Bhutan – The World’s First 100% Organic Nation

The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan drew international attention a few years back for saying gross national happiness should trump gross domestic product when measuring a nation's progress.

If you're going to prioritize happiness, the Bhutanese thinking goes, you'd better include the environment and spiritual and mental well-being in your calculations. (Not everyone in Bhutan is happy, and many leave as refugees, as Human Rights Watch and others have noted.)

But Bhutan, which has only 700,000 people — most of whom are farmers — has another shot at international fame if it can make good on a recent pledge to become the first country in the world to convert to a 100 percent organic agricultural system.

Last month at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley said his government is developing a National Organic Policy because the country's farmers are increasingly convinced that "by working in harmony with nature, they can help sustain the flow of nature's bounties."

Going all-out organic is a lofty goal for any country given that many farmers — and poor farmers in particular — covet chemical fertilizers and pesticides to enrich their soil, boost production and keep diseases and pests at bay.

But Andre Leu, an Australian adviser to the Bhutanese government and the president of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, says it's very doable.

"I don't think it's going to be that difficult given that the majority of the agricultural land is already organic by default," Leu tells The Salt.

Indeed, the synthetic chemicals and fertilizers that are used so widely in countries like the U.S. are only available and affordable to a few of Bhutan's farmers who are widely dispersed across the rugged and mountainous terrain sandwiched between India and China. But very few of the organic-by-default farmers have been certified as such by third-party institutions. (Certified organic food, by the way, makes up less than 1 percent of the world's calories, and is mostly available to wealthy consumers.)

According to the World Food Program, Bhutanese farmers mainly grow rice and corn, as well as some fruits and vegetables, including potatoes and oranges.

But as demand for food has grown in recent years, the country has been forced to import rice and other foods from India, and today Bhutan is a net food importer.

One of the few products Bhutan exports to the U.S. is red rice; Lotus Foods sells it to chains like Whole Foods. Bhutanese red rice is more nutritious and tastes nuttier than white rice, its boosters say, and is well-suited to pilaf, as Monica Bhide reported for NPR's Kitchen Window earlier this year. The rice does not have organic certification, but Lotus Foods says it been grown without the use of pesticides or other chemical inputs for centuries.

The Ministry of Agriculture says the organic program, launched in 2007, is not just about protecting the environment. It will also train farmers in new methods that will help them grow more food and move the country closer to self-sufficiency.

The ministry is now training extension workers in organic methods and giving farmers who go organic priority for government assistance.

Not everyone is so sure that a 100 percent organic Bhutan is a great idea. Leu says he's found some resistance among researchers at the Ministry of Agriculture who've been trained in conventional farming techniques abroad.

And an article last year in the Bhutan Observer notes that many farmers who grow export crops like apple, Mandarin orange, and potato already rely heavily on chemical fertilizers and could be reluctant to give them up.

Still, Leu is optimistic that Bhutan's burgeoning organic agriculture research centers will eventually be able to come up with organic methods to boost yields and manage the problems of these crops.

"All these problems are solvable, they just need a few more years of research to come up with some more effective solutions," Leu says.

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First “Ag-Gag” Prosecution: Utah Woman Filmed a Slaughterhouse from the Public Street‏

Do you have a right to know where that steak on your plate came from? Should it be legal to photograph chicken farms and dairy cows?
Big Agriculture says you don’t and it shouldn't  Armies of Big Ag lobbyists are pushing for new state-level laws across the country to keep us all in the dark. Less restrictive versions have been law in some states since the 1980s, but the meat industry has ratcheted up a radical new campaign.

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has kept files on activists who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and recommended prosecuting them as terrorists, according to a document uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act back in 2011.

This wave of “ag-gag” bills will criminalize whistle-blowers  investigators, and journalists who expose animal welfare abuses at factory farms and slaughterhouses. Ten states considered “ag-gag” bills last year, and Iowa, Missouri, and Utah approved them.

“Ag-gag” bills are being introduced around the country in an attempt to censor whistle-blowers  investigators, and journalists who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and slaughterhouses.
Investigations by groups like the Humane Society, Mercy for Animals, and Compassion Over Killing have exposed shocking animal cruelty and consumer health dangers in the food industry. They have led to the largest meat recall in US history, criminal charges, and international media exposure.
Rather than put a stop to these abuses, corporations are trying to criminalize the whistle-blowers who expose them.

 

Amy Meyer wanted to see the slaughterhouse for herself. She had heard that anyone passing by could view the animals, so she drove to Dale Smith Meatpacking Company in Draper City, Utah, and from the side of the road she could see through the barbed-wire fence. Piles of horns littered the property. Cows struggled with workers who tried to lead them into a building. And one scene in particular made her stop.
“A live cow who appeared to be sick or injured being carried away from the building in a tractor,” Meyer told me, “as though she were nothing more than rubble.”

As she witnessed this, Meyer did what most of us would in the age of smart phones and YouTube: she recorded.
When the slaughterhouse manager came outside and told her to stop, she replied that she was on the public easement and had the right to film. When police arrived, she said told them the same thing. According to the police report, the manager said she was trespassing and crossed over the barbed-wire fence, but the officer noted “there was no damage to the fence in my observation.”

Meyer was allowed to leave. She later found out she was being prosecuted under the state’s new “ag-gag” law.
This is the first prosecution in the country under one of these laws, which are designed to silence undercover investigators who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms. The legislation is a direct response to a series of shocking investigations by groups like the Humane Society, Mercy for Animals, and Compassion Over Killing that have led to plant closures, public outrage, and criminal charges against workers.
Even the most sweeping ag-gag bills, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council model legislation, don’t explicitly target filming from a roadside. But Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Vermont are all considering bills similar to the Utah law right now.
Pennsylvania’s bill criminalizes anyone who “records an image of, or sound from, the agricultural operation” or who “uploads, downloads, transfers or otherwise sends” the footage using the Internet.

 

North Carolina’s bill doesn't specifically mention factory farms or slaughterhouses: it is called the “Commerce Protection Act,” and it includes investigations of any industry. It was introduced on the same day a fifth employee of Butterball pleaded guilty to animal cruelty after an undercover investigation showed workers beating turkeys.
Tennessee’s bill has already passed and is awaiting signature from the governor. In response to calls for a veto from the Humane Society and Carrie Underwood, one state representative compared undercover investigations to rape and sex-trafficking.
California’s ag-gag bill recently failed, after a massive public backlash. One newspaper editorial said “the cattlemen have committed the worst PR gaffe since New Coke.” The bill was a response to an undercover investigation by the Humane Society that showed “downer” cows, too sick to move, being pushed by tractors (much like what Amy Meyer recorded in Utah). It led to the largest meat recall in U.S. history.

The public backlash against these bills, including recent editorials by the New York Times and Washington Post, has relied  on hypothetical examples of how they could be used. The AFL-CIO and Teamsters say they could put workers at risk. The ASPCA says they could shut down lawful investigations by animal protection groups. The National Press Photographers Association says they could wrap up journalists.
The first ag-gag prosecution should be a warning that these aren’t hypothetical concerns. These bills have one purpose: keep consumers in the dark. Rather than respond to video footage of animal cruelty with across-the-board reforms, the industry is trying to turn off the cameras.

It’s telling that the owner of the slaughterhouse Amy Meyer filmed happens to be Darrell H. Smith, the town mayor. (Mayor Smith, the meatpacking company, and the local prosecutor did not return phone calls for comment). If that’s shocking to you, it shouldn't be. In Iowa, for example, the nation’s first ag-gag law was sponsored by Rep. Annette Sweeney, who is the former director of the Iowa Angus Association.

In Utah, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. John Mathis, called undercover investigators “animal rights terrorists” and said video recordings of animal abuse are “propaganda.” In his opening remarks at a legislative hearing on the ag-gag bill, Mathis said: “It’s fun to see my good ag friends in this committee… all my good friends are here.” Ag-gag supporters couldn't be any more transparent in their financial motivations for censorship.

It was prescient that, as the Utah bill was being considered, the Utah Sentencing Commission warned that it could be used against anyone who merely takes a photograph of a farm or slaughterhouse. At the time, Rep. Greg Hughes of Draper replied: “Who would really pursue that in terms of prosecution?” Now, the first ag-gag prosecution is for precisely that, in his own district.
Most people won’t ever find themselves in the position of Amy Meyer, of course. Few of us actively seek out information about how our food is produced. (Do you know the location of a factory farm, if you wanted to?) The animal products just arrive at the supermarket, without investigation or thought.

With ag-gag bills, the industry is trying to keep it that way. These bills are not just about animal activists from national organizations going undercover. They are about people like Amy Meyer, who have seen how animals are being treated, and who want you to see what they have seen.
Most importantly, ag-gag bills are about you — the millions of Americans who might see this footage, be sickened by it, and demand a change.

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Dutch Reality Show seeks Volunteers for a Getaway to the first Human Colony on Mars

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Dutch company ‘Mars One’ has launched an official selection program for volunteers from all nations for a reality show to fly, live and die on Mars.

"Gone are the days when bravery and the number of hours flying a supersonic jet were the top criteria,"said Norbert Kraft, Mars One's Chief Medical Director and former NASA senior researcher.

The company invites anyone from anywhere in the world to fill out an online application for the departure, scheduled for 2022, and land in April 2023. As the technology for a return flight does not exist, it will be a one-way ticket, according to Mars One website.

“When that day comes there will be a memorial service and cremation ceremony, just like customs on Earth dictate.”

The return to Earth is also not possible due to funding, as a one-way mission greatly reduces costs. Mars One is a non-profit organization, planning to raise money to fund the project, estimated at about $6 billion, according the web site.

"It sounds like a lot of money. And actually it is a lot of money. But imagine what will happen when the first people land on Mars. Literally everybody on the globe will want to see it," Lansdorp said as quoted on Mars One website.

In addition to application fees, which will vary from $5 to $75 depending on the per capita GDP of the applicant’s country, the company plans to raise money by selling broadcast rights.

"Not unlike the televised events of the Olympic Games, Mars One intends to maintain an on-going, global media event, from astronaut selection to training, from lift-off to landing," the site said.

Last year Mars One received 10,000 messages from applicants from over 100 countries, though the official launch of the selection program started on Monday.

Requirements for ‘Martian citizenship’

“We are very excited about launching the selection program. Round One is where we open the doors to Mars for everyone on Earth. This is an international mission and it is very important for the project that anyone anywhere can ask themselves: Do I want this? Am I ready for this? If the answer is yes then we want to hear from you,” said Lansdorp.

The company established certain requirements for potential Martians. It is looking for applicants older than 18 years, who are ‘both mature and interesting’, according to Mars One. They have to possess certain character traits – ‘resilience, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust others, creativity, and resourcefulness’.

“For this mission of permanent settlement we are more concerned with how well each astronaut lives and works with others and their ability to deal with a lifetime of challenges”, said Kraft.

According to the company the candidates don’t need particular professional skills, as they will obtain those during a seven-year training program in the US – everything you need to learn to survive on an inhospitable planet.

The first settlers will be picked by an audience vote during the last stage of several rounds of the selection process of the trained and qualified candidates. They will travel to the red planet in groups of four every two years.

The deadline for the first round of online applications is August 31.

The company will use only existing technology available in the space industry. According to the website, a SpaceX spacecraft will send rovers and supplies ahead of the astronauts, and then the SpaceX Falcon Heavy will take the crew to Mars, where they will assemble their habitat.

However, many questions rise about how the astronauts would survive on a planet with freezing temperatures and a carbon dioxide atmosphere. The company's representatives claim that their project is ‘ethically sound’, calling it an ‘idealistic mission’.

This is not the only ongoing Mars project. Previously the Russian space agency Roscosmos signed a deal with the European Space Agency (ESA) to participate in the ExoMars project, a new attempt to discover life on the Red Planet.

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Why Government Should Be The First Suspect In Any Terror Attack

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In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon attack, with authorities struggling to retain a coherent official narrative in the face of photos which show numerous unidentified identically dressed men wearing black backpacks at the scene of the blast, it’s necessary to revisit the evidence of why government should be the very first suspect in the event of any terrorist atrocity.

False flag terrorism – attacks manufactured or provocateured by governments and then blamed on other groups – is a tactic that stretches back almost 2,000 years.

Nero and the Great Fire of Rome

The Roman consul and historian Cassius Dio, his contemporary Suetonius and others say the Emperor Nero was responsible for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD.

Legend claims Nero had one-third of the city torched as an excuse to build Domus Aurea, a 300 acre palatial complex that included a towering statue of himself, the Colossus of Nero.

Prior to the fire, the Roman Senate had rejected the emperor’s bid to level a third of the city to make way for a ‘Neropolis,’ an urban renewal project.

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that when the population of Rome held Nero responsible for the fire, he shifted blame on the Christians for ‘hating the human race’  and starting the fire.

The Spanish American War: Remember the Maine

By the late 1800s, the United States was looking for an excuse to kick Spain out of Cuba. U.S. business was heavily invested in sugar, tobacco and iron on the Caribbean island.

The U.S.S. Maine was sent to Havana in January of 1898 to protect these business interests after a local insurrection broke out. Three weeks later, early on the morning of February 15, an explosion destroyed the forward third of the ship anchored in Havana’s harbor, killing more than 270 American sailors.

President McKinley blamed Spain after the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry declared that a naval mine caused the explosion.

American newspapers blamed the Spanish despite a lack of evidence. “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war,”  newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst told Frederic Remington after the illustrator reported that the situation in Cuba did not warrant invasion.

A number of historians and researchers later argued that the ship was blown up by the United States to provide a false flag pretext to invade Cuba and expel Spain.

The United States occupied Cuba from 1898 until 1902, although an amendment to a joint resolution of Congress forbid the U.S. to annex the country.

Wilson’s Pretext for War: The Sinking of the Lusitania

Nearly two thousand travelers, including one hundred Americans, were killed on May 7, 1915, when a German U-boat torpedoed the RMS Lusitania, a luxury Cunard Line British ocean liner.

Prior to the sinking, the German embassy in Washington issued a warning. Newspapers in the United States refused to print the warning or acknowledge the German claim that the ship carried munitions.

Wilson’s government issued a flurry of diplomatic protests after the sinking and exploited the tragedy two years later as a pretext for America to enter the First World War.

Nearly a hundred years later, in 2008, divers discovered the Lusitania carried more than four million rounds of rifle ammunition.

“There were literally tons and tons of stuff stored in unrefrigerated cargo holds that were dubiously marked cheese, butter and oysters,” Gregg Bemis, an American businessman who owns the rights to the wreck and is funding its exploration, told The Daily Mail.

Hitler’s Fascist Dictatorship: The Reichstag Fire

In February of 1933, a month after convincing Germany’s president that parliament must be eliminated, Hitler and the Nazis instigated the Reichstag fire.

Hitler then urged president Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree restricting personal liberty, including the right to free expression and a free press, limitations on the rights of association and assembly, warrantless searches of homes, property confiscation, and violations of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

The Nazis used the decree to crack down on their political opponents . They worked behind the scenes to force through the Enabling Act, which legally allowed Hitler to obtain plenary powers and establish a dictatorship.

Gestapo Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring would admit that, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Prelude to World War: The Gleiwitz Incident

Six years after the Reichstag Fire, the Nazis staged the Gleiwitz incident. Nazi commandos raided a German radio station in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany. The raid was part of Operation Himmler, a series of operations undertaken by the SS as Hitler set the stage for the invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War.

SS operatives dressed in Polish uniforms attacked the radio station, broadcast an anti-German message in Polish, and left behind the body of a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles. The corpse was then offered to the press as evidence that the Poles had attacked the radio station.

Israeli False Flag Terror: The Lavon Affair

In 1954, the Israelis activated a terrorist cell in response to the United States making friends with the Egyptian government and its pan-Arab leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Israelis were worried Nasser would nationalize the Suez Canal and continue Egypt’s blockade of Israeli shipping through the canal.

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion decided a false flag terrorist attack on American interests in Egypt would sour the new relationship. He recruited and dispatched a terror cell that pretended to be Egyptian terrorists.

The plan, however, contained a fatal flaw. Israel’s top secret cell, Unit 131, was infiltrated by Egyptian intelligence. After a member of the cell was arrested and interrogated, he revealed the plot and this led to more arrests. Israeli agents were subjected to a public trial revealing details of the plan to firebomb the U.S. Information Agency’s libraries, a British-owned Metro-Goldwyn Mayer theatre, a railway terminal, the central post office, and other targets.

In order to deflect blame, the Israeli government tried to frame its own Defense Minister, Pinhas Lavon, but the true nature of the plot was eventually made public.

Operation Northwoods: Targeting American Citizens

In the covert war against the communist regime in Cuba under the CIA’s Operation Mongoose, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously proposed state-sponsored acts of terrorism in side the United States.

The plan included shooting down hijacked American airplanes, the sinking of U.S. ships, and the shooting of Americans on the streets of Washington, D.C. The outrageous plan even included a staged NASA disaster that would claim the life of astronaut John Glenn.

Reeling under the embarrassing failure of the CIA’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, president Kennedy rejected the plan in March of 1962. A few months later, Kennedy denied the plan’s author, General Lyman Lemnitzer, a second term as the nation’s highest ranking military officer.

In November of 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Gulf of Tonkin: Phantom Attack on the U.S. Military

On August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson went on national television and told the nation that North Vietnam had attacked U.S. ships.

“Repeated acts of violence against the armed forces of the United States must be met not only with alert defense, but with a positive reply. That reply is being given as I speak tonight,” Johnson declared.

Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which provided Johnson with pre-approved authority to conduct military operations against North Vietnam. By 1969, over 500,000 troops were fighting in Southeast Asia.

Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, had bamboozled Congress and the American people. In fact, North Vietnam had not attacked the USS Maddox, as the Pentagon claimed, and the “unequivocal proof” of an “unprovoked” second attack against the U.S. warship was a ruse.

Operation Gladio: State Sponsored Terror Blamed on the Left

Following the Second World War, the CIA and Britain’s MI6 collaborated through NATO on Operation Gladio, an effort to create a “stay behind army” to fight communism in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

Gladio quickly transcended its original mission and became a covert terror network consisting of right wing militias, organized crime elements, agent provocateurs and secret military units. The so-called stay behind armies were active in France, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, and Switzerland.

Gladio’s “Strategy of Tension”  was designed to portray leftist political groups in Europe as terrorists and frighten the populace into voting for authoritarian governments. In order to carry out this goal, Gladio operatives conducted a number of deadly terrorists attacks that were blamed on leftists and Marxists.

In August of 1980, Gladio operatives bombed a train station in Bologna, killing 85 people. Initially blamed on the Red Brigades, it was later discovered that fascist elements within the Italian secret police and Licio Gelli, the head of the P2 Masonic Lodge, were responsible for the terror attack. Other fascist groups, including Avanguardia Nazionale and Ordine Nuovo, were mobilized and engaged in terror.

Operation Gladio ultimately claimed the lives of hundreds of people across Europe.

According to Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a Gladio terrorist serving a life-sentence for murdering policemen, the reason for Gladio was simple. It was designed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.

Terror in the modern age

In the United States, the modern age of terrorism is defined by the FBI’s policy of fomenting and provocateuring patsy terrorists to carry out attacks via entrapment.

As the New York Times reported last year, the vast majority of domestic terror plots in recent years were “facilitated by the F.B.I.”

The most infamous case of the FBI steering a terror plot was the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Before the attack, the FBI planted informant Emad A. Salem within a radical Arab group in New York led by Ramzi Yousef. Salem was ordered to encourage the group to carry out a bombing targeting the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Under the illusion that the project was a sting operation, Salem asked the FBI for harmless dummy explosives which he would use to assemble the bomb and then pass on to the group.

At this point the FBI cut Salem out of the loop and provided the group with real explosives, leading to the attack on February 26 that killed six and injured over a thousand people. The FBI’s failure to prevent the bombing was reported on by the New York Times in October 1993, as well as CBS News in the clip below.

Underwear Bomber

Detroit Lawyer Kurt Haskell witnessed a well-dressed man help the “underwear bomber ” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab clear security before the attempted attack on an airliner on Christmas Day 2009 despite the fact that the bomber had no passport, in addition to the fact that his own father had warned U.S. intelligence officials of the threat posed by Abdulmutallab a month before the attempted attack.

It later emerged that the State Department was ordered not to revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa by “federal counterterrorism officials” even though the accused bomber had known terrorist ties.

Haskell maintains that Abdulmutallab was carrying a fake bomb and was the unwitting dupe in another case of government entrapment.

This is by no means an exhaustive length of cases involving false flag attacks steered or provocateured by governments – such an endeavor would fill an encyclopedia-sized book – but it is a reminder that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and only the myopically naive would fail to shine the spotlight on the state in the immediate aftermath of any terrorist attack.

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INFOWARS

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