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LOS ANGELES — A hedge fund manager and art collector from New York testified under immunity Tuesday that Anthony Pellicano, the Hollywood private detective accused of wiretapping and racketeering, had once offered to have a movie producer killed for him. Adam D. Sender, the owner of Exis Capital, a hedge fund that at one point had more than $1 billion in assets, said in Federal District Court here that he had paid Mr. Pellicano about $500,000 to investigate Aaron Russo, a producer and onetime talent manager whose film credits included “Trading Places.” Mr. Russo died of cancer last year.

A WORSENING global food shortage is a problem far more urgent than climate change, top Australian scientists have warned. The Australian Science Media Centre briefing heard why prices for some staple foods had risen by as much as 60 per cent in the past year, and how dramatic price rises are expected to sweep across all staples in the near future. Executive director of the Australian Farm Institute Mick Keogh said dairy products, grain and poultry had seen the strongest price rises in recent months.

Cities are spreading and farmland is disappearing... Absolutely amazing that we're bulldozing it to have more Wal-Marts, highways, and suburbs. ---------- Don Coxe is never at a loss for words. Especially when the topic of discussion is the new world order in economics. Three years ago, the Chicago-based global portfolio strategist for BMO Financial Group predicted parity for the Canadian and U.S. dollars.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - By the end of this year one half of the world's population will be living in cities for the first time in human history, the United Nations said in a new report released on Tuesday. So much for farmland and sustainability.. Instead, we have the cancerous growth otherwise known as a city.

"If prices continue to rise, I would not be surprised if we began to see food riots,” said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. The FAO’s food price index has risen to its highest level since it began in 1990. Wheat and milk prices reached a record high this summer while other agricultural commodities, such as corn and meat, are trading well above 1990s averages. Rising food prices are likely to force developing countries to follow Russia’s example and impose retail price controls to avoid social unrest, according to Diouf. Of course, since price controls will only cause shortages of food (Econ 101), it is not exactly clear how price controls will remove the potential for social unrest. Note that little to nothing is said about the most important factor in rising food prices, United States encouraged, worldwide central bank monetary expansion.

As the price of rice climbs across South Asia, farmers and millers in Thailand are sitting on stocks and waiting for it to rise even further, said a top rice exporter in Bangkok. The exporter, who requested anonymity, told The Straits Times: 'In my 25 years of trading, I have never seen such a bad position.' There is a rice shortage in Bangladesh and China too, among other countries, while there is a wheat shortage in Afghanistan.