The International Civil Aviation Organization reports that most airlines use permethrin and pyrethroid, both are suspected endocrine disruptors, and permethrin may be a carcinogen. The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP) points out that pesticides cause even greater harm on airplanes, where up to 50% of the air in the cabins is recycled. "Pesticides break down slowly in the enclosed, poorly ventilated aircraft," says a NCAP spokesperson.

The airlines are not required to inform passengers at ticket purchase of flight sprays, and there is also no control over how much pesticide is applied on the aircraft. The Association of Flight Attendants reported in 2001 that one airline used 50-60% more pesticide than the maximum recommended by the World Health Organization. Between 2000 and 2001, one cabin crew union received complaints of pesticide-related illness on more than 200 flights. Many complaints cite damp surfaces and pesticide odors in crew rest compartments. Crews and passengers have reported sinus problems, swollen and itchy eyes, cough, difficulty breathing, hoarseness, skin rashes/hives that vary in intensity, severe headaches and fatigue, and heightened sensitivity to other chemicals. Some crew members have medical documentation of reactions consistent with nerve gas exposure, such as blood, optic nerve, and nervous system abnormalities.

The Association of Flight Attendants suggests that passengers contact the airline to find out if pesticides will be sprayed on their flight, or if they will be boarding a "residually sprayed" craft. The U.S. Department of Transportation website also lists countries that require spray.

The world economy is facing a food "price shock", which may turn into a food crisis, reports the Financial Times, quoting the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The UN believes that in many developing countries, including China and India, inflation has become a major economic and political problem.

World prices for many commodities have risen sharply in recent years. According to the IMF, the prices of maize and rice have increased by more than 40 percent since July, soybeans and wheat prices have risen by more than 20 percent. Consequently, the price of bread in Armenia has increased by more than 10 percent over the past four months.

"At the same time, the level of prices for some Armenian foodstuffs is really high as compared to international prices, which is connected with structural weaknesses in the distribution sector, limited competition between importers and producers in some sectors," said Tolosa.

Meanwhile, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), which positions itself also as a socialist party, has published a special brochure, in which it says that Armenia is facing a crisis of economic management. This crisis, according to the party, is manifested in all spheres, beginning from "the ruthless and inefficient use of natural resources" (water, soil, mines) and ending with decision-making by state bodies.

In an interview with L'Osservatore Romano, Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, discussed the background of the new dicastery and described its agenda.

The pontifical council, he said, has its roots in Blessed John XXIII's famous opening address to the Second Vatican Council in which the Pontiff called for the unchanging faith to be presented in new ways to the contemporary world. A milestone in the years that followed was Pope Paul VI's 1974 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, which the archbishop described as a "key document in the life of the Church." Pope John Paul II "continued to focus on the new evangelization," while Pope Benedict has set forth "the particular task of rethinking and implementing the new evangelization" in cooperation with bishops around the world.

Archbishop Fisichella said that the dicastery's mission field is the secularized countries of the West. In the years before the next synod of bishops, which will be devoted to the new evangelization, the archbishop hopes to gain "a complete picture of the various initiatives-- and there are already so many-- in place in the Church. We know that there are very well organized groups and movements, born at the time of John Paul II, with the intent to promote and support the new evangelization."

Citing evangelization efforts on US university campuses as well as Latin American and European apostolates, the archbishop said that there is a wealth of lay movements that have as their purpose the new evangelization. There are diocesan pastoral plans designed for this purpose. But all this is rather fragmented. The first objective of the department, therefore, is to know the realities in the field in order to harmonize and support the efforts of all, overcoming fragmentation and fostering greater unity. The intent is to promote the complementarity of each group    working together, while respecting and enhancing the charism of each.

In his New Year's Eve address to his country, Sarkozy said France would look to change a system which no longer reflects our modern global society.  "The system put in place in 1945 is for a world that doesn't exist anymore," the French president told the nation.

Sarkozy's plan is to update everything to what he regards as the new reality of a more multi-polar world and the rise of new powers like India, Brazil and China.

"The Federal Reserve's latest actions favor the US but have consequences for the rest of the world," Dessertine said. "Emerging countries and Europe really want to change that."

Dessertine and other economists say the dollar will remain king for now, so long as the world economy does not go into recession. But if things get worse, the US will have to work with other nations to reduce the dollar's influence.

He will now be hoping he will succeed at least in getting world leaders to talk about a new monetary system at this year's global summits in France. He will be hoping President Obama will also be prepared to join in these discussions.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

Details about the "trusted identity" project are remarkably scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.