It took just two days for the price of bananas to jump in supermarkets after Cyclone Yasi hit, but the early price rise is the result of a gesture from the major chains to help farmers recover.

Coles and Woolworths have back-paid farmers for bananas picked before the cyclone in anticipation of crop damage.

Banana Growers chief executive Jonathan Eccles says it is a positive move on behalf of the supermarket chains.

"What both supermarkets have done - the fruit that's already in their warehouses - they have backdated payments to the growers at well above what was the normal price they were paying," he said.

It was as unexpected as a red gum, impervious to all that could be thrown at it, suddenly toppling days after the storm.

Julia Gillard, scorned for weeks during the dreadful summer of natural disasters as lacking empathy, as wooden, as incapable of displaying emotion, finally could no longer withstand the strain.

Standing in the Parliament yesterday, she unfurled a muddied Australian flag recovered from the flooded Queensland town of Murphys Creek in the body-strewn Lockyer Valley & her voice began cracking.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced $2 billion of cuts that he says the Government should make instead of imposing a flood levy.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard proposes to raise money for flood reconstruction through a mix of the levy and spending cuts.

But Mr Abbott says there is enough room in the budget to find the money without the levy.

"I think Australians have suffered enough without having to suffer through a new tax," he said.

Mr Abbott says a Coalition government would save $600 million by deferring water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin.

There is a lot more behind Hosni Mubarak digging in his heels and setting his thugs on the peaceful protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square than pure politics. This is also about money. Mubarak and the clique surrounding him have long treated Egypt as their fiefdom and its resources as spoils to be divided among them.

NSW Labor will put the cost of living at the heart of its re-election campaign, promising to ease the impact of surging electricity prices with a $250 rebate on power bills and restrict increases in public transport fares and government charges.

The Premier, Kristina Keneally, has also promised to legislate to keep Sydney Water, Hunter Water and the desalination plant at Kurnell in public hands, prompting the Coalition to rule out privatising Sydney Water and Hunter Water if it wins on March 26.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/labors-900m-pitch-20110206-1aiey.html

Genetically modified crops will be allowed to enter the UK food chain without the need for regulatory clearance for the first time under controversial plans expected to be approved this week.

The Observer understands that the UK intends to back EU plans permitting the importing of animal feed containing traces of unauthorised GM crops in a move that has alarmed environmental groups.

Importing animal feed containing GM feed must at present be authorised by European regulators. But a vote on Tuesday in favour of the scheme put forward by the EU's standing committee on the food chain and animal health would overturn the EU's "zero tolerance" policy towards the import of unauthorised GM crops.

Donald Rumsfeld, much loathed and despised as a perpetrator of war and torture, has a message for the world: Don't blame me. That turns out to be the theme of his upcoming memoir, Known and Unknown, extracts of which appeared yesterday in the American press ahead of the book's publication next Tuesday.

Shell stoked up the heated debate about the high cost of fuel on the forecourt today after reporting it made profits of nearly £1.6m an hour over the last three months.

A leading member of the road lobby said motorists would be "sick to the stomach" and declared that Shell - and a tax-taking Treasury - were "laughing all the way to the bank".

from Crikey ......

Abbott has buggered up his anti-flood levy campaign

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is extending his media empire once again - this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad called the Daily.

Mr Murdoch told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that he hoped it would be an "indispensable source of news" in the tablet era.

The Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple's iTunes store.

News Corp has hired about 100 journalists to work on it.

The paper will initially only be available in the US.

The Daily will feature news articles, interactive graphics, HD videos and 360 degree photos designed to work with the iPad's touchscreen.

In my view, the only thing that Julia Gillard has going for her these days is the leadership of the Liberal Party ......

For Tony Abbott, the definition of an acceptable levy is apparently one imposed by the Coalition.

In government, the Liberals and Nationals tried to impose six levies in 12 years.

They announced a sugar levy in 2003 to assist farmers, a levy on plane tickets in 2001 to pay Ansett workers' entitlements, a milk levy in 2000 to assist dairy farmers, a levy for the East Timor military action in 1999 (ultimately not called on) and a levy for a guns buyback in 1996 through an increase in the Medicare surcharge.

from Crikey .....

The sugar bomb is ticking away dangerously

David Gillespie, lawyer and author of Sweet Poison, why sugar makes us fat, writes:

AUSTRALIAN HEART FOUNDATION, HEALTH, NESTLE, OBESITY, SUGAR

The Heart Foundation has finally trashed the last of its credibility.

GetUp is extremely successful at running campaigns and does not shy away from High Court challenges.

The detail of the proposed law is that it will criminalise:
* all plants that contain DMT ie:Our beautiful wattles(our national emblem!)
* all plants that contain mescaline ie:Most of our ornamental cactus
* Catha edulis
* all Brugmansia species
* all Datura species: adored by proud gardners everywhere for their beautiful flower