Gay marriage law means 'there could be two Queens' on the throne (The Sun, Politics) BRITAIN could

end up with TWO Queens on the throne if gay marriage becomes law, an last night" Tory !eter Bone claimed the new legislation would throw the monarchy into crisis" #e said it would mean a lesbian Queen ha$ing a Queen consort or a gay %ing ha$ing a %ing consort" r Bone has demanded an emergency summit of &ommonwealth leaders to discuss the planned changes" #e said' (They seem to be rushing this through without thin)ing of the broader implications"( The ! has fired off a letter to *+ualities the monarchy" inister ,ynne -eatherstone warning of possible uphea$al in arriages Act of 0112 to allow ! warned

And he wants to )now if it is the .o$ernment/s plan to change the Royal a same3se4 union"

r Bone belie$es this would ma)e it impossible for the monarch to continue as supreme go$ernor of the &hurch of *ngland" And a gay monarch who concei$ed a child either by sperm donor or surrogate would raise wider +uestions, he warns" The donor would ha$e a right to a peerage and could gain regal rights" #e said' (I can/t belie$e that the .o$ernment has gone headlong into this without it being in the manifesto or discussed by &ommonwealth leaders"( .ay and lesbian campaign group 5tonewall last night called his letter (mischie$ous("

Greece on the breadline: 'potato movement' links shoppers and farmers

6world news7 A scheme letting consumers buy food straight from producers is typical of the in$enti$e ways .ree)s are finding to get by There/s some dispute about where and when it all started, but &hristos %amenides, genial professor of agricultural mar)eting at the 8ni$ersity of Thessaloni)i, is pretty confident he and his students ha$e made sure it/s not about to stop any time soon" What/s sure is that the so3called potato mo$ement, through which thousands of tonnes of potatoes and other agricultural produce 9 including, hopefully, ne4t month, *aster lamb 9 are being sold directly to consumers by their producers, is ta)ing off across .reece" (It/s because e$eryone benefits,( said %amenides, standing in a clearing in the woods abo$e Thessaloni)i in front of one 2:3tonne truc) of potatoes, another of onions, and smaller $ans of rice and oli$es" (&onsumers gets good3+uality food for a third of the price they would normally pay, and the producers get their money straight away"( As de$ised by %amenides and his students, it/s a simple system" Their brainwa$e was to in$ol$e .reece/s local municipalities, lending the mo$ement a degree of both organisation and official encouragement that it might otherwise ha$e lac)ed"

5o' a town hall announces a sale" ,ocals sign up for what they want to buy" The town hall then tells %amenides the +uantity re+uired and he and his students call local farmers to see who can supply it" They show up with the re+uisite amount of produce at the appointed place and time, meet their consumers, and the deal is done" The direct sales are immensely popular" One organised last month by $olunteers in %aterini, south of Thessaloni)i, last month saw an online offer of 2; tonnes of potatoes sell out within four days, with :<; families pre3ordering" (Today,( said %amenides, (we ha$e one truc) here, and two in another municipality up the road" Tomorrow we ha$e a sale with four truc)s 9 that/s 0== tonnes of potatoes, straight from the producer to the consumer, with nobody in the middle pushing up prices"( The mo$ement, said *lisabet Tsitsopoulou, one of the women +ueuing up to buy, is (e4tremely important" 5alaries here are so low now, and still falling, but the price of e$erything seems to stay >ust as high as it e$er was" This is much cheaper, much less than half price"( Tsitsopoulou bought fi$e 2:)g bags of potatoes for her family and her neighbours" (The other ad$antage,( she said, (is that you can see the +uality and where the produce comes from" With supermar)ets, you can ne$er really be sure" It/s >ust a brilliant system"( The producers are e+ually delighted" Apostolos %asapis said the principal benefit for him was that (I get paid straight away" The profit is not $ery high, >ust a bit abo$e the production cost, but I get the money immediately, which in this crisis is $ery important"( %asapis said wholesale buyers sometimes ta)e (a year to pay their suppliers" 5ometimes, they don/t pay at all" In my $illage alone, the farmers are owed more than ?:==,===" 5o for us, what satisfies us most with this system is that we ha$e regained our power o$er the middlemen, who ha$e been s+uee@ing us and profiting unfairly from e$eryone now for years"( The potatoes generally fetch 2:3<= cents a )ilo at direct sales, :30= cents more than cost and far cheaper than the A=31= cents they typically sell for in supermar)ets" If they ha$e unsold produce sitting in barns and warehouses, farmers sometimes accept cost priceB e$en that is better than the 0=302 cents routinely offered by wholesalers" *ncouraged by the success of the mo$ement, which has been enthusiastically ta)en up by local mayors, %amenides said he was wor)ing on a broader scheme for unified co3operati$es in$ol$ing both producers and consumers" This could e$entually pro$ide a new economic model for the buying and selling of essential foodstuffs in .reeceB se$eral economists ha$e suggested such schemes may pro$e an important way of brea)ing the (cycle of crisis( on which the country appears to ha$e embar)ed" -or the moment, though, the potato mo$ement is typical of the new and in$enti$e ways .ree)s are finding to help themsel$es and each other in the country/s fifth straight year of recession, with unemployment soaring to o$er 20C and more than half of all young people out of wor)" *$en the minimum wage is about to be cut from ?1:= 6about DA2=7 a month to >ust ?:==" -ew are immune from the effects" This wee)end/s sale abo$e Thessaloni)i drew a colleague of %amenides, an associate professor of physics from the uni$ersity" ( y salary used to be ?<<,=== a year" ,ast year it was ?22,===, with many more ta4es to pay,( she said" (That/s a $ery big cut, and it/s all the harder to deal with because your family budget is established o$er timeB you ta)e on commitments to match your income" If I can sa$e ?2= on two sac)s of potatoes, that/s worth ha$ing"(