美国期望为金牌鏖战
国际球员天赋的成长意味着美国男篮要面对“巨大的挑战”来赢得奥运奖牌，第一教练MK星期一说。
“世界篮球界已经爆发了。30%的NBA球员是美国外的国际球员，我们面对的许多队，将用完全NBA水平（？）的球员来开始比赛。”K在澳门说。澳门是美国这个夺金热门（？）在去北京之前，和立陶宛与土耳其进行表演赛的地方。
“这对我们来说，将会是一个巨大的挑战。”
美国过去拔得12次男篮头筹但近年地位不保。

阿拉伯联合酋长国的运动员将为在8月8日到24号在中国首都北京举行的第二十九届奥运会赢得奖牌得到现金奖励，这是当地报纸海湾新闻在周三报道的。
对UAE在北京的奖牌赢得者作奖励的决定是UAE国际奥委会兼UAE年轻人和体育福利部秘书长M宣布的。M说，北京奥运的金牌获得者将为他的努力而获奖一百万迪拉姆（272480美元）。
他又说，任何人获得银牌将得到75万迪拉姆，而季军是50万。
UAE送出8人的运动员团队参加北京奥运会，这也是海湾国目前最大的奥运代表团。在8名运动员中，最有希望的金牌获得者是SAMHAM，他在04年雅典奥运会上夺得男子双碟射击金牌。

Food in rich countries

A bad habit they can't give up

Jul 10th 2008
From The Economist print edition

IT IS hard to get a grip on food. The UN’s World Health Organisation worries about diminishing supplies and increased prices in poor countries; recent riots and near-riots in Haiti, Bangladesh and Egypt were sparked by the growing cost of wheat and rice. But, as Paul Roberts observes in “The End of Food”, the developed world has lived through “a near miraculous period during which the things we ate seemed to grow only more plentiful, more secure, more nutritious, and simply better.” In the second half of the 20th century, world output of corn, wheat and cereal crops more than tripled. Yet there is not enough to feed the rich, the aspirational and the poor in the world. A golden age has been transformed quite suddenly into a global crisis.

Mr Roberts insists that modern agribusiness is unsustainable and becoming more so. “Precisely at the moment in history when we need to shift our system of food production into overdrive, our agricultural engine is breaking down,” he says. The industry has taken cheap oil for granted. Oil fuels transportation and farm machinery, and natural gas is the basis of synthetic nitrogen production (prices have tripled since 2002). Agriculture accounts for three-quarters of freshwater use, and water is becoming an increasingly scarce and expensive resource. Climate change makes some old assumptions about farming redundant. A combination of these factors, he says, will ultimately force a complete rethinking of the way we make food.

For years government subsidies held down grain prices, making food cheaper. Water was also plentiful—it takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce a tonne of grain—and an ingenious process known as Haber-Bosch makes synthetic nitrogen fertiliser easily available to grain farmers. Ruthless price-cutting at supermarkets means consumers have grown accustomed to eating too much. (In the late 19th century, Europeans already thought Americans ate three or four times more than was necessary.) The most damaging consequence is that by 2000 31% of American adults were obese, with another 16% defined as overweight. American airlines spend $275m a year more on fuel simply to lift the heavier passengers. Mr Roberts claims that every year obesity causes 400,000 premature deaths in America. Food has become as deadly as tobacco.

A fruitful start would be to halve the size of portions in all American restaurants, but most consumers are reluctant rethinkers. Eating organic produce could be a partial solution, although one study suggests that the cost of avoiding intensive farm chemicals would mean a 31% increase in food prices. Government scientists believe that genetically modified crops might be the only way out of the crisis, but a majority of consumers are reluctant to listen.

Is there a model for the future? Fashionably, Mr Roberts believes that a local system based on easily obtainable seasonal foods that do not need to be transported huge distances would form part of a solution. The economics and greenery of this are far from proven. Mr Roberts can find only one country that has made “serious efforts” in this direction: Cuba, hardly a comforting example. The coming food crisis, warns the author, is as intractable as global warming, and no less urgent.

富国的食物
一个他们不能戒掉的坏习惯 2008.7.10
《经济学家 印刷版》

管制食物是件很难的事。联合国世界卫生组织担心穷国里食物持续减少的供应和持续上涨的价格；近来在海地，孟加拉国和埃及的骚乱和类似的（？）动荡，就是由谷粮持续增加的支出点燃的。但，由Paul Roberts在“食物的末日”观察，发达世界“一个接近于奇迹的时期，这个时期我们吃的东西智慧更多更安全更有营养，也更好”的生活已经过去了。在20世纪的下半叶，世界玉米小麦谷物的产量翻了三倍多。但还是没有足够多食物来供养世上的富人，？和穷人。黄金时代很突然的转变成了全球危机。
                                                                                                                                Mr Roberts强调现代农业经济是不足以支持发展的而且越来越是这样。正好在历史上的这时，我们需要将食物生产的体制转换为过度生产，而我们农业的动力正在瓦解。”他说。工业理所当然的使用廉价石油。石油燃料运输和农场机械，还有天然气是人造氮制品的基础原料（价格自2002年以来翻三倍）。3/4新鲜水被农业消耗，水正成为越来越稀缺也更贵的资源。气候的变化使得过去的一些对农业的设想变成多余。（？）。这些因素的综合，他说，将最终驱使我们重新思考生产食物的方法。

很多年政府给予津贴来降低谷物价格，让食物更便宜。水是丰富的，要花1000吨水来产1吨谷物。还有一项众人皆知的独创发明工序--Haber-Bosch，使得谷农更加容易获得人造氮肥。超市里无情的砍价意味着，消费者已经要习惯吃更多了。（19世纪晚期，欧洲人已经想到美国人会吃实际必要的三到四倍食物）最有破坏力的结果是到2000年31%的美国成年人会肥胖，还有另外16%的人被定义为超重。美国航线每年在燃料上多花费275M美元就为了运送更重的旅客。Mr Roberts称，每年肥胖导致美国40万人过早死亡。食物变得和烟草一样致命。

作为一个好的开始，美国所有餐馆里的饭菜分量都要减半，但大部分消费者都不愿意重新考虑。尽管食用有机制品可能是部分解决办法，尽管一个研究显示，刻意消除农业化学物质的费用意味着提高31%的食品价格。政府的科学家相信基因改良的谷物是走出危机的唯一方式，但大多数消费者不愿意听取意见。

有一个模式适用于未来吗？按照流行的观点，Mr Roberts相信，能轻易到手的时令食品，且并不需要远距离运送的本土体制，会成为一部分解决方法。从经济学和环保上讲，这还远远不能得到证明。Mr Roberts能找到唯一的在这个方向做出巨大努力的国家是：古巴，几乎不是一个让人高兴的例子。作者警告，将来的食物危机，是一个如同全球变暖一样难处理的难题，刻不容缓。