Spain Has a Taste for Immortality

Berlin's not getting the bigger picture, writes Roger Cohen

(NEWSER) - Is the euro the new League of Nations—a grand experiment that eventually gets abandoned and left to waste away? With bailouts in Greece and Ireland and threats to Portugal and Spain, the currency “can no longer take its survival for granted just because its collapse would be unthinkable,” writes Roger Cohen in the New York Times . German chancellor Angela Merkel is right that something’s got to give, and a "eurozone 2.0" may be needed. "But how shallow, paltry and mean-spirited has this German reaction to the euro crisis been!" More»

(NEWSER) - The US is now confirming 40 cases of swine flu, while the death toll in Mexico is thought to have risen to 149, the Wall Street Journal reports. Of more than a thousand suspected cases in Mexico, only 26 have been confirmed, along with six in Canada and one in Spain, the WHO reports. The European Union's health commissioner warned today against traveling to North America "unless it is very urgent." The US' Centers for Disease Control, however, called that pronouncement unwarranted. More»

Cattle 'emissions' equal effect of 33 million automobiles

(NEWSER) - Meat-eaters who want to help fight global warming can do so by going vegetarian at least one day a week, a top UN official tells the Guardian. The meat industry accounts for an estimated one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, released during feed production and as methane by flatulent livestock. Meat consumption has gone up fivefold since 1950, and is predicted to double by 2050. More»

Exports crops to rich nations, still gets aid

(NEWSER) - As the UN trucks in food to millions of starving people in Darfur, Sudan is exporting important staple crops to other nations, the New York Times reports. Critics charge the government profits on big agribusiness while receiving more free food in aid than any other nation in the world. But Sudanese officials claim it marks a move away from an oil-based economy toward agricultural self-sufficiency. More»

Ban urges global response to avert mass starvation

(NEWSER) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will plead with world leaders at a food summit in Rome tomorrow to suspend trade restrictions, agricultural taxes, and other price controls that have helped create the highest food prices in 30 years, reports the Washington Post. Ban will also urge the US and other countries to phase out subsidies for food-based biofuels, such as ethanol, which have added to the spike in food costs. More»