Health
Disease traced to camels
LONDON, U.K. (Reuters) — People infected with a deadly virus that emerged in Saudi Arabia last year may have caught it from one-humped camels used in the region for meat, milk, transport and racing.
In a study into what may be fuelling the outbreak in humans, scientists said they had found strong evidence it is widespread among dromedary camels in the Middle East.
The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, has been reported in people in the Persian Gulf region, France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Britain.
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The World Health Organization says 46 people have died out of a total 94 confirmed cases, most in Saudi Arabia.
“As new human cases of MERS-CoV continue to emerge, without any clues about the sources of infection except for people who caught it from other patients, these new results suggest that dromedary camels may be one reservoir,” said Chantal Reusken of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, who led the study.
Business
Jack Daniels expands
(Reuters) — The makers of Jack Daniel’s whiskey plan to spend more than $100 million to increase production to sate the growing thirst for the world-famous Tennessee whiskey.
Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman Corp. will build a new distillery, adding stills, barrel warehouses and related infrastructure, to boost production at its Lynchburg, Tennessee, factory, the oldest registered distillery in the United States.
The new facility will increase the production of the flagship Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 brand by 15 to 20 percent from more than 11 million cases per year.
Global sales of the Jack Daniel’s family of brands grew by nine percent in the last fiscal year, with international sales growth outpacing the United States.
The more than 140-year-old brand is the highest selling U.S. whiskey in the world.
Hunger
India approves subsidy for poor
NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) — India’s lower house of Parliament has approved a plan worth nearly $20 billion to provide cheap grain to the poor, a key part of the ruling Congress party’s strategy to win re-election.
Under the plan, the government will sell subsidized wheat and rice to 67 percent of its population of 1.2 billion. India is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry poor, according to United Nations data, despite being one of the biggest food producers.
Faced with an unruly parliament, prime minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government last month resorted to an executive order to implement the program, which his Congress party hopes will help win it a third consecutive term in power. The next election is due by May.
The Rajya Sabha upper house must now approve the decree before it becomes law.
