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Showing posts with label 20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 20. Show all posts

21 April 2013

20 GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS COMING TO YOUR PLATE

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If the need to halt GMOs were not urgent enough, this article should scare the pants off you. Here we glimpse some of the potentials for the unabated and bizarre proliferation of GMOs. Some of these developments you will already know about (hopefully), but some will come as a surprise. As I see it we are now at a crossroads where we can still dismantle this dangerous and perverted manipulation of the very fabric of life, the sacred code of nature, which will undoubtedly affect each and every one of us in profound ways now and in the future.
Here we are reminded that the fight against GMOs and to save organics is not just a battle for what we knew yesterday, which is bad enough. It is a fight against the future of the GE movement and the unlikely and increasingly creepy, scary, and deranged turns it will likely take. Just today I read elsewhere that 35 species of fish, in addition to salmon, are slotted to be genetically engineered for various traits. I am not going to preview the highlights of what is below, but maybe you too will be left wondering, “What will they think of next?”
I hope we never have to find out. We have to stop this now before we and future generations have to be genetically engineered, RoundUp and 2,4-D Ready at the least perhaps, to withstand the onslaught of the weird stuff being channelled into our food supply and into our environment. If you haven’t already, perhaps after reading this article you will be more ready to take a real stand against GMOs by enacting the 11 Simple Steps to Eradicate GMOs and join our GMO Eradication Movement. Now put down that bowl of GMO corn chowder, buckle your seatbelts, clear you ears and clean off your eyeglasses for the list of 20 GMOs coming soon and already arrived to supermarket shelves near you.


 

Good luck distinguishing these Frankenfoods from real, natural food as they flood our supermarkets.
Genetically altered to withstand heavy applications of toxic chemicals, resist disease or contain more nutrients, so-called “Frankenfoods” are appearing on supermarket shelves at a rapid rate. Currently, genetically modified (GM) corn and soy can be found in many processed foods, and the produce section may contain GM zucchini, corn on the cob and papaya. But beyond those that have already been approved for human consumption, many more GMOs are on the way – and they probably won’t be labeled. These 20 crops and animal products include both those that are already available (whether we like it or not) and some that are still in development, like cows that produce human breast milk.
Corn
If you eat any kind of processed food on a regular basis – tortilla chips, cereal, granola bars – chances are, you consume genetically modified corn. The Center for Food Safety estimates that over 70% of the processed foods in American grocery stores contain genetically modified corn or soy. Corn is altered to contain proteins that kill insects that eat them, so they effectively produce their own pesticides.
Rice
Rice plants are often modified to be resistant to herbicides and pests, to increase grain size and to generate nutrients that don’t exist in the grain naturally. Varieties include Bayer’s herbicide-resistant “LibertyLink” rice, vitamin A-infused “golden rice” and the bizarre Ventria Bioscience “Express Tec” rice, which has been altered to contain human proteins naturally found in breast milk. The latter is used globally in infant formula.
Tomatoes
Among the first foods to be genetically altered, GM tomatoes have been developed to be unnaturally high in anti-oxidants, to have more intense flavor and to stay fresh longer. While there are not currently any genetically modified tomatoes on store shelves, they’re being used extensively by scientists to study the function of genes that are naturally present in the plants.
Soybeans
The most common genetically engineered food of all is the soybean. Since 1996, scientists have been creating varieties of soybeans that are resistant to both pests and herbicides, and they wind up in places you’d least expect them, like candy bars. A new GM soybean with higher levels of healthy oils was approved by the USDA in 2010; chemical companies DuPont and Monsanto are both working on their own versions of the biotech bean.
Cotton
We don’t think of cotton as a food, and technically it isn’t – but we still end up eating it. Cotton isn’t classified as a food crop, so farmers can use any chemicals they want when growing it. That means cottonseed oil, which is present in products like mayonnaise and salad dressing, can be packed full of pesticides. Along with soy, corn and canola, cotton grown for oil extraction is one of the most frequently genetically modified crops in the world.
Canola Oil
Canola, a cultivar of rapeseed, produces one of the most commonly consumed food oils, and it’s one of America’s biggest cash crops. What you may not know is that canola stands for “Canadian oil, low acid,” referring to a variety of rapeseed developed in the 1970s. 80% of the acres of canola sown in the U.S. are genetically modified, and a 2010 study in North Dakota found that the modified genes of these plants have spread to 80% of wild natural rapeseed plants.
Sugar Beets
Despite the fact that an environmental impact study has yet to be completed, the USDA has announced that farmers may now plant Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets, which have been altered to withstand the company’s herbicide. This decision comes despite a 2010 court order that prohibited planting the GMO beets until the study was performed. Sugar beets provide about half of America’s sugar.
Salmon
Salmon may become the first genetically modified animal to be approved for direct human consumption. The FDA has decided that a variety of GM salmon that grow twice as fast as their natural, un-modified peers is both safe to eat and safe for the environment.
“We’re looking here at a scenario where the fish might wind up sooner or later in the ocean,” Brian Ellis, plant biotechnologist at the University of British Columbia Vancouver, told Discovery News. “I think if we go down this route, we have to be prepared to accept some potentially unknown consequences.”
Sugar Cane
Providing the other half of America’s precious sugar, sugar cane is set to debut on our shelves in genetically modified form sometime soon. Brazil’s state-owned agricultural research agency has beenhard at work developing drought-resistant sugar cane that also bears increased yields for years now, and may have it certified for commercial use within five years. Australia is also working on its own version.
Papaya
After the Ringspot Virus nearly destroyed all of Hawaii’s papaya crops, a new variety was engineered to resist the disease, and it now represents the majority of the papayas grown in the United States.
“Papaya would be unique in the sense where the industry in Hawaii is dependent on biotech,” says Kevin Richards, director of regulatory relations for the American Farm Bureau. “What you have in Hawaii is a very contained, isolated agro-eco system, which is vulnerable to diseases.”
Potatoes
The first genetically modified food to be approved for cultivation in Europe in over a decade, Amflora potatoes are currently being grown in Sweden. High in starch content, the potatoes are actually meant for use in paper, glues and other commercial products rather than as food, but that doesn’t mean they won’t end up affecting the food chain. Nearby farmers worry about their rabbits, deer, and especially their bees.
Honey
Could genetically modified crops have something to do with the mysterious ailments that are killing honeybee colonies by the billions? Some researchers believe so. A zoologist in Germany found that genes used to modify rapeseed crops had transferred to bacteria living inside bees. GMOs are currently considered to be among the possible causes of Colony Collapse Disorder. And if the genes are causing changes within the bees, they’re also likely to cause changes to the honey that the bees produce.
Bananas
After banana crops in Uganda were affected by a bacterial disease that caused the plants to rot, scientists developed a genetically modified variety that could help alleviate the $500 million annual loss. The ban on GM crops was waived to make way for the GM version of Uganda’s staple food. A gene from sweet pepper was inserted into the bananas that make them resistant to the bacteria. Cultivated bananas have almost no genetic diversity, so supporters of this decision argue that introducing the GMO fruits will actually help bananas as a whole.
 
http://worldtruth.tv



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20 April 2013

Boston Marathon bomber manhunt: Police nab suspect alive



A police officer stands guard at the scene where bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was apprehended. (AP)you can see the video here: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/boston-mit-shooting-explosion-suspect-watertown-064355149.html

[Updated at 10:18 p.m. ET]
BOSTON—Police have nabbed the 19-year-old suspected Boston Marathon bomber, after a day-long manhunt that completely shut down the city of Boston and several suburbs and left one police officer dead. Some Bostonians flooded into the streets cheered the news, celebrating an end to five days of fear since the bombs wounded more than 175 people and killed three.
An ambulance arrived at the scene to take the wounded suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, to a hospital. Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben said he is in serious condition.
Tsarnaev was found in a boat in the yard of a home on Franklin Street, close to where he and his older brother engaged in a shootout with police nearly 24 hours earlier. The homeowner discovered Tsarnaev when he saw blood on the outside of his boat and then lifted the tarp to find a person, covered in blood, inside. Police used a heat-detecting device on a helicopter to find out that he was still inside, and exchanged gun fire with the suspect for the next hour, before he was apprehended.
Watertown residents--finally able to leave their homes around 8:45 p.m.--broke into cheers and applauded police officers after word spread that the suspect was in custody.
"We're so grateful to bring justice and closure to this case," Alben said at a 9:30 p.m. press conference. "We're exhausted ... but we have a victory here tonight." Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said he could find no explanation for the "savagery" of the attacks, but that the capture made him proud to be a Boston police officer.
"We've closed an important chapter in this tragedy," President Barack Obama said in brief remarks at the White House Friday night, noting there were still many unanswered questions about the Tsarnaevs' actions.
"Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they failed," Obama said. Americans, he said, "refuse to be terrorized."

Just a few hours earlier, at 6:00 p.m ET, police announced that the 19-year-old suspected bomber had eluded capture after fleeing from police on foot early Friday morning.
Thousands of law enforcement officers conducted a nearly 24-hour door-to-door manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is suspected of helping his brother plant two bombs near the finish line at Monday's Boston Marathon that wounded more than 170 people and left three dead.
Officials announced at 6:00 p.m. news conference that they had been unable to apprehend the suspect, despite combing through a 20-block area of the Boston suburb of Watertown and shutting down the city's entire public transportation system in an effort to prevent him from fleeing. They said they did not know if he had a car, or if he was still on foot. The home where Tsarnaev was eventually discovered was outside the 20-block perimeter, and had not been searched.
Gov. Deval Patrick lifted his previous "shelter in place," or lockdown, order for the city of Boston and many surrounding areas of the city at 6:00 p.m.. But Patrick urged Bostonians to continue to be "vigilant" as the "very dangerous" armed suspect has not been apprehended.
An overnight police chase and shootout left Dzhokhar's 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead and Dzhokhar on the lam.
Federal investigators had released photos and videos of the two men hours earlier, showing them in the vicinity of the marathon finish line before the twin explosions. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was seen placing a backpack on the ground minutes before the blast, investigators said.
One MIT police officer was killed and another transit police officer seriously wounded during the violent spree. The city of Boston and its surrounding areas ground to a standstill for hours as police went door to door searching for the suspect in the suburb of Watertown.
Police said they had uncovered several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Watertown and in the brothers' home in Cambridge.
Tsarnaev is a student at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. The Tsarnaev family is originally from Chechnya, a volatile and once war-torn southern Russian republic. The family fled to Kyrgyzstan and eventually immigrated to the United States as refugees about 10 years ago.

Authorities gave no indication of what they might believe the brothers' motivations could have been in the crime.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the dead suspect, studied at a local community college and was a Golden Gloves boxer. He also reportedly had a wife and young child. The FBI questioned him two years ago at the request of the Russian government, but found nothing suspicious, according to the AP.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was remembered by former classmates as bright and personable, posted links to pro-Chechnyan independence sites on his social media page, and listed his "world view" as Islam.
Tsarnaev appeared to be posting to his Twitter account even after the marathon attacks, writing in his last post on Wednesday, "I'm a stress free kind of guy." His posts covered everything from cute photos of his cat to rap lyrics.
In an interview with The New York Times, the suspects' father said Tamerlan had been unable to become a U.S. citizen because he was arrested for hitting his girlfriend, and that he traveled to Russia last year to live for six months and renew his passport. Dzhokhar is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The suspects' uncle, when told that one of his nephews was killed by the local CBS News station Friday afternoon, replied that he deserved it.
“He deserved his. He absolutely deserved his,” Ruslan Tsarni said. “They do not deserve to live on this earth.”

Later, in an emotional press conference outside his home in Maryland, Tsarni said his nephews had brought shame upon his family, and called them "losers." He speculated that they were not "able to settle themselves" and were "angry at everyone who was able to." He said he did not believe they were motivated by radical politics in Chechnya or religion.
He added that he hadn't been in touch with the family for several years but would not say why. Other family members, including an aunt and the brothers' father, said they did not believe the brothers could have planted bombs.
The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth announced shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Friday that they were evacuating the entire campus after learning Tsarnaev is a registered student there. The suspect reportedly attended a party there on Wednesday night, two days after the bombing.
Earlier, at sunrise Friday, Gov. Patrick ordered a shutdown of all public transit and for residents in the city of Boston and on its edges to stay indoors. Amtrak also shut down all trains between Boston and New York.
Boston and the surrounding areas of Watertown, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge, Newton, Allston and Brighton were placed on lockdown for most of Friday. A no-fly zone was declared over Watertown. The city of Boston was eerily quiet for much of the day, the city's busy intersections totally abandoned.
The mayhem began at approximately 10:20 p.m. Thursday in Cambridge when police said the bombing suspects shot and killed an MIT campus officer, Sean Collier, 26. Davis said that Collier was "assassinated" by the suspects while sitting in his cruiser. The terror suspects then carjacked a Mercedes-Benz SUV with the driver inside and fled, eventually letting the driver go unharmed.
The suspects were then spotted in Watertown, where federal agents swarmed in. At approximately 3:30 a.m., Massachusetts State


Police issued a plea on Twitter for residents of Watertown to lock their doors and not open them for anyone, as dozens of police officers, many of them off duty, searched backyards and exteriors of houses there, and a police perimeter of several blocks was established.
Worried residents were also told to turn off their cell phones out of fear that they could trigger improvised explosive devices.
The suspects exchanged dozens of rounds of gunfire with patrol officers, and lobbed IEDs out of their vehicle, injuring several officers.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot by police and brought to Beth Israel Medical Center. He arrived at the hospital under cardiac arrest with multiple gunshot wounds and blast-like injuries to his chest. The second suspect fled on foot.
A transit police officer, Richard H. Donohue, was seriously wounded during the exchange of gunfire, officials said.
K9 units and SWAT teams searched homes on Spruce Street as officers with a police robot searched an SUV that the suspects had abandoned. Multiple devices were left in the road and two handguns were recovered, according to police scanners.
"We believe this to be a terrorist," said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, of Tsarnaev. "We believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people. We need to get him into custody."
[Related: FBI releases photos of suspects in Boston Marathon bombings]
Police in Watertown, Newton, Brighton and Cambridge were put on high alert. "Units use caution," an officer said. "He might have an explosive object on his person."
Police were able to track down images of the suspects after a victim of the attacks, Jeff Bauman, came to them with a description, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Bauman's legs were torn apart by the bomb.

source:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/boston-mit-shooting-explosion-suspect-watertown-064355149.html




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