THE breakthrough could result in new breeds of disease resistant crops which could be producing higher wheat yields in as little as five years' time, raising the prospect of lower bread prices and greater food security in a more populated world.

In a scientific tour-de-force that has been hailed as the most significant breakthrough in wheat production since the cereal crop was cultivated by the first farmers more than 10,000 years ago, scientists have decoded the genome of the wheat plant.

As a result, new breeds of disease-resistant crops could be producing higher wheat yields in as little as five years' time, raising the prospect of lower bread prices and greater food security in a more populated world. And rather than guard their knowledge, the British scientists responsible for the research will today place a draft version of the genome online, making it available for free to wheat breeders around the world, who will be able to use it to speed up the creation of the new disease-resistant varieties that are urgently needed. Most wheat breeders currently rely on traditional methods of mixing new crop varieties – techniques that have not changed substantially for hundreds of years.
Wheat production is under pressure, particularly this summer because of the failure of the Russian harvest. Yet world food production will have to increase by an estimated 50 per cent over the next 40 years if the growing global population is to be fed.

One leading scientist behind the British study said yesterday that knowing the wheat genome would revolutionise the conventional breeding of wheat. Breeders, he explained, will be able to take valuable shortcuts that reduce the amount of time it takes to breed essential new plant varieties resistant to disease and drought. This would not entail genetic modification, although the genome will also prove invaluable for scientists if they did want to directly change the DNA of the wheat plant.

Conventional breeding can exploit the information contained in the wheat genome to screen seeds for the genetic "markers" or signposts that indicate the presence of valuable genes, such as those for resistance to drought or disease.

"A process that now takes five or six years will take one or two years. It is quite possible in five years' time that a loaf of bread will be cheaper because of this," said Professor Neil Hall, a genome scientist at Liverpool University, one of the three research centres that carried out the study.

Professor Keith Edwards of the University of Bristol said the breakthrough was highly significant. "In a short space of time we have delivered most of the sequences necessary for plant breeders to identify genetic differences in wheat. The public release of the data will dramatically increase the efficiency of breeding new crop varieties," Professor Edwards said.

Wheat yields per hectare have increased threefold since Roman times, but over the past decade they have reached a plateau despite intensive efforts by the plant breeders who have struggled with the menace of constantly evolving wheat diseases. This is one reason why wheat production has failed to keep pace with increased demand.

"It has been estimated that in Europe, productivity needs to double to keep pace with demand and to maintain stable prices. We need to start breeding new varieties of wheat that will be important in five or 10 years' time," Professor Hall said.

"This means that we will be able to utilise the wheat genome to its full potential. It means that we can fully utilise what nature has given us." However Professor Hall added: "Unless global population is kept under control, nature may not be enough and we may have to use genetic modification because there is always going to be a limit to what you can get out of wheat."

Although wheat was one of the first domesticated crops, it has posed formidable problems for modern breeders, largely because of its complex genetics which are the result of the plant being a hybrid of three distinct species of wild grass. The 17 billion individual "letters" in the wheat genome – which is more than five times larger than the human genome – mean that it is one of the largest genomes to be sequenced. The draft sequence, covering 95 per cent of the wheat plant's DNA, was completed within a year of the start of the project, which cost £1.8m and was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

"Sequencing the human genome took 15 years to complete, but with huge advances in DNA technology, the wheat genome took only a year," Professor Hall said. "The information we have collected will be invaluable in tackling the problem of global food shortage."

He added: "The primary goal of this research was to help conventional plant breeders. But it may be that... genetic modification will also be necessary to boost yields." [Courtesy Independent of UK]

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Indians have slashed 500 billion dollars of black money in Swiss banks

IN a major step towards the Indian government getting hold of details of Indian money stashed in Swiss bank accounts, a revised agreement with Switzerland will allow investigators to access information relating to not just tax fraud but evasion as well.

The reworked double taxation agreement ( DTA), signed by India and Switzerland on Monday, will mean Indian authorities can seek information about account-holders in Swiss banks from January 2011 as long as they have a case, but the agreement won't facilitate a fishing expedition, Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said.

In an exclusive interaction with TOI, Calmy-Rey said starting January 1, 2011, Swiss authorities will provide information to India on cases of tax fraud and tax evasion. Ever since reports emerged of Indians having accounts in tax havens like Liechtenstein and the success of governments like the US in accessing these accounts, New Delhi has been working to get better terms from the Swiss.

A new deal between India and Switzerland may be major step forward in the fight against tax fraud.

"Under the revised pact, we will give information to India not just in cases of tax fraud but also in tax evasion cases. We are also making a major concession for India in that we will start this process retroactively from January 1, 2011, as soon as ratification of the revised agreement has taken place in the course of 2011," Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said.

She also pegged the total amount of money in Swiss banks at 2,100 billion francs, or $2,050 billion, half of which were institutional funds.

"We don't have individual or a country-wise break-up of the money with Swiss banks but we do know that the total amount in the country's banks is around 2,100 billion francs. And half of this amount belongs to institutional clients," Calmy-Rey said in reply to a query that close on to $1.4 trillion in Indian black money was parked in Swiss banks. If half of the $2,050 billion is institutional money, the Swiss foreign minister said, the unaccounted-for money stashed abroad would be a little over $1,025 billion. Even if Indians account for 50% of this figure, their share would come to only $500 billion.

Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani, who has maintained in SC that government can't claim immunity from disclosing documents related to black money in Swiss banks, said last week that $1,500 billion in black money was lying in Swiss banks.

Calmy-Rey also made it clear that the information under the revised agreement could be subject to conditions stipulated by OECD.

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Angloa: how imperialists ruin countries

CONSIDER how Angola, a country so rich in the most coveted resource of our time--oil--can fall to the bottom of almost every scale of human development. Twenty-seven years of civil war fueled by a lethal mix of oil, diamonds and cold war enemies have left one of Africa's potentially richest countries a shambles.

Although its own kleptocratic leaders and homegrown revolutionaries deserve much of the blame, it's impossible to divorce what's happened from the constant manipulation of outsiders--from the Portuguese, who kept Angola under the thumb of colonial rule for 500 years, to the United States and white-led South Africa, which bankrolled Angola's rebels during the cold war, to the multinationals draining the country of its natural resources today. Angola pumps almost a million barrels a day; the United States imports more oil from Angola than from Kuwait. But 70 percent of Angolans live in poverty.

It's no secret that Angola's leaders are siphoning off huge amounts of state money. But lurking beneath the sinister statistics and corrosive corruption is the murky involvement of Western governments and multinational oil companies. The United States has shown no interest in either making demands on oil companies or pressuring the Angolan government. On the contrary, with its interest in diversifying its sources of oil and staying on the right side of one of the most powerful military forces in Africa, Washington is publicly strengthening ties to the MPLA government.

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