Durian - The Stinkiest Fruit

This is a fruit I've always been intrigued by. My aunt is totally in love with it but my mom won't eat it because it smells so bad. My mother's repulsion for the fruit, has dissuaded me from trying it. Some say it smells like dirty sweat socks. In fact in South East Asian countries where durian grows, durian is prohibited in subways, malls and hotels. But for durian lovers the recent prospect of an odourless durian raised much controversy, from the International Herald Tribune:

After three decades of research, a Thai government scientist working at an orchard here near the Cambodian border says he has managed to take the stink out of durian.

The spiky Southeast Asian fruit, variously described by its detractors as smelling like garbage, moldy cheese or rotting fish, is banned from many hotels, airlines and the Singapore subway. But durian lovers, and there are many in Asia, are convinced that, like fine French cheeses, the worse the smell, the better the taste....

Durian lovers are horrified by the prospect of a no-smell durian. They complain that the fruit, which is green or sometimes yellowish and shaped like a rugby ball, is being homogenized just like the insipid tomatoes bred to look pretty behind cellophane on supermarket shelves.

A comprehensive entry on the joy of durian is in Wikipedia:

The durian, native to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, has been known to the western world for about 600 years. The British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace famously described its flesh as "a rich custard highly flavoured with almonds" in the 19th century. The flesh can be consumed at various stages of ripeness, and is used to flavour a wide variety of savoury and sweet edibles in Southeast Asian cuisines. The seeds can also be eaten when cooked. The name durian comes from the Malay word duri (thorn) with suffix -an.

Meanwhile in Guantanamo...

From today's Guardian:

No charges but US may never release Guantánamo Chinese

Seventeen Chinese prisoners who have been held for nearly seven years in Guantánamo Bay will be informed on Monday that they could spend the rest of their lives behind bars, even though they face no charges and have been told by a judge they should be freed.

No country is willing to accept them and the US justice department has now blocked moves for them to be allowed to go to the US mainland, where they had been offered a home by refugee and Christian organisations.

The men's lawyer, Sabin Willett, is flying to Guantánamo Bay this weekend to break the news to the men, who are members of the Uighur ethnic group seeking autonomy from China. In a blunt and angry letter to justice department lawyers, Willett spelled out what he thought of the way the men had been treated.

"After years of stalling and staying and appellate gamesmanship, you pleaded no contest - they are not enemy combatants," Willett has written. "You have never charged them with any crime."

Last month a federal judge ruled that the men should be freed. "They were on freedom's doorstep," said Willett. "The plane was at Gitmo. The stateside Lutheran refugee services and the Uighur families and Tallahassee clergy were ready to receive them." However, the justice department appealed against the ruling and Willett claims this will put the men into a potentially endless limbo.

Click here to read the full article. Interesting, when the American government and press get all up in arms about war crimes and injustices in other countries.