Word: systemic
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...group includes no African leaders - nor China, whose investment in African infrastructure exceeds that of all the G-8 countries combined. Singer Bob Geldof urged on Thursday that the discussion be widened, warning that unless more countries are at the table in international decision-making, "our system will fail again." (See pictures of China doing business in Africa...
...food in the face of powerful industry resistance. But as profits and consumer confidence have plummeted with each new outbreak, the political climate has changed - so much so that earlier this week, a House panel reached unusual bipartisan consensus on the most sweeping reform of the food-safety system in at least 50 years...
...center of the legislation is an effort to transform a slow and reactive government apparatus into a preventive food-safety system. Every processor or importer would have to implement plans to identify biological and chemical hazards in its products, like the salmonella discovered at a Georgia peanut plant linked to a national outbreak of the infection in 2008. Firms would be required to maintain strategies and procedures to prevent or stop such dangers. The FDA would set minimum requirements for plans and audit them, a government tool that may have headed off the peanut-borne bacteria that resulted...
...sudden consensus on food-safety reform isn't necessarily the result of principled legislators standing up to moneyed interests. On the contrary, industry powers like the Grocery Manufacturers Association now support the new oversight, which reflects corporate anxiety over the volatile current system and a recognition that they need a government imprimatur to establish credibility with consumers. Peanut-butter manufacturers, after all, saw sales decline 13% in the wake of the salmonella outbreak, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The spinach industry lost more than $350 million after a wave of E. coli infections linked...
...governing is that the latter requires actual choices and compromise. In the case of health-care reform, Obama at some point will have to deal not only with conservative opposition but also with the expectations of his liberal base. Already, supporters of single-payer health care - a government-financed system similar to that of Canada or Britain - are complaining that they have been shut out of the conversation. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs...