Puppet MastersS


Footprints

Bill Gates donates £6.4m grant to British scientists for GM crops


Dailymail
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:25 UTC
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© APLarge investment: The Gates Foundation has donated a £6.4million grant to develop genetically modified crops in the UK.
British scientists have won a £6.4million grant from Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates to develop genetically modified crops. The Gates Foundation's donation is one of the largest single investments to the GM project in the UK.

The John Innes Centre in Norwich will use the fund to cultivate corn, wheat and rice capable of taking nitrogen from the air, meaning they need little or no fertiliser.

It is claimed the work will benefit struggling maize farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who cannot afford to treat their crops.

Comment: For a more in depth look at GM crops and how dangerous they are for our health and wellness read the following articles:

Genetically Modified Crops Cause Liver and Kidney Damage

The Public is Proved Right: GM crops are no panacea

Exposed: the great GM crops myth

GM crops 'may give lower yields'

Latest GMO Research: Decreased Fertility, Immunological Alterations and Allergies

Chinese consumers wary of GMO food: Greenpeace

The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

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Bad Guys

Chart Shows The Bilderberg Group's Connection To Everything In The World

Ashley Lutz
Business Insider
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:57 UTC
The Bilderberg Group is 120-140 powerful people who meet each year to discuss policy. The meetings are closed to the public.

This graph we found on Facebook shows the members' connections to a ton of corporations, charities, policy groups and media. Everyone from Eric Schmidt to George Soros is a member. There are tons of conspiracy theories about the group, including that they control the world economy.

We took the findings with a grain of salt--after all, it's easy to trace an individual to a corporation and the graph doesn't specify what influence the member wielded.

But perhaps it's a compelling argument for why the meetings should be public.

Comment: What neither the chart nor Business Insider explain is that the vast majority of these companies and front organisations are cross-owned by the same few tiny clusters of shareholders.

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Footprints

6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

Ashley Lutz
Business Insider
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:49 UTC
This infographic created by Jason at Frugal Dad shows that almost all media comes from the same six sources.

That's consolidated from 50 companies back in 1983.

NOTE: This infographic is from last year and is missing some key transactions. GE does not own NBC (or Comcast or any media) anymore. So that 6th company is now Comcast. And Time Warner doesn't own AOL, so Huffington Post isn't affiliated with them.
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Dollar

From Iceland to Ireland: Two paths to financial recovery?

Dan Hind
Al Jazeera
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:30 UTC
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© UnknownDue to public pressure, Icelandic prime minister Geir Haarde (R) was tried and convicted for negligence because of his role in the economic crisis [EPA].
London, United Kingdom - This is a tale of two countries. One of them, Iceland, has a population of around 320,000 people. That's about as many people as live in Lubbock, Texas. The other, the Republic of Ireland, is a fair bit bigger, with a population of 4.6 million. That's about as many as live in South Carolina.

In the years before 2008, both countries had been hosts to unsustainable real estate and consumer booms. And in both countries a lightly regulated financial sector ran out of control. Iceland's big three banks - Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki - had lent out more than US $200 billion, eleven times the country's GDP. Ireland's banks were holding assets of around seven times GDP on their books. Much of the money had been lent abroad.

When the financial crisis hit in the last months of 2008 the two countries reacted very differently. Iceland's former prime minister, Davio Oddsson, explained that the recently privatised banks had been 'a little heedless' and the state wasn't going to bail them out. Domestic deposits were protected but the government refused to take responsibility for vast bulk of the losses. In Ireland, on the other hand, the government transformed a banking crisis into a sovereign debt crisis. Politicians decided that the banks were too big to fail and spared no expense in their efforts to save them.
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2 + 2 = 4

The Illusion of Choice

Ashley Lutz
Articles.businessinsider.com
Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:39 UTC
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© Reddit
A chart we found on Reddit.com today shows that most products we buy are controlled by just a few companies. It's called "The Illusion of Choice."

Ever wonder why you can't get a Coke at Taco Bell? It's because Yum! Brands was created as a spin-off of Pepsi--and has a lifetime contract with the soda-maker.
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Megaphone

Best of the Web: The Syrian opposition: who's doing the talking?

Charlie Skelton
The Guardian
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 02:10 UTC
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© ReutersThe director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, speaks on the phone in his home in Coventry on December 6, 2011.

The media have been too passive when it comes to Syrian opposition sources, without scrutinising their backgrounds and their political connections. Time for a closer look ...

A nightmare is unfolding across Syria, in the homes of al-Heffa and the streets of Houla. And we all know how the story ends: with thousands of soldiers and civilians killed, towns and families destroyed, and President Assad beaten to death in a ditch.

This is the story of the Syrian war, but there is another story to be told. A tale less bloody, but nevertheless important. This is a story about the storytellers: the spokespeople, the "experts on Syria", the "democracy activists". The statement makers. The people who "urge" and "warn" and "call for action".

It's a tale about some of the most quoted members of the Syrian opposition and their connection to the Anglo-American opposition creation business. The mainstream news media have, in the main, been remarkably passive when it comes to Syrian sources: billing them simply as "official spokesmen" or "pro-democracy campaigners" without, for the most part, scrutinising their statements, their backgrounds or their political connections.

Comment: NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign against Syria

Syria's Bloody CIA Revolution - A Distraction?

NATO's 'Civil War' Machine Rolls Into Syria

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Shoe

Tomatoes and Shoes Thrown at Clinton's Motorcade in Egypt


Hindustan Times
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00 UTC
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US Psychopath-in-State Hillary Clinton gets the shoe treatment in Egypt
Protesters threw tomatoes and shoes at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's motorcade on Sunday during her first visit to Egypt since the election of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi. A tomato struck an Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle landed near the armored cars carrying Clinton's delegation in the port city of Alexandria after she gave a speech on democratic rights.

A senior U.S. official said neither Clinton nor her vehicle, which was around the corner from the incident, were hit by the projectiles, which were thrown as U.S. officials and reporters walked to the motorcade after her speech.

Protesters chanted "Monica, Monica," a reference to the extra-marital affair conducted by Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, while in the White House. Others earlier chanted "leave, Clinton" an Egyptian security official said.
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House

Settlements of Discord: 500 New Homes to Mushroom in West Bank


RT
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00 UTC
Isreali settlements
© Agence France-Presse/Jack GuezA general view shows the illegal Jewish outpost of Bruchin, near the Palestinian West Bank city of Nablus on April 24, 2012.
When there's money, there's a house, and when there's a settlement, there's a land, recalled the Israeli government and quietly granted more subsidies to build over 500 new homes in the West Bank.

­This is how Tel Aviv secretly backtracked earlier this year on a promise to deny these incentives to the settlements, as the Associated Press has found out.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying, quite clearly, to ensure the support of the settlers, but the move may well backfire on him. The planned construction has infuriated the Palestinians and it could cloud the visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived in Israel late on Sunday to try to revive the Middle East peace efforts.
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USA

Best of the Web: How Poor Kids Are Made to Fight Wars for the Rich

Chris Hedges
Boston Review
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:16 UTC
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© Teddy Wade, U.S. ArmySpecialist Jason Palmer prepares for takeoff. (Tikrit, Iraq, April 30, 2006)
We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites.

The poor embrace the military because every other cul-de-sac in their lives breaks their spirit and their dignity. Pick up Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front or James Jones's From Here to Eternity. Read Henry IV. Turn to the Iliad. The allure of combat is a trap, a ploy, an old, dirty game of deception in which the powerful, who do not go to war, promise a mirage to those who do.

I saw this in my own family. At the age of ten I was given a scholarship to a top New England boarding school. I spent my adolescence in the schizophrenic embrace of the wealthy, on the playing fields and in the dorms and classrooms that condition boys and girls for privilege, and came back to my working-class relations in the depressed former mill towns in Maine. I traveled between two universes: one where everyone got chance after chance after chance, where connections and money and influence almost guaranteed that you would not fail; the other where no one ever got a second try. I learned at an early age that when the poor fall no one picks them up, while the rich stumble and trip their way to the top.
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Black Cat

Corruption Inquiry Over Political Favors Embroils Christine Lagarde and Nicolas Sarkozy

Peter Allen
The Telegraph
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 12:33 UTC
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© AFP/Getty Images/EPAChristine Lagarde and Nicolas Sarkozy
Christine Lagarde and Nicolas Sarkozy were embroiled in a new corruption inquiry on Sunday over the awarding of Legion d'Honneur for political favours.

The pair already face allegations that Miss Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), authorised a £270 million payout to a prominent supporter of the former French president when she was his finance minister.

Now, they face a separate inquiry in a row over the amount of compensation that Mr Sarkozy's government should have paid following the collapse of Itea, an insurance company, in 2009.
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