Reasons include growing appetites for dairy foods in China and elsewhere in Asia, where chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks are introducing unfamiliar taste buds to cheeseburgers and lattes. Other factors are rising costs for animal feed, shrinking European production and long-standing drought in Australia and New Zealand, the world's largest milk-exporting region.
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PARIS: The new president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is keeping his country's business elite waiting.
The energetic Sarkozy made a big show of his determination to return Airbus, the struggling European plane maker, to its former glory, but other, less glamorous industrial dossiers are piling up on his desk. They are unlikely to be opened until after next month's legislative elections.
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PARIS - When then-French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin decided to fend off an amorous Italian and play matchmaker between two French utilities last year, he probably could not imagine the marriage might never be consummated.
Yet as Gaz de France shareholders gathered in Paris on Wednesday, Villepin's successor announced that the national gas champion's alliance with Suez remained uncertain. Francois Fillon, France's brand new prime minister, said the government is considering other possibilities and will review the deal in late June or early July - after parliamentary elections.
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PARIS (AP) - The world's biggest air show is bigger than ever this year but the main story hasn't changed: trans-Atlantic rivalry between Boeing and Airbus will dominate the 47th Paris Air Show which opens Monday at Le Bourget, north of the French capital.
In contrast to the last Paris show in 2005 when Airbus shone, this year the European plane-maker will be struggling to regain ground from its American rival.
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