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Food prices rose 5.8% in Armenia in 2013, expected to jump another 10% in 2014


ARKA News Agency
Thu, 09 Jan 2014 13:10 UTC
meats and veggies
Meats and vegetables are getting more expensive by the month

Food prices in Armenia went 5.8% up in 2013, the National Statistical Service reports.
According to the statistical report, 2.3% increase in prices was recorded in December against November 2013, mainly due to 4.3-24.2% rise in prices for fruits, vegetables and potatoes.

Prices for potatoes and vegetables rose by 1.7% in December 2013 against the same month of 2012 and by 24.2% against November 2013.

Comment: See also: Food prices in Armenia may jump ten percent this year

You can start canning both your meats and vegetables so you can be prepared for the rough times ahead.

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Ice Cube

Food price rises in U.S. blamed on cold weather

Jason Nappi
WJBF.com
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 13:02 UTC
meat prices USA
Frozen sprinklers, an iced over fountain, and smoke from a heater working overtime.

These are all signs of the deep freeze that took over the CSRA this week.

But is this cold weather causing food prices to rise at your local grocery store?

Ricky Volpe, Research Economist at the USDA says, "Any sort of weather anomaly, unusually hot or cold or dry or wet weather is going to cause problems for the agricultural sector. So it certainly makes sense that we're going to see a short term bump in costs."

Comment: Have you been canning?

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Stock Up

Food prices to rise by up to 8% in Czech Republic


Prague Daily Monitor
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:47 UTC
egg prices
© CTK Prices of eggs are also expected to grow
Czech food producers expect that food prices will grow by 5 to 8 percent starting from January 1 as a result of forex interventions launched by the Czech National Bank (CNB), Food Chamber spokeswoman Jarmila Stolcova told CTK Tuesday.

The weakening of the crown currency following the central bank's interventions is criticised above all by those producers that import a large part of commodities for their production, such as smaller producers of sweets and some meat processors, Stolcova said.

Growing costs are forcing food companies to cut margins, but a number of them cannot afford further reduction. Some producers even fear they will have to restrict production and cut staff numbers, according to Stolcova.

Comment: People might want to start canning their meats and lard right now, so that they are able to have proper nutrition when meat products become a luxury item affordable only for the very few. Czech food prices grew nearly 7 percent in 2012, which was the fastest rate in the EU, and the trend continues.

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Nuke

Mainstream Media Blackout: Maine Second State to Pass GMO Labeling Law

Melissa Melton
The Daily Sheeple
Sat, 11 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
maine No to gmo
Maine joined Connecticut this week as the second state in the nation to sign a genetically modified food labeling law, but you may not have heard much about it because the mainstream media hasn't really said anything about it.

Do a basic news engine search and you'll see that no mainstream media outlets have reported anything on this story. In fact, at the time of writing this, the most I could find was Washington Post Blog and Grist (with a ridiculously biased title).

No MSNBC. No CNN. No ABC.

No other major news outlets are touching this story. Why?

Comment: See also:

'Army of lobbyists' led by Monsanto helped neuter GMO labeling law in Connecticut
Monsanto's Top 7 Lies About GMO Labeling and Proposition 37
The GMO labeling scam

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Laptop

Massachusetts man goes to jail for automated Google+ invite to ex-girlfriend


RT
Fri, 10 Jan 2014 20:44 UTC
google+
© AFP Photo / Nicholas Kamm
Sending an ex-girlfriend an email invitation to join Google+ despite an active restraining order landed a Beverly, Massachusetts man in handcuffs and behind bars.

The problem? Thomas Gagnon, 32, says he never actually sent an email of any sort. Instead, he claims it was Google's fault.

According to Gagnon, Google automatically sent the invitation without informing him or asking for his consent.

As the Salem News reported, Gagnon was arrested about 90 minutes after his ex-girlfriend notified police. The officers agreed the sent invitation constituted a violation of the restraining order, and while the district court judge acknowledged he wasn't sure precisely how Google+ processes invitations, he set bail at $500.

While Gagnon argues he did not send the invitation, both he and his attorney, Neil Hourihan, are at a loss when it comes to explaining how the message was transmitted.
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Eye 2

Family imprisoned for enslaving and brutally beating man with learning disabilities

Polly Rippon
The Star
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 19:01 UTC
Image
CCTV footage of members of the Rooke family assaulting Craig Kinsella.
A Sheffield man with learning difficulties was held as a slave and brutally beaten by members of a family who were jailed today - watch the harrowing CCTV footage here.

WARNING: This video evidence is disturbing and not suitable for younger viewers.


Three members of the same family were locked up after enslaving the victim in their garage and treating him as 'their punchbag', a court heard. David Rooke, aged 44, was locked up for six years and six months, while his son Jamie, 19, was jailed for four years. Wife Donna Rooke, 40, was sentenced to four months behind bars.

Their victim, Craig Kinsella, aged 34, had been attacked with a spade handle, a crow bar and a pick axe handle, starved of food, and forced to sleep on a concrete floor with no access to a toilet.
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Megaphone

Pat Robertson: Global warming is a scam because there are no SUVs on Jupiter - He's right, but he's still a nutter

David Edwards
Raw Story
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:06 UTC
Image
Televangelist Pat Robertson pointed to the cold U.S. weather on Tuesday - and the fact that there were no "SUVs driving around in Jupiter" - to assert that global warming was a scam created by scientists.

"The inconvenient truth is it's getting cold," Robertson said, riffing off the title of Al Gore's climate change documentary. "And some parts of America are colder than Mars! Why? We've got a special story today about how come we could very well be entering another little ice age."

Later in the show, the TV preacher laughed and noted that the Russian-flagged ship Akademik Shokalskiy had been stuck in ice near Antarctica while trying to research global warming.

"There's just one problem," he said. "The Earth isn't getting warmer. In fact, it's because of the Sun. The Sun is now showing signs that we're headed for something very, very different: global cooling."
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Sheriff

Impatient North Carolina cops allegedly shoot mentally ill teen: 'We don't have time for this'

David Edwards
Raw Story
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:01 UTC
Image
A North Carolina detective is on leave after shooting a mentally ill teen who had reportedly already been subdued with a Taser.

A Brunswick County event report obtained by WECT indicated that two officers were called to Boiling Spring Lakes home after 12:34 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. One of the officers told Brunswick County Dispatchers that there had been a confrontation with 18-year-old Keith Vidal, but repeated several times that the situation was under control.

A second unit with one officer arrived 14 minutes later and notified dispatchers that he was forced to shoot the teen in self defense.

Mark Wilsey, the teen's father, explained to WECT that members of his family had called the police for help with his son's schizophrenic episode. He said that officers shocked Vidal with a Taser several times to get him under control.

"We don't have time for this," Wilsey recalled one of the officers saying before he fired in between the two officers who were holding the teen down.

"There was no reason to shoot this kid," Wilsey insisted. "They killed my son in cold blood. We called for help and they killed my son."
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Arrow Down

Researcher gets death threats after revealing shocking findings about U.S. college athletes

Ericka Sóuter
The Stir
Fri, 10 Jan 2014 16:14 UTC
American Football
© The Stir

There are lots of jobs where you might expect to get death threats: a judge, a cop, a divorce lawyer. But never a million years did University of North Carolina learning specialist Mary Willingham expect that her research would inspire so much hate. But it has. What could be so incendiary?

She released data showing that 10% of college football and basketball players read at a 3rd grade level. And 60% of them were only reading between a 4th and 8th grade level. As disheartening as these finding are, I don't see why people are really very surprised or angry.

Willingham spent years tutoring athletes at the school -- which has one of the best athletic programs in the country. So she clearly isn't pulling this research out of thin air. She knows first-hand that many of these gifted ball players can barely read. Not only that, she combed through eight years worth of test scores and found that 25% of them didn't even have the skills to take classes at a community college. "I mean, we may as well just go over to Glenwood Elementary up the street and just let all the 4th graders in here, the third-graders in here," she said.

It's shameful. But the shame does not rest with these athletes. They have done nothing wrong. The blame is on the coaches and the athletic departments that use these kids for their amazing athletic abilities but don't care about preparing them for the world beyond college sports. For that tiny, tiny percent that go on to the pros, they have nothing to worry about. But it's the hundreds of others that are left to fend for themselves after the glory days of college are over.
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Arrow Down

The corruption of Britain: UK's key institutions infiltrated by criminals

Tom Harper
The Independent, UK
Fri, 10 Jan 2014 14:50 UTC
Scotland Yard
© The Independent, UKSecret report shows how organised crime infiltrated judicial system as well as police with prison service and HM Revenue & Customs also compromised.
The entire criminal justice system was infiltrated by organised crime gangs, according to a secret Scotland Yard report leaked to The Independent.

In 2003 Operation Tiberius found that men suspected of being Britain's most notorious criminals had compromised multiple agencies, including HM Revenue & Customs, the Crown Prosecution Service, the City of London Police and the Prison Service, as well as pillars of the criminal justice system including juries and the legal profession.

The strategic intelligence scoping exercise - "ratified by the most senior management" at the Met - uncovered jurors being bought off or threatened to return not-guilty verdicts; corrupt individuals working for HMRC, both in the UK and overseas; and "get out of jail free cards" being bought for £50,000.

The report states that the infiltration made it almost impossible for police and prosecutors to successfully pursue the organised gangs that police suspected controlled much of the criminal underworld.

The author of "Tiberius", which was compiled from intelligence sources including covert police informants, live telephone intercepts, briefings from the security services and thousands of historical files, came to the desperate conclusion: "Quite how much more damage could be done is difficult to imagine."

The fresh revelations come a day after The Independent revealed that "Tiberius" had concluded the Metropolitan Police suffered "endemic police corruption" at the time, and that some of Britain's most dangerous organised crime syndicates were able to infiltrate New Scotland Yard "at will".

In its conclusions, the report stated: "The true assessment of the damage caused by these corrupt networks is impossible to make at this stage, until further proactive scoping has been undertaken.
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