FRANCE BANNING KETCHUP FROM SCHOOLS

In an effort to promote healthy eating (and one suspects, French culinary tradition), French school officials have banned the use of ketchup on anything but French fries in cafeterias nationwide. And it's not the only lunchroom staple being told au revoir.

All fried foods, including nuggets and cordon-bleus, are being restricted to one meal per week. And the French lunch ladies will no longer put salt, mayo, vinaigrette (or the evil ketchup) out for kids to use as they please. They'll only be available "according to the dishes."

"France must be the global example for the quality of food, starting with children," French Agriculture and Food Minister Bruno le Maire told a Parisian newspaper.



Le Maire complained that school menus weren't respecting nutritional guidelines, so it was up to the government to draw up rules that forced students to eat healthier meals.

French fries (which, remember, aren't even French), will be limited to once a week.

And, while the good French agriculture minister didn't come out and say it, some are suspecting that a fervent desire to protect kids' waistlines isn't the only thing motivating the ketchup ban. Some are whispering that there's more than a little Gallic pride at play here. Ketchup, after all, is that most American of condiments...





















Le Maire complained that school menus weren't respecting nutritional guidelines, so it was up to the government to draw up rules that forced students to eat healthier meals.

French fries (which, remember, aren't even French), will be limited to once a week.

And, while the good French agriculture minister didn't come out and say it, some are suspecting that a fervent desire to protect kids' waistlines isn't the only thing motivating the ketchup ban. Some are whispering that there's more than a little Gallic pride at play here. Ketchup, after all, is that most American of condiments...

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED : STRAUSS-KAHN

FORMER International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned home to France yesterday for the first time since a New York hotel maid accused him of attempted rape, unleashing an international scandal that dashed his chances for the French presidency.

Mr Strauss-Kahn and his wife, Anne Sinclair, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and passed rapidly through the terminal before being whisked away in a waiting car. They were smiling but made no statement to journalists.

Mission accomplished. He has been removed from the IMF and will not seek presidency of France .

HANDOUTS TO HAITI IS NOT THE ANSWER

Handouts not the answer, says Haitian filmmaker
BILLIONS of dollars in aid for Haiti will be wasted if the international community does not dramatically change its approach to the devastated Caribbean nation, a former minister for culture says.

Award-winning filmmaker Raoul Peck said the world's ''strictly humanitarian approach'' focusing on food handouts in the aftermath of the January earthquake had caused a ''victimisation'' of Haiti's people and did not consider how to empower them and create a sustainable future.

''That doesn't really help the country recover in terms of economical growth,'' he said.

Peck, who was culture minister briefly in the mid-1990s before returning to filmmaking, has worked on international development projects, won a lifetime achievement award from Human Rights Watch and was awarded an Order of Arts and Literature in France.

His visit to Sydney coincides with screenings of his powerful Haitian political allegory Moloch Tropical, selected for the Sydney Film Festival's $60,000 official competition, yesterday and today at the State Theatre. His socio-political films, such as Lumumba (2000), have won widespread acclaim.

The quake left more than 250,000 dead and 1.5 million homeless and Peck said if done properly, rebuilding Haiti was an opportunity for positive change.

But instead of bringing in ''massive aid in terms of rice and oil'' or care packages, giving its people money would have been better, he said.

''We have had experiences before where for each camp of 600 people, you could give the money to a group of 30 women and they organise the camp.They cook, they serve warm meals and make sure that everything goes well … Then you would have brought the economical flow in shape again.''

If aid continued to be just humanitarian - rather than for developing a sustainable future - the billions of dollars being spent would weaken Haiti and have been wasted, he said.

''Unless we are able to reverse the kind of thinking [on aid], we're going to spend the whole $10 or $11 billions on nothing … Haiti will have very little left to show for it.

''As long as you keep [only] feeding people, you're not giving them work, you're not giving them changes to rebuild their life.''

Haiti should be able to put forward its own plan, he said. ''But one should not be naive: it's also about power … and the normal, accepted view that you go the Third World so that you get to decide what's going on.''

Peck acknowledged the situation was very difficult and complex and the government was overwhelmed, but said improvements were taking too long. ''We are almost in the middle of the rainy season and still the majority of the people who were under tents [after the quake] are still living under tents.''

Moloch Tropical, which Peck directed, produced and co-wrote, focuses on the end times of a fictional Haitian president and his inner circle in a regime marked by corruption, torture and thuggery, sexual misconduct and other abuses, as well as self-delusion. The themes were drawn from past Haitian regimes, Peck said, but he depicted a ''democratically elected'' president to make the point that such elements were also present in legitimately elected governments.

''It's a phenomenon that's not only [to do] with Haiti … those are things happening today in our democracies.''

THERE IS A CALL TO STOP NEW ADOPTIONS IN HAITI

Three leading British charities, Save The Children, World Vision, and the British Red Cross want an immediate moratorium following last week's quake in Haiti, until efforts have been made to trace and reunite them with their families.

Countries have fast tracked the adoption process to allow hundreds of Haitian children to be settled with new families.

France's Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner said the country "must not be accused of kidnapping" and processing being sped up for children who were already in the process of being adopted.

There was a case in 2007 where six members of a French Aid Charity were convicted of trying to traffic to France 103 Chadian children who they said they were refugees from the war in Dafur.

FRANCE AND GERMANY HAVE REFUSED REQUESTS FOR MORE TROOPS.

President Barak Obama hoped that allies would match his troop surge. Britain has already offered an extra 500 troops and Italy has said it will send some, but Poland and other countries are waiting to see what happens in Afghanistan. The leaders want only to send police trainers and civilian aid experts.

CHINA HAS BECOME THE BIGGEST PRODUCER OF PHARMACEUTICAL INGREDIENTS IN THE WORLD

Bayer, the German company that created aspirin in the 1890's is being produced in China. Rhodia, a company in France makes acetaminophen, which is found in Tylenol is closing down.

China is producing about two-thirds of all aspirin and will soon be the world's sole supplier.

We wonder if China's meds are safe ? If the big corporations are buying it, it's O K .But if an average person goes to Canada or Mexico to buy meds, the government says the meds are not safe.