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Bananas, as we know them, are doomed
Because all the bananas we eat are clones of each other, they are susceptible to being wiped out by a single disease - putting crops and jobs at risk, explain ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
Bananas are propagated by making clones with close to zero genetic diversity. This makes every banana plantation highly susceptible to the same fungal and viral diseases.
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
Born on this day in 1931, the heroic revolutionary faces a dangerous new wave of White House aggression. We must treat his birthday as a rallying cry to resist the illegal siege of Cuba, writes ROGER McKENZIE
RAMZY BAROUD decries the rats of Gaza, the rodent and human type. Both abound as profiteering from tragedy reaches obscene levels
EVERY year we in Britain are eating more bananas, and paying less for them. Despite the huge distance and technical expertise required to bring bananas halfway across the globe from plantation to palate in perfect freshness, they are cheaper than apples.
And yet, their cultivation and distribution has always been threatened by a fear of mass failure.
Although hundreds of varieties of bananas and plantains exist across the world, exported bananas are dominated by just one cultivar: the Cavendish.
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