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Revealing News For a Better World

News Articles
Excerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of little-known, yet highly revealing news articles from the media. Links are provided to the full news articles for verification. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These articles are listed by order of importance. You can also explore these articles listed by order of the date of the news article or by the date posted. By choosing to educate ourselves, we can build a brighter future.

Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


MSV Explorer amphibious vehicle promises perpetual motion
2012-12-14, MSN
http://cars.uk.msn.com/news/in-pictures-msv-explorer-amphibious-vehicle-promi...

As if the images of this MSV Explorer prototype amphibious vehicle weren’t arresting enough, Cornish inventor Chris Garner claims to have solved the centuries-old conundrum of perpetual motion – which could lead to electric cars that never have to be recharged. Garner ... is utterly convinced that what he’s come up with will work, saying he’s spent “35,000 hours of science” on the project so far. It’s called the “hyper performance gyro generator”, and he doesn’t just want us to take his word for it – instead he’s having it tested ... at the University of Plymouth next week. Garner prefers to call it “self-sustaining energy”. He explained that the “gyro gen” functions on the principle that it can go from 1rpm to 6,000rpm with very little in the way of friction or drag. Once spinning it won’t stop until it wears out. If the resulting ampage ... is higher than that required to power an electric motor then you’ve got free fuel for travel. In the example currently under development, the gyro gen produces 1,600 amps, far more than the 400 amps required to drive a pair of motors. The remaining electrical energy could then be used to power ancilliaries, such as air conditioning, lights and so forth. Whether it all works in reality remains to be seen – we’ll have a better idea after the tests next week – but it could mean a future free from electric vehicle range anxiety for all of us.

Note: To get the full story on this, click on the MSN link above and then click through the 14 slides of the vehicle there. For lots more great information on this exciting new technology, click here.


Yamanaka invented cell time machine
2012-10-16, San Francisco Chronicle (SF's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Yamanaka-invented-cell-time-machine-3954...

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka invented a time machine. That's how he and his colleagues sometimes describe their work. They take full-grown cells from humans and they regress them - they send them back in time, to their earliest, embryonic state - and then they coax them into the future, into totally new types of cells. Last week, Yamanaka was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work creating induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells - cells that are genetically engineered into blank slates, allowing them to be transformed into any type of cell in the body. His technique could allow scientists to explore human diseases like they never have before, or help doctors regenerate tissue lost to injury or illness. Using his technology, scientists can now take a skin cell and transform it into a heart cell that will actually beat in a lab dish. Yamanaka's IPS cells, developed just six years ago, have the potential to revolutionize medical research, his peers say. Labs that never were able to access stem cells before can now make them, and the cells themselves could be used to treat patients someday. They are already helping scientists study complex human diseases like Alzheimer's and autism. "Everything was turned upside down with Shinya Yamanaka's work," said Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, director of stem cell research at UCSF. "It really has transformed the field. It made it possible for laboratories all over the world, with very little investment, to start making stem cells."

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on genetic engineering, click here.


Iraq records huge rise in birth defects
2012-10-14, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/iraq-...

It played unwilling host to one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war. Fallujah's homes and businesses were left shattered; hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed. Its residents changed the name of their "City of Mosques" to "the polluted city" after the United States launched two massive military campaigns eight years ago. A new study reports a "staggering rise" in birth defects among Iraqi children conceived in the aftermath of the war. High rates of miscarriage, toxic levels of lead and mercury contamination and spiralling numbers of birth defects ranging from congenital heart defects to brain dysfunctions and malformed limbs have been recorded. Even more disturbingly, they appear to be occurring at an increasing rate in children born in Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad. There is "compelling evidence" to link the increased numbers of defects and miscarriages to military assaults, says Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the lead authors of the report and an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. Similar defects have been found among children born in Basra after British troops invaded, according to the new research. American forces later admitted that they had used white phosphorus shells, although they never admitted to using depleted uranium, which has been linked to high rates of cancer and birth defects. The new findings, published in the Environmental Contamination and Toxicology bulletin, will bolster claims that US and Nato munitions used in the conflict led to a widespread health crisis in Iraq.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on US and UK atrocities committed in their wars of aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, click here.


Bridging the Clothing Divide
2012-10-13, New York Times
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/clothing-the-poorest-for-surv...

One of the most glaring oversights in the field of development is the lack of attention to clothing. Countless organizations work on food, energy, education, health care, economic opportunity — but beyond disaster relief efforts, you hear little about the need for clothes. In India, this makes no sense. In 1998, the Guptas started an organization, Goonj (meaning “echo”), to redistribute (clothing) where it was most needed. They wanted to find a way to address the problem systematically — to craft a permanent, rather than an episodic response, to what they considered a non-natural, perpetual disaster. Goonj has found a way to assist villagers that moves beyond the stigma of charity. The model is grounded in the Indian concepts ... advocated by Gandhi and his disciple Vinoba Bhave. “The whole chain is full of respectful links. Not many supply chains are full of respect.” Today, Goonj operates collection centers in nine Indian cities and provides about two million pounds of materials, mostly clothes, but also utensils, school supplies, footwear, toys and many other items. It will assist about a half a million people in 21 states this year. Goonj also takes pains to see that its materials actually reach the intended recipients. They carefully vet N.G.O. partners and do follow-up visits. If that is impossible, they require that photographs be taken to show the distribution of goods. Gupta said. “It’s a tough game to deal with local police and government officials and tax officers. But we have a zero bribe policy.”

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


TV ad against food labeling initiative Proposition 37 is pulled
2012-10-04, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-anti-proposition-37-ad-pulled-...

A television spot opposing Proposition 37, the genetically engineered food labeling initiative, was pulled briefly this week to better identify a think-tank researcher attacking the ballot issue. The controversy came as the opponents of the ballot measure, with $35 million in contributions from the food industry and biochemical firms, expanded a week-old television advertising blitz. [The] No on 37 spot ... featured an academic, identified on screen as “Dr. Henry I. Miller M.D., Stanford University, founding dir. FDA Office of Technology.” He is standing in an ornately vaulted campus walkway. Lawyers for the Proposition 37 campaign complained to Stanford’s general counsel, noting that the Stanford ID on the screen appeared to violate the university’s policy against use of the Stanford name by consultants. What’s more, Miller is not a Stanford professor but, rather, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank housed on the Stanford campus, the letter said. Stanford agreed. The university, spokeswoman Lisa Lapin said, “doesn’t take any positions on candidates or ballot measures, and we do not allow political filming on campus.” The filmmakers also are removing “the campus from the background of the video," she said. Stanford’s request to edit the Miller video "is proof positive of the lack of credibility and lack of integrity of the No on 37 campaign,” said Yes on 37 spokeswoman Stacy Malkan.

Note: This Henry Miller is the same scientist who, according to Forbes, stated that some people could benefit from the low levels of radiation released by the Fukushima meltdowns, and has argued strongly for the reintroduction of DDT. Do you think he might be a little biased towards big business? For lots more questionable behavior by this supposed expert, click here.


Jimmy Savile case: when will we start listening to children who are abused?
2012-10-01, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/jimmy-savile-abused-child...

Jimmy Savile, the television presenter and media personality, knighted for his charity work for sick and disabled children is to be exposed as a prolific sexual abuser of girls as young as 12 in a documentary this week. This news will not come as a shock to many, as the rumours about Savile have been in the public domain for decades. That's the truly shocking part of this story – so many people either knew or suspected the fact that Savile was assaulting underage girls but chose to do nothing whatsoever about it. A number of Savile's former colleagues interviewed for the documentary admitted that his predatory behaviour towards young girls was an open secret at the BBC. Wilfred De'Ath, who worked with Savile in the 1960s, ... admitted that it was "common gossip" that Savile was an abuser. Still, it appears that neither he nor any other colleagues reported him either to the BBC bosses or police. In 2007, Surrey police received a complaint from a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by Savile at an approved school that Savile regularly visited in the 1970s, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to take it forward. Esther Rantzen hits the nail on the head in an interview about the revelations when she says, "in some way we colluded with him as a child abuser" and that, "We made him into the Jimmy Savile who was untouchable, who nobody could criticise." But it is not only celebrities who are protected from justice. Throughout society, there is a culture of denial, minimisation and disbelief around child sexual abuse..

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.


UC to pay nearly $1 million in UC Davis pepper-spray settlement
2012-09-26, Chicago Tribune/Los Angeles Times
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-la-uc-to-pay-nearly-1-mill...

The University of California will pay damages of $30,000 to each of the 21 UC Davis students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during an otherwise peaceful protest 10 months ago, the university system announced. The agreement ... also calls for UC to pay a total of $250,000 to the plaintiffs' attorneys and set aside a maximum of $100,000 to pay up to $20,000 to any other individuals who join the class-action lawsuit by proving they were either arrested or directly pepper-sprayed, a university statement said. A video released online, showing an officer spraying seated students directly in their faces at close range during an Occupy rally, had triggered outrage. And UC's own investigations and a shake-up at the UC Davis police force put the university in a weak position to argue against the students' lawsuit. The settlement also calls for UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to write a formal apology to each of the students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed or arrested. In April, a UC task force headed by former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso found that UC Davis police had violated policy and that campus administrators mishandled the November 2011 campus protest. In May, a separate draft report about campus responses to civil disobedience across UC urged administrators to use mediation instead of confrontation in most cases, although it said pepper spray might remain a necessary tool of last resort. A final version was released this month with no major policy changes.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on civil liberties, click here.


White House staff involved in Colombia Secret Service scandal?
2012-09-20, Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/20/white-house-staff-involved-in-colom...

Rumors are flying in Washington. Were White House staff involved with prostitutes in Colombia? Fox News' Jana Winter reported that a high-ranking Secret Service agent told Fox “we knew very early on that White House staff were involved.” The Pentagon’s report, "AR 15-6 Investigation into Military Misconduct at the 2012 Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia," is very telling. Paragraph B(3) reports that 12 US military members brought prostitutes to their hotel room but paragraph 8, page 2 notes only 11 of the women were verified to be over 18 years old. What happened to the other woman? Was she, in fact, a child and the Pentagon is covering this up as they have covered up the wide-spread use of child porn by senior Pentagon staff, some with top level security clearances, on Pentagon computers? The sub-heading “White House Communications Agency Personal” in the Pentagon’s AR 15-6 report is entirely redacted. Is it possible that the “prostitutes” involved were trafficked children used by White House staff and not Secret Service agents? Has the Secret Service been forced to take the blame and cover up possible child sex abuse by the White House? It is doubtful that DHS’s Inspector General will provide a full report of what really happened in Colombia since President Obama’s administration has gone after whistleblowers and disabled the Inspector General’s as never before seen.

Note: For a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary providing powerful evidence of a child abuse ring that goes to the highest level in government, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional sexual abuse, click here.


Modern wheat a "perfect, chronic poison," doctor says
2012-09-03, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505269_162-57505149/modern-wheat-a-perfect-chroni...

Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book, [Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health] all about the world's most popular grain. Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said. "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year." Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat - and dropping substantial weight. "We're seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day." To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating "real food," such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. "(It's) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness," he said. "Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat."

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on health issues, click here.


Jessica Cox pilots her own course
2012-08-23, San Francisco Chronicle (SF's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jessica-Cox-pilots-her-own-course-3811709.php

She can put on contact lenses, drive a car and sign her name - all with her feet - but Jessica Cox's biggest accomplishment may be up in the air. The 29-year-old Arizona native and Tucson resident was born without arms as a result of a rare birth defect, yet she got her pilot's license in 2008 and made the 2011 Guinness World Records for being the world's first licensed armless pilot. "It was tough being different growing up. For me it was a challenge to go to public school and always be stared at," Cox said. "I had a choice to embrace that part of my life or avoid it." So she chose to not hide behind long-sleeve sweaters and instead took up surfing, scuba diving and tae kwon do (she is a black belt), and conquered her biggest fear - flying. Like other tasks, she pilots with her feet. Cox is the subject of a documentary being filmed about her life and accomplishments, titled "Rightfooted." A trailer for the film can be seen at rightfooted.com/movie. In the trailer, Cox is seen as a girl with prosthetic arms as she explains that she was called "hook" and "robot girl" growing up. She is later seen wearing her favorite flying shirt, which reads, "Look Ma, no hands!" "I remember that as a child I always wanted to fly like Superwoman over my playground because I was so angry about how limited I was," she says during the trailer. "With the documentary, I will be able to reach millions of people to say it's OK to be different," Cox said in an interview.

Note: For deeply inspiring reports from major media sources, click here.


WikiLeaks and Free Speech
2012-08-21, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/wikileaks-and-the-global-future-of-...

[In its] decision to grant diplomatic asylum to [WikiLeaks'] founder, Julian Assange, ... Ecuador has acted in accordance with important principles of international human rights. Indeed, nothing could demonstrate the appropriateness of Ecuador's action more than the British government's threat to violate a sacrosanct principle of diplomatic relations and invade the embassy to arrest Mr. Assange. Predictably, the response from those who would prefer that Americans remain in the dark has been ferocious. Top elected leaders from both parties have called Mr. Assange a "high-tech terrorist." And Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has demanded that he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Most Americans, Britons and Swedes are unaware that Sweden has not formally charged Mr. Assange with any crime. Rather, it has issued a warrant for his arrest to question him about allegations of sexual assault in 2010. If Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will reverberate for years around the world. Mr. Assange is not an American citizen, and none of his actions have taken place on American soil. If the United States can prosecute a journalist in these circumstances, the governments of Russia or China could, by the same logic, demand that foreign reporters anywhere on earth be extradited for violating their laws.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on government secrecy, click here.


Witchcraft-based child abuse: Action plan launched
2012-08-14, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19248144

The [UK] government has launched an action plan to tackle child abuse linked to witchcraft or religion in England. High-profile cases include the murders of Kristy Bamu and Victoria Climbie but experts fear much more abuse is hidden. The key aims are to raise awareness and set out "urgent practical steps to identify and protect children at risk". Children's Minister Tim Loughton said: "Abuse linked to faith or belief in spirits, witchcraft or possession is a horrific crime, condemned by people of all cultures, communities and faiths - but there has been a 'wall of silence' around its scale and extent. There can never be a blind eye turned to violence or emotional abuse or even the smallest risk that religious beliefs will lead to young people being harmed." The government says that cases of adults inflicting physical violence or emotional harm on children they regard as witches or possessed by evil spirits occur across the world, often in sub-sects of major religions, such as Christianity. Scotland Yard says it has conducted 83 investigations into cases of faith-based child abuse in the past decade. The government admits more research is needed before it can act effectively to protect children - the last study was in 2006 and looked at 38 cases involving 47 children from Africa, South Asia and Europe, all of whom had been abused in the name of possession or witchcraft.

Note: To learn more about cult child abuse which may be much more rampant than most would suspect, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse of children, click here.


USDA: Number of Farmers Markets up Due to Demand
2012-08-03, ABC News/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ap-newsbreak-number-us-farmers-markets-sur...

As demand for locally grown fruits and vegetables has increased, so too has the number of urban farmers markets sprouting up across the nation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced ... that the number of direct-sales markets has increased 9.6 percent in the past year, with California and New York leading the way. After 18 years of steady increases, the number of farmers markets across the country now registered with the USDA is 7,864. In 1994, there were 1,744. Organizations such as Slow Food, founded in 1989 to counter fast-food, junk-food lifestyles, first ignited consumer demand for fresh, local produce. Some markets are so popular that there are wait lists for farmers to sell there, including one of the largest and most diverse of all, the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Farmers from across the region travel there three days a week to sell fruits, vegetables and artisan breads and cheeses to thousands of shoppers, including top chefs from the food-centric city. Operated by the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, the iconic market on the San Francisco Bay is celebrating its 20th birthday. "When we started there were only three markets in the city, and now there are 29," said Liz Hunt, a center spokeswoman.

Note: For deeply inspiring reports from major media sources, click here.


Sean FitzPatrick is third ex-Anglo Irish Bank executive to be arrested in 24 hours
2012-07-24, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18965510

The former head of Anglo Irish Bank, Sean FitzPatrick, has been arrested by Irish police in connection with alleged financial irregularities at the bank. He is the third former senior executive from Anglo Irish Bank to appear in court within the past 24 hours. All three men face 16 charges in relation to an alleged failed attempt to prop up Anglo's share price after a stock market collapse. Anglo was nationalised at a cost of about 30bn euros (Ł23.4bn) to Irish taxpayers. Anglo was badly exposed by the bursting of the Irish property bubble and suffered the largest corporate loss in the history of the Republic of Ireland. It is the third time Mr FitzPatrick has been arrested as part of the three-and-a-half year long investigation into the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank. Willie McAteer - the second in command at the bank before his resignation in January 2009 - appeared in court alongside Pat Whelan, a former head of lending and operations at the bank. The former bank is being wound down and is currently being run by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited (IBRC).

Note: For deeply revealing and reliable major media reports on corruption and criminality in the operations and regulation of the financial sector, click here.


California parks department finds $54-million surplus
2012-07-20, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-state-parks-20120721,0,2383546,full.s...

California's parks system stashed away nearly $54 million even as it was cutting services and threatening to close parks, a revelation that prompted the resignation of the department's director. The hoarded cash remained untapped while the California Department of Parks and Recreation painted a dire picture of the system's health, soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in what was thought to be a desperate scramble to keep facilities open. The state attorney general's office has launched an investigation into the hidden surplus, which officials believe the department concealed from state bookkeepers, the governor and the Legislature for at least a dozen years, dating to the tenure of Gray Davis. State auditors found the extra money in two funds, one intended to finance the purchase and upkeep of properties for off-road vehicle recreation, the other for general park maintenance and restoration. The money came from user fees, rentals and fines. The state planned to close 70 parks this month to save $22 million, less than half the amount of the department's hidden surplus. Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation, called Friday's news "truly disturbing and appalling. People inside the department have not been honest about the resources that have been available to them." The surplus "doesn't prevent the crisis that is currently underway; it may help minimize it," Goldstein said. "This money will not solve the overall parks crisis that has been building for decades."

Note: To learn how governments secretly stash large amounts of cash which very few know about, read the CAFR webpage at this link. For lots more from reliable major media sources on government corruption, click here.


Auditors say billions likely wasted in Iraq work
2012-07-13, MSNBC/Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48177878

After years of following the paper trail of $51 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars provided to rebuild a broken Iraq, the U.S. government can say with certainty that too much was wasted. But it can't say how much. In what it called its final audit report, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds ... spelled out a range of accounting weaknesses that put "billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk of waste and misappropriation" in the largest reconstruction project of its kind in U.S. history. "The precise amount lost to fraud and waste can never be known," the report said. The office has spent more than $200 million tracking the reconstruction funds, and in addition to producing numerous reports, his office has investigated criminal fraud that has resulted in 87 indictments, 71 convictions and $176 million in fines and other penalties. These include civilians and military members accused of kickbacks, bribery, bid-rigging, fraud, embezzlement and outright theft of government property and funds. Of the $51 billion that Congress approved for Iraq reconstruction, about $20 billion was for rebuilding Iraqi security forces and about $20 billion was for rebuilding the country's basic infrastructure.

Note: For lots more from reliable major media sources on government corruption, click here.


Has ‘Organic’ Been Oversized?
2012-07-08, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/business/organic-food-purists-worry-about-b...

Organic food has become a wildly lucrative business for Big Food and a premium-price-means-premium-profit section of the grocery store. The industry’s image — contented cows grazing on the green hills of family-owned farms — is mostly pure fantasy. Or rather, pure marketing. Big Food, it turns out, has spawned what might be called Big Organic. Bear Naked, Wholesome & Hearty, Kashi: All three and more actually belong to the cereals giant Kellogg. Naked Juice? That would be PepsiCo, of Pepsi and Fritos fame. And behind the pastoral-sounding Walnut Acres, Healthy Valley and Spectrum Organics is none other than Hain Celestial, once affiliated with Heinz, the grand old name in ketchup. Over the past decade, since federal organic standards have come to the fore, giant agri-food corporations like these and others — Coca-Cola, Cargill, ConAgra, General Mills, Kraft and M&M Mars among them — have gobbled up most of the nation’s organic food industry. Pure, locally produced ingredients from small family farms? Not so much anymore. Many consumers may not realize the extent to which giant corporations have come to dominate organic food. Then again, giant corporations don’t exactly trumpet their role in the industry. Their financial motivation, however, is obvious. Between the time the Agriculture Department came up with its proposed regulations for the organic industry in 1997 and the time those rules became law in 2002, myriad small, independent organic companies — from Honest Tea to Cascadian Farm — were snapped up by corporate titans. Heinz and Hain together bought 19 organic brands.


Natural, organic items grab bigger share in supermarkets
2012-07-07, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2012-07-07/natural-organi...

In recent years, the grocery industry has seen sales of natural and organic food double in supermarkets such as Kroger ..., one of the largest mainstream grocers in the nation. "Used to be this was all very faddish," said Gregg Proctor, who heads up natural foods for Kroger's central division, which includes Indiana. "Not anymore. We're adding new items constantly because if we don't get it when it comes out, our competition will." There seems to be a race to pure foods among the nation's largest supermarkets as they ramp up their offerings, even launch their own brands of organics and naturals, and then heavily advertise the healthy choice. It all makes sense, considering sales of this segment of groceries are outpacing traditional grocery sales. Nationwide, natural and organic food sales grew 8 percent in 2010 versus the less than 1 percent growth in the $630 billion total U.S. food market, according to the Nutrition Business Journal. It grew at about a 5 percent rate each year from 2005 to 2009. With that growth and popularity comes a definite consumer advantage: Slowly but surely, the price of natural foods is falling. Inside more than 1,300 of Kroger's 2,500 stores are Nature's Markets, a store within the store that is devoted solely to natural foods. Natural foods are not regulated, which leaves the meaning of that term largely up to the grocers that sell them.


German spy chief quits in neo-Nazi files scandal
2012-07-02, MSNBC/Reuters
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48041852#.T_hrRpH4KNU

The head of Germany's domestic intelligence service resigned on [July 2] after admitting that his agency had shredded files on a neo-Nazi cell whose killing spree targeting immigrants rocked the country late last year. Heinz Fromm's resignation is the latest in a series of embarrassing setbacks for Germany's security services over their handling of the "National Socialist Underground" (NSU), which went undetected for more than a decade despite its murder of 10 people, mostly ethnic Turkish immigrants. German lawmakers said there was no suggestion that Fromm had ordered the destruction of the files but that he was taking responsibility for others' failures. German media have said an official working in the intelligence agency is suspected of having destroyed files on an operation to recruit far-right informants just one day after the involvement of the NSU in the murders became public. Fromm told the Spiegel weekly that the shredding of files in the case had done "grave damage to the reputation" of his agency, known in Germany as the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Germans, burdened by their Nazi past, were mortified by last year's news that three neo-Nazis had been behind the killings of eight ethnic Turks, an ethnic Greek and a police officer in a period running from 2000 to 2007. The NSU cell's culpability only came to light after two of the neo-Nazis committed suicide following a botched bank robbery last autumn.

Note: For insightful reports from reliable major media articles on the dark operations of intelligence agencies, click here.


Drones, computers new weapons of US shadow wars
2012-06-16, MSNBC/Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47842756/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/dro...

Drone aircraft spy on and attack terrorists with no pilot in harm's way. Small teams of special operations troops quietly train and advise foreign forces. Viruses sent from computers to foreign networks strike silently, with no American fingerprint. It's war in the shadows, with the U.S. public largely in the dark. The high-tech warfare allows Obama to target what the administration sees as the greatest threats to U.S. security, without the cost and liabilities of sending a swarm of ground troops to capture territory; some of them almost certainly would come home maimed or dead. But it also raises questions about accountability and the implications for international norms regarding the use of force outside of traditional armed conflict. "Congressional oversight of these operations appears to be cursory and insufficient," said Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy issues for the Federation of American Scientists, a private group. "It is Congress' responsibility to declare war under the Constitution, but instead it appears to have adopted a largely passive role while the executive takes the initiative in war fighting," Aftergood said in an interview. That's partly because lawmakers relinquished their authority by passing a law just after the Sept. 11 [attacks]. In this shroud of secrecy, leaks to the news media of classified details about certain covert operations have led to charges that the White House orchestrated the revelations to bolster Obama's national security credentials and thereby improve his re-election chances.

Note: For deeper analysis of the threats posed to American citizens by military and police drones in the skies, click here. For information on a federal recent law compelling the Federal Aviation Administration to allow drones to fly in US skies, click here. For more information on the use of drones by police in the US, click here. For lots more from reliable sources on surveillance in the US, click here.


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