In the United States, the carriers of hantavirus are deer mice, cotton rats, rice rats and white-footed mice, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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That would give George Bush the opportunity to appoint Condoleezza Rice as the first non-white and the first woman to the vice-presidency.

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Their bicycles carry industrial-size grab-nets, rice sacks and white plastic buckets in which crabs clamber slowly.

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Walk along pastoral paths, vivid green rice paddies, past bright white dzongs (massive, awe-inspiring fortress monasteries), through forests of pine, and rhododendron and along glorious mountain passes where the elusive poppies nod in the breeze.

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It is made of black and white rice paper and sewn into the bodice are laser-cut buttons.

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The staff - and most of the diners - are dressed in black-and-white in sympathy, and it's probably no accident that by far the most popular of the 80 immaculately presented tortillas on the menu is the colour-coded morcilla de arroz de Burgos: black sausage and white rice.

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They could also make and sell consumer electronics, like localized versions of MIT Media Lab OLPC laptops and PCs, and white goods, like televisions, air-conditioners, fans, rice cookers and refrigerators.

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Ben-Veniste also took issue with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the committee Thursday that the White House had no inkling al Qaeda would use planes as missiles.

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Those White House aides -- Rhodes, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and human rights advocate Samantha Power -- believed that Obama needed to show he was true to a speech made two years earlier in Cairo, in which he promised to push for democracy and human rights in the Arab and Muslim worlds, according to officials involved in the discussions.

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