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Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Kunibert Raffer, eds., Sovereign Debt Crises: What Have We Learned? This is the case of countries that lack such policy space; however, countries with a wider room for manoeuvre do not face this constraint, therefore, they can treat both domestic and foreign creditors equally. PIIE Working Paper Series (August) https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/publications/wp/wp13-8.pdf Footnotes 1 The forecast issue is certainly critical when the IMF intervenes in sovereign debt crises and restructuring processes; however, the book also points out to the unrealistic forecasts by the Fund when assessing countries' sustainability as a broader methodological flaw. [Extracted from the article]

In Mexico, the Center of origin and diversity of maize, a daily per capita average of 0.5 kg of maize-based foods are consumed. Approximately 10 million tons of maize is produced in small peasant holdings. Nevertheless, a greater proportion of industrially produced maize-derived products have started to appear in recent years. We traced the presence of transgenes and glyphosate in maize-based foods collected in Mexico and elsewhere as a means to describe the landscape of distribution, abundance, and types of transgenes in maize-derived food in Mexico. Transgenic sequences were present in overall 82% of assayed food categories; while the most widely form of maize consumption in Mexico, tortillas, had recombinant sequences in 90.4% of the samples. Furthermore, we found statistically indistinguishable frequency distributions of transgenes in samples from Mexico and other countries. Additionally, glyphosate was detected in approximately 27.7% of the samples rendered positive for transgenic events tolerant to this herbicide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Authentication of food products is of primary importance for consumers and industries. They expect that product labeling represents its true identity. However, in many cases, either accidental or fraudulent substitution occurs. Molecular biology based methodologies are acquiring great interest for their applicability to track a given item at any stage along the food supply chain. PCR analysis allows the identification of DNA traces that may remain in a given food matrix from the principal component and/or from contaminants. This work describes a novel experimental protocol to extract, amplify and identify apple DNA from commercially available quince jams. Aiming to extract DNA from this complex matrix, a DNA extraction method was developed, based in reagents such as CTAB and PTB, that minimize the amount of contaminants co-precipitating with DNA and thus reducing PCR inhibition. In order to identify apple DNA in quince jam, two molecular methods based on the amplification by PCR and RFLP analysis of the highly conserved chloroplast gene maturase-k (matk), were developed. The results obtained show the presence of two distinct species Cydonia oblonga (quince) and Malus sp. (apple) in all commercial quince jams analyzed. This study represents an advance in DNA methodologies for the detection of fraud and/or contaminants in this complex food matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]