U.S. fast food giant McDonald’s will launch a children’s clothing line in North America and western Europe in the very near future. The ‘McKids’ clothing line will be designed, made and distributed by Chinese firm Shanghai Longhurst, and will be supplemented by a product line that will include toys, videos, DVDs and books, among other items.
The ‘McKids’ initiative was launched in November 2003, when a new retail line featuring action toys, casual clothing and interactive books and videos was announced. In their statement, McDonald’s said the clothing line will offer ‘quality fabrics’ in styles that will endure “season after season”.
The McDonald’s brand has been under fire by healthy-eating groups questioning the merits of eating fast food. As a consequence, the company launched another initiative March 15 — so far applicable only to the U.S. — that will effectively ban super-size portions at their ‘restaurants’.

Writing in the Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times, John Nichols suggests that a more momentous event, this past Tuesday, than the ascendancy of Senator John Kerry to the role of assured Democratic candidate against George Bush come this November, was an historic vote that took place in northern California’s Mendocino County, where voters passed the nation’s first ban on the raising of genetically engineered plants and animals.

Back in the 70s and 80s, Chinatown’s Loong Foong Bakery, on Keefer Street, was a Vancouver treasure known to only some. Celebrated for providing a wide range of Chinese delicacies, in a friendly and welcoming environment, the Loong Foong was a destination bakery, a once-a-week must-stop-by-and-indulge experience.
Alas, the Loong Foong Bakery is no more, having closed its door three years back. Until recently, no comparable Chinese bakery had emerged to take its place. Well, now, in the same location as the old Loong Foong, at 257 Keefer Street, Maxim’s Bakery has opened its doors, and what an incredibly inexpensive, addictive treat this new bakery has turned out to be.
Even though the fare at Maxim’s doesn’t quite fit into my South Beach low carb food regimen, a visit to the bakery has become a twice-a-week part of my regular schedule of activities, during which time I set about to purchase one, or more, of the following items: humungous, hot and delicious BBQ Pork Buns, for 60¢ (Maxim’s also serves equally scrumptious stuffed curry beef – as well as chicken and ham – buns, for the same price); steamed buns stuffed with pork and rice, 2 for $1.10; stuffed chicken pies for 95¢; gigantic spring rolls for 80¢; red bean cakes for 60¢; strawberry, peach or coffee cake wedges for $1; and an almond cookie to-die-for, for only 80¢.
Check out Maxim’s. You won’t be sorry you did. And enjoy!
Maxim’s other Lower Mainland locations: Metrotown, 4600 Kingsway; Vancouver East, 5613 Victoria Drive; Richmond Centre, 6060 Minoru Boulevard; Coquitlam’s Henderson Place, 1163 Pinetree Way.

In various reports released over the course of the past week, the United Nations has announced that the world is on the verge of an outbreak of polio that, although currently restricted to the African continent, could very well spread to and across the developed world resulting in an epidemic not dissimilar to that experienced across the globe in the last century.
With the support of the U.N. and the World Health Organization, parts of Nigeria have begun a massive immunization programme, but an Islamic leaders’ vaccine ban could very well defeat the best efforts of the U.N. and the W.H.O to vaccinate some 15 million children in West Africa who are at risk of contracting polio. The consequences of a ban could be catastrophic.
Two Nigerian states, Kano and Zamfara, have stuck to their position that the WHO-led campaign is part of a U.S. conspiracy to render Muslims infertile or give them AIDS, forbidding health workers from administering the vaccines. Independent research carried out in Nigeria has found no traces of HIV or anti-fertility agents in the polio vaccine being used there.