By Chris Barton
Anti-GE campaigners clash with police during a protest at Rotorua's Forest Research Institute. Photo / Rotorua Daily Post
John Lowenthal is praising chickens - in particular the broiler variety which takes just 42 days to grow from egg to maturity. The extraordinary bird, bred to grow big, fast and plump for our dinner tables, could undoubtedly play a significant role in fighting world hunger.
Especially because the Australian scientist and his CSIRO research team at the high security Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Victoria may just have the technology to breed an avian flu-resistant chicken.
It's early days, he tells his audience at last week's 10th International Symposium on the Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms in Wellington.
But the proof of concept project signals the cutting edge of genetic modification - gene silencing to create a resistance to viral infection which is then integrated into DNA, so it's passed on in future generations through normal breeding.
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By Bob Livingston 
The Christian faith is the only religion that cannot be manipulated in favor of one worldism or universalism sometimes called the New World Order. This is precisely why the world system and its political leaders hate, despise and persecute Christianity.
I hasten to explain that all the phony Christian fronts, televangelists and world evangelists are not Christians, but very much a part of the worldly system of antichrist.
All religions are collectivist religions except Christianity, which is an individual and individualist faith. Governments want and must have collectivism under some name whether it be democracy or communism.
Collectivism is a certain means of social, economic and religious control.
Politicians regularly espouse individualism, human liberty and democracy at the same time. Impossible! Individualism and human liberty are opposite to democracy and any other form of collectivism.
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1 of 1Full SizeMOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will complete Iran's first nuclear power plant in 2009, Itar-Tass news agency quoted the head of Russia's state nuclear corporation as saying on Thursday.
The launch of the Bushehr plant's nuclear reactor has frequently been delayed. Russian and Iranian officials have given different dates for the start-up. Iran's foreign minister said last year the plant would launch in mid-2008.
Russia has already delivered nuclear fuel under a $1 billion contract to build the Bushehr plant on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran. Russia has blamed previous delays on problems with receiving payment from Iran.
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 By Anita Rice in Doha, Qatar 
The G8 has become "obsolete" as emerging economies change the global economic order, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has said.
Speaking on Saturday at the formal opening of the Doha-hosted UN summit on financing development, he said: "We [Europe] believe the G8, when it was formed, was useful but it is now obsolete ... you could not resolve the current global economic crisis without China, Brazil ... [and other emerging economic powers]."
Sarkozy also called for the Bretton Woods Institutions - the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - to be more inclusive and for better African representation within the UN Security Council.
"Africa, you must have your seat, you must have a fair place within international finance institutions. There is not a single African country that is a permanent member of the the UN Security Council," he said.
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If only we could be a fly on the wall when our enemies are plotting to attack us. Better yet, what if that fly could record voices, transmit video and even fire tiny weapons?
That kind of James Bond-style fantasy is actually on the drawing board.
U.S. military engineers are trying to design flying robots disguised as insects that could one day spy on enemies and conduct dangerous missions without risking lives.
"The way we envision it is, there would be a bunch of these sent out in a swarm," said Greg Parker, who helps lead the research project at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. "If we know there's a possibility of bad guys in a certain building, how do we find out? We think this would fill that void."
In essence, the research seeks to miniaturize the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle drones used in Iraq and Afghanistan for surveillance and reconnaissance.
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