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Iran equips navy with new hovercrafts


Fars News Agency
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 17:41 UTC
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© Majid Jamshidi/Fars News AgencyThe hovercrafts BH7 which had been overhauled by local experts joined the Navy's fleets in Iran's Southern waters.
Iran equipped its Navy fleets with two new hovercrafts Wednesday morning, one of which enjoys missile launching capabilities.

In a ceremony attended by Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari in Iran's Southern port city of Bandar Abbas, hovercrafts BH7 which had been overhauled by local experts and SRNX whose Iranian name is Tondar (Thunderbolt) and has been manufactured through indigenized technology joined the Navy's fleets in Iran's Southern waters.

Iran unveiled the highly advanced home-made Tondar which can launch missiles and serve as a launch pad for drones in a ceremony earlier this month.

Addressing a ceremony to unveil the hovercraft at the time, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said that the hovercraft has been designed and developed by Iranian experts in two models for combat and transportation missions, and that the combat model is called 'Tondar'.

Vahidi further announced that Tondar can be equipped with different types of weapons produced by the Iranian defense industries, including rockets, guns and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

The minister said that Tondar can be used for "coastal patrolling, as a command vessel, offensive reconnaissance operations, mid-range amphibious missions, asymmetric defense, as a personnel and equipment carrier for logistical support for islands and coastal areas or as a sea ambulance for relief and rescue missions".

He further added that the new hovercraft will increase the combat and reconnaissance capabilities as well as the mobility of the Iranian Armed Forces.
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Whistle

Organic farmers slam GMO-friendly USDA report


Common Dreams
Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:34 UTC
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© MillionsAgainstMonsanto"The AC21 report takes responsibility for GE contamination prevention out of the hands of USDA and the biotech industry where it belongs and puts it squarely on the backs of organic and non-GE farmers,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director at Center for Food Safety and a NOC member.
Report leaves burden of GMO contamination with 'victim;' 'fails to address the root cause of the problem - transgenic contamination,' say groups

Organic farmers and allies have slammed a USDA committee report for kowtowing to the interests of genetically modified crop growers and the biotechnology industry.

The goal of the USDA-appointed committee, the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21), was to address contamination by genetically modified (also known as genetically engineered, or GE) crops to organic and non-GE crops, and to look at compensation mechanisms for that contamination.

Reuters reports that "a majority of AC21 members did not agree on any type of compensation mechanism" for the non-GE growers in their report, leaving the responsibility with "the victim," not the perpetrator of the contamination.

The National Organic Coalition (NOC), an alliance of organizations involved in organic agriculture, condemned the report for "abdicat[ing] responsibility for preventing GE contamination, while making the victim of GE pollution pay for damages resulting from transgenic contamination."
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Arrow Down

European Union rejects study linking genetically modified corn to cancer


Agence France-Presse
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:33 UTC
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© Raw Story
The EU's food safety agency definitively rejected Wednesday a bombshell French report linking genetically modified corn to cancer, saying it failed to meet "acceptable scientific standards."

"Serious defects in the design and methodology of a paper by Seralini et al. mean it does not meet acceptable scientific standards," the European Food Safety Authority said in a statement.

"Consequently it is not possible to draw valid conclusions about the occurrence of tumours in the rats tested," the agency said.

EFSA, which reviews the use and authorisation of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), added that it "finds there is no need to re-examine its previous safety evaluations of NK603," the genetically modified maize developed by US agribusiness giant Monsanto.

Comment: Scientist: Many pro-GMO corporate biologists own GMO patents, in bed with Monsanto
Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini, a French scientists who has been under assault from Monsanto and pro-GMO scientists, was responsible for perhaps the largest awakening over the dangers of Monsanto's GMO foods that we have ever seen. Not only did the public begin to further recognize the existence and threat of GMOs thanks to his research, but numerous countries like Russia and others actually enacted a suspension on the import of genetically modified maize due to public health concerns.

Previous Peer-Reviewed Evidence Highlighting GMO Danger Ignored by 'Scientists'

It's important to remember that Séralini's work may be the most popular within the media, but it's not the only research linking GMOs and Roundup to serious health effects. Monsanto and fellow goons failed to mention this truth, especially the fact that Monsanto's Roundup has been associated with over 29 negative health conditions according to peer-reviewed studies available on PubMed. And these conditions are nothing minor. Health effects linked to Roundup include:
  • Cancer
  • Parkinson's
  • DNA damage
  • Low testosterone
  • Liver damage
  • Infertility
  • Endocrine disease
These are serious disorders that result from the very Roundup that is used on crops by farmers worldwide before hitting your dinner table. In fact an increased amount of usage is now needed thanks to ineffective GMO crops that are now being eaten by mutated superbugs that have developed a resistance to Monsanto's built-in GMO pesticides. Roundup covered crops that eventually land on dinner tables worldwide.


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Eye 2

Walmart's annual Hunger Games

Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks
TruthOut
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 10:34 UTC
walmart black friday2
© George Artwood / flickrBlack Friday at Walmart, November 24, 2011.
Every year after Thanksgiving, the nation's wealthy elite, still fat-bellied from turkey and cornbread stuffing, tune in to their local news outlets and observe what has become an annual tradition of bloodletting and frenzied consumerism.

We call it "Black Friday." But to those like the Walmart heirs who together own more wealth than the bottom 40% of the nation combined, it might as well be called their very own "Hunger Games."

It's their stores, after all, that play host to this one-day battle - waged by poor and working class people - to get discounted appliances, clothes, and toys for their kids.

Like Suzanne Collins' dystopic future portrayed in The Hunger Games, in which impoverished teenagers battle each other to the death once a year for the amusement of Panem's wealth elite, Black Friday "Battle Royales" often end in death as well. In just the last few years, we've seen shoppers and retail workers shot to death, trampled to death, pepper-sprayed, bitten, punched, and kicked, all in their pursuit for Black Friday shopping deals.

This year was no different. Two people were shot outside a Walmart in Tallahassee, Florida. Another two people were run down by a car in a Walmart parking lot in Covington, Washington. And at a Sears store in San Antonio, Texas, one man punched his way to the front of the line only to have a gun pulled on him by another man.

Every year around this time the phrase, "clean up on aisle five," takes on a much more disturbing meaning.

All while the wealthy elite look down on the spectacle before them with amusement and the knowledge that the entire spectacle is fattening their bank accounts.
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Eye 2

Dead British MP Cyril Smith raped boys, Manchester police confirm

Vikram Dodd and Rajeev Syal
The Guardian
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:22 UTC
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Disgusting
Police find 'overwhelming evidence' former Rochdale MP attacked vulnerable boys and CPS criticises 1970s decision not to prosecute

Police have acknowledged that the late MP Sir Cyril Smith repeatedly physically and sexually abused children at a Rochdale care home but escaped answering the allegations after prosecutors declined to put him on trial.

Smith, the Liberal and subsequently Liberal Democrat MP for the town, who died in 2010, was the subject of police investigations dating back to the 1960s.

In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said there was "overwhelming evidence" that he attacked boys, six at the Cambridge House children's home in Rochdale, and two others.

Smith was secretary of the Rochdale Hostel for Boys Association, where he was accused of abusing vulnerable youngsters by spanking and touching them.
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War Whore

Psychopathic warmonger Tzipi Livni announces return to Israeli politics


The Guardian
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:17 UTC
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Former foreign minister attacks Binyamin Netanyahu and unveils new party to 'fight for peace'

The former Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, has announced her return to politics, telling supporters she is forming a new party to run in January's parliamentary elections on a platform promising an aggressive push for peace with the Palestinians.

Livni, who served as Israel's foreign minister and chief peace negotiator from 2006-09, bitterly attacked the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, as she announced the formation of her new party, called the Movement.

"I came to fight for peace ... and I won't allow anyone to turn peace into a bad word," she said.

Her announcement brought a new, high-profile voice to the campaign to oust Netanyahu's hardline government. But with his Likud party leading in opinion polls and the dovish opposition divided between several parties, her candidacy did not immediately appear to pose a threat to the prime minister.
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House

Revealed: The real identities behind Britain's secret property deals

David Leigh, Harold Frayman and James Ball
The Guardian
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 07:30 UTC
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© Leon Neal/AFP/Getty ImagesDisclosures about property ownership follow pledge by Vince Cable to look at evidence of sham directors.
The real identities behind British property deals previously cloaked in secrecy are revealed in the latest part of a major investigation into offshore firms, which prompted the government on Monday to promise that it would investigate any abuses revealed involving sham nominee directors.

Previously secret owners are identified in a sample of almost 60 UK homes and offices, ranging from multimillion-pound commercial premises in the heart of London to a small hotel in Southend, Essex.

They typify the 100,000 such purchasers who have set up offshore companies, largely registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), since 1999. The owners of BVI entities use them to hide their dealings in UK property and to take advantage of tax loopholes.
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Dollar

How secret offshore firms feed London's property boom

David Leigh, Harold Frayman and James Ball
The Guardian
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 07:23 UTC
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© Daniel Berehulak/Getty ImagesLondon's rising housing market bucks the national trend, aided by overseas investors.
Investigation names investors exploiting offshore tax and duty loopholes allowing overseas purchasers to buy up UK property

The UK is increasingly turning into a property speculators' haven, thanks to tax loopholes and the offshore secrecy offered by the British Virgin Islands (BVI) that hides many property transactions. We disclose the identities of some of the people secretly buying up Britain.

The Guardian's investigation with the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), covering nearly 60 sample premises, shows how anonymous buyers are taking over more and more blocks of luxury housing.

Some purchasers live abroad; other buyers live in the UK itself while they build up property empires using these artificial structures.

In 2011 alone, more than £7bn of offshore money flooded into potentially tax-exempt purchases of UK houses, flats and office blocks. Most buyers snapped up property in central London. These offshore buyers are a driving force of the capital's spiralling property prices versus the rest of the UK: since March 2009, property prices in prime central London have increased by 49% - five times more than the rest of the UK, according to estate agents Knight Frank.

Comment: London appears to be the center of a spider's web of sham companies:

Corruption in Science: Francesco Fucilla and the Telesio-Galilei Academy of Science

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Dollars

Offshore secrets revealed: The shadowy side of a booming tax avoidance industry

David Leigh, Harold Frayman and James Ball
The Guardian
Sun, 25 Nov 2012 07:08 UTC
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© James Ball/guardian.co.ukHome of Sarah Petre-Mears on Nevis.
A worldwide research effort in collaboration with BBC Panorama and the ICIJ reveals the people behind these anonymous companies

The existence of an extraordinary global network of sham company directors, most of them British, can be revealed.

The UK government claims such abuses were stamped out long ago, but a worldwide joint investigation by the Guardian, the BBC's Panorama and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has uncovered a booming offshore industry that leaves the way open for both tax avoidance and the concealment of assets.

More than 21,500 companies have been identified using this group of 28 so-called nominee directors. The nominees play a key role in keeping secret hundreds of thousands of commercial transactions. They do so by selling their names for use on official company documents, using addresses in obscure locations all over the world.

This is not illegal under UK law, and sometimes nominee directors have a legitimate role. But our evidence suggests this particular group of directors only pretend to control the companies they put their names to.

Comment: The SOTT team unveiled another similar operation earlier this year:

Corruption in Science: Francesco Fucilla and the Telesio-Galilei Academy of Science

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MIB

Political manoeuvring: U.S. ambassador to UN Susan Rice under fire for Benghazi comments


Al Jazeera
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:52 UTC
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© AFPSenator John McCain has been leading attacks against UN Ambassador Susan Rice... the question is; on behalf of whom?

US ambassador to the UN failed to assuage critics over discredited remarks regarding the US embassy attack in Libya.

The White House has condemned Republicans' "obsession" over comments made by UN Ambassador Susan Rice following the September 11 attack on the US embassy in Libya.

Spokesperson Jay Carney was speaking after Rice's reportedly "discordant" meeting on Tuesday with senior GOP figures, in an ongoing row, which may hurt her chances of becoming the next US secretary of state.

"There are no unanswered questions about Ambassador Rice's appearances on Sunday shows," Carney said.

Comment: See also:

Petraeus, Allen, Gaouette, Ham: The Benghazi Story The Media Isn't Telling You

Palace Revolution

How U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens may have been linked to jihadist rebels In Syria

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