I’m sure you’ve all seen the disturbing images on your TV recently of riots over dwindling food supplies in Haiti and in Egypt.

And I’m sure you’ve heard about the rationing of rice by big stores in the US and on top of that, the dire predictions from the United Nations World Food program that up to a hundred million could starve in what the WFP calls “a silent tsunami” of hunger that is beginning to engulf the world.

Rice is at the center of this gathering global storm; a staple of diets in many asian and african countries, stocks have been dwindling for several years, partly becuase of drought, partly because of growing demand.. So now countries like Egypt, Vietnam, and Brazil, all major rice growers, are restricting exports.. And as a result prices are climbing, up around 70 per cent this year alone,  while supplies are falling… And that’s why parts of the third world have been convulsed by so-called food riots.

But does the specter of food rationing really loom over the United States…? Are the big box stores justified in limiting rice sales? No on both counts, according to the experts we’ve spoken to. Any crisis, they say, is, and will be, limited to poorer nations.

And American rice farmers say there is no problem at all with their crop this year, a vital point given that homegrown rice accounts for ninety per cent of all rice bought in America’s supermarkets.

Charley Matthews’ family grows rice on thousands of acres in northern California.. Like other American rice farmers he says the current public concern is driven by emotion rather than logic.

So while the cost of producing rice, and therefore the cost to the consumer, is climbing, America’s farmers say their rice will be in plentiful supply on supermarket shelves this summer.

It’s taking place in fantasy-land but it’s deadly serious: the FBI and a host of emergency services from all over southern California taking part in an exercise to simulate the investigation of a major plane crash.

So where’s the fantasy in that? Well, it’s all taking place at Universal Studios on the set used by Steven Spielberg to film scenes involving the crash of a 747 jumbo jet. The scene and the plane (a real 747 bought and broken up for the movie) have been kept intact as part of Universal’s studio tour for tourists. I guess Hollywood has a bigger budget than the FBI!

It’s about as realistic as you can get without actually crashing a plane into a small town. Fake body parts are strewn across the scene, luggage is thrown everywhere, smoke billows across the wreckage and the rubble of homes. And among it all the FBI has placed certain evidence items that the investigators have to find. So it’s an exercise that mimics real-life as closely as possible, although as the FBI admits, the one thing they can’t do is recreate the adrenalin that would be pumping through agents in the real thing. But it’s an exercise that officials say will help every agent do his or her job better if they are ever faced with a real crash.

And here’s another good thing – for all of us who wasted two hours of our lives actually watching War of the Worlds it’s nice to know the movie’s finally performing a useful function.

We got up to about sixty miles per hour before the driver swung the wheel. My whole body was thrown from side to side as we spun a full 360 degrees. Again and again and again it happened. Then the driver threw the car into reverse. We gathered speed and once again he flipped it round, this time 180 degrees and we took off straight ahead.

My head was spinning. I had no idea where I was, which way was front or back. I could smell the burning rubber and hear the screeching tires. In any other circumstances my life would have flashed before me, but on this occasion I knew I was in the safest hands possible.

At the wheel was Lieutenant David Storton of the San Jose Police Department, one of the best evasive and stunt driving instructors in the world. So good, in fact, is Dave that he was recently contracted to teach US embassy staff in Tajikistan how to evade or get out of a potential terrorist attack. Given that US diplomats are regularly targeted in the Middle East and Central Asia as they are driven around the knowledge Dave is passing on to their drivers and bodyguards could save their lives.

And, by the way, while it’s a deadly serious issue, learning the skills is fun too. Me and Fox cameraman Eric Barnes (who’s never met an adventure he didn’t like) had a blast riding with Dave as he turned our world every which way. But our producer Chris Spinder? Well, not so much.

Watch the video to see what happened to Chris at the end of our wild ride!

Some stories make you feel sick. And is there anything more sickening than the sexual abuse, the rape, of young girls?

And while no abuse has yet been proven against the men who live on the Texas ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, authorities here clearly believe that widespread abuse has taken place. And, as the father of two girls, it is hard not to feel anger and disgust at that.

It seems that the polygamist sect, once headed by the now jailed Warren Jeffs, built its ranch in rural west Texas because officials in Arizona and Utah were cracking down on the sect’s sick activities. So they found another state with wide open spaces where they could build walls and fences to hide behind while they allegedly abused young girls.

We should all praise the Texas authorities for the action they’ve taken and insist that police in any other state where these evil men turn up act quickly. If the welcome mat is withdrawn in all 50 states then maybe the sect will die the death it appears to deserve.

After a very tiring day of travel, we’re now in southwest China, in Sichuan Province, home to the Giant Panda.

We’ve been shooting a story that will air on Fox Report for the first time tonight. It’s about how pandas don’t like sex and aren’t very good at it! That’s part of the reason they were an endangered species not so long ago.

Watch Fox Report tonight to find out the innovative methods Chinese researchers have been using to get pandas to “do it” more often and more effectively!

In the meantime here’s a few pictures of what has to be the cutest creature in the world.