offices and schools in several central counties were shut while some 3,600 fishermen sought shelter at ports, authorities said.The storm also disrupted land and air traffic. Many rail services were cancelled and nearly 20 local and international flights were suspended or delayed.

Weakened typhoon hits China after 6 die in Taiwan Fri Jul 18, 7:49 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Kalmaegi slammed into China's southeastern coast on Friday, after killing six people in neighboring Taiwan. The weakening storm made landfall in Xiapu county in Fujian province at 6:10 p.m. (1010 GMT), bringing winds of up to 90 kph (55 mph) the official Xinhua news agency said.Some 360,000 people in Fujian and the neighboring province of Zhejiang have been evacuated and more than 51,000 fishing vessels called back to harbor prior to the storm's landing, Xinhua said.Kalmaegi, a Korean word meaning seagull, was also expected to affect the country's financial hub Shanghai on Friday and Saturday, it said.

State television said it would then move northwest and further inland over China.Six people were also injured when Kalmaegi swept over northeast Taiwan late on Thursday and early on Friday. It has been downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm since.Kalmaegi, the first typhoon to hit Taiwan this year, was relatively mild, causing minor flooding and crop damage, but still prompting government authorities to issue sea warnings for the areas around the island.The storm resulted in T$86.93 million ($2.9 million) worth of crop damage, and T$20 million in damage to livestock, according to government statistics. It has also led to several flight delays and cancellations.Evening classes were cancelled on parts of the island on Thursday night as the storm approached, but all businesses and schools were open as usual on Friday.Typhoons regularly reach China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan from July until the end of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific or the South China Sea before weakening over land.

(Reporting by Guo Shipeng in Beijing; Additional reporting by Doug Young in Taipei; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Alex Richardson)

Fausto nears hurricane strength off western Mexico Fri Jul 18, 6:25 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Fausto could strengthen to a hurricane off Mexico's Pacific coast later on Friday but was moving farther from land, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Another storm farther from the Mexican west coast, Elida, weakened to a tropical storm from a hurricane and could diminish to a tropical depression in the next 48 hours as it encounters cooler waters, the Miami-based center said.Fausto had sustained winds near 70 mph (113 kph) and more strengthening was expected in the next few days, the hurricane center said in its 5 a.m. (0900 GMT) advisory. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when maximum sustained winds reach 74 mph (119 kph).Fausto's center was about 425 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and the storm was moving west-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph).It is moving away from land, hurricane center forecaster Lixion Avila said.

Hurricane Elida weakens off Mexico Fri Jul 18, 1:01 AM ET

MEXICO CITY - Hurricane Elida weakened to a Category 1 storm off Mexico on Thursday, while Tropical Storm Fausto continued to gain strength. Both storms were well off Mexico's Pacific coast and not expected to threaten land.Tropical Storm Fausto had maximum sustained winds near 70 mph and was expected to become a hurricane as early as Friday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.Fausto was centered 430 miles south of Manzanillo and moving west-northwest at 12 mph.Farther off the coast, Hurricane Elida was downgraded to a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph. The hurricane center said Elida will continue to weaken as it moves over cooler water and could become a tropical storm by Friday.Elida was located about 1,030 miles off the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula Thursday afternoon.In the open Atlantic, Tropical Storm Bertha had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph after pummeling the resort island of Bermuda.

Tropical Storm Bertha continues across Atlantic Thu Jul 17, 11:20 AM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Bertha continued to trek across the open waters of the Atlantic on Thursday on its way to possibly becoming one of the longest-lived tropical storms on record. By 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), what had been for a while the first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season was located around 390 miles east-northeast of Bermuda, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Bertha's top sustained winds were around 60 miles per hour (95 km per hour) and the storm was moving to the east-southeast at 9 mph (15 kph), the Miami-based hurricane center said.The storm was expected to turn directly east later on Thursday and then resume a course to the northeast that would eventually see it lose its tropical characteristics over the cooler waters of the North Atlantic.Bertha has displayed an impressive resilience since forming on July 3, especially for a storm that formed so early in the six-month Atlantic hurricane season. The storm season begins on June 1 but rarely gets into gear before August.Bertha could become one of the top 10 longest-lived storms in history if it survives until the weekend, the hurricane center wrote in a discussion item on the storm.Bertha brushed by the British colony of Bermuda on Monday, knocking out power to thousands of homes but causing no injuries.It briefly grew into a major Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, the same strength that Hurricane Katrina had attained when it came ashore near New Orleans in 2005.

Elsewhere in the tropics, an area of low pressure over the southern Caribbean had become less organized overnight and seemed less likely to become the third tropical depression of the summer, the hurricane center said.That system had been of some concern to energy markets as computer models indicated it had the potential to head toward the oil and gas rigs of the Gulf of Mexico where the United States gets a third of its domestically produced crude.

Another area of disturbed weather near Central America was expected to bring potentially dangerous downpours to Honduras and Nicaragua but was not seen as a threat to the Gulf or the United States.
(Reporting by Michael Christie, Editing by Philip Barbara)

Member states query Barroso's billion for third world farmers LEIGH PHILLIPS JULY 18,08 Today @ 17:23 CET

The European Commission on Friday proposed to deliver €1 billion in emergency funding over the next two years to the developing world to help them grapple with the global food crisis.A number of member states however are critical of the plan, saying that while something must be done to deal with the crisis, Barroso's billion - as one diplomat called emergency fund - is not the way to go about it.The commission proposed the establishment of a special facility for rapid response to soaring food prices in developing countries, operating throughout the rest of 2008 and 2009.The new money would come on top of existing development funds, coming from unused money left over from the European Union's agricultural budget. The aim is not to provide money so that poor people can afford to buy what they need to eat, but instead to give credit and other monies to farmers to help them produce more food and in so doing, bring prices down.Countries most in need would be able to access the fund - to be administered via international and regional organisations, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Bank and Unicef - which would allow for the purchase of farming inputs such as fertilisers and seeds, although this could be done via credit mechanisms, rather than grants, as well as safety net measures for boost productive farming capacity.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the ongoing food crisis was putting at risk our progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and exacerbate tensions in poor countries, namely in Africa.[The €1 billion] is an act of solidarity with the world's poorest but also a responsible measure to promote stability. It is aimed at increasing agricultural production in developing countries to combat the effects of soaring food prices. Such an increase in supply is necessary to fight rising food prices world-wide.High agricultural prices have resulted in extra cash in the 2008 EU budget and the commission believes this provides a window of opportunity to provide a temporary facility to help stimulate farming in developing countries.Development groups cautiously welcomed the new fund. Agriculture in the developing world has long suffered from a lack of investment, so this is a welcome sign that the commission has recognised the importance of putting money in this area, said Alexander Woollcombe, a spokesperson for Oxfam.

However, this should not distract attention from the unfair trade and agriculture policies that are what caused the situation in the first place, he added.The idea must first be approved by both the parliament and member states.Some eight member states have said the scheme may not be legal - Austria, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Malta, the Netherlands and Sweden - according to diplomats.One diplomat, speaking to the EUobserver, called the new fund Barroso's billion, saying: Many countries in the council have a lot of sympathy for the thought behind it, but worry whether it is in the EU rulebook financially.The move was first announced by EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel at a Brussels international conference on the food crisis on 3 July. The commission formally announced the proposals on Friday.

Prisoner swap gives Hezbollah domestic kudos: analysts by Rima Abushakra JULY 18,08

BEIRUT (AFP) - As Hezbollah boasted of victory in this week's prisoner swap with Israel, analysts said that the exchange gave the Shiite group increased political leverage at home. On Wednesday Israel handed over its last five Lebanese prisoners, including convicted murderer Samir Kantar, and the bodies of 199 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters.In exchange Hezbollah returned the bodies of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev who were captured on July 12, 2006, sparking a devastating 34-day war.This doesn't change anything in the equation of Hezbollah and Israel, said Timur Goksel, former spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).It just closes one subject, but there are still other issues. I don't expect peace to break out.Tens of thousands of people attended celebrations on Wednesday after the swap, including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah making a rare live appearance.In Israel the picture was one of sadness.Israel came out of it looking like the humanitarian country, receiving bodies in mourning and playing the victim, while the other side looked like the aggressors, celebrating death, said Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanon expert at Chatham House in London.This image is far from reality where Lebanon was the victim of Israeli brutality in 2006 and Israel was the aggressor.The 2006 war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Israelis were particularly appalled by the welcome for Kantar, who had been serving five life terms for a 1979 triple murder viewed as one of the most brutal attacks in the country's history.The joy that was expressed in Lebanon was mostly psychological and wasn't about one man, Goksel said, however.They don't think very much about the content of the exchange, but the fact that Hezbollah was able to impose its own demands on the Israelis and get away with it. It made people say Hey -- we won something for a change.Kantar belonged to a secular Palestinian faction and was jailed four years before Hezbollah was even formed. He was the longest-serving Arab prisoner in Israel.His release was a major feat for Hezbollah... It is precisely that he is Druze and not a Hezbollah fighter that his release has added value aside from the symbolism of it all, said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, author of Hezbollah: Politics and Religion.The fact that Hezbollah fought so hard for a prisoner that was not one of their own, who belonged to a secular group... is healing the wounds of the May clashes this year, she said.Fierce sectarian fighting killed 65 people in May after the Hezbollah-led opposition, backed by Syria and Iran, took over large swathes of predominantly Sunni west Beirut.The fighting led to an accord being signed in Qatar that saw the election of Michel Sleiman as president after a six-month vacuum and the later formation of a national unity government. Sleiman joined usually divided political leaders including Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, parliament speaker Nabih Berri and the entire cabinet in presenting a united front to greet the returning prisoners at Beirut airport. The swap burnishes its (Hezbollah's) national credentials, especially since it was able to unify the Lebanese, even on a very cosmetic level, Saad-Ghorayeb said. Hezbollah was able to impose that unity... There was no Lebanese politician that could have possibly not greeted the prisoners. It was because it was Kantar that they all had to show up.

Hezbollah's arsenal, which it maintains is necessary to resist Israel, caused great controversy after the May clashes. The swap puts us one small step closer to an extended period in which there will be discussion of Hezbollah's arms, said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Centre. The discussion will be about the relationship between the armed resistance and the state and not about disarmament.Nasrallah said on Wednesday that he was open to dialogue on all issues, including Hezbollah weaponry. Saad-Ghorayeb sees this as evidence that Hezbollah is at the peak of its power.

Now more than ever, Hezbollah feels vindicated regarding its arms, the use of force and the logic of force and resistance, she said. It will be very hard for the other side to persuade the Lebanese or at least the opposition that there is an alternative more effective than resistance in defending Lebanon.

Thousands attend funerals of fighters returned from Israel by Lamia Radi Fri Jul 18, 1:27 PM ET

BEIRUT (AFP) - Thousands of people attended a memorial service in Beirut on Friday for eight Hezbollah fighters killed in the 2006 war with Israel and whose bodies were returned to Lebanon two days earlier. Some 5,000 people gathered in a convention hall in the Hezbollah stronghold of the capital's southern suburbs for the memorial, which was attended by grieving relatives and supporters of the Shiite movement.Eight coffins draped in yellow Hezbollah flags, decorated with floral wreaths and pictures of the deceased, were placed in the hall.These martyrs have defeated the enemy... our enemy who was humiliated yesterday will remain so, by the grace of God, said the head of Hezbollah's executive council, Hashem Safieddine, in a speech.The brothers of these martyrs will confront the enemy if it ever thinks of making the mistake of attacking Lebanon, he added in reference to Israel.They will be buried in this blessed land after their return from the blessed land of Palestine.The remains of the eight were handed over to Hezbollah on Wednesday as part of a swap with Israel that included the return of the remains of 199 fighters from various political factions, along with the release of five Lebanese men held prisoner in Israel.In exchange, Hezbollah handed over the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006, that sparked a devastating 34-day war.After the speech, a prayer was recited for the souls of the dead.Relatives kissed and touched the coffins before they were carried through the southern suburbs by uniformed Hezbollah fighters as thousands of people followed.Israel has fallen, read a sign in yellow and red.

The eight bodies were to be handed over to their families for burials later Friday or Saturday in their native villages in southern Lebanon.The other bodies handed over in the exchange were of members of secular Lebanese and Palstinian political parties. Hezbollah, however, dubs itself an Islamic resistance movement.They were turned over to the respective organisations for burial, and some still require DNA testing for identification.Officials from the Palestinian Fatah faction are still in the process of identifying them, a Fatah official told AFP.Among the remains of the returned Palestinian fighters was Dalal al-Moghrabi who was killed in a 1978 attack known in Israel as the Coastal Road Massacre.The 19-year-old female leader of a Fatah commando unit became an icon of the Palestinian resistance.

In Israel, a nation mourns with the families of slain soldiers By Ilene R. Prusher Fri Jul 18, 4:00 AM ET

Nahariya, Israel - For Israelis, their Second Lebanon War, fought in summer 2006, came to a close only on Thursday, when the two soldiers whose capture became the cause for launching the conflict were laid to rest before their families and the eyes of a solemn nation. But even in their return – which transpired a day earlier as part of a swap with Hezbollah, who traded the men's bodies for the remains of some 200 Lebanese plus five Lebanese prisoners – there is still unease about the lopsided trade-off and questions about balancing the interests of affected families against those of the state.Under a sweltering July sky at the Nahariya military cemetery, which overlooks the same Mediterranean that hugs the Beirut coastline where Hezbollah continued victory celebrations Thursday, many family members and friends who eulogized Udi – Ehud Goldwasser – seemed to want to shift the sentiment that Israel had somehow lost to Hezbollah.I stand at attention before you with my eyes lifted toward my people with the request: Stand tall, lift your heads in national pride, mother Miki Goldwasser said at her son's graveside.They say because of you, a war broke out. I hope we can see this war as a victory. Through this, we have discovered that we are a strong people. We have discovered bereaved families with an undefeatable, powerful spirit. We have discovered kindness.

The most powerful words to the gathering of a few thousand came from widow Karnit Goldwasser, who has been the spokeswoman of an international campaign to release her husband and Eldad Regev, then believed to be alive. They say time heals all wounds, she said. But is this really so? Two years have passed since that debilitating moment that cut through our life's thread, the moment in which the worst scenario became a threatening reality that forced us to dive into a dark and convoluted world. I believed and hoped that the moment would come where I would wake up and say it was all just a bad dream.But Israelis have been waking up to find that many of their goals have gone unrealized. The prisoner exchange has Israel feeling like it was played. Some wondered why Israel agreed to the swap, if Hezbollah wasn't straight with Israel about whether the two were alive and whether they had information about Ron Arad, who was captured in Lebanon in 1986 and is considered missing in action.

Groundswell of public pressure
Part of the answer, analysts say, is that the families succeeded in creating a groundswell of public pressure to bring their sons home, dead or alive, even at the cost of releasing Lebanon's Samir Kuntar, convicted of killing four Israelis in a 1979 raid here.What we witnessed in the last two years and more is that the families of those soldiers and the involvement of the Israeli media and public opinion is very strong in affecting the decisionmakers, says Yitzhak Reiter, a professor of political science and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.It affects the ability to negotiate on a fair bargain, he says. This is something that Israel should handle differently. Perhaps the government in the near future will make an official decision that dead bodies will be exchanged only for dead bodies, and live soldiers for live soldiers.If the other side doesn't give you complete information about your soldiers, such as whether they are dead or alive, then you just don't do it. The government could put this criteria in place, and then if a situation occurs in the future, the enemy knows our principles and won't expect otherwise, Mr. Reiter says.

Israel's principle is that it is immoral to leave any soldier or citizen on foreign soil. It has, as a result, sometimes traded hundreds of prisoners for the release of one man. This ethos has come under some criticism in recent days. But Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking at Goldwasser's funeral, defended it vehemently.We were prepared to pay a high price, even higher than what seemed logical, in order to see our sons sent home, Mr. Barak said. If any of you, God forbid, should be captured, or should anything worse happen in the fight against the terror, Israel, its government, and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will do everything just and possible to bring you home.But Aviva Cavaille, a young woman who came to the funeral, said most Israelis could not understand how their government had agreed to a swap that didn't include Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by Hamas more than two years ago while on duty close to the Gaza Strip.From the ethical point of view, it's not acceptable that we got the bodies of two men, and for that we released a murderer who is alive and celebrating in Lebanon, says Ms. Cavaille. It creates a greater danger for kidnappings in the future. It shows the weakness of our leadership.

Family persistence
At the same time, many others give Karnit Goldwasser credit for keeping the case of the abducted soldiers on the agenda, traveling globally and trying to force leaders to push for progress on an issue that could have easily have disappeared from the headlines. Among the partners in this were leaders in the American Jewish community, who had made dog tags with the names of the soldiers on them and asked people to wear them in solidarity.Karnit singlehandedly raised this level of awareness through her own public presence, and I think that's what got us to this point, says Lori Klinghoffer, the chairwoman of National Women's Philanthropy in the United Jewish Communities, a US umbrella group. There have been other missing soldiers, and they usually stay in the news for a week or two.Some Israelis bristled at the public's questioning over the way the swap tallied up. Columnis Yair Lapid wrote in the Yediot Ahronoth newspaper that even in Israel's hyperactive democracy people should occasionally assume that the right decision was made. The deal that ended yesterday wasn't good or bad, only necessary. Anyone who thinks there were other options, deludes himself, Mr. Lapid wrote. While it's true that Hezbollah is more calculated in its attitude toward the fate of its people, who would want to be Hezbollah today? The clamorous debate over the question of Did we get a good price or not, should be kept for buying cars.

Blair: Cease-fire should pave way to Mideast peace Fri Jul 18, 11:15AM ET

OSLO, Norway - Mideast envoy Tony Blair is urging the Israelis and Palestinians to use the cease-fire that took effect June 19 as an opportunity to try to reach a peace agreement. The former British prime minister says a two-state solution is the only way to solve the conflict.During a visit to Norway on Friday, Blair also reiterated his calls for a new plan to provide humanitarian help to people in Gaza.Earlier this week Blair called off a planned visit to Hamas-ruled Gaza after Israel's Shin Bet security service warned he might come under attack there.Blair said Friday he wanted to go to Gaza to tell people there that you are not alone.

Saudis praised for calling interfaith conference By CIARAN GILES, Associated Press Writer JULY 18,08

MADRID, Spain - Saudi Arabia won praise Friday for taking a leading role in an interfaith conference, with participants saying it was another sign the conservative Muslim kingdom is opening up. Rabbi David Rosen, the only Israeli who attended the three-day meeting led by Saudi King Abdullah, said he believes the oil-rich Persian Gulf kingdom also wants to reaffirm leadership in the Muslim world for fear of greater instability.The Saudis are definitely opening up, said Rosen, who heads inter-religious relations for the American Jewish Committee and is a former chief rabbi of Ireland. I have heard from the Saudis that this is a culmination of a process that began the moment Abdullah ascended to the throne and that he actually wants to open up Saudi society.The Saudi monarch unexpectedly called the conference about a month ago. It brought together Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists among other religions and was hosted by Spain. The meeting ended on Friday.

Critics said the Saudis were the last people who should be leading a conference on religious dialogue given that Wahhabism — the austere strain of Sunni Islam practiced in the kingdom — is considered one of the religion's most conservative. Many believe the conference was held in Spain partly because it would be politically unpalatable for Abdullah to allow Jewish and Christian leaders on Saudi soil.However, Abdullah has made reaching out to other faiths a hallmark of his rule since taking over the country in 2005. He met with Pope Benedict XVI late last year, the first meeting ever between a pope and a reigning Saudi king.And in June, Abdullah held a religious conference at home in Mecca, Islam's holiest city. At that meeting, participants pledged improved relations between Islam's two main branches, Sunni and Shiite, and Abdullah also rejected extremism, saying Muslims must present Islam's good message to the world.It's also believed that he is very concerned about instability in the region obviously in relation to Israel, Palestine, but especially Iraq and even more the ascendancy of Iran and that there is a need to reaffirm what he sees as Saudi Arabia's leadership in the region, said Rosen, who holds dual Israeli-American citizenship.William Baker, president of the U.S. group Christians and Muslims for Peace, said the real significance of the meeting was that it originated in the heart of Islam.This could not come at a better time for the whole world and peace and it could not have come from a better place as Islam is being propagandized against, lied about and distorted in the West for political purposes, said Baker.Saudi Arabia presented the conference as a strictly religious initiative. The World Muslim League, which organized it for the king, was adamant there would be no discussions of political issues such as the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Iranian nuclear ambitions.At the conference, delegates dwelt instead on issues such as dialogue within the Islamic world and with other denominations. Other topics debated were the need to protect the family, the role of women in religion and ways to protect the environment. They agreed to try to organize more conferences and involve the United Nations.For Rosen, the fact that the conference took place at all was the most significant thing.There have been interfaith conferences before, but never by the king of Saudi Arabia, he said. This is an incredible advancement.

Tomato scare ending; fears linger for many people By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer JULY 18,08

WASHINGTON - The tomato scare may be over, but it has taken a toll —it's cost the industry an estimated $100 million and left millions of people with a new wariness about the safety of everyday foods. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds that nearly half of consumers have changed their eating and buying habits in the past six months because they're afraid they could get sick by eating contaminated food.They also overwhelmingly support setting up a better system to trace produce in an outbreak back to the source, the poll found.The people who feel that way include the growers.Virginia's East Coast Produce, one of the largest tomato growers in the country, has been hammered by slumping demand and falling prices, although Virginia tomatoes were cleared early on, said sales manager Batista Madonia III. He said he's frustrated by the government's inability to find the root cause of the outbreak despite a nearly two-month long investigation.

The salmonella outbreak has sickened more than 1,200 people in 42 states since the first cases were seen in April.I guarantee in that time frame, more than 1,000 people were injured slipping on a banana peel, said Madonia.Although federal officials lifted the tomato warning Thursday, the cause of the outbreak remains unknown. Hot peppers are under suspicion, and tomatoes have not been cleared everywhere.While the poll found that three in four people remain confident about the overall safety of food, 46 percent said they were worried they might get sick from eating contaminated products. The same percentage said that because of safety warnings, they have avoided items they normally would have purchased.Christy Taylor, a first-grade teacher from Sacramento, Calif., said she has all but given up on supermarket produce and is buying most of her fresh fruits and vegetables at the local farmers' market instead.I see the same farmers every single week, said Taylor, 30, the mother of 2-year-old twin girls. You meet the people and you see where the (produce) is coming from.Her twins love tomatoes, she said, and chomp on them as if they were apples. But until the mystery of the tainted food is solved, I feel a little bit more comfortable, a little more safe, doing the local farmers' market, she said.

Eighty-six percent in the poll said produce should be labeled so it can be tracked through layers of processors, packers and shippers, all the way back to the farm. The lack of such a system frustrated disease detectives working on the salmonella outbreak. However, the industry is divided over mandatory tracing technology, and Congress is running out of time to act on any major food safety changes before the election.The poll found that 80 percent of Americans said they would support new federal standards for fresh produce. Meat and poultry have long been subject to enforceable federal safeguards, but fruits and vegetables are not, although produce increasingly is being implicated in outbreaks.The high level of uneasiness should not be taken lightly, said Michael R. Taylor, a former senior federal food safety official who now teaches at George Washington University.When you have almost half the population avoiding certain foods because of safety concerns, that's very significant from the standpoint of economic impact for the people selling the food, and from the standpoint of peace of mind for consumers, said Taylor.In addition to the salmonella outbreak, this year has seen the largest ground beef recall in history, raising consumer concerns reflected in the poll.The survey found gender, racial and economic gaps on attitudes about food safety. Women, who do most of the shopping, were more concerned than men. For example, 39 percent of men said they were very confident that the food they buy is safe, but only 23 percent of women said they felt that way. However, men and women agreed on the need for better federal oversight. In Congress, a leading advocate of food safety reforms said the industry would do well to listen to consumers on the need for tracing. We live in an age of technology where you can bar-code a banana, said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. We've got to work this through with the industry and come up with something that's reasonable. The more confidence consumers have, the more goods they will purchase.The survey was conducted by telephone July 10-14 with 1,000 adults and had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Associated Press polling director Michael Mokrzycki and AP writers Christine Simmons in Washington,and Steve Szkotak in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report. (This version CORRECTS name of company, East Coast Produce.)

8 Signs the Animal Kingdom Is Out of Whack Jasmin Malik Chua
Special to LiveScience LiveScience.com Fri Jul 18, 1:51 PM ET

A polar bear clinging to a melting iceberg may the poster child for global warming, but rising temperatures, pollution and other human activity are also affecting the animal kingdom in far subtler ways. Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the natural world could be giving us other signs that human intervention has knocked it way off kilter.

Some recent examples:

1. Earlier Migration: Several bird species are making their annual northward jaunt slightly ahead of schedule in recent springs, as the East Coast of the United States heats up, according to a study detailed in the June issue of the journal Global Change Biology. The report confirms similar studies dating back to 2006. Early birds may not sound like a huge deal, but scientists warn that long-distance migrators who start out in South America, and therefore lack cues about the timing of spring in Northern Hemisphere destinations, will be less able to keep pace with the changing climate. Trees and shrubs are further along in their development, and different groups of insects are out, said lead author Abraham Miller-Rushing of Boston University. Spring is coming earlier for most other plants and animals, but not for the long-distance migratory birds. Thus, these long-distance migrant birds may need to learn to eat different sources of food or face other challenges because of the changes in timing.

2: Jellyfish Rule: An outbreak of jellyfish in oceans across the planet has resulted from the stinging creatures hitching rides on ships that circumnavigate the globe. In fact, studies suggest that almost a quarter of all marine species in international harbors are alien transplants, thanks to human-assisted dispersal.

3: Food Web Contaminated. Scientists said last month that they found toxic pollutants in nine deep-sea species of cephalopods, a class of mollusks that includes octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses. Among the contaminants were at least two banned in the United States in the 1970s: dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Scientists say it's further evidence that contaminants make their way deep into the marine food web.

4. Heading for the Hills: Thirty species of reptiles and amphibians have fled uphill to cooler climes as global warming has caused the mercury to rise. We could see a rash of extinctions occurring between 2050 and 2100, scientists say, because higher ground will eventually run out.

5. Penguins in Peril: A rapid population decline among penguins because, in addition to a warming planet, they face the triple whammy of oil pollution, depletion of fisheries and aggressive coastline development. Penguins are among those species that show us that we are making fundamental changes to our world, said Dee Boersma, a University of Washington biology professor who has studied the flightless birds for more than 25 years. The fate of all species is to go extinct, but there are some species that go extinct before their time and we are facing that possibility with some penguins.

6. Sea-Life Shift: Scientists see a notable shift in the composition of coastal marine animal communities, caused in part by changing ocean temperatures, from vertebrates (fish) to invertebrates (lobsters, squid, and crabs), as well as from bottom-feeders to species that feed higher in the water column. Meanwhile, warm-water species have superseded larger, cool-water species in population size.

7. Migrating Parasite: The parasite Angiostronglyus vasorum, commonly known as French heartworm, is migrating northward because of rising temperatures. Normally found in southwestern England, the parasite has been detected in dogs admitted to animal hospitals in Scotland. Climbing temperatures in the country have also resulted in a sudden proliferation of slugs and snails.

8. Food Shortages: Plant-loving animals in extremely seasonal environments such as the Arctic struggle to feed themselves because global warming causes their food supply to peak in availability before they can reach breeding grounds. Think of it like this, said Eric Post, a biologist at Penn State. You've been out on the town with friends, and on the way home you want to stop off for a bite to eat, but the restaurant you've always gone to has closed early. So you try for one around the corner that's always open a little longer. But when you get to that one, it too is closed. For herbivores, the fact that there are several restaurants - their food patches - dispersed across the landscape isn't useful if they all begin closing at the same time in addition to closing earlier in the season.

Hundreds of baby penguins found dead in Brazil By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer JULY 18,08

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday. More than 400 penguins, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro state over the past two months, according to Eduardo Pimenta, superintendent for the state coastal protection and environment agency in the resort city of Cabo Frio.While it is common here to find some penguins — both dead and alive — swept by strong ocean currents from the Strait of Magellan, Pimenta said there have been more this year than at any time in recent memory.Rescuers and those who treat penguins are divided over the possible causes.Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, said he believed overfishing has forced the penguins to swim further from shore to find fish to eat and that leaves them more vulnerable to getting caught up in the strong ocean currents.Niteroi, the state's biggest zoo, already has already received about 100 penguins for treatment this year and many are drenched in petroleum, Muniz said. The Campos oil field that supplies most of Brazil's oil lies offshore.Muniz said he hadn't seen penguins suffering from the effects of other pollutants, but he pointed out that already dead penguins aren't brought in for treatment.

Pimenta suggested pollution is to blame.

Aside from the oil in the Campos basin, the pollution is lowering the animals' immunity, leaving them vulnerable to funguses and bacteria that attack their lungs, Pimenta said, quoting biologists who work with him.But biologist Erli Costa of Rio de Janeiro's Federal University suggested weather patterns could be involved.I don't think the levels of pollution are high enough to affect the birds so quickly. I think instead we're seeing more young and sick penguins because of global warming, which affects ocean currents and creates more cyclones, making the seas rougher, Costa said.

Costa said the vast majority of penguins turning up are baby birds that have just left the nest and are unable to out-swim the strong ocean currents they encounter while searching for food.Every year, Brazil airlifts dozens of penguins back to Antarctica or Patagonia.

Oil prices tumble in biggest weekly drop ever By ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writer JULY 18,08

NEW YORK - A stunning sell-off dragged oil prices to their biggest weekly drop ever and gas prices at the pump slipped by the more than they have at any point since February, giving consumers a rare breather in a year of record fuel prices. The national average for a gallon of regular fell by the most since February, AAA data show, and could ease further in the days to come.So is it time to declare the energy bubble popped? Experts won't go that far just yet.

It's too early to say we've seen the worst of it, said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. We would be Pollyannish if we believe one week represents a trend.Still industry experts who just days ago thought there was more juice left in oil's meteoric run, are reconsidering.If this is not the bubble's implosion, than it's a reasonable facsimile, analyst and trader Stephen Schork said in his daily market commentary. Time will tell. Nevertheless, for the time being we no longer care to hold a bullish view.Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell 41 cents Friday to settle at $128.88 on the New York Mercantile Exchange — well below its trading record of more than $147 a week earlier.The average price of a gallon of regular gas fell about a penny for the day, to $4.105, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Diesel prices dipped three-tenths of a cent to $4.842 a gallon.

Some analysts said a nationwide average of $4 or even lower could be in the offing — almost unthinkable in a summer when there has seemed to be no relief at the pump — although they cautioned that there is no guarantee prices will stay low.We're going to see some relief from that relentless march higher, Kloza said.Gas may be getting just a bit cheaper, but major changes in how Americans live and drive are already in motion.Car buyers have been fleeing to more fuel-efficient models. U.S. sales of pickups and sport utility vehicles are down nearly 18 percent this year through June, while sales of small cars are up more than 10 percent.While slashing production of more-profitable trucks and SUVs, automakers have been scurrying to build their most fuel-efficient models faster.Toyota Motor Corp., which hasn't been able to keep up with demand for its 46-miles-per-gallon Prius hybrid, said last week it will start producing the Prius in the U.S. and suspend truck and SUV production to meet changing consumer demands.Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. also have announced plans to increase small car production, and GM has said 18 of the 19 vehicles it is launching between now and 2010 are cars or crossovers.Some brave traders used the week's pullback in oil prices as a chance to buy barrels that suddenly seemed to be on sale. But oil analysts were advising investors to beware.Buying here is an opportunity if you are a deep believer in $200 (a barrel), otherwise we think that caution would be better applied, analyst Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland said in a research note. If oil buyers sense that the slide was overdone, you'll probably notice at the pump quickly.

If (oil prices) rebound, you're going to see a quick reaction at the gas station, because their profit margins are so stretched, AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom said. They may be very fast bringing prices back up.In other Nymex trade, heating oil futures fell 5.23 cents to settle at $3.6915 a gallon while gasoline futures edged up 0.73 cent to $3.1709 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 3.3 cents to $10.57 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, Brent crude futures for September delivery rose 88 cents to settle at $130.19 on the ICE Futures Exchange.

US-IRANIAN RELATIONS
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Senior US envoy joins Iran nuclear talks By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer JULY 18,08

VIENNA, Austria - A senior U.S. envoy will sit eye-to-eye for the first time Saturday with a top Iranian nuclear negotiator, a sharp reversal in U.S. policy that aims to entice Tehran into ending activities that could be used to make atomic weapons. The move to send Undersecretary of State William Burns to the Geneva nuclear talks has raised the hackles of Washington hardliners who say it signals U.S. weakness. But supporters insist because both Tehran and the United States want to ease tensions, the move could breathe life into deadlocked nuclear talks.On the eve of the meeting, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the talks offered hope for a peaceful solution to the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program. But he also expects no quick changes from Iran, which has said the essentials — an apparent reference to suspending uranium enrichment — will not be on the table.After the Geneva meeting, we must not hope for an improvement, a change of attitude, right away, he said in Paris.Initially, supporters of the negotiations say, the U.S and its allies could agree to stop pushing for new U.N. sanctions if Tehran stops expanding its uranium-enrichment capacities — setting the stage for fuller negotiations and what the West hopes will be agreement from Tehran to dismantle its enrichment program.

Uranium enrichment can produce both reactor fuel and the core of nuclear warheads. Iran says it has a right to enrich for peaceful uses and continues expanding its program despite three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions sparked by concern that Iran's ultimate goal is to make weapons.The Americans are part of a six-nation effort — the permanent Security Council members plus Germany — trying to encourage Iran to suspend its nuclear efforts in exchange for economic and political incentives.The venue of Saturday's talks reflects the potential significance of the meeting.The Hotel de Ville, or city hall, stands at the top of Geneva's Old Town. Its neoclassical rooms have hosted important international negotiations since 1872, when an arbitration tribunal ordered Britain to pay the United States $15.5 million in Civil War damages. It was also the first home of the League of Nations, predecessor of today's United Nations.The all-day talks, formally led by EU envoy Javier Solana and Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili, start at 11 a.m.American officials have insisted that Burns' presence will be a one-time event and he will listen to the Iranians but will not be negotiating. They also say the U.S. continues to demand that Iran fully freeze uranium enrichment — a point Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again drove home Friday.Sending Burns to Geneva is a strong signal that the United States is serious about diplomacy, but the U.S. continues to insist the start of negotiations with Iran is contingent on the verifiable suspension of Iran's enrichment and reprocessing activities, she told reporters at the State Department.Policy hawks disagree. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and undersecretary of state in charge of Tehran's nuclear file, said the move represents a U-turn in the U.S. stance on Iran.To the Iranians, it will send a sign of the political weakness of a (U.S.) administration in its last days and desperate for a deal, he told The Associated Press.The United States and its five partners (Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) have insisted all along that they want a full halt to Iranian enrichment. Still, Burns' decision to attend the Geneva talks shows that Washington may accept something less than full suspension, at least as a first step, to achieve its ultimate goal under a freeze-for-freeze proposal.The freeze-for-freeze idea envisions a six-week commitment from both sides. Preliminary talks meant to lead to formal nuclear negotiations would start, Iran could continue enrichment but only at its present level, and the U.S. and its allies would stop pushing for new U.N. sanctions.If that results in the start of formal talks, the Iranians would stop all enrichment temporarily. Those talks, in turn, are meant to secure Tehran's commitment for an indefinite ban on enrichment.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking in Ankara on Friday, said the talks could also result in agreements to open a U.S. interest-protection bureau in Iran and establish have direct flights between the two nations. U.S. interests in Iran are now represented by the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Iran and the United States broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Official contacts between the two countries are extremely rare. If the Geneva talks make little progress, the White House will have some tough decisions to make, now that it has at least stretched — if not broken — its own rules on engaging the Iranians face to face on the nuclear issue. The administration could decide to pull out of the six-nation group trying to entice Iran into negotiations.

That would surely cripple the diplomatic effort to engage Tehran on the nuclear front — and increase fears of a U.S. military option, something the Bush administration has refused to rule out. Tensions over Iran's nuclear activities began five years ago, with revelations that it had hidden enrichment activities for nearly two decades. A U.S. intelligence estimate last year says Iran tried to make nuclear weapons at least until 2003 — allegations Tehran vehemently denies. Iran suspended enrichment that year but resumed in 2005 after rejecting EU incentives for a long-term halt to enrichment. The Geneva talks are based on a revamped version of the 2005 incentive package. Associated Press writers Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.