Tenth birthday for a consumer champion. The presence of genetically modified organisms in human food and animal feed. The use of nanotechnology in consumer products. Chemical tests on animals. All are hot topics in the European Union these days. [News Source]

JBS-Swift exports to S.Korea from Greeley halted (Reuters via Yahoo! Singapore News) (Adds details from paragraph 3) [News Source]

JBS-Swift exports to S.Korea from Greeley halted (Reuters via Yahoo! Malaysia News) (Adds details from paragraph 3) [News Source]

Ivy Offers Poolside Cabanas, Steaks: Sydney Dining (Update1) (Bloomberg) Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Don’t tell the crowd at Ivy there’s a recession coming. It’s Friday night, and Sydney hotelier Justin Hemmes’s A$150 million ($98 million) grownup’s playground in downtown Sydney is pumping. [News Source]

Bikini-Clad Staff Serve at Recession-Proof Ivy: Sydney Dining (Bloomberg) Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Don’t tell the crowd at Ivy there’s a recession coming. It’s Friday night, and Sydney hotelier Justin Hemmes’s A$150 million ($98 million) grownup’s playground in downtown Sydney is pumping. [News Source]

CORRECTED: Japan halts beef imports from Wisconsin plant (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Removes Smithfield from headline, corrects plant details in third paragraph [News Source]

CORRECTED: Japan halts beef imports from Wisconsin plant (Reuters via Yahoo! Canada News) Japan has suspended imports from a former Smithfield Beef Group meatpacking plant in Wisconsin after it found meat that could not be verified as coming from cattle aged 20 months or less, the farm ministry said on Thursday. [News Source]

Tax exemptions under microscope (The Olympian) If state lawmakers wanted to raise money by closing tax exemptions, there are 567 to choose from. Taken together, the tax breaks cut $53 billion in potential revenues that the state might have received and $45 million more to local governments. [News Source]

D. Carleton Gajdusek, Who Won Nobel for Work on Brain Disease, Is Dead at 85 (New York Times) Dr. Gajdusek was a virologist who won the 1976 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on the mysterious epidemics now known as prion diseases. [News Source]

D. Carleton Gajdusek, Who Won Nobel for Work on Brain Disease, Is Dead at 85 (New York Times) Dr. Gajdusek was a virologist who won the 1976 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on the mysterious epidemics now known as prion diseases. [News Source]