| Business News |
Markets await Bernanke as central bankers gather
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke tackles financial stability in a key speech on
Friday but economists doubt he will provide solid clues about
future policy action to calm the credit crunch.
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Fannie and Freddie debt gains, deep share dive abates
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Investors' growing belief in the
likelihood of a federal bailout of home-funding giants Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac triggered a rally in the
debt prices of the two companies on Thursday while a steep fall
in their shares prices abated.
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Oil up 5 percent on global tensions, soft dollar
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Oil prices rose nearly 5 percent on
Thursday, the biggest percentage gain in more than two months,
driven by rising tensions between the United States and energy
behemoth Russia.
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Three big banks settle with NY state over ARS
(Reuters)
Reuters - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
on Thursday said Merrill Lynch & Co Inc , Deutsche Bank
(DBKGn.DE) and Goldman Sachs have agreed to settlements
regarding their auction rate security sales practices.
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FINRA probes 40 firms on auction rate securities: source
(Reuters)
Reuters - Financial industry enforcement agents
will review the auction-rate debt operations of about 40 firms
industrywide starting next week, sources familiar with the
investigation said on Thursday.
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Trends & Innovations - Wednesday
(Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - The proportion of working-age Americans facing medical debt rose to 72 mil or 41% last year, up from 58 mil or 34% in '05, according to a new survey by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund. About half of those facing health debt have up to $2,000 in bills, while 12% have more than $4,000 in debt and another 12% have more than $8,000. The survey also found most of those with medical debt said they had exhausted their savings, with some also tapping into credit cards, home equity or cutting back on food or heat to cover health care costs.
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| A tomato by any other name? Experts set food rules - 05, Jul 2008 |
By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA (Reuters) - Food safety experts agreed for the first time on the qualities defining a tomato, in a first step toward an international code on preventing fruit and vegetable contamination.
Tomatoes are currently the focus of an investigation by U.S. health officials who are looking for the cause of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened 922 people in at least 40 states.
World Health Organization (WHO) scientist Peter Ben Embarek said the classification of tomatoes based on their size, shape, color, firmness, and defects, and accordant rules on tomato labeling, would facilitate trade and eventually make it easier for regulators to impose safety standards.
"Now it is much clearer for everybody what you call a Class 1 tomato, for example, and what you can expect when you buy a Class 1 tomato," Ben Embarek said at the end of a week-long meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a food safety body.
"It is part of an effort of Codex to improve the quality and safety of fruit and vegetables," he said, adding that officials planned to later focus on leafy green vegetables and melons.
"Within a few years you will have safety standards for all these products, looking at where the contamination comes from," he said, describing risks from soil, water, and wild animals that can result in health problems for consumers.
The Codex Alimentarius, or food code, is a global reference point for producers, processors, regulators and traders.
Its limits for toxins, bacteria and other compounds in foods are used by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the public health benchmarks countries should be allowed to enforce with import rules. Measures requiring more stringent standards are considered unfair barriers that can be challenged in WTO court.
(c) 2008 Reuters
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| TAGS: Grains, Western Europe, Europe, Online Report text item, Sugar, Chemicals, Switzerland, Domestic Politics, Food products, United States of America, Health and medicine, Ital |
| Other news from Science category: |
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MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Fay came ashore on the Florida coast for the third time in less than a week on Thursday, bringing more of the torrential rain that has flooded hundreds of homes.
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran plans to send a manned rocket into space in the next 10 years, state television reported on Thursday, just days after the Islamic Republic announced it had put a dummy satellite into orbit.
More
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MIAMI (Reuters) - Peru has entered the battle for a multimillion-dollar treasure of gold and silver that Spain alleges a U.S. treasure hunting company looted from a Spanish warship sunk in 1804.
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MELBOURNE, Florida (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Fay dumped torrential rain on central Florida on Wednesday, flooding streets in knee-high water as it stalled over the U.S. space shuttle fleet's home port at Cape Canaveral.
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MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Fay slowly weakened as it drenched Florida's east coast around the U.S. space shuttle fleet's home port of Cape Canaveral on Wednesday, and appeared less likely to reach hurricane strength than it had the day before.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eight scientific organizations urged the next U.S. president to help protect the country from climate change by pushing for increased funding for research and forecasting, saying about $2 trillion of U.S. economic output could be hurt
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An epilepsy drug being tested for use in treating addiction can help obese rats shed weight, government researchers said on Wednesday.
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - No wonder Bigfoot failed a DNA test. Researchers said on Tuesday the hairy heap claimed by two men to be the corpse of the mythical half-ape, half-human creature was actually a full-body rubber gorilla costume.
More
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bacterial pneumonia may have killed most people during the 1918 flu pandemic, and antibiotics may be as crucial as flu drugs to fight any new pandemic, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Embryonic stem cells can be used to grow vats of red blood cells, which could lead to the creation of "farms" that could provide limitless sources of blood, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
More
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| Software News |
Microsoft enlists Seinfeld for ad campaign: source
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Comedian Jerry Seinfeld will star
in a $300 million marketing campaign for Microsoft Corp aimed
at burnishing the image of its computer operating system, a
person familiar with the effort said on Thursday.
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Photosynth Stitches Photos Into a 3-D Web Canvas
(NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Microsoft's name has never been synonymous with photography, visual imaging or innovative online applications. But its release Wednesday of Photosynth -- a hybrid software/service that allows users to create 3-D environments by stitching multiple photographs together -- suggests the company has more than a few cards up its sleeve.
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Apple tries to de-bug iPhone
(USATODAY.com)
USATODAY.com - Apple acknowledged that a software update for the iPhone partly fixes the connection snags that have caused a global firestorm for the new iPhone 3G.
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Salesforce.com stock drops on cautious outlook
(AP)
AP - Salesforce.com Inc. kept its financial guidance within the range of analyst estimates Wednesday, disappointing investors who expected a more bullish forecast from one of the Internet's most popular software services.
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Microsoft Eases Server-Virtualization Restrictions
(NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Microsoft has elected to jettison certain licensing restrictions that previously discouraged its customers from moving the software giant's server applications within a server farm at will.
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Google Invites Security Researchers To Debug Android
(NewsFactor)
 NewsFactor - In a move that could help it avoid an iPhone 3G-like software drama, Google wants bug hunters to test its Android mobile platform. On Monday, the Android Security Team posted a message to introduce itself to the security research and vulnerability communities.
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