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The Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, has ordered the controversial sterilisation process, which has been in place for more than a decade, to cease immediately, following compelling overseas evidence that some cats can suffer fatal neurological damage after eating irradiated dry food.

Dogs do not appear to be affected by similarly treated food.

About 90 cats fell ill last year and 30 died before a Sydney vet, Georgina Child, made the link in November between the mystery illness and a brand of Canadian gourmet pet food called Orijen.

The manufacturer, Champion Petfoods, blamed the contaminated food on Australian quarantine regulations, which demand that pet food not cooked over a specified temperature undergo irradiation of 50 kiloGrays upon arrival in the country. Of the 60 countries Champion Petfoods exports to, only Australia makes irradiation compulsory.

The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service and the company that carries out the process, Steritech, insisted at the time the irradiation process was harmless. A limited range of imported human foods, including dried herbs and some tropical fruits, are also irradiated before landing on store shelves, but at much lower levels than that mandated for pet food.

Mr Burke said the inspection service decided to act in response to international reports his department received only late last week. Work was being done in state and federal governments to see how safety standards for pet food could be improved.

Benefits, such as Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance and health care, accounted for 16.2% of personal income in the first quarter of 2009, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That’s the highest percentage since the government began compiling records in 1929.

In all, government spending on benefits will top $2 trillion in 2009 — an average of $17,000 provided to each U.S. household, federal data show. Benefits rose at a 19% annual rate in the first quarter compared to the last three months of 2008.

The recession caused about half of the increase, according to the report. Unemployment insurance nearly tripled in the past year. The other half is the result of policies enacted during President George W. Bush’s first term.

Following the 2001 recession — when costs normally decline — social spending soared to pay for the Medicare drug benefit, expanded health care for children and greater use of food stamps.

The safety net is working, advocates say.

But according to their creators, these perfect looking vegetables could be the future of food.

In a perfectly controlled and totally sterile environment – uncontaminated by dirt, insects or fresh air – Japanese scientists are developing a new way of growing vegetables.

Called plant factories, these anonymous looking warehouses have sprung up across the country and can churn out immaculate looking lettuces and green leaves 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Every part of the plant’s environment is controlled – from the lighting and temperature, to the humidity and water. Even the levels of carbon dioxide can be minutely altered.

Rather than the conventional scruffy clothes and dirty fingernails of vegetable growers, the producers wear gloves, surgical masks and sort of dust proof protective suits normally seen in chemical plants.

“Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth,” Bernanke said in testimony to lawmakers today. “Maintaining the confidence of the financial markets requires that we, as a nation, begin planning now for the restoration of fiscal balance.”

Bernanke’s comments signal that the central bank sees risks of a relapse into financial turmoil even as credit markets show signs of stability. He said the Fed won’t finance government spending over the long term, while warning that the financial industry remains under stress and the credit crunch continues to limit spending.

The Fed chief said in his remarks to the House Budget Committee that deficit concerns are already influencing the prices of long-term Treasuries.

Yields on 10-year notes have climbed about 1 percentage point since the Fed announced plans in March to buy $300 billion of long-term government bonds. The notes yielded 3.54 percent at 5 p.m. in New York, down from 3.61 percent late yesterday, as Bernanke’s warnings on the need to reduce the deficit supported the market.

Rise in Yields

“In recent weeks, yields on longer-term Treasury securities and fixed-rate mortgages have risen,” Bernanke said. “These increases appear to reflect concerns about large federal deficits but also other causes, including greater optimism about the economic outlook, a reversal of flight-to-quality flows and technical factors related to the hedging of mortgage holdings.”

The budget deficit this year is projected to reach $1.85 trillion, equivalent to 13 percent of the nation’s economy, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“Either cuts in spending or increases in taxes will be necessary to stabilize the fiscal situation,” Bernanke said in response to a question. “The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.”

“Gold just seems to make sense; it’s a store of value,” Chief Executive Officer Edward Zore said in an interview following his comments at a conference hosted by Standard & Poor’s in Brooklyn. “In the Depression, gold did very, very well.”

Northwestern Mutual has accumulated about $400 million in gold, and Zore said the price could double or even rise fivefold if the economy continues to weaken. Gold gained 10 percent last month, the most since November. The commodity has more than tripled since 2000, rising for eight straight years. Gold futures for August delivery slipped $4.80 to $975.50 at 4:03 p.m. in New York.

“The downside risk is limited, but the upside is large,” Zore said. “We have stocks in our portfolio that lost 95 percent.” Gold “is not going down to $90.”

The document presents a sensitive 5 May, 2009 draft of all US nuclear sites for Congressional review together with a covering note from President Barack Obama giving more detail on the restrictions.

The man accused of killing a soldier and wounding another outside a military recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., pleaded not guilty Tuesday.

Prosecutors charged Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a 23-year-old Muslim convert, with capital murder and 15 counts of engaging in a terrorist act in connection with Monday’s shooting, which left Army Pvt. William Long, 23, dead, and Army Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, injured.

Muhammad was ordered held without bail.

“If there had been more recruits out there at the time he would have killed more of them, or tried to,” prosecutor Larry Jegley said. “It’s my understanding that after his conversion to Islam he decided that he had a bone to pick with the military officers because of what he perceived to be mistreatment of Muslims around the world.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Pat Harris said his office might pursue federal charges.

Muhammad, who was known previously as Carlos Bledsoe, acted alone and was not part of a larger plot, said Cassandra Davis, a spokeswoman for the Little Rock Police Department. She said Muhammad had previously lived in Memphis, Tenn., and Nashville and had recently moved to Little Rock.

Iftikhar Pathan, the president of the Islamic Center of Little Rock, said Muhammad had never worshiped at the center’s mosque. “This man who claims to be a Muslim has never been seen in our Islamic center,” Pathan said.

Long and Ezeagwula had only recently completed basic training at Ft. Benning in Georgia, and had been asked by the Army to return to Arkansas to work in the recruiting office. Neither had seen combat.

Long and Ezeagwula were smoking outside of the Army-Navy Career Center in a shopping center in northwest Little Rock on Monday morning when police said Muhammad pulled up in a black Ford pickup and opened fire with an assault rifle.

Muhammad fired several rounds before fleeing, Davis said. He was stopped 15 minutes later by police and taken into custody. She said police found several guns inside his truck.

Long, who was from Conway, a town 30 minutes north of Little Rock, was pronounced dead shortly after the shooting. He had been scheduled to join a unit at Ft. Bliss, Texas, in two weeks, according to Army Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis, commander of the Oklahoma City recruiting battalion, which oversees the Little Rock office.

Chip Minty of Oklahoma City says Michael Harris was a geologist in Devon’s Rio de Janeiro office. He started with Devon in 2004 and became a full-time employee in 2006.

Minty says Harris had moved from Houston to Brazil in July.

Anne Harris’ sister, Mary Miley of Lafayette, tells the local newspaper that Anne Harris was originally from Lafayette, and the couple had lived there until 2004. She tells The Advertiser they had been married for 16 years.

The 16-nation euro gained for a fourth day versus the dollar as the Russian government said emerging-market leaders may discuss the idea of a supranational currency. The pound strengthened to $1.65 for the first time since October.

“There’s been a lot of talk out of Russia about a new global currency, and that’s contributing toward this latest bout of dollar weakness,” said Henrik Gullberg, a currency strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. “These latest comments are just adding to the general dollar weakness we’ve seen recently.”

…

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev may discuss his proposal to create a new world currency when he meets counterparts from Brazil, India and China this month, Natalya Timakova, a spokeswoman for the president, told reporters by phone today. Medvedev first proposed seeking alternatives to the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency in March.

The dollar also declined on speculation “smaller” central banks started today’s selling of the greenback, said Sebastien Galy, a currency strategist at BNP Paribas SA in New York.

“If people believe that there is official pressure behind it, then obviously it puts pressure on euro-dollar on the upside,” Galy said. Galy predicted the 16-nation currency may reach $1.4360 today, a peak last reached in December.

There will be demand for the record amount of debt the U.S. is selling, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview earlier today with state media outlets in China.

China’s ‘Understanding’

As the army mops up Taliban resistance in the Swat valley, where a defence official predicted fighting would be over within days, the focus is shifting to Waziristan and the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

But a deadly war of wits is already under way in the region, where tribesmen say the US is using advanced technology and old-fashioned cash to target the enemy.

Over the last 18 months the US has launched more than 50 drone attacks, mostly in south and north Waziristan. US officials claim nine of the top 20 al-Qaida figures have been killed.

That success is reportedly in part thanks to the mysterious electronic devices, dubbed “chips” or “pathrai” (the Pashto word for a metal device), which have become a source of fear, intrigue and fascination.

“Everyone is talking about it,” said Taj Muhammad Wazir, a student from south Waziristan. “People are scared that if a pathrai comes into your house, a drone will attack it.”

According to residents and Taliban propaganda, the CIA pays tribesmen to plant the electronic devices near farmhouses sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban commanders.

Hours or days later, a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles. “There are body parts everywhere,” said Wazir, who witnessed the aftermath of a strike.

Until now the drone strikes were the only threat to militants in Waziristan, where the Pakistani army had, in effect, abandoned the fight.

But now, emboldened by a successful campaign to drive militants out of Swat, a region about 80 miles from Islamabad, the army is preparing to regain lost ground in the more remote tribal belt.

It will be a much tougher campaign than in Swat, with the army pitched against a formidable, battle-hardened opponent. Yesterday Taliban fighters ambushed a military position in what could be a prelude to much more intense combat.

For the US military, drones have proved to be an effective weapon against al-Qaida targets, and they are becoming increasingly accurate.

On 1 January a drone-fired missile killed Usama al-Kimi, a Kenyan militant who orchestrated last year’s Marriott hotel bombing in Islamabad, a senior official with Pakistan’s ISI spy agency said.

It is a high-tech assassination operation for one of the world’s most remote areas.

The pilotless aircraft, Predators or more sophisticated Reapers, take off from a base in Baluchistan province.

But they are guided by a joystick-wielding operator half a world away, at a US air force base 35 miles north of Las Vegas.

Barack Obama has approved the drone campaign, which is cheap and limits the danger posed to US troops. But the strikes have many unintended victims. A Pakistani newspaper estimated that 700 people had been killed since 2006, most of them civilians, as a result of drone attacks.

For the tribesmen who plant the microchips and get it wrong, the consequences can be terrible. Last month the Taliban issued a video confession by Habib ur Rehman, 19. “They money was good,” he said in a quavering voice, describing how he was paid 20,000 rupees (£166) to drop microchips hidden in a cigarette wrapper at the home of a target.