DENILIQUIN, Australia: Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety," he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped." The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to satisfy the daily needs of 20 million people. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Woman's Death Lifts Egypt Bird Flu Toll To 22 EGYPT: April 14, 2008 CAIRO - An Egyptian woman died of bird flu on Friday, the 22nd fatality and the 49th case of the disease among humans in Egypt, the state news agency MENA said. Wala Ahmed Abdel Galil, 30, from the northeast Cairo suburb of Mataria, fell ill after coming into contact with sick domestic birds, the agency said, quoting the Ministry of Health.

HANOI: Rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world's largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export. The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world's population, has almost doubled on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest.

Food scientists are meeting in Cusco, Peru, this week to find ways of boosting world potato production to ease the strain of surging cereal prices on the world's poorest countries. Potato production already reached a record high last year as cereal prices rose, partly as a consequence of grain producers - such as the US - switching to bio-fuel crops. The impact of more expensive cereals has been harshest on developing countries that are dependent on imports.

>> Arab countries have agreed to allow punishment of satellite channels deemed to have offended Arab leaders or national or religious symbols. At a meeting in Cairo called by Egypt and Saudi

In a small room, in a modest, but well-maintained building in Central Cairo, a phone rings. The caller, a woman, suspects that her husband has been having sex with someone else. She is concerned that