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(NaturalNews)Though it barely received any media attention at the time, a renowned British biochemist who back in 1998 exposed the shocking truth about how genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) cause organ damage, reproductive failure, digestive dysfunction, impaired immunity, and cancer, among many other conditions, was immediately fired from his job, and the team of researchers who assisted him dismissed from their post within 24 hours from the time when the findings went public.
Arpad Pusztai, who is considered to be one of the world's most respected and well-learned biochemists, had for three years led a team of researchers from Scotland's prestigious Rowett Research Institute (RRI) in studying the health effects of a novel GM potato with built-in Bt toxin. Much to the surprise of many, the team discovered that, contrary to industry rhetoric, Bt potato was responsible for causing severe health damage in test rats, a fact that was quickly relayed to the media out of concern for public health.
But rather than be praised for their honest assessment into this genetically-tampered potato, Pusztai and his colleagues were chastised by industry-backed government authorities, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose office was discovered to have secretly contacted RRI just hours after Pusztai and his team announced the results of their study on television. For speaking the truth, Pusztai was immediately fired from his position, and his team dismissed from their positions at the school.
Research out of Egypt finds similar results - GMOs cause severe, long-term health damage As reported recently in Egypt Independent, similar research by Hussein Kaoud from Cairo University's Faculty of Veterinary Hygiene also made some fascinating, though politically incorrect, discoveries about the effects of GMOs on the body. After feeding nine groups of rats varying combinations of GM soy, corn, wheat, and canola, Kaoud and his team observed that these genetic poisons clearly obstructed the normal function of the animals, affirming Pusztai's research.
"I recorded the alteration of different organs, shrinkage of kidneys, change in the liver and spleen, appearance of malignant parts in the tissues, (and) kidney failure and hemorrhages in the intestine," said Kaoud about the effects of GMOs as observed in the test rats. "The brain functions were touched as well, and the rats' learning and memory abilities were seriously altered."
In Kaoud's case, his groundbreaking findings will soon be published in the respected journals Neurotoxicology and Ecotoxicology. But it remains to be seen whether or not the scientific community at large, which is heavily influenced by biotechnology interests, and the political structures that control it will accept the results as valid, or pull a similar character assassination on Kaoud and his team as punishment for defying the status quo.
What all this clearly illustrates, of course, is that modern science can hardly be considered the independent, truth-seeking, "gold standard" of interpreting and understanding reality that many people mistakenly think it is. The truth about GMOs, as uncovered by mounds of independent research, is that they are inadequately safety tested, at best, and deadly at worst. But this fact remains shrouded in deception, thanks to the corporatized, pro-GMO culture of mainstream science.
Activist Post - The subject of insiders — or “whistleblowers” — is somewhat tricky; anyone on the inside is often presumed to be compromised by their former allegiance.
Nonetheless, the nature of government work is rooted in compartmentalization.
So, perhaps the best indication as to whether whistleblowers have something valid to say is the level of persecution they have endured.
The following whistleblowers have endured a varying degree of pushback from the system, but are still around to reveal key points of information that make us all question what we are being told by our government and the corporate media.
Please listen to the video presentations of the following insiders who have used their positions to educate those on the outside about the machinations of people far more devious than ourselves.
They follow in the footsteps of people such as Daniel Ellsberg, and are not the criminals that the U.S. government increasingly charges them as. Rather, these whistleblowers represent the highest level of activism and courage.
Jesselyn Radack – Radack is a former ethics attorney and adviser to the Justice Department. She had been presented with the first case of a detainee in Afghanistan following 9/11.
That detainee was John Walker Lindh, an American citizen labeled “The American Taliban.” Lindh was set to be interrogated (tortured) without council.
Her advice not to pursue that direction went unheeded to the point where her e-mails to the court were deleted, which she had to then resurrect from her computer and present to the media.
She subsequently was put on the No-Fly list and was targeted for investigation.
Rather than fold, she fought back and wound up going to work for the premier whistleblowing advocacy group, the Government Accountability Project at whistleblower.org, founded in 1977.
After everything we have come to know about the torture apparatus overseas, and the subsequent arrival of that apparatus onto American shores embodied in the NDAA, Radack’s work is more important than ever.
She discusses in the video below her background and the intensified war on whistleblowers.
Thomas Drake, (NSA) – The world got an historical overview that shed quite a bit of light on the NSA through a former ABC News reporter, James Bamford, when he released two books The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, which lifted the veil and revealed a massive spying structure that far surpasses the capabilities of the CIA.
The apparatus Bamford revealed was comprised of programs like Echelon that were suspected of not only massive international spying and data collection, but also domestic operations.
Now those suspicions are being confirmed by high-level insiders such as Thomas Drake, who appeared in a Baltimore Sun article that highlighted a $1.2 billion program called “Trailblazer” which Drake submitted was a program of “fraud, waste, and abuse.”
He was subsequently charged under The Espionage Act and was facing 35 years in prison. Drake’s defense team actually hired James Bamford as an expert witness.
The case for 10 felony charges against Drake could not stand up, and he reached a misdemeanor plea deal.
Drake was the first to come forward under a new climate of aggressive formal indictment for whistleblowers that equates their truth-telling with real espionage such as selling state secrets.
William Binney (NSA) Former top NSA mathematician and code breaker, William Binney, has gone on record to publicly reveal the scope of a top-secret surveillance program that has directly targeted everyday Americans following 9/11.
He is sounding an alarm about the massive scope of this project that engages in 24/7 warrantless wiretapping of the American population.
Thomas Drake’s testimony was revealing, but Binney was a 32-year, top-level veteran of the NSA who reveals in the video below the domestic component of a program code named “Stellar Wind.”
With the NSA working to complete its $2 billion fortress of surveillance by September 2013, which can store 100 years worth of electronic information, Binney’s concerns that we are heading down the road to totalitarianism ring true.
Mark Klein (AT&T) A veteran of twenty-two years as an AT&T technician, Mark Klein left no doubt about the veracity of an NSA domestic spying program when he revealed how he found secret rooms at a switching center in San Francisco.
And he had the documents and blueprints to prove it:
Klein says he collected 120 pages of technical documents left around the San Francisco office showing how the NSA was installing ‘splitters’ that would allow it to copy both domestic and international Internet traffic moving through AT&T connections with 16 other trunk lines.
‘It’s gobs and gobs of information going across the Internet,’ Klein says.
President Bush has acknowledged he authorized the NSA to intercept the communications of people with known links to terrorist organizations ‘into or out of the United States,’ but that ‘we’re not trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.’
Intelligence experts say the NSA has the means to filter out suspect communications with sophisticated machines that spot key words, names, addresses or patterns.
Eventually, Klein says he decided to take his documents to the Los Angeles Times, to blow the whistle on what he calls ‘an illegal and Orwellian project.’ (Source)
Yet, the LA Times‘ editor Dean Baquet killed the story after speaking with Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and Director of the NSA Gen. Michael Hayden.
The story later appeared at the New York Times. Mark Klein recounts his version of events below and how he came to realize that he was “being forced to connect the Big Brother machine.”
It is worth noting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has spearheaded lawsuits to reveal just what is being done to the American people, but courts recently ruled that warrantless wiretapping can continue.
Sibel Edmonds (FBI / 9/11) In the wake of 9/11, Edmonds was enlisted as a translator in the FBI language division to interpret wiretaps conducted inside the United States, having been born in Turkey and speaking several key languages.
She describes the language division as “the highest security unit in the FBI.”
She has since become the most classified woman in history, and her efforts to uncover FBI criminality that included, “money laundering, narcotic activities, and nuclear black market converg(ing) with terrorist activities” led her to be pursued and persecuted to an incredible degree by the Justice Department under John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller invoking “state secrets.”
Her story is harrowing, to say the least; however, she sparked serious doubts among the general population regarding the 9/11 Commission Report – and she hasn’t stopped.
To get a glimpse of the energy and tenacity of Sibel Edmonds, see the video trailer below for the whistleblower documentary “Kill The Messenger” which can be viewed in 5 parts starting HERE.
More of her work can be found at Boiling Frogs. She also set up the National Security Whisleblower Coalition. And what is The American-Turkish council?
Susan Lindauer (CIA / 9/11) Susan was a former CIA asset who worked with the Libyan and Iraqi embassies prior to 9/11. Following that day, she began to reveal CIA complicity in Middle East heroin trafficking.
Lindauer also talked candidly about how Israel tried to buy U.S. Intelligence officers and Assets. For the first time on record, she revealed that a known Mossad agent tried to bribe her into handing over Iraq’s collection of banking records on Al Qaeda’s financial pipeline by phoning her home in Maryland while she was traveling in Baghdad, and promising to deliver a suitcase full of cash to any city in the world in exchange for the papers. (Source)
Susan subsequently became the second non-Arab citizen to be arrested under the Patriot Act, which culminated in a five-year indictment and near total prison lockdown for one year.
While in prison Susan was subjected to harsh conditions that would be considered torture in multiple countries. Contrary to what most Americans think, Susan and the other inmates in solitary confinement were only allowed outside once every TEN days and even then the actual amount of time outside was closer to thirty minutes. (Source)
In the video below she discusses her revelations about pre-9/11 warnings and all that followed, which eventually got published in her book Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover-ups of 9/11 and Iraq.
Col. Anthony Shaffer (Military) – Shaffer is an intelligence agent who claimed that there was deliberate stonewalling of information prior to 9/11 as part of what came to be known as Able Danger.
Beyond that, he revealed a culture of infighting between intelligence agencies that, even taken at face value, is concerning for the American taxpayer. Shaffer published his account inOperation Dark Heart.
The Department of Defense responded by purchasing the book’s first, uncensored, 10,000 copy print run (with U.S. taxpayer dollars, by the way). He might have had something important to say. The video below touches upon what that might have been.
Joe Banister (IRS) – In our article 10 Ways to Stop Being a Slave and Bring Down The Pyramids of Control, IRS resistance was presented last. Here are the questions we asked:
How can a machine be built without the funding to build it? The entire prison system we see around us has been built with our own money. Did you authorize it? Did you authorize the preemptive wars, bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, the high-tech surveillance grid that enslaves you?
Special agent, Joe Banister, exposed the mechanics of what the IRS is and how fundamentally illegal and unconstitutional their tax collection policies and methods are.
The system came down HARD on one of its own. His story is instrumental in understanding what happened to the next IRS whistleblower, Sherry Peel Jackson, who took exposure to a whole new level and was pursued ruthlessly for her revelations.
The income tax we have been told to believe is a patriotic obligation is itself a complete fraud. The current tax code is 72,000 pages. It is complicated for a reason.
If we can wake up to the foundations of this nightmare coercive system, we stand a great chance of restoring power into the hands of the people instead of a tiny few at the top of the pyramid.
Caution is warranted, however: the IRS is ready, willing and able to lock you up for a longer term than human trafficking and child porn. So, proceed with caution, but keep courage close at hand. You can see Joe Banister with Ron Paul, below.
Bradley Manning (Military) – Manning allegedly transmitted state secrets to WikiLeaks:
Manning was arrested at forward operating base Hammer outside Baghdad on 27 May 2010 on suspicion of being the source of the biggest leak of confidential state documents in US history. He faces 22 charges relating to the transferal of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, videos and war logs to the whistleblowing website.
Under the US military rule book, a soldier must be arraigned and his trial officially started within 120 days of him being put into captivity.
(…)
Should the trial kick off on 4 February next year, as it is currently scheduled to do, he will have been held for 983 days. (Source)
Bradley Manning’s case and treatment is at the heart of a new U.S. government mission that equates the revealing of truth as aiding an abetting the enemy, which should serve as an indictment upon the system which pursues truth-tellers like Manning so vehemently.
He only sought to expose the horrific “collateral damage” of the war in which he was enlisted, which has been properly retitled into “Collateral Murder.”
Due to his total lockdown, there is no video we can present of Bradley Manning speaking for himself, but the video he brought out to the public through WikiLeaks says it all:
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks – Assange is in a category all his own due to heading up the whistleblower repository of WikiLeaks.
It has been argued that Assange and WikiLeaks are controlled opposition, much the same as Anonymous; or is it just a global chess game?
Given the subsequent persecution of Assange that continues on without relent by the establishment, he seems to have more likely been a patsy who has served to demonize all manner of whistleblowing and intimidate anyone who would take center stage in an effort to bolster people such as those documented above.
Very well-respected alternative news voices such as Max Keiser and Paul Craig Roberts insist that Assange is legitimate and should be given the Nobel Peace Prize rather than warmongers and corporate financiers.
Despite whistleblowers’ explosive disclosures, the surveillance state has been normalized, as the House has voted to reauthorize the 2008 FISA Amendment Act. And, sadly, many whistleblowers who might have had even more to say have been assassinated by the system they were employed to serve.
That alone should serve as a warning to those who have chosen to enter such employment, knowing the level of evil they contract with. The control structure is massive, and growing, so we must listen to the voices who courageously come forth to issue their concerns, especially when those of good conscience are being persecuted as never before.
Mitt Romney's Auto Bailout Bonanza by Greg Palast.
How Romney made millions and his big donors made billions off the auto bail-out.
Based on Palast's Nation Magazine Cover story and adapted from his current New York Times bestseller: Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps. Greg Palast investigates Karl Rove, the Koch Gang, and Their Buck Buddies.
Rebel fighters fire from the rooftop of house against Syrian government forces in the Bab el-Adid district in Aleppo on 23 October 2012
A senior Russian general has said Syrian rebels now have anti-aircraft weapons, including US-made Stingers.
Gen Nikolai Makarov was quoted by the Interfax news service as saying the origin of the surface-to-air missiles should be "cleared up".
Russia is the biggest supplier of arms to its Syrian government ally.
Aerial bombardment of rebel-held towns continued on Wednesday, as the UN's Syria envoy prepared to brief the Security Council on ceasefire efforts.
Lakhdar Brahimi has been trying to arrange a ceasefire between rebels and government forces over the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Friday. Weapon supplies
"We have reliable information that Syrian militants have foreign portable anti-aircraft missile systems, including those made in the USA... it should be cleared up who delivered them," Gen Makarov told journalists in Russia.
There have been earlier unconfirmed reports of the Syrian opposition having shoulder-mounted missiles, but the West has been reluctant to openly arm the rebels.
In August, Syrian rebels said they had shot down a fighter jet near the border with Iraq.
Syrian warplanes have stepped up their bombardments of rebel-dominated areas in recent months, particularly in the north of the country. Deadly air raids are now daily events in towns around the city of Aleppo.
Recent footage has emerged of Syrian opposition fighters using old Soviet SA-7 heat-seeking missiles, which can destroy a plane flying at up to 14,000ft.
US-made Stinger missiles are shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft weapons designed to target low-flying planes and helicopters.
A US decision to supply them to the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Russians proved to be a turning point in the war.
The UN says that more than 18,000 people have died so far in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad's government, which began in March 2011, but activists and opposition groups put the figure closer to 30,000.
Bank of America is being sued for $1bn (£624m) for alleged mortgage fraud.
The civil lawsuit has been brought by the US Attorney Preet Bharara, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, New York.
He accuses Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America bought in 2008, of selling thousands of toxic home loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government agencies that support the US mortgage market.
Bank of America has yet to comment.
Countrywide is accused of running a trading scheme from 2007 to 2009 that was deliberately designed to process loans at high speed without checks on their quality.
Mr Bharara said: "This lawsuit should send another clear message that reckless lending practices will not be tolerated."
He added that Countrywide's practices were "spectacularly brazen in scope." Similar cases
The legal action against Bank of America follows similar moves by the US government earlier this month against Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase.
On 2 October, JP Morgan was sued for allegedly defrauding investors who lost more than $20bn on mortgage-backed securities sold by Bear Stearns.
JP Morgan, which bought the investment bank in March 2008, said the allegations related to actions at Bear Stearns prior to its takeover.
Meanwhile, on 10 October, Wells Fargo was also sued by federal authorities for alleged mortgage fraud.
The US government alleges that Wells Fargo lied about the quality of mortgages it handled, leading to huge losses for the Federal Housing Administration.
Title: Assessment and characterization of radionuclide concentrations from the Fukushima Reactor release in the plankton and nekton communities of the Northern California Current
Delvan Neville (Oregon St. Univ.), Richard D. Brodeur (NOAA), A. Jason Phillips (OSU) and Kathryn Higley (OSU)
Fisheries researcher Jason Phillips bleeds a just-caught albacore tuna
into a collection bag. The blood, along with all of the animal's
skeletal, organ and muscle tissue, will be tested for traces of
radiation. Photo by Cisco Werner, Southwest Fisheries Science Center.
The incident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant released a substantial radioactive contamination into the environment. With the predominant wind and current flow in this part of the North Pacific, these radionuclides will gradually spread to the US West Coast waters after a suitable period of time, with the possibility of affecting food quality throughout the food web (including humans). In addition to the passive transport by currents and winds, the migratory pathways of large pelagic fish extend from Japan to the Northern California Current. These organisms can serve as transport vectors for these nuclides, especially given their capacity to concentrate radionuclides from surrounding waters and prey. [...] By predicting the radio-biologic stress (if any) for a managed species as more Fukushima-related radionuclides are uptaken, appropriate action may be taken before significant population effects have occurred. Determination of natural background concentrations and high quality transport models produced from these data also aid in management in the event of a future accidental release, and in regulating safe activity releases.
Oregon State University Press Release, Oct. 24, 2012:
[...] Phillips spent this summer collecting more fish at sea, off Oregon and Washington, as well as from scientists, fishermen and other sources along the West Coast. [...] As more fish were tested, the results were consistent with the initial findings: No Cs-134 in fish caught before the disaster, but traces of the isotope in a significant number of fish caught since. “This is what we’ve seen after testing about 70 pounds of tuna,” Neville said. [...]
No mention of the actual cesium levels detected in the tuna, only that it’s safe to eat.
(Reuters) - The situation at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant has been stabilized but is still precarious, more than a year and a half after disaster struck, a senior Japanese regulatory official said on Wednesday.
In the world's worst nuclear accident in a quarter of a century, reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima facility after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami sent radiation spewing over large areas, forcing more than 160,0000 people to flee.
"Overall, the conditions there have been maintained rather in a stable condition ... but there is no denying that the whole situation remains precarious of course," said Kenzo Oshima, a commissioner at Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA).
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), has taken extra safeguards and reinforcement measures concerning the spent fuel pool of Fukushima's No. 4 reactor in order for it to withstand any new earthquake, Oshima said.
"A lot of precaution, a lot of care, a lot of attention is still very much needed," he told reporters after meeting U.N. nuclear agency chief Yukiya Amano in Vienna.
In April, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said after visiting the site that Japan, with assistance from the U.S. government, needed to do more to move spent fuel rods out of harm's way.
The NRA started operations in September, replacing two regulators that had been widely criticized for being too close to the industry they were supposed to monitor.
When a Reuters journalist went to the plant this month, workers were seen putting together water filtration systems and shifting equipment near the reactors, two of which remain capped by twisted steel and damaged concrete.
NRA head Shuichi Tanaka last week said it would impose tighter safety standards for nuclear plants. Japan's 50 reactors were shut after the disaster.
Oshima said the NRA would soon conduct an in-depth risk assessment regarding the Ohi nuclear facility, where two reactors were restarted this year despite warnings by some geologists of dangerous fault lines running beneath the plant.
Asked whether the plant could be shut as a result, he said: "It depends upon the findings, of course."
The regulator will abide by a government rule of a 40-year lifetime for reactors, even though it can be extended under certain circumstances by up to two decades, Oshima said.
"But basically I think the government has indicated its intention to have this rule applied as strictly as possible," he added.
(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Jane Baird)
The presidential election here at home is neck and neck. The Real Clear Politics average of the popular vote puts Gov. Mitt Romney 0.6 percent ahead of President Obama.
But if the world had its say, this election would be a blowout favoring the incumbent.
That's according to a BBC World Service poll taken in 21 countries. It found for the most part, foreign countries preferred Obama. The only exception was Pakistan where more people said they preferred Romney.
Wildlife officials say a disease spread by biting flies has killed about 130 white-tailed deer in the state. Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife officials reported that the outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease started about 6 weeks ago.
Officials say some 74 dead deer were found in Redden State Forest. Hunters and farmers are asked to report any dead deer to the Division of Fish and Wildlife.
Biohazard name: Epizootic hemorrhagic disease, cervids Biohazard level: 2/4 Medium Biohazard desc.: Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. "Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures", see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
