Rat Meat sold as Lamb in China, latest Food Safety Scandal

More than 900 arrested on suspicion of selling fake or tainted meat products

One suspect spiced up rat, fox and mink meat to sell at markets in China

More than $1 million in rat and small mammal meat passed off as mutton

Just as rage over the elaborate horse-meat scandal begins to quiet down a bit, news comes that traders in eastern China have been passing off rat, fox, and mink meat as lamb.

Rat meat has been passed off as mutton and sold at markets in China, police have confirmed.
Authorities cracked a crime ring that saw more $1million in rat and small mammal meat sold as mutton, in a food safety crackdown that coincides with a bird flu outbreak that has sent poultry sales plummeting in China.
One vendor was found to be using additives to spice up and sell rat, fox and mink meat as fake lamb rolls at markets in Shanghai that are frequented by tourists.

'After adding gelatine, carmine, nitrate and other substances, he sold the meat as fake lamb rolls [for hot pot] at farmers' markets in Jiangsu and Shanghai', authorities said of the suspect, who has the surname Wei.

Wei's organisation was raided in Jiangsu and Shanghai in February, which led to the arrest of 63 suspects and the seizure of 10 tons of meat and additives.
The operations sales since 2009 are estimated to add up to more than 10 million yuan ($1.6 million).

Authorities have arrested 904 suspects since the end of January for selling and producing fake or tainted meat products, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement posted on its website on Thursday.
Despite persistent efforts by police, 'food safety crimes are still prominent, and new situations are emerging with new characteristics', the ministry's statement said, citing 'responsible officials'.

Police confiscated more than 20,000 tones of fake or inferior meat products after breaking up illegal food plants during the nationwide operation, the ministry said.
Altogether there were '382 cases of water-injected meat, fake mutton and beef, diseased meat, toxic and harmful meat products', the statement said.
As well as rat and fox meat being passed off as mutton, inspectors found evidence of other vendors in southwestern Guizhou province mixing hydrogen peroxide solution with chicken claws, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Food safety and environmental pollution are chronic problems in China and public anxiety over cases of fake or toxic food often spreads quickly.

In April, many consumers lost their appetite for poultry as an outbreak of the H7N9 bird flu virus spread in China.

Sales dropped by 80 percent in eastern China, where the bird flu has been most prevalent, although experts stress that cooked chicken is perfectly safe.

In March, more than 16,000 rotting pigs were found floating in one of Shanghai's main water sources, triggering a public outcry.

Over-crowding at pig farms was likely behind the die-off and their disposal in the Huangpu river.

The public security ministry said police had confiscated more than 15 tonnes of tainted pork in Anhui province, although as much as 60 tones had been sold in Anhui and Fujian provinces since mid-2012.

But it was the rodent meat in particular that people couldn't stomach, with Internet users turning to the popular micro-blogging site Sina Weibo to vent their outrage.

'Rats? How disgusting. Everything we eat is poison,' one user wrote.

'We are nearly immune to hundreds of poisons, should we thank these fantastic businessmen?' another said.

China's penal code, which forbids unsafe and poisonous food, does not specify what acts are considered in violation of the law.
Adulterating baby food so that it severely lacks nutrition is also punishable as a crime under the guidelines. Negligent government food inspectors are also targeted for criminal punishment.
The supreme court said 2,088 people have been prosecuted in 2010-2012 in 1,533 food safety cases. It said the number of such cases has grown exponentially in the past several years. For example, Chinese courts prosecuted 861 cases of poisonous food in 2012, compared to 80 cases in 2010.
"The situation is really grave and has indeed caused great harm to the people," Pei Xianding, a supreme court judge, told a news conference.

"We cannot tolerate it any longer. We must punish the criminals severely, or we cannot answer to our people," Pei said.

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Who needs oil? World’s largest Solar Power Plant with 258,000 mirrors opens in Abu Dhabi

 

100-megawatt plant will power thousands United Arab Emirates homes
-It is hoped that it will also displace 175,000 tons of CO2 each year
-Plant covers 2.5 sq/km of desert, equivalent to 285 football pitches

You might think that as one of the world's top oil producing nations, the United Arab Emirates would have little use for solar energy. But that hasn't stopped the Middle East state from unveiling the largest concentrated solar power plant in operation anywhere in the world.

The 100-megawatt solar-thermal project in Abu Dhabi will power thousands of homes in the country and, it is hoped, displace approximately 175,000 tons of CO2 per year.

The $600million (£398million) project dubbed Shams 1 took three years to build.

Incorporating the latest in parabolic trough technology, the plant features more than 258,000 mirrors mounted on 768 tracking parabolic trough collectors, covering an area of 2.5 sq/km, or 285 football fields.

 

By concentrating heat from direct sunlight onto oil-filled pipes, Shams 1 produces steam, which drives a turbine to generate electricity.

In addition, the solar project uses a booster to heat steam as it enters the turbine to dramatically increase the cycle's efficiency.

The project also includes a dry-cooling system that significantly reduces water consumption - a critical advantage in the arid desert of western Abu Dhabi.

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You Won’t Believe What’s in Your Turkey Burger

Back in August 2011, the agribusiness giant Cargill recalled a stunning  36 million pounds of ground turkey tainted with antibiotic-resistant salmonella that had come from a single processing facility in Arkansas, a failure that eventually sickened 136 people and killed another. The company shut down the plant, tweaked its process (mainly by adding to and "intensifying" its system of spraying meat with antimicrobial fluid), and quickly reopened it. Within a month, the company had to recall another 108,000 pounds of ground turkey from the same plant, because it was infected with the same strain of super-bug salmonella.

Have things gotten any cleaner in the world of Big Turkey since those events? Cargill says it has cleaned up its act, but recent research suggests that ground turkey still has an antibiotic-resistant-pathogen problem. The latest evidence comes from Consumer Reports, which has just published the results of testing it did on 257 samples of ground turkey picked up from retailers around the country, produced by a variety of processors, including Cargill. CR contacted Cargill with the results, and got the following response:

"As we've publicly stated over the past year and a half, no stone was left unturned in our efforts to determine the originating source of salmonella Heidelberg associated with the ground-turkey recalls, yet to this day we do not know the origin of the bacteria linked to outbreak of illnesses," said Mike Robach, vice president of corporate food safety and regulatory affairs for Cargill in Minneapolis. He provided a long list of steps that Cargill has taken since the outbreak to make its ground turkey safer.

Even so, the results of Consumer Reports' tests won't make you eager to order that next turkey burger: "More than half of the packages of raw ground meat and patties tested positive for fecal bacteria."

Overall, 90 percent of the samples tested by CR researchers carried at least one of the five bacteria they looked for—and "almost all" of the bacteria strains they found showed resistance to at least one antibiotic. The two fecal-related bacteria strains—enterococcus and E. coli—showed up the most frequently:

 

Consumer Reports

You'll  note from the above charts both good and bad news about salmonella, the source of that 2011 Cargill outbreak. Happily, salmonella was rare in the meat CR tested—just 12 samples contained it, or 5 percent of the total. Unhappily, though, the salmonella they did find tended to be of the super-bug variety—eight of those samples carried salmonella resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics. And there's evidence of lingering problems at that Arkansas plant of Cargill's—one of the multiresistant salmonella strains came from there, CR reports.

Consumer Reports also tested samples of ground turkey labeled "organic," "no antibiotics" and "raised without antibiotics." (Under USDA code, meat labeled organic must come from animals that were never treated with antibiotics.) The bacterial strains that turned up in these products were much less likely to be antibiotic-resistant.

 

The Consumer Reports study comes on the heels of a troubling analysis of Food and Drug Administration meat-testing data performed by Environmental Working Group. Every year, the FDA randomly selects samples of meat from retailers, tests them for resistant bacteria, and publishes the results in a manner that's nearly indecipherable (try it yourself—latest report, released in February, is here). EWG slogged through the results (report here) and found that 81 percent of ground turkey samples contained traces of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

All of which shines a harsh spotlight on the FDA's "voluntary" approach to curbing antibiotic use on farms. Between 2003 and 2011, antibiotic use on US livestock farms soared from 20 million pounds per year to 30 million pounds—a jaw-dropping 50 percent leap. These facilities now suck in 80 percent of the antibiotics consumed in the United States. The great bulk of these drugs are used not to treat sick animals, but rather to make them grow faster and keep them alive until slaughter under tight, filthy conditions.

Meanwhile, there's the US Department of Agriculture's imminent plan to slash the number of inspectors it places on poultry-industry kill lines (chicken and turkey) while simultaneously allowing those same kill lines to be sped up.

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Huge Victory Against Fluoride in Australia

Nearly 200,000 Australians have been released from the medical slavery that is artificial water fluoridation thanks to a major governmental policy change.

The Liberal National Party (LNP) government of the Australian state of Queensland has not only cut $14 million of funding that had previously been used for fluoridation, but has also decided to allow local councils to decide for themselves whether or not to fluoridate, a move that has already prompted the northern city of Cairns to end its water fluoridation program.

As reported by The Australian, former "One Nation" member of parliament (MP) Rosa Lee Long, who is now mayor of the north Queensland Tablelands Regional Council, successfully lobbied LNP to end a longstanding policy that compelled local communities to fluoridate without approval from local residents.

The government of Queensland last year also ended a policy that required larger communities to fluoridate their water, which is similar to existing fluoridation mandates in California and elsewhere.

So by the middle of March, Cairns' more than 150,000 area residents will no longer be exposed to fluoride chemicals in the water, making it the seventh community in Queensland to end water fluoridation so far this year. Murgon, Wondai, Kingaroy, Nanango, Blackbutt, and South Burnett have all ended their water fluoridation programs since January which, combined with the area population of Cairns, represents nearly 200,000 people who will no longer be forcibly medicated with an unapproved drug.

“If people want to have access to fluoride, they need to take that up with their dentists,” said a local Cairns council spokeswoman about the policy change. “The decision has been made ... [fluoride] shouldn't be forced on people without consent."

Australian health authorities admit water fluoridation is 'involuntary medication' of public

The Australian Dental Association (ADA) and various members of the establishment government in Australia raised their usual fear-mongering in response to the landmark decision -- children's teeth will rot out of their heads without fluoride, has been their response, which mimics the same tired and unproven argument used by many American officials to defend the outdated and dangerous practice of water fluoridation.

But Queensland's LNP has remained steadfast in its decision, declaring forced water fluoridation to be "involuntary medication" of the public, regardless of someone's own personal opinion on the efficacy and safety of fluoride. This declaration is key, as it highlights a reality about fluoride that few people are willing to admit -- fluoride is a chemical drug that has never been proven safe and effective, but that is routinely added to water supplies without informed consent.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) likewise admits that water fluoridation is akin to forced medication, as the agency's official stance on the chemical is that it is an "unapproved drug" when added to water supplies. It is a fact that the FDA has never approved fluoride as a safe and effective water supplement, which means adding it to public water supplies is an illegal administration of a drug without FDA approval, and without the informed consent of every person exposed to it.

You can learn more about the dangers of fluoride by visiting the Fluoride Action Network (FAN)

Source:

Natural News 

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www.fluoridealert.org/content/communities

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Three New Suspects Taken into Custody in Boston Marathon Bombing Case

Three new suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing case have been taken into custody, the city’s police department announced Wednesday morning.

From their official Twitter account, the Boston Police Department confirmed just after 11 a.m. local time that three suspects have been detained by authorities in regards to the terrorist attack earlier this month.

According to a police source speaking anonymously with the Boston Globe, the three latest suspects are area college students who attended the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old accused bomber who could face the death penalty of convinced for his alleged role in the marathon bombing. A source speaking to NBC alleged that the suspects were all roommates of Tsarnaev at UMass-Dartmouth, although police have failed to confirm this report.

Nineteen-year-old University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth college students Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos have been accused of interfering with a federal probe into the April 15, 2013 terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon.

Authorities unsealed a criminal complaint against the men Wednesday afternoon and they were arraigned during 3:30 p.m. hearing in a Massachusetts courthouse. The Boston Globe reported that attorneys for the men waived bail and will remain in detention until arguments begin later this month.

Investigators say the three students were classmates of suspected bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, also 19, and attempted to hinder an investigation by destroying evidence they uncovered from his UMass-Dartmouth dormitory room three days after the marathon bombing.

“All three have admitted on that on the evening of April 18, 2013, they removed Tsarnaev’s backpack from Tsarnaev’s dormitory room,” reads the complaint. Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, both Kazakhstan nationals, “have admitted that they agreed to get rid of it after concluding from news reports that Tsarnaev was one of the Boston Marathon bombers,” it continues.

The two Kazakhstan citizens were in the US on student visas and were apprehended by authorities over a week ago for alleged immigration violations; they have been accused of hiding evidence. Authorities have identified Phillipos as a US citizen who was also enrolled at Dartmouth and he is accused of making false statements to the FBI.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation complaint unsealed this week, the three students first considered their classmate as a possible suspect in the bombing after the FBI released images on April 18 of two men sought in connection to the blasts. Authorities later identified the two men as ethnic Chechens: Dzhokhar and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Approximately four hours after photos of the Tsarnaev brothers first began to be widely circulated on the afternoon of April 18, the FBI says Phillipos told Kadyrbayev to put on the news when he got home “because one of the suspects in the Marathon bombing suspect looked familiar. Once he turned on the TV, Kadyrbayev texted Tazhayakov’s cell phone to ask, “Have you seen the news?” Shortly after, the complaint continues, Kadyrbayev, Tazhayakov and Phillipos went to Tsarnaev’s Dartmouth dorm room and were let in by a roommate. There they stayed for a considerable amount of time watching a movie and eventually made contact with the 19-year-old suspect.

A police source speaking to the Globe said authorities believe two of the suspects may have helped he accused bomber after the April 15 terrorist attack and are expected to be charged with obstruction of justice and making false statements.

A detain police statement is still forthcoming, but before 12 noon on Wednesday the department tweeted that there is no threat to public safety at this time in regards to the attack.

Tsarnaev was apprehended by police days after the attack and has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is also believed to have detonated improvised explosives at the Boston Marathon earlier this month but died days later after engaging in a gun fight with police. Three people and more than 260 were injured during the April 15 tragedy.

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Human Tissue Found in Meats

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The horse meat fiasco in Europe has prodded scientists to look a bit deeper into what else we might be consuming. A team of South African scientists have just found traces of human tissue in meat meant for public consumption from 9 provinces. The issue was revealed to parliament, almost as a side note, during Human Tissue briefings on Tuesday. A University of Stellenbosch scientist and his team conducted a microbial analysis that revealed traces of human elements, but said that slaughterhouse workers sometimes cut themselves . . . or other things . . . which could lead to the findings.

“If I walked into a factory and the sample I randomly selected to test was a meat sample of which the person de-boning the meat had just picked his nose and then touched the meat, I would get a totally different microbial reading,” he said.

Delicious. Beyond the findings themselves, it brings up the global hot-button topic of the moment: food labeling. How much should we know about what we are consuming?

In addition to the troubling statements above, scientist Louw Hoffman noted that only 15% of the meat being sold in South Africa is correctly labeled, revealing other potentially harmful attributes of which consumers are currently unaware:

“In the labelling regulations it clearly states that allergens have to be mentioned and noted,” said Hoffman.

Allergens like . . . other people’s genetic signature?

Yet, Hoffman and his team of scientists concluded that the incorrect labeling poses “no threat” to the consumers who eat it, despite some more gems uncovered:

Meat Musical Chairs

Briefing parliament’s portfolio committee on agriculture, forestry and fisheries, University of Western Cape forensic scientist Dr Eugenia D’Amato said nearly 43% of samples she had tested which were labelled as game, were, in fact, beef.

D’Amato said horse meat had also been used as a substitute for springbok (an African Gazelle with meat similar to beef) in biltong, and pork was found in ostrich sausages.

There was also a smaller proportion of kangaroo in samples.

Despite the overall findings that consumers have absolutely no idea what they are eating – including human remnants – in 85% of the products, SA’s Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries deputy director-general downplayed it by asserting that we are not becoming unwitting cannibals:

“It is possible that (if tested) we could find traces of human DNA in meat. However, even if we do find human DNA, it does not mean we are eating human flesh.”

Great. Unfortunately, we are evidently eliminating healthy microorganisms in the processing of foods, but since there is an acceptable standard of nasty foreign entities, thanks to our regulatory agencies – we have introduced a variety of contaminants into now weakened guts and immune systems. We’d like to think that these food scandals are safe from us – overseas, it’s their problem. But, big problems are usually systemic and many of the developed nations are on the same platform. As with most food scandals, they go on for years unnoticed before the beans are spilled. It doesn't sound like anyone’s literally being run through the meat grinder just yet, but it’s a startling fact that we don’t know much about what our food comes into contact with. And we have scientists and regulatory agencies continually asserting how safe our food supply is.

Are you unsettled at the prospect of ingesting someone else’s particles and blood? Do you wonder what else will be found when the next scientific investigation is conducted in your country?

Perhaps we should be asking ourselves before each meal, “Hey, who’s in there? How’d they get in there? Anyone missing?”

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Bee Harming Pesticides Banned in Europe

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Bee-harming pesticides banned in Europe

Europe will enforce the world's first continent-wide ban on widely used insecticides alleged to cause serious harm to bees, after a European commission vote on Monday.

The suspension is a landmark victory for millions of environmental campaigners, backed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), concerned about a dramatic decline in the bee population. The vote also represents a serious setback for the chemical producers who make billions each year from the products and also UK ministers, who voted against the ban. Both had argued the ban would harm food production.

Although the vote by the 27 EU member states on whether to suspend the insect nerve agents was supported by 15 nations, but did not reach the required majority under voting rules. The hung vote hands the final decision to the European commission, which will implement the ban.

Tonio Borg, health and consumer commissioner, said: "Our proposal is based on a number of risks to bee health identified by the EFSA, [so] the European commission will go ahead with its plan in coming weeks."

Friends of the Earth's head of campaigns, Andrew Pendleton, said: "This decision is a significant victory for common sense and our beleaguered bee populations. Restricting the use of these pesticides could be an historic milestone on the road to recovery for these crucial pollinators."

The UK, which abstained in a previous vote, was heavily criticized for switching to a "no" vote on Monday.

Joan Walley MP, chair of parliament's green watchdog, the environmental audit committee, whose investigation had backed a ban and accused ministers of "extraordinary complacency", said the vote was a real step in the right direction, but added: "A full Commons debate where ministers can be held to account is more pressing than ever."

Greenpeace's chief scientist, Doug Parr, said: "By not supporting the ban, environment secretary, Owen Paterson, has exposed the UK government as being in the pocket of big chemical companies and the industrial farming lobby."

On Sunday, the Observer revealed the intense secret lobbying by Paterson and Syngenta.

The environment minister, Lord de Mauley, countered, saying: "Having a healthy bee population is a top priority for us but we did not support the proposal because our scientific evidence doesn't support it. We will now work with farmers to cope with the consequences as a ban will carry significant costs for them."

Syngenta, which makes one of the three neonicotinoids that have been suspended, said: "The proposal ignores a wealth of evidence from the field that these pesticides do not damage the health of bees. The EC should [instead] address the real reasons for bee health decline: disease, viruses and loss of habitat."

Bees and other insects are vital for global food production as they pollinate three-quarters of all crops. The plummeting numbers of pollinators in recent years has been blamed on disease, loss of habitat and, increasingly, the near ubiquitous use of neonicotinoid pesticides.

A series of high-profile scientific studies has linked neonicotinoids – the world's most widely used insecticides – to huge losses in the number of queen bees produced and big rises in the numbers of "disappeared" bees – those that fail to return from foraging trips.

The commission proposed the suspension after the EFSA concluded in January that three neonicotinoids – thiamethoxam, clothianidin and imidacloprid – posed an unnacceptable risk to bees. The three will be banned from use for two years on flowering crops such as corn, oilseed rape and sunflowers, upon which bees feed.

A spokesman for Bayer Cropscience said: "Bayer remains convinced neonicotinoids are safe for bees, when used responsibly and properly … clear scientific evidence has taken a back-seat in the decision-making process."

Prof Simon Potts, a bee expert at the University of Reading, said: "The ban is excellent news for pollinators. The weight of evidence from researchers clearly points to the need to have a phased ban of neonicotinoids. There are several alternatives to using neonicotinoids and farmers will benefit from healthy pollinator populations as they provide substantial economic benefits to crop pollination."

Neonicotinoids have been widely used for more than decade and are less harmful than some of the sprays they replaced, but scientific studies have increasingly linked them to poor bee health.

Many observers, including the National Farmers' Union, accept that EU regulation is inadequate, as it only tests on honeybees and not the wild pollinators that service 90% of plants. The regulatory testing also only considers short-term effects and does not consider the combined effects of multiple pesticides. The chemical industry has warned that a ban on neonicotinoids would lead to the return of older, more harmful pesticides and crop losses but campaigners point out this has not happened during temporary suspensions in France, Italy and Germany and that the use of natural pest predators and crop rotation can tackle problems.

"It is imperative that any alternative chemicals to be used in their place must first pass the same tests failed by the neonicotinoids," said Dr Christopher Connolly, a bee expert at the University of Dundee. "The recent findings have highlighted an urgent need for more rigorous safety testing protocols."

In Brussels, the countries that voted against the ban were: the UK, Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Austria and Portugal. Ireland, Lithuania, Finland and Greece abstained. Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, France, Cyprus, Germany, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden voted in favour.

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NYPD will Deploy ‘Harmless’ Gas into Subway in Terror Response Drill

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The New York City Police Department announced Wednesday that it will deploy, then track, what it calls “harmless” gases into the city’s subway system over three non-consecutive days this summer.

The plan, to be enacted in July, will investigate New York’s readiness to handle a chemical terrorist attack by dispersing the colorless gas and tracing it as it flows through the city, according to Scientific American. The test is expected to cost $3.4 million and is scheduled to be carried out in all five boroughs and dozens of stations on 21 of the city's 34 subway lines.

“The NYPD works for the best but plans for the worst when it comes to potentially catastrophic attacks such as ones employing radiological contaminants or weaponized anthrax,” police commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement.

The police will use roughly 200 detectors to monitor the gas. Dubbed the Subway-Surface Air Flow Exchange, the test will be the largest of its kind and organized in cooperation with the energy department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. They’ll use perfluorocarbon tracer gases (PFTs), which are frequently used to measure potential sites for underground construction.

Despite the science fiction catastrophe a plan of this magnitude naturally conjures, Fernando Ferrer, the acting chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority maintained that it will not impact commuters.

“The NYPD, in partnership with the MTA, is responsible for keeping more than 5 million daily subway customers safe and secure,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “This study will bolster the NYPD’s understanding of contaminant dispersion within the subway system as well as between the subway system and street, thereby improving its ability to better protect both customers and the city population at large.”

The scheduled gas deployment comes years after investigators foiled an Al-Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb the New York subways, the largest public transportation system in the world. Three men had planned to detonate suicide vests just days before the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in what US Attorney General Eric Holder at the time called “one of the most serious threats” to the United States since 2001.

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Part of 9/11 Plane’s Landing Gear Found in NYC after 12 years

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Nearly 12 years after the attack on the World Trade Center by two commercial airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD said Friday that a piece of the landing gear from one of those planes had been found.

The NYPD is currently securing an area between some lower Manhattan buildings as a crime scene because they've discovered a piece of airplane landing gear that appears to be from one of the doomed planes that crashed in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Police said it was discovered wedged between the rear of 51 Park Place and the rear of the building behind it, 50 Murray St., in lower Manhattan so-called "Ground Zero" mosque.

The part includes a clearly visible Boeing identification number, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said Friday. The twisted, rusted metal part has cables and levers on it and is about 3 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep.

The piece of equipment was discovered Wednesday by surveyors inspecting the lower Manhattan site of a planned Islamic community center, at 51 Park Place, on behalf of the building's owner, police said. The inspectors called 911, and police secured the scene, documenting it with photos.

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High Levels of Lead Detected in Imported Rice

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The biotech industry is pushing the envelope further on the need for genetically modified rice by highlighting recent evidence that rice imported from certain countries contains high levels of lead that could pose health risks, particularly for infants and children, who are especially sensitive to lead’s effects.

Tufts University researchers in Boston recently swapped the term “genetically modified” (GM) for “nutritionally enhanced” so they could proceed with a study testing GM rice on six to eight-year olds.

Greenpeace called the move a “dangerous genetic experiment” and said it had previously exposed illegal cases of GM rice in China.

But now biotech companies are highlighting recent reports which suggest that imported rice contains high levels of lead.

The research, which found some of the highest lead levels in baby food, was among almost 12,000 reports scheduled for the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, Ph.D., who headed the analysis of rice imported from Asia, Europe and South America, pointed out that imports account for only 7 percent of the rice consumed in the United States. With vast rice fields in Louisiana, California, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi, the U.S. is a major producer and exporter of the grain. However, imports of rice and rice flour are increasing — by more than 200 percent since 1999 — and rice is the staple food for 3 billion people worldwide, he added.

“Such findings present a situation that is particularly worrisome given that infants and children are especially vulnerable to the effects of lead poisoning,” Tongesayi said. “For infants and children, the daily exposure levels from eating the rice products analyzed in this study would be 30-60 times higher than the FDA’s provisional total tolerable intake (PTTI) levels. Asians consume more rice, and for these infants and children, exposures would be 60-120 times higher. For adults, the daily exposure levels were 20-40 times higher than the PTTI levels.”

The research was part of a symposium titled “Food and Its Environment: What Is In What We Eat?”

Tongesayi’s team, which is with Monmouth University in N.J., found that levels of lead in rice imported into the United States ranged from 6 to 12 milligrams/kilogram. From those numbers, they calculated the daily exposure levels for various populations and then made comparisons with the FDA’s PTTI levels for lead. They detected the highest amounts of lead in rice from Taiwan and China. Samples from the Czech Republic, Bhutan, Italy, India and Thailand had significantly high levels of lead as well. Analysis of rice samples from Pakistan, Brazil and other countries were still underway.

Because of the increase in rice imports into the United States, Tongesayi said that rice from other nations has made its way into a wide variety of grocery stores, large supermarket chains and restaurants, as well as ethnic specialty markets and restaurants.

China, a Major Player in GM Rice 

China leads the pack in rice breeding research, where hopes are high for new, insect resistant cultivars. China has approved its first strain of genetically modified rice for commercial production, potentially easing the way for other major producers to adopt the controversial technology.

The approval of the locally-developed rice, as well as China’s first GMO corn, shifts the global balance of power in food trade and could prompt other countries to follow suit, experts said.

It will also enable China, the world’s top producer and consumer of rice, to grow more GMO rice amid shrinking land and water resources.

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture’s Biosafety Committee issued biosafety certificates to pest-resistant Bt rice with large-scale production to start in 2-3 years.

But Greenpeace called the move a “dangerous genetic experiment” and said it had previously exposed illegal cases of genetically engineered (GE) rice in China.

“If the Ministry of Agriculture cannot even control the illegal cultivation of GE rice, how can they manage the risks of large scale cultivation?” Lorena Luo, Greenpeace’s food and agriculture campaigner in China, asked in an emailed statement.

Everything from developing allergen-free rice to preventing vitamin deficiencies is being touted as the primary objective for genetic engineering projects which focus their efforts on altering rice’s nutritional value.

Rice with Human Genes

The first GM food crop containing human genes is also set to be approved for commercial production.

The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva.

The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signaled it plans to allow commercial cultivation.

The rice’s producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas. The company plans to harvest the proteins and use them in drinks, desserts, yogurts and muesli bars and many other processed foods which will not be labelled as containing genetically modified foods once they reach the markets.

The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic.

GeneWatch UK, which monitors new GM foods, described it as “very disturbing”. Researcher Becky Price warned: “There are huge, huge health risks and people should rightly be concerned about this.”

Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: “Using food crops and fields as glorified drug factories is a very worrying development.

“If these pharmaceutical crops end up on consumers’ plates, the consequences for our health could be devastating.

“The biotech industry has already failed to prevent experimental GM rice contaminating the food chain.

“The Government must urge the U.S. to ban the production of drugs in food crops. It must also introduce tough measures to prevent illegal GM crops contaminating our food and ensure that biotech companies are liable for any damage their products cause.”

In the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists, a policy advocacy group, warned: “It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.

“There would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some might be allergic to the proteins.”

The American Consumers Union and the Washington based Center for Food Safety also oppose Ventria’s plans.

As well as the contamination fears there are serious ethical concerns about such a fundamental interference with the building blocks of life.

Yet there is no legal means for Britain and Europe to ban such products on ethical grounds.

Imports would have to be accepted once they had gone through a scientific safety assessment.

Until now, plants with human-origin genes have been restricted to small test plots.

Ventria originally planned to grow the rice in southern Missouri but the brewer Anheuser-Busch, a huge buyer of rice, threatened to boycott the state amid concern over contamination and consumer reaction.

Now the USDA, saying the rice poses “virtually no risk”. has given preliminary approval for it to be grown in Kansas, which has no commercial rice farms.

Ventria will also use dedicated equipment, storage and processing facilities supposed to prevent seeds from mixing with other crops.

The rice could also be a huge money-spinner in the Western world, with parents being told it will help their children get over unpleasant stomach bugs more quickly.

“It’s the same tune over and over from the GM folks. They say it helps when in actuality it only destroys the natural balance of nature, the environment and human health, period!” said GM critic Gustavo Miller about Ventria’s initiatives.

Source:

preventdisease.com

http://worldtruth.tv

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FBI Entraps US Citizen Attempting to Join US-funded Al Qaeda in Syria

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Tony Cartalucci
Activist Post


 

Image: FBI's latest entrapped patsy, Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, a U.S. citizen, attempted to join Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra. The irony is, as Tounisi is charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the US State Department has announced an additional $123 million in military aid to these very same terrorists. 

As the FBI reels from its bungled Boston bombing case, where the suspects turned out to have been contacted and perhaps monitored (even directed) by the FBI up to 2 years prior to the attacks, the Chicago Tribune has now reported of yet another bizarre FBI entrapment case hyped as a "foiled" would-be terrorist.

In its article, "FBI: Aurora man wanted to join al-Qaida in Syria," the Chicago Tribune would report: 

An 18-year-old Aurora man with ties to a foiled attempt last year to bomb a downtown Chicago bar was arrested as he was about to travel to the Middle East to join the al-Qaida terrorist network, federal officials said Saturday.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, a U.S. citizen, was held without bail Saturday after being arrested the night before at O'Hare International Airport, where he was about to board an airplane to Istanbul, Turkey, FBI officials said in a press release.

Bizarre, considering US ally and NATO-member Turkey has hosted thousands of other known terrorists  passing through Turkish territory to invade Syria, and even facilitated their activities along with US CIA agents near the Turkish-Syrian border since the conflict in Syria began in 2011.

The Chicago Tribune would specifically mention Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jahbat al-Nusra:
Tounisi had hoped to eventually join a jihadist militant group operating inside Syria called Jabhat al-Nusrah, according to a federal complaint unsealed Saturday and filed in U.S. District Court. The organization is an alias for al-Qaida in Iraq, the complaint said.
Tounisi had the year before, assisted another FBI-entrapped patsy. The Chicago Tribune reports: 

According to the complaint, Tounisi was a close friend of Daoud, who on Sept. 14, 2012, traveled into Chicago with an undercover agent who brought him to a Jeep that had an inert explosive device in it, officials have said.

Daoud allegedly drove the Jeep to the target — identified by the Tribune as the Cactus Bar & Grill at 404 S. Wells St. — and walked to an alley a block away, where he pulled a triggering device he thought would explode the vehicle, authorities said. The bomb never exploded and Daoud was apprehended and is being held without bail. 

“Tounisi and Daoud appeared to share an interest in violent jihad, a topic about which the two exchanged a number of emails, phone calls, and text messages,” according to the complaint filed Saturday.

FBI officials said that in preparation for last year's foiled attack, Tounisi had “recommended certain attack techniques, offered ideas about targeting, and researched those locations online to analyze their feasibility.”

While Daoud allegedly continued his role in the plot, Tounisi backed out in mid-August because he suspected that the person Daoud was working with was an undercover law enforcement officer, according to the complaint. Daoud told the undercover officer that Tounisi wanted to go overseas and join a terrorist group.

According to the complaint, hours after Daoud was arrested, Tounisi was interviewed by FBI agents “and admitted to assisting Daoud in target selection and acknowledged that he had contemplated traveling to Yemen to carry out jihad.”

After Daoud's arrest, Tounisi allegedly continued to research travel to Syria and terrorist organizations. He also applied for and obtained a new passport, officials said.

Perhaps most ironic of all is what Tounisi is being charged with:

He was was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, a felony offense that could bring 15 years in federal prison.

This is particularly ironic because US Secretary of State John Kerry has just announced an additional $123 million in military aid that is headed directly to this very same foreign terrorist organization, Jahbat al-Nusra - and unlike Tounisi, Kerry and his collaborators are not being charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

US is Funding, Arming Jabhat al-Nusra
 
The FBI's bizarre entrapment racket is revealed to be a nationwide operation with multiple patsies being cultivated at any given time, with FBI agents literally running around the country with bombs, weapons, vehicles and would-be terrorists carrying out attacks only to be foiled at the last possible moment. That FBI agents have now arrested a target attempting to join a terrorist group who owes its continued existence in Syria to the US, British, French, Saudi, and Qatari governments, tells the tale of "War on Terror" out of control - inspiring hapless would-be terrorists and real threats alike.
While the US maintains that the inception and expansion of Al Qaeda in Syria is merely an unintended consequence of a spontaneous crisis in Syria, it was reported as early as 2007 that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel plotted to arm and fund Al Qaeda affiliated sectarian extremists to overthrow the government of Syria in a sectarian-driven bloodbath. In Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker article,  "The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" the strategy was described as follows:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

It is now revealed that the US CIA is working along Syria's borders, funneling cash, equipment, supplies, and thousands of tons of weapons into Syria. It would be these very CIA agents, the FBI's witless patsy, Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, would have passed on his way to slaughter Syrians alongside Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists.

The New York Times in their article titled, "Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid," admits that:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

The New York Times piece attempts to spin America's role in arming militants in Syria. The Times continues by stating:

The American government became involved, the former American official said, in part because there was a sense that other states would arm the rebels anyhow. The C.I.A. role in facilitating the shipments, he said, gave the United States a degree of influence over the process, including trying to steer weapons away from Islamist groups and persuading donors to withhold portable antiaircraft missiles that might be used in future terrorist attacks on civilian aircraft.

However, this contradicts both documented intentions reported by the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh in 2007, and the strategic realities on the ground in Syria today. While the US claims it is "steering weapons away from Islamist groups," the US State Department admits that al-Nusra, (listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization), operates in every major Syrian city, has carried out hundreds of terrorist operations since 2011, and is clearly the most prominent militant group in Syria today. The official US State Department statement announcing al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization and an alias of Al Qaeda in Iraq stated:  

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.

Western media would elaborate on the prominence al-Nusra has achieved in Syria's 2 year-long conflict. The New York Times' article "Syrian Rebels Tied to Al Qaeda Play Key Role in War," states:

The lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from Al Qaeda has become one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, posing a stark challenge to the United States and other countries that want to support the rebels but not Islamic extremists.

Money flows to the group, the Nusra Front, from like-minded donors abroad. Its fighters, a small minority of the rebels, have the boldness and skill to storm fortified positions and lead other battalions to capture military bases and oil fields. As their successes mount, they gather more weapons and attract more fighters.  

The group is a direct offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqi officials and former Iraqi insurgents say, which has contributed veteran fighters and weapons.

While the London Telegraph reports in their article, "Syria: how jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is taking over Syria's revolution," that:

And in recent weeks it is Jabhat al-Nusra, a radical jihadist group blacklisted by the US as terrorists and a group that wants Syria to be an uncompromising Islamic state governed by sharia, that is holding sway.

The group is well funded – probably through established global jihadist networks – in comparison to moderates. Meanwhile pro-democracy rebel group commanders say money from foreign governments has all but dried up because of fears over radical Islamists. 

The effect is changing the face of the Syrian revolution.

How does the West reconcile admissions it and its regional allies are sending torrents of cash, equipment, supplies, and thousands of tons of weapons to "moderates" in Syria, with al-Nusra's rise in prominence? If the West, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Jordan are substantially propping up "moderates," who then, is sending even more aid to Al Qaeda's al-Nusra? The reality is, there are no moderates, and as stated in Seymour Hersh's New Yorker report in 2007, the plan was from the beginning to arm and fund Al Qaeda in Syria to overthrow the Syrian government in a sectarian bloodbath. Statements of steering arms to "moderates" are crafted for the gullible public's consumption only.

That the FBI is arresting entrapped patsies attempting to join al-Nusra in a conflict intentionally perpetuated by the West, while the US State Department and Pentagon openly provide real material aid to the very same foreign terrorists, illustrates the unhinged nature of American domestic and foreign policy. It also depicts a nation out of control, orchestrating an increasingly complex and dangerous militant threat that is creating and inspiring real human suffering, from Boston to Damascus.

Tony Cartalucci's articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at Land Destroyer Report, Alternative Thai News Network and LocalOrg. Read other contributed articles by Tony Cartalucci here.

Source:

www.activistpost.com

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FBI Caught in a Web of Lies in Boston

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Please help us ID them. Oops, we already knew exactly who they were.

Why did the FBI make a spectacle out of releasing the photos of the alleged Boston bombing suspects to the public feigning ignorance on who they were, asking for the public’s help to identify them, when they knew all along who they were?

Remember the FBI saying the following:

These photos should be the only ones the public should view to assist us. Other photos should not be deemed credible. They unnecessarily divert the public’s attention in the wrong direction, and create undue work for vital law enforcement resources.

´

The FBI originally denied first meeting with the bombing suspect two years ago (lie #2), according to CBS. That was until they were forced to admit their involvement with the suspects.

CBS reported “The FBI admitted Friday they interviewed the now-deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago and failed to find any incriminating information about him.”

The suspects’ family also state that they were well aware of an ongoing relationship between the FBI and the boys. Family members said they were “monitored” and “counseled” at every step, and the FBI was “controlling” and “following” them for years.

Their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, in an interview with RT, said that the FBI had made contact with the family on multiple occasions:

“They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me … they were telling me that he was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him,” Tsarnaeva said.

“They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites… they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step…and now they say that this is a terrorist act!”

So the FBI, after first denying monitoring them, says yes, we did meet with him (Tamerlan) but “failed to find any incriminating information about him” while telling their mother that “he was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him.” (lie #3)

There are only two possible conclusions to explain the FBI’s blatant lies; either they’re covering up their complete incompetence to stop attacks that they were monitoring, or they’re covering up the fact that they were spurring and handling the bombing plot in the first place, as they’ve done in countless other fake terror plot cases.

History would indicate that the lies are a little of both: direct involvement and incompetence. It’s apparent they had a direct hand working with the suspects, but complete incompetence in pulling off the plot without their fingerprints all over it.

This deception in the Boston bombing case was premeditated and not just some fog-of-war, we-don’t-have-all-the-facts-yet confusion. That much is now clear.

And since these significant lies have been revealed, how are we to believe in wild car chases, car jackings, police shootouts, and the rest of the crazy narrative spewing out of the FBI’s PR department?

It’s beyond convenient for covering up their deception that the Tsarnaev brothers have been rendered incapacitated with one mutilated and killed, and the other in critical condition waiting for justice without Miranda Rights. It will surprise no one if Dzhokhar (suspect 2) winds up dead, because dead men tell no tales.

Fact: the FBI has been involved in staging numerous fake terror plots using patsies to make themselves look like heroes when they stop the attack. Now they’ve been caught in a web of lies surrounding one that went live and resulted in the deaths of Americans.

Question: In what world are they not the prime suspects here?

Their days of terrorizing the American public into giving up civil liberties with false flags are numbered as the truth becomes more difficult to hide.

Source:

www.activistpost.com

http://worldtruth.tv

 

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