Embedding Transnational Agribusiness and GMO’s into African Agriculture*

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has just released the report For your own good!, which outlines the GMO industry’s expansion across Africa. The report focuses on non-commercial traditional crops, such as cassava, sorghum, sweet potato, pigeon pea, cowpea, banana and rice, which corporations are attempting to genetically modify and roll out under the guise of philanthropy.

The report reveals that a great deal of research and development is currently underway into the genetic modification (GM) of these crops. Most of the on-going trials concentrate on drought and salt tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, resistance to tropical pests and diseases and nutritional enhancement (bio-fortification). The key countries that have been targeted include:

• Burkina Faso
• Egypt
• Ghana
• Nigeria
• Kenya
• Uganda
• Malawi

The genesis of GM research into these crops can be found in royalty-free donations of various patented GM traits by several transnational companies to experimental programmes undertaken by African scientists employed by government ministries. These companies include Monsanto, Dupont and Pioneer Hi-bred.

Mariam Mayet, Director of the ACB, says:

“This indicates that the GM industry, under the veil of technology donations and public financing, is effectively managing to make further inroads into imposing GM on the African continent. By focusing the research on traits meant to ‘benefit’ farmers and malnourished populations, through inter alia, bio-fortification, the industry is intent on giving a humanitarian face to the real involvement, vested interests and expanding influence of these MNCs in African agriculture”.

The main players involved include the African Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF), which is on the receiving end of many of the technological property rights donations, the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Program (ABSP) and the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and USAID fund the latter organisations.

U.S-based research institutions such as the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (DDPSC) (for cassava) and universities (notably Michigan State University and Kansas State University) play a major role in this ‘philanthropic’ research.

The ACB report notes there is a dearth of literature that critically addresses bio-safety issues and socio-economic aspects relating to the bio-fortification of indigenous crops through GM. According to the authors, this is especially important given the need to move away from an over-emphasis on food fortification strategies towards a permanent solution: diet diversification through locally available foods, which was recognised as early as 1992 by the U.N. International Conference on Nutrition.

As is the case with the controversial Golden Rice research and development project, the report argues these GM projects are diverting financial and human resources and policies and practices away from implementing the real solutions that can be found within the diversity of natural foods and farming.

Zakiyya Ismail, Consumer Campaigner with the ACB argues:

“The real solutions to address vitamin and mineral deficiencies can be found in ecological farming systems, and traditional kitchen and home gardens, which can better contribute to healthy and diverse diets and empower people to access and produce their own healthy and varied food.”

ACB stresses that smallholder farmers must be given the right to choose their means of production and survival. It adds even if gene sequences and constructs are donated, the accompanying requisite GM inputs will be expensive for farmers. GM crops are highly likely to increase the costs of production for farmers and lead them into indebtedness and dependency.

The report by ACB follows a Global Justice Now report that outlines the role of BMFG in spearheading a drive into Africa on behalf of ‘corporate America’ to facilitate a GMO/green revolution.

With assets of $43.5 billion, BMGF is the largest charitable foundation in the world and distributes more aid for global health than any government. Its strategy is intended to deepen the role of multinational companies, even though these corporations are responsible for much of the poverty and injustice that already plagues the Global South. The foundation’s programmes have a specific ideological strategy that promotes neo-liberal economic policies, corporate globalisation, GMOs and an outdated (colonialist) view of role of aid in ‘helping’ the poor.

Global Justice Now shows that the senior staff of BMGF’s programmes are overwhelmingly drawn from ‘corporate America’. As a result, the question is: whose interests are being promoted – those of corporate America or those of ordinary people who seek social and economic justice rather than charity?

Continue reading…

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Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

ne day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”

Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”

I’ve been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology. Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. Beliefs and behaviors that were already rising simply continue to do so. Millennials, for instance, are a highly individualistic generation, but individualism had been increasing since the Baby Boomers turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys. Then I began studying Athena’s generation.

Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data—some reaching back to the 1930s—I had never seen anything like it.

Source

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Study: Language Development May Start In Utero

Unborn babies can distinguish between different languages and may start developing language skills in utero, according to a study published in NeuroReport on July 5 by researchers at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.

The project leader, Utako Minai, an associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the university, said in a news release, “The results came out nicely, with strong statistical support. These results suggest that language development may indeed start in utero.”

“Fetuses are tuning their ears to the language they are going to acquire even before they are born, based on the speech signals available to them in utero,” said Minai. “Prenatal sensitivity to the rhythmic properties of language may provide children with one of the very first building blocks in acquiring language.”

The study tested 24 in-utero babies of 24 different American mothers who were approximately eight months pregnant. In the procedure, an English passage was played, followed by the same voice recording of another passage, either in English or Japanese.

When the unborn babies heard the passages in English, their heart rates remained consistent.  However, the unfamiliar rhythm of the Japanese provoked a change in the children’s heart rate.

Minai said that previous research has suggested that, “human language development may start really early — a few days after birth. Babies a few days old have been shown to be sensitive to the rhythmic differences between languages.”

“Previous studies have demonstrated this by measuring changes in babies’ behavior,” she said.  “[F]or example, by measuring whether babies change the rate of sucking on a pacifier when the speech changes from one language to a different language with different rhythmic properties.”

“This early discrimination led us to wonder when children’s sensitivity to the rhythmic properties of language emerges, including whether it may, in fact, emerge before birth,” Minai continued.

“Fetuses can hear things, including speech, in the womb,” she said.  “It’s muffled, like the adults talking in a ‘Peanuts’ cartoon, but the rhythm of the language should be preserved and available for the fetus to hear, even though the speech is muffled.”

While previous studies had examined the effect of language on unborn babies using an ultrasound, researchers for this study used a magnetocardiogram, which is more accurate and sensitive to change in heart rate.

Source

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Under Pelosi and Barack Obama: 709,885 Blacks Killed by Abortion, 35.4% of All Abortions

ዋይ! ዋይ! ዋይ!

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was Speaker of the House for four years (2007-2010), at least 709,885 black babies were killed by abortion, which is 35.4% of all the abortions during those years, according to the Abortion Surveillance reports of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC accumulates abortion data every year and publishes the numbers by state and race and other criteria. However, not all states report abortion data to the CDC, and/or do not break it down by race or ethnicity, or do not meet reporting standards, states the CDC.

For example, in 2010, there were only 28 reporting areas; another 24 areas did not report. These included California, Florida, Illinois, Hawaii, Arizona, Maryland, and Massachusetts, among other states. Thus, the number of black abortions or white abortions reported by the CDC is likely much lower than the real number.

Nonetheless, the CDC’s Abortion Surveillance report for 2007, in Table 12,

shows there were 212,664 black abortions — 36.5% of the total.

• In 2008, there were 194,694 black abortions — 34.0% of the total.
• In 2009, there were 154,266 black abortions — 35.4% of the total.
• In 2010, there were 148,261 black abortions — 35.7% of the total.

In all, that equals 709,885 black abortions — 35.4% of the total — during the four years that Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, based upon the areas that reported to the CDC.

There were a total 1,918,419 abortions during those four years.

Blacks make up 13.3% of the U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau.

In 2015, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, presented then-Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) with the Margaret Sanger Award. The award is Planned Parenthood’s “highest honor” and is named for a woman who believed in breeding better humans through eugenics and even promoted her birth control philosophy to female members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Source

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Church Attendance Is Good For Your Health

The latest in a long line of studies, now numbering in the hundreds if not thousands, has found that church attendance is good for your health.

Published by researchers from Vanderbilt University, the study found that middle-aged adults who attended religious services at least once in the past year were half as likely to die prematurely as those who didn’t.

Using data from a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study’s researchers examined 10 biological stress markers among 5,449 men and women aged 46 to 65. Then they compared those markers with respondents’ self-reported religious-service attendance — and found a correlation between religious-service attendance, lower stress, and longevity.

The study, released in May, is one more piece of mounting scientific evidence on the subject. A far larger study published last year, of 74,534 women, found that attending a religious service more than once a week was associated with 33 percent lower mortality compared to never attending religious services.

A documentary probing findings similar to these — released just recently — is airing on many PBS stations this weekend. But even as the studies pile up and the literature appears close to conclusive, many questions about the association between religious-service attendance and health remain unanswered.

For one, people attend religious services for all kinds of reasons. So what is it about faith-focused services that might impart better health? The prayers? The social connections? The coffee and cookies afterward?

If, as so much evidence suggests, religious attendance is correlated with positive health outcomes, does that mean doctors should prescribe a weekly service to their patients?

“Religion is incredibly complex,” said Neal Krause, a retired professor of public health at the University of Michigan who is the lead investigator in a landmark spirituality and health survey. “To say, ‘Church attendance is good for your health’ does everything and nothing at the same time. The question is, ‘What exactly is going on here?'”

But some studies at the intersection of religion and health might help clinicians do a better job of caring for patients.

For example, studies have shown that chaplain visits in hospital settings are associated with better health outcomes. This stands to reason, say researchers; when patients’ spiritual needs are met, they are more satisfied with their overall care. Another study suggested patients that take advantage of chaplain visits are more peaceful and feel more in control of their health.

Source

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Yoga More Dangerous Than Previously Thought, Scientists Say

Yoga is more dangerous than previously thought and causes as many injuries as other sports, a study has found.

The 5,000 year-old Indian discipline is said to boost physical and mental wellbeing, and celebrity fans include Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen – as well as David and Victoria Beckham.

However, in a recent study´yoga´caused musculoskeletal pain – mostly in the arms – in more than one in ten participants.

The scientists behind the research, which was published in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies,´also found that the practice worsened over a fifth of existing injuries.

Professor Evangelos Pappas, of Sydney University, the study’s lead researcher said: “Yoga may be a bit more dangerous than previously thought.

“Our study found the incidence of pain caused by´yoga´is more than 10 percent per year – which is comparable to the rate of all sports injuries combined among the physically active population.

“However people consider it to be a very safe activity. This injury rate is up to 10 times higher than has previously been reported.”

Continue reading…

— Russian Officials Ban Yoga Because It’s Too Much Like a Religious Cult

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እፉኝት የነደፋት የኢትዮጵያ ሴት ከእባቡ ገዳይ መርዝ ተርፋ በሕይወት አለች

የ 20 ዓመቷ ወጣት ሴት ቤቷ ተኝታ እያለች በጣም መረዛማ የሆነው እፉኝት መንጋጋዋ ላይ ነደፋት። ጉሮሮዋም በጣም ስላበጠ ለሦስት ቀናት መተንፈስ ከብዷት ነበር። ዶክተሮች ቀዶ ጥገና እናድርግልሽ ቢሏት አሻፈረኝ አለች። ለ10 ቀናት ያህል በ አንቲባዮቲክስና በስቴሮይድስ ከታከመች በኋላ ወደ ቤቷ ተመልሳለች። መጠሪያ ስሟ አይታወቅም ፎቶዋ ግን ያው ቀርቧል፦

Surviving A Bite From A Viper Is Rare

Regarded as one the world’s deadliest snakes, a lunge from a viper can cause intense pain, convulsions, nausea, and even paralysis, followed by death.

But one Ethiopian woman found herself lucky to escape alive after being bitten by one as she slept, shrugging it off as a dry bite.

She did not seek medical attention, however just three days later, was left fighting for breath after her throat and tongue swelled up rapidly.

In a case that has baffled doctors, the 20-year-old was rushed to hospital where she was eventually told she had caught a bacterial infection from the snake’s mouth.

The unnamed woman, from Ethiopia, was diagnosed with Ludwig’s angina, which makes the sufferer feel like they are being choked or strangled.

Without intervention, patients with Ludwig’s angina have a 50 per cent chance of survival, the report notes.

When a viper bite doesn’t kill, local complications can include pain, death of the surrounding tissue and cellulitis, an infection of the deeper layers of skin.

Ludwig’s Angina, which is a skin infection under the tongue which can rapid lead to airway compromise and death, is an unusual reaction to a snake bite, the doctors note.

‘Contamination from oral flora of the snake could cause secondary wound infection,’ they said.

‘In this case, secondary infection would cause severe soft tissue inflammation and swelling of the neck and later on it would progress to Ludwig’s angina.’

ተጨማሪ ያንብቡ

እግዚአብሔር ምልክቶቹን፡ በየቀኑ፡ በየቦታው እያሳየን ነው። የሚደንቅ ነው! ይህን መረጃ በእነዚህ ቪዲዮዎች ውስጥ ከቀረቡት ታሪኮች ጋር እናገጣጥመው።

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A Pilot Study Of 666 Kids: Unvaccinated Kids Are Healthier Than Vaccinated Kids

It’s never been done before. The first-of-its-kind study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated American homeschooled children shows who is really ailing…and parents should be worried

Something is wrong with America’s children. They are sick – allergic, asthmatic, anxious, autoimmune, autistic, hyperactive, distracted and learning disabled. Thirty-two million American children – a full 43% of them – suffer from at least one of 20 chronic illnesses not including obesity. Across the board, once rare pediatric disorders from autism and ADD to Type 1 diabetes and Tourette’s syndrome are soaring, though few studies pool the data. Compared to their parents, children today are four times more likely to have a chronic illness. And while their grandparents might never have swallowed a pill as children, the current generation of kids is a pharmaceutical sales rep’s dream come true: More than one million American children under five years old takes a psychiatric drug. More than 8.3 million kids under 17 have consumed psychiatric drugs, and in any given month one in four is taking at least one prescription drug for something.

Fast food, bad genes, too much TV, video games, pesticides, plastics – name the environmental factor and it has been implicated in the surge of sickness, although none adequately explains the scale or scope of the epidemic. There is one exposure, however, that has evaded the search, despite that children have received it by direct injection in steadily accumulating doses far beyond anything past generations ever saw: 50 doses of 14 vaccines by age six, 69 doses of 16 pharmaceutical vaccines containing powerfully immune-altering ingredients by age 18.

Remarkably, not a single published study has ever compared vaccinated kids to unvaccinated kids to see who is healthier years after the shots. Until now.

A pilot study of 666 homeschooled six to 12-year-olds from four American states published on April 27th in the Journal of Translational Sciences, compared 261 unvaccinated children with 405 partially or fully vaccinated children, and assessed their overall health based on their mothers’ reports of vaccinations and physician-diagnosed illnesses. What it found about increases in immune-mediated diseases like allergies and neurodevelopmental diseases including autism, should make all parents think twice before they ever vaccinate again:

• *Vaccinated children were more than three times as likely to be diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum (OR 4.3)
• *Vaccinated children were 30-fold more likely to be diagnosed with allergic rhinitis (hay fever) than non-vaccinated children
• * Vaccinated children were 22-fold more likely to require an allergy medication than unvaccinated children
• *Vaccinated children had more than quadruple the risk of being diagnosed with a learning disability than unvaccinated children (OR 5.2)
• *Vaccinated children were 300 percent more likely to be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder than unvaccinated children (OR 4.3)
• * Vaccinated children were 340 percent (OR 4.4) more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia than unvaccinated children
• *Vaccinated children were 300 percent more likely to be diagnosed with an ear infection than unvaccinated children (OR 4.0)
• *Vaccinated children were 700 percent more likely to have surgery to insert ear drainage tubes than unvaccinated children (OR 8.01)
• * Vaccinated children were 2.5-fold more likely to be diagnosed with any chronic illness than unvaccinated children

Continue reading…

VACCINE = 666

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የኤች አይቪ ቫይረስ በደሙ ውስጥ ያለበት አንድ ኢትዮጵያዊ ስደተኛ ሁለት ስዊድናዊያን ልጃገረድ ሴቶችን በመድፈሩ ተከሰሰ

ዝርዝሩን እዚህ ይመልከቱ

አቤት መደንዘዝ! አቤት አረመኔነት!! አቤት ጭካኔ!!!

ይህን አረመኔነት፣ ይህን ጭካኔ ከየት ተምሮት ይሆን? የአረቡን ዲያብሎሳዊ ስነምግባር የወሰደውን ባለጌ ናሆምን እናፍርበታለን፤ ስለ ጽዮን ዝም የማይለው ናሆም ወንድማችን ደግሞ፣ ምስጋና ይድረሰውና፤ ይህን ድንቅ ትምህርት አቅርቦልናል፦

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Europe’s Suicide: Injecting New Life? Denmark Sells Vaccine Production to Saudi Sharia Supporters

Denmark’s outgoing Health Minister Ellen Trane Nørby is having a hard time explaining why the Danish government notoriously sold a state-owned vaccine manufacturing facility to a Saudi company with alleged links to proponents of extreme Islam after an unpleasant revelation by a Danish newspaper.

The vaccine production facilities of the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI) have been sold to Aljomaih Group, which is owned by a Saudi family dynasty with alleged extremist links. Previously Aljomaih Group, which is led by Sheikh Abdul Aziz Hamad Aljomaih, had given donations to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political organization, via its bank Arcapita, the Danish tabloid newspaper Extra Bladet revealed. To make matters worse, the new owners are advocates of Sharia law and employ people who had previously encouraged a boycott of Denmark.

The 15 million DKK deal ($2.15mln) was initiated in 2014 under the previous government, led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt, when a cross-party parliamentary finance committee approved of Aljomaih as a legitimate buyer. This happened despite the fact that Arcapita’s Sharia committee is headed by a powerful Muslim cleric, Mohammed Taqi Usamani, who had previously called for a boycott of Denmark during the controversy about the Muhammad cartoons in 2006.

The Danish left-wing party Red-Green Alliance voiced deep concern about the newly surfaced details of the transaction.

“We’ve been against selling SSI’s vaccine factory and diagnostics facilities from day one. We are talking about critical infrastructure that can impact on emergency preparedness against biological warfare and terror, and we don’t think that should be sold to the private sector,“

Red-Green Alliance Pelle Dragsted told Extra Bladet, invoking traditional socialist arguments against privatization in general.

Security concerns over a possible shortage of vaccines have been raised by other experts as well.

“One must be very careful when outsourcing key activities such as vaccine production to a country like Saudi Arabia,”

Middle East expert Helle Lykke Nielsen from the Southern Danish University told Extra Bladet, warning of unpredictable consequences for Danish healthcare.

Another cause of concern is that Aljomaih’s subsidiary AJ Vaccines will deliver serum shots for Danish children for a period of at least 30 months.

“Selling key manufacturing facilities such as those producing vaccines to ideologically hostile countries which, for whatever reason, may abruptly decide to shut down production, does not sound like a good idea. Those who say that the Saudis are merely interested in profit like anyone else should know better,”

American terrorism expert Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy and its Economic Warfare Institute, told Extra Bladet.

Source

— Vaccines and Terrorism

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