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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Sudan Threatens To Cut Off The World's Supply Of Coca-Cola |
| 2007-06-02 |
| Sudan is not happy about Bush's new economic sanctions. In fact, their ambassador held a weird news conference that Dana Milbank of the Washington Post described as bearing "no relation to reality," in which the ambassador threatened to personally cut off the supply of gum arabic, an important ingredient in soft drinks. John Ukec Lueth Ukec, Sudan's Ambassador, said: "The United States is the only country saying that what is happening in Darfur is a genocide," Ukec shouted, gesticulating wildly and perspiring from his bald crown. "I think this is a pretext." ... "I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola. A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world." "I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," [Ukec] warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don't want to go that way." We suspect Mr. Ukec overestimates his negotiating position rather severely. |
| Posted by:Unaiper Sholumble8760 |
| #16 If only there were a US presidential candidate out there that had a plan to reduce our dependence on foreign gum Arabic. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2007-06-02 10:07 |
| #15 "Okay, Mandrake: you win. But you're going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company for this." |
| Posted by: eLarson 2007-06-02 09:15 |
| #14 No Coke. Pepsi. |
| Posted by: John Belushi 2007-06-02 08:34 |
| #13 I say we invade, take the gum, kill them all and use the koran for toilet paper. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-06-02 08:31 |
| #12 I can envision the moonbats screaming in my head already, "NO WAR FOR COCA-COLA! NO WAR TO ENRICH BUSH'S CRONIES IN THE MILITARY-SOFT DRINK COMPLEX!" |
| Posted by: Grumenk Philalzabod0723 2007-06-02 06:00 |
| #11 Go ahead, water is free. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2007-06-02 01:46 |
| #10 From wikipedia Nearly 80% of gum arabic is produced in Sudan[1], and the production of gum arabic is heavily controlled by the Sudanese government.[2] Oddly, the connection between Sudan and Osama bin Laden brought the otherwise innocuous gum to public consciousness in 2001, as an urban legend arose that bin Laden owned a significant fraction of the gum arabic production in Sudan, and that therefore one should boycott products using it.[3] As a result, some food producers, for instance Snapple, renamed the ingredient to "gum acacia" on their labels. This story took on somewhat significant proportions, mostly thanks to an article in The Daily Telegraph a few days after the September 11 attacks, which echoed this claim. Eventually the State Department issued a release stating that while Osama bin Laden had once had considerable holdings in Sudanese gum arabic production, he divested himself of these when he was expelled from Sudan in 1996. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2007-06-02 01:32 |
| #9 So, they export gum arabic and what else, sand? This reads like a certain scene from "Blazing Saddles". |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-02 00:43 |
| #8 Go ahead, asshole. I may like Diet Coke, but I'll live without it rather than cater to the likes of you. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-06-02 00:21 |
| #7 Two Words: Nuclear Response should be an object lesson to Iran |
| Posted by: Injun Angock2602 2007-06-02 20:08 |
| #6 Coca Cola Classic ingredients: Carbonated Water High Fructose Corn Syrup Caramel Color Phosphoric Acid Natural Flavors Caffeine See any gum arabic in there Ukec? |
| Posted by: GK 2007-06-02 18:51 |
| #5 We need to end our dependence on foreign gum arabic by 2020. We need a program to conserve gum arabic through the use of gum arabic caps and trading gum arabic credits. |
| Posted by: Algore 2007-06-02 12:39 |
| #4 I'm sure there's a biologist out there willing to genetically modify something suitable to produce gum arabic. Perhaps kudzu, or honeysuckle? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2007-06-02 12:22 |
| #3 From my reading, it sounds like gum arabic is quite useful for many products and processes. I would imagine that with some additional work, the complex mixture of saccharides and glycoproteins that is gum arabic could be synthesized by chemists, just like synthetic rubber did to natural rubber, when the allies faced a shortage, and John Ukec Lueth Ukec can then go pound sand. It would be fun to sink Sudan. My two cents. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-06-02 12:15 |
| #2 As long as it's not my Kona Coffee I have not problem. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-06-02 11:39 |
| #1 3000 people dead - trillion $ hit to the economy - no biggie, let's move on. Cut off my Cola - it'll be over in a week. |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2007-06-02 11:11 |