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Food costs at record high as U.N. warns of volatile era

MANILA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Record high global food prices showed no sign of relenting following a rash of catastrophic weather, highlighted by a major U.S. snowstorm and a cyclone in Australia, which could put yet more pressure on prices and spark further unrest around the world.

The closely watched U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index on Thursday touched its highest level since records began in 1990.

The index rose for the seventh month in a row to 231 in January, topping the peak of 224.1 in June 2008, when the world was last gripped in a food crisis.

"These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come," FAO economist and grains expert Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement.

Surging food prices have helped fuel the discontent that toppled Tunisia's president in January and that has spilled over to Egypt and Jordan, raising expectations other countries in the region would secure grain stocks to reassure their populations.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick urged global leaders to "put food first" and wake up to the need to curb price volatility.

"We are going to be facing a broader trend of increasing commodity prices, including food commodity prices," he told Reuters in an interview.

SUPPLY THE KEY

Catastrophic storms and droughts have been battering the world's leading agriculture countries in recent months, including flooding and a massive cyclone in Australia and a powerful winter storm that swept across parts of the United States.

Dubbed "Stormageddon," one of the biggest snowstorm in decades dumped up to 20 inches of snow in some parts of the U.S. grain belt this week, paralyzing grain and livestock movement. Meanwhile, more cold weather in the U.S. Plains ignited concerns the region's winter wheat lacked adequate insulating moisture.

U.S. wheat prices surged to 2-1/2 year highs on Thursday before retreating slightly on profit taking, along with prices of the other big crops such as corn and soybeans. But traders said pressure remains on wheat prices with forecast for more cold in the U.S. Midwest.

Sugar prices also surged to three-decade highs on fears of damage Cyclone Yasi would bring to the Australian cane crop. Prices for Malaysian palm oil, a cooking staple in the developing world, hit 3-year highs on flooding.

Big companies have had to adjust to higher raw material costs. Kellogg Co, the world's largest breakfast cereal company, said on Thursday it has boosted prices on many of its products to offset rising costs for ingredients such as grains and sugar.

"Today's announcement by the Food and Agriculture Organization should ring alarm bells in capitals around the world," said Gawain Kripke, a policy and research director for Oxfam America, an international development group.

"Governments must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when countries reacted to spiraling prices by banning exports and hoarding food. This will only make the situation worse and it is the world's poorest people who will pay the price," he said.

Janis Huebner, economist at Germany's DekaBank said inflation partly fueled by increasing food prices could in turn trigger interest rate rises in several countries this year.

"This could mean a slowing down of growth in the countries which raise their interest rates," he said. "This could involve Asian countries and other regions, this would somewhat brake growth but I do not expect a hard landing."

STOCK BUILDING

Some countries, particularly where food prices loom large in household budgets, have been building up food stocks to contain prices -- and to limit the political and social fallout.

During the last food price crisis, the World Bank estimated that some 870 million people in developing countries were hungry or malnourished. The FAO estimates that number has increased to 925 million.

"2008 should have been a wake-up call, but I'm not yet sure all the countries in the world that we need to support this have woken up to it," the World Bank's Zoellick said.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy, last week bought 820,000 metric tons of rice, lifting rice prices, while suspending import duties on rice, soybeans and wheat.

Algeria last week bought almost 1 million metric tons of wheat, bringing its purchases to at least 1.75 million since the start of January, and ordered a speeding up of grain imports.

On a day of bloody confrontation in Egypt, where protesters are demanding an end to the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, the U.N. World Food Programme's executive director Josette Sheeran said the world was now in an era where it had to be very serious about food supply.

"If people don't have enough to eat they only have three options: they can revolt, they can migrate or they can die. We need a better action plan," she said.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in London, Martinne Geller in New York, Lesley Wroughton and Christopher Doering in Washington and Michael Hogan in Hamburg; editing by Jonathan Thatcher, Keiron Henderson, Russell Blinch and Xavier Briand)

7 marriages for stepmother of dismembered NC girl

Here's a look at the seven marriages for Elisa Baker, who has been charged with obstructing the investigation into the disappearance last fall of her disabled stepdaughter, 10-year-old Zahra Baker. The Associated Press found that at one point, she was married to three men at the same time.

• Sept. 14, 1985: married Jerry Allen Winkler, Lenoir, N.C.

• Jan. 29, 1986: Winkler marriage annulled.

• Sept. 5, 1987: married Joseph Proctor, Gaffney, S.C.

• Feb. 6, 1992: divorced from Proctor.

• April 17, 1992: married Andrew Harris Jr., Gaffney, S.C.

• Feb. 4, 1995: married Darrell Putnam in Gaffney, S.C.

• Dec. 14, 1995: divorced from Harris.

• Oct. 3, 1997: married Jeffrey Allred, Lenoir, N.C.; never legally dissolved.

• Aug. 8, 1998: married Aaron Young, Gaffney, S.C.

• Nov. 22, 1999: Putnam marriage annulled.

• July 8, 2008: married Adam Baker in Australia.

• Aug. 21, 2009: divorced from Young.

Sources: Divorce records, marriage licenses, interviews

Who Will Design Kate Middleton's Wedding Dress?

With the world looking to Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding later this year, soon-to-be Princess Kate will need a wedding dress that exemplifies her new royal status, as well as reflect a modern and youthful Britain. Middleton is no stranger to the fashion world as she has been seen as a trendsetter and fashion icon in the U.K.

The navy blue Issa dress she wore at the announcement of her engagement to Prince William has already inspired dozens of knock-off and copycat dresses into production. Girls all over the U.K. look to Middleton as a style maven; her engagement merely broadened her celebrity and fashion icon status to the rest of the English speaking world. Even this week, 13 U.K. university students stood in front of Buckingham Palace in , complete with fake blue sapphire rings. In one news conference, Middleton's look defined how the world perceives her.

Additionally, Middleton chose a dress off the rack from U.K. department store Reiss rather than a top-name designer, for her official engagement portraits with Prince William. This choice by Middleton demonstrated her eye for fashion while making her choices and lifestyle seem more accessible to the general population. Middleton's wedding dress will need to demonstrate the same amount of style-savviness, while avoiding the extravagance and old world charm of .

Additionally, the designer that Middleton chooses to create the wedding gown that will be seen and emulated by countless people all over the world must reflect a sense of British patriotism.andhave suggested a few up and coming British designers that Middleton could potentially select to design the wedding dress.

The front-runner, verified by U.K. designer Ben de Lisi, is British . He has been designing clothes since the early 1970s and even helped style Princess Diana. As he already has been "royal approved," Oldfield is seen as a likely choice over popular American wedding designers like Vera Wang. Diana wedding dress designer David Emanuel became a household name after his 1981 creation for her; Middleton has the combined power of a style icon and a royal, which could send Oldfield to the top of the fashion world.

Kagame set for landslide in Rwanda presidential vote

KIGALI (AFP) – Rwandan President Paul Kagame headed for a landslide victory Tuesday after early results of a presidential election gave him a seemingly unassailable lead, sparking wild celebrations in the capital.

Tens of thousands of Kagame supporters packed Kigali's main football stadium for raucous festivities combining fireworks with reggae after Monday's poll, which followed weeks of political tension marked by arrests and killings.

At daybreak revellers from Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) were still making their way home on foot, and later there was little movement in the streets as the mountainous central African country observed a second successive public holiday.

Kagame won 92.9 percent of the votes cast in 11 out of Rwanda's 30 polling districts counted so far, Rwanda's poll chief Chrysologue Karangwa said.

His nearest challenger, Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), was running a distant second with 4.9 percent. The other two candidates had 1.5 and 0.7 percent respectively.

A triumphant Kagame thanked the crowd for "making the right choice" after the announcement was made at the stadium.

"We will continue to work for our country to be always first," he said. "This is your victory and the victory of all Rwandan people."

Earlier in the rally officials announced Kagame had won 96.7 percent of the votes of Rwandans living abroad, sending the tens of thousands of fans in attendance into a frenzy.

Rwanda's poll chief had initially said results for all 30 districts would be available early Tuesday. Media bodies however said Wednesday, or late Tuesday is more likely.

The former rebel's supporters credit him with ending Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which claimed some 800,000 lives, and ushering in stability and growth, but critics accuse him of undermining democracy and muzzling opponents.

Kagame insisted Monday that the election had been democratic and dismissed allegations the real opposition was de facto excluded from the vote.

But some commentators said the opposition was better represented in the 2003 poll, where Kagame scored 95 percent than in this latest election where he faced only parties allied to him and where there was never any doubt he would be overwhelmingly re-elected.

"At least in 2003 there was Faustin (Twagiramungu)," one commentator said, referring to the former prime minister who stood against Kagame and who garnered only 3.5 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile three new parties set up to challenge his rule were excluded from the election. They denounced the poll as a sham.

One of them, Unified Democratic Forces (UDF), Tuesday reported irregularities in the way voting was conducted, saying that in some areas of the north and west voters had their voting cards "seized by the local authorities" on the eve of the poll. The cards were handed back just before the vote with "Voted" marked on them, UDF alleged.

It also said it noted forced attendance in some villages and night voting with no privacy.

Electoral commission officials have reported no major incidents.

Kagame, 52, has been the de facto leader of this central African nation since his Tutsi-dominated rebel group turned political party, the RPF, routed Hutu extremists after the genocide.

Kagame's government, thanks partly to generous international funding, has turned around the economy despite few natural resources, focusing on services and new technology as well as modernising agriculture.

But critics say that is just a facade for a repressive regime.

Human Rights Watch noted that in the six months ahead of the election campaign "a worrying pattern of intimidation, harassment and other abuses" emerged.

Several senior army officers have been arrested in recent months and one general, Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, narrowly survived an assassination attempt in exile in South Africa.

An opposition journalist who claimed to have uncovered evidence of the regime's involvement in the attempted murder was shot dead days later.

Senegal's Youssou N'Dour launches TV station

DAKAR (AFP) – Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour, who owns a major media group in Dakar, has launched his private television station after a difference with the authorities over its finance.

TFM (Television Futurs Medias) is a cultural channel that went on the air on Wednesday evening, with a debate among diplomats, business people, musicians, politicians and officials.

"The television is an instrument that serves to broadcast information. It can be an instrument of propaganda, but it can also be dangerous," said Prime Minister Souleymane Ndene Ndiaye as he congratulated N'Dour on the initiative.

"I never had any doubt, because I always believed that TFM would broadcast, sooner or later," N'Dour said.

The renowned musician announced in May that he had obtained an authorisation to broadcast, which the Senegalese state had previously withheld after he first announced his plans in 2008.

The launch of TFM comes after a conflict with the authorities which was officially about the means of financing the channel.

On May 1, President Abdoulaye Wade said that the refusal to give a licence to broadcast was based on the state's wish to prevent any influence on its policy by "foreigners".

Ndour managed to persuade the government that the money was not coming from abroad and provided the evidence to back up his claim, Communications Minister Moustapha Guirassy said.

TFM is Senegal's fifth privately owned television channel.

Ndour, 50, already owns a group called Futurs Medias, which includes the radio RFM (Radio Futurs Medias) and L'Observateur, a daily newspaper often critical of Wade's government.