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(NaturalNews)
Agri- and biotech giant Syngenta is being sued by hundreds of farmers
in at least 20 states for shocking business practices, including using
the American people as GMO guinea pigs.
According to Arkansas Business,
one of the lawsuits against the Swiss seed manufacturer, which has been
filed on behalf of two Newport-area farms, alleges that Syngenta "has
engaged in a criminal conspiracy to contaminate the U.S. corn crop to
force China (and) other nations that buy U.S. corn and U.S. farmers to
accept" GMO corn.
The publication further reported in online editions:
The
suit, field by the Emerson Poynter law firm, which has offices in
Little Rock and Houston, alleges that Syngenta violated the Racketeer
Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is usually
used to fight organized crime.
The firm filed the class-action
suit in January on behalf of Eagle Lake Farms and Kenny Falwell, both
operating farms in the Newport area. The suit was filed in U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. At least eight other suits
have also been filed against the seed maker, the news report said.
In
all, there are hundreds of pending suits against Syngenta that have
been filed by American farmers since last fall. The suits claim that
Syngenta caused financial losses of between $1 billion and $2.9 billion
to U.S. corn farmers after selling them GMO corn that China had yet to
approve for use. China is a major (and growing) importer of American
corn and maize-related byproducts.
Drop in value
In
particular, the suits identified the Agrisure Viptera seed, also known
as MIR 162. The suits say the seeds have been genetically altered to
resist corn pests including earworms and cutworms. The seed was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2010.
In
November 2013, China began banning shipments of U.S. corn after its
scientists detected the GMO trait, leading to a dramatic decrease in the
price and value of U.S. corn. The suits allege that even farmers who did not use the GMO corn suffered economic losses as well.
Farmers
in 20 states have filed suit. Together, they represent 86 percent of
all corn planted in the United States last year, plaintiffs' lawyers
said.
Arkansas Business further reported:
China
went on to approve Viptera in December, but plaintiffs' lawyers say the
development has little, if any, effect on their case. Scott Powell of
Hare Wynn Newell & Newton of Birmingham, Alabama, is one of those
lawyers.
China, with its rapidly expanding middle class, has
"a voracious appetite for corn," Powell said, and when it stopped buying
U.S. corn, it found other vendors, like Brazil. And once a country
finds a substitute vendor for a product, it rarely switches back.
It's not just farmers lining up to sue Syngenta for its shady practice. Other agri-business giants are suing as well.
'We don't mess with China'
For
example ADM, one of the world's largest processors of corn, filed suit
against the Swiss company in November. "Syngenta chose to sell a corn
seed product with traits that were not approved in all major export
markets, without undertaking reasonable stewardship practices to prevent
the resulting crop from commingling with or otherwise tainting the rest
of the U.S. corn supply," an ADM spokeswoman told Arkansas Business.
For it's part, Syngenta
says the suits are baseless, saying it "believes that the lawsuits are
without merit and strongly upholds the right of growers to have access
to approved new technologies that can increase both their productivity
and their profitability," as reported by AgWeb.com.
The
company added that it "commercialized the trait in full compliance with
regulatory and legal requirements," "obtained import approval from major
corn importing countries," and "has been fully transparent in
commercializing the trait over the last four years."
U.S. farmers take China's business seriously.
"We don't mess with China," Deb Volnek, a Nebraska farmer involved in the suit against Syngenta, told Reuters. "When China buys something, the markets go up. When they don't, the markets go down."
The
NaturalNews Network is a non-profit collection of public education
websites covering topics that empower individuals to make positive
changes in their health, environmental sensitivity, consumer choices and
informed skepticism. The NaturalNews Network is owned and operated by
Truth Publishing International, Ltd., a Taiwan corporation. It is not
recognized as a 501(c)3 non-profit in the United States, but it
operates without a profit incentive, and its key writer, Mike Adams,
receives absolutely no payment for his time, articles or books other
than reimbursement for items purchased in order to conduct product
reviews.
The vast majority of our content is freely given away at
no charge. We offer thousands of articles and dozens of downloadable
reports and guides (like the Honest Food Guide)
that are designed to educate and empower individuals, families and
communities so that they may experience improved health, awareness and
life fulfillment.
Published: 09:25 EST, 24 November 2015 | Updated: 20:28 EST, 24 November 2015
Danger list: Endangered primates that are battling for survival
They
are our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom, yet more than
half of the world's primates are facing extinction due to our
destruction of the habitats where they live.
Burning
and clearing of large areas of tropical forest, combined with hunting
of primates for food and illegal wildlife trade, has placed many species
of apes, lemurs and monkeys at risk of dying out.
These
include iconic species such as the Sumatran orang-utan, Grauer's
gorilla, the Northern brown howler monkey and the Hainan gibbon.
More
than half of the world's primates are at risk of dying out due to the
threat posed by habitat loss and hunting. The Hainan gibbon (pictured)
is thought to be the world's most endangered primate, with just 25 of
the animals left living on an isolated island in China
Scientists
and conservation experts have now updated a report on the world's 25
most endangered primates based on the current knowledge of the animals
numbers and the risks facing them.
Dr
Christoph Schwitzer, a primatologist and director of conservation at
Bristol Zoological Society who helped compile the list, said: 'This
research highlights the extent of the danger facing many of the world's
primates.
A mysterious bright light in the sky has sent Californians into panic - only for it to be explained soon afterwards.
The light was spotted travelling quickly over Orange County and neighbouring areas late on Saturday, leading to fevered speculation online over its origin.
The Orange County sheriff said the light was from a naval test fire made off the California coastline.
Aviation officials had warned of possible US military activity.
Videos posted online show a bright flare rising high, before a wide, bright blue flash emerges in a cone shape. Many videos continue to track the light for several minutes.
On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said night-time flights to and from Los Angeles International (LAX) would avoid flying over the Pacific Ocean to the west of the airport, the second busiest in the US.
The FAA did not disclose the reason for the change, but indicated that military activity in the area would take place between Friday and Thursday.
Media in California confirmed that the light came from an unarmed Trident missile fired from the USS Kentucky navy submarine.
The platinum-selling singer Josh Groban was one of those who tweeted his shock at the light:
A Trident missile the Navy tested off Los Angeles Saturday night is shown from the Fourth Street bridge over 110 Freeway in Los Angeles. Photographer Preston Newman was on a photo shoot at the time. — Preston Newman Photography, on Instagram at @Newman_Photos
A mysterious light that streaked across San Diego’s night sky Saturday, visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona, was a Trident missile test-fired by the Navy.
Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted the scheduled Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California, a Navy spokesman said.
Mystery light over San Diego
Shot by Jim Boydston.
The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test, said Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy’s Third Fleet.
Perry said launches are conducted on a frequent, recurring basis to ensure the continued reliability of the system. “Each test activity provides valuable information about our systems, thus contributing to assurance in our capabilities,” he said in a statement.
The missile was not armed and Strategic Systems Programs does not routinely announce missile testing. Information regarding the test launch of such missiles is classified prior to the launch, Perry said.
The test range is a massive area northwest of Los Angeles. The Navy periodically uses the range to test fire Tomahawk and Standard cruise from surface ships and submarines.
Read More Here
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Thermonuclear missile launch near Los Angeles is final sign of World War III on the precipice... US, China and Russia all escalating covert attacks in run up to global war
Sunday, November 08, 2015
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews) "A mysterious bright light in the sky has sent Californians into panic," reports the BBC. "Videos posted online show a bright flare rising high, before a wide, bright blue flash emerges in a cone shape. Many videos continue to track the light for several minutes."
Last night, Californians immediately leapt to social media to propose their theories of the phenomenon, ranging from a nuclear missile attack to meteors. "Law agencies and news media in San Diego were flooded with calls about 6 p.m. from people reporting everything from a flare to a comet to a nuclear bomb in the western sky," reports the San Diego Union Tribune.
Just a day earlier, the FAA had issued flight restrictions for the Los Angeles International Airport, denying aircraft access to one of the most frequent approach paths for international and domestic travel.
The official explanation is a lie
The "official" explanation of this event -- and remember that "official" explanations are almost always cover stories -- is that the U.S. Navy launched a test missile just because they "routinely" test missiles.
"Media in California confirmed that the light came from an unarmed Trident missile fired from the USS Kentucky navy submarine," reports the BBC. While they call the missile "unarmed," they fail to mention that the Trident missile normally carries a thermonuclear warhead. There's also no way for the media to know whether this missile was really unarmed or not, as the sole source on that question is the U.S. Navy itself.
Apparently the media thinks the public is so incredibly stupid that they'll believe the U.S. Navy has nowhere else to launch a test missile other than right next to Los Angeles. Somehow we're supposed to believe the entire Pacific Ocean won't work for such a test launch, so they have to launch it adjacent to the airport and thereby inconvenience commercial aviation traffic for an entire week.
Obviously, the official cover story is pure bunk. So what's the real story behind this? It all has to do with China and the covert war that's already underway between China, the US and Russia.
China's military submarines are a huge threat to U.S. national security
To get up to speed on what's really happening, read this report from the Congressional Research Service (PDF) found at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf
Authored by Ronald O'Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs, and just released on Sep. 21, 2015, the report is entitled, "China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities."
The report states:
China is building a modern and regionally powerful navy with a limited but growing capability for conducting operations beyond China’s near-seas region. Observers of Chinese and U.S. military forces view China’s improving naval capabilities as posing a potential challenge in the Western Pacific to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain control of blue-water ocean areas in wartime -- the first such challenge the U.S. Navy has faced since the end of the Cold War.
China’s naval modernization effort encompasses a broad array of platform and weapon acquisition programs, including anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), submarines, surface ships, aircraft, and supporting C4ISR (command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) systems.
The most important section of this report, in my assessment, is this description of China's ship-killing ballistic missiles:
China is fielding an ASBM, referred to as the DF-21D, that is a theater-range ballistic missile equipped with a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) designed to hit moving ships at sea. DOD states that China continues to field an ASBM based on a variant of the CSS-5 (DF-21) MRBM that it began deploying in 2010. This missile provides the PLA the capability to attack aircraft carriers in the western Pacific. The CSS-5 Mod 5 has a range exceeding 1,500 km [about 810 nm] and is armed with a maneuverable warhead.
China, in other words, has weapons capable of destroying U.S. aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships. The 1,500 km range is key because it allows a very wide operational range.
Just recently in August, the Chinese and Russians held their largest naval joint exercise in history as a way to "counter U.S. influence in Asia." As reported by Collapse.news:
The Russian and Chinese navies are set to hold their largest joint exercises ever, featuring scores of warships, hundreds of troops and an amphibious landing, in what appears to be a deepening of ties meant to counter a rising U.S. military presence in Asia.
In September, Chinese warships were spotted operating near the coast of Alaska. This was reported across the mainstream media, including in the Wall Street Journal in an article entitled, "Five Chinese Navy Ships Are Operating in Bering Sea off Alaska."
Fox News also covered the same story: "5 Chinese warships spotted off Alaska coast during President Obama's visit."
In response to that territorial provocation, the U.S. Navy sent the USS Lassen destroyer to within 12 nautical miles of China's newly-constructed military bases in the Spratly Islands.
China's communist government openly condemned the act as a provocation of war. From the Straits Times:
China claims most of the South China Sea and on Oct 9 its Foreign Ministry warned that Beijing would "never allow any country to violate China's territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and overflight."
Secret space weapon attacks on China's industrial infrastructure
This is all on top of the Pentagon's secret space weapon attacks on China's industrial infrastructure.
As I wrote on August 17 of this year, Natural News was informed by mainland Chinese dissidents that they believe the string of mysterious industrial explosions such as the massive Tianjin explosion was caused by kinetic strikes from orbital platform weapons operated by the United States.
China then retaliated by covertly destroying a U.S. weapons depot in Tokyo, using old-school sabotage techniques. Two additional industrial explosions in China soon followed.
Taiwan surrenders to China with insane "One China" admission by President Ma
China's war of aggression is also in high gear on the geopolitical side, with China pressuring Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou to publicly state yesterday that Taiwan is now part of China!
A massive cultural backlash in Taiwan is now surging, as most of the country's citizens do not want to be part of communist China. Taiwan's DPP party is rapidly rising to prominence on the platform of Taiwan as a sovereign nation, but China remains in an aggressive military stance, always threatening Taiwan with an armed invasion if Taiwan attempts to "secede" from China. (Taiwan's GMT party, which is a "pro-China" party, has been plagued by an endless stream of scandals and corruption.)
From Channel News Asia: "Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou emphasised the island must continue to uphold the 1992 Consensus with China’s Communist Party in order to promote cross-strait relations and development, as he marked the 22nd anniversary of the historic talks between Taipei and Beijing in Singapore."
Taiwan is a critical strategic island for U.S. influence over the Pacific naval theater of operations. Taiwan's airports and military basis provide key strategic locations for staging U.S. aircraft and even bombers if conflict breaks out with China.
As you ponder all this, keep in mind that Taiwan's media giants have all been infiltrated and taken over by communist China. The Taiwan media is now China's state-run media. Only small, independent websites can be trusted to report the truth.
The Trident missile launch near Los Angeles was a warning shot against China in a last-ditch effort to prevent all-out war
The upshot of all this is that the U.S. and China have been engaged in a covert war for quite some time, and that covert war has escalated month by month, even as the official state-run news organizations of both nations have denied any war is happening at all.
Last night's test launch of the Trident missile over Orange County was staged near a high population area for a tactical reason: To have as many witnesses (and videos) as possible, sending a very visible warning message to China that says, "We can destroy you if you don't back off."
The Trident missile, built by Lockheed Martin, is a thermonuclear missile system (Fleet Ballistic Missile) with a range of at least 4,000 nautical miles. See the Trident missile page on the U.S. Navy website. Just one Trident missile launched from somewhere in the Pacific Ocean could devastate China with a nuclear strike on Beijing.
The U.S. Navy's "showcasing" of the Trident missile near Los Angeles is a $31 million billboard that tells China, "Don't f--k with us."
Nobody in the mainstream media is report this; probably because, with a few exceptions, they are mostly clueless, brain-dead propagandists who know nothing about international geopolitics and the real state of conflict in our world. Also, they are ordered what to write by the U.S. government regime in exactly the same way China's "journalists" are ordered what to write by the Chinese regime.
Right now, the United States and China are in an undeclared state of war. China stands ready to strike the USA with nuclear warheads or high altitude EMP weapons that would destroy the U.S. power grid and cause 90% casualties across the unprepared population. Legendary American journalist Ted Koppel has even written a book about this entitled Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath.
China and Russia preparing massive first strike against America
Many people believe that China and Russia are working together to prepare for a massive first strike against the United States that would cripple its defenses and economy. Following that first strike, a land invasion would commence using Russian troops.
Supporting this theory, Russian submarines have been spotted near undersea internet cables in an obvious effort to document their whereabouts so that the cables can be instantly severed, unleashing a devastating blow to the U.S. economy, Wall Street and even military communications. "Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of conflict," reports WND.com. " In times of tension or conflict, the ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent."
At the same time a new Russian "drone sub" has been created that can strike U.S. coastal cities and harbors with nuclear weapons. Writing on NationalSecurity.news, Jon Dougherty states, "According to officials, the developmental unmanned underwater vehicle, or UUV, when it is deployed, will be outfitted with megaton-class nuclear warheads that can destroy key ports used by U.S. nuclear-armed and powered submarines like Kings Bay, Georgia, and Puget Sound in Washington state."
The ultimate pre-emptive strike on America: EMP attack, cyber attack, currency wars and bandwidth blackouts
If you put the pieces of the puzzle together, what's really shaping up here is a massive, multi-layered pre-emptive strike against America, an empire seen by the rest of the world as an insane bully that meddles with everything on the international stage. This first strike, combining the forces and expertise of both China and Russia, may consist of:
• High-altitude EMP detonation over North America, destroying regional power grids.
• A devastating currency war initiated by China announcing its own gold-backed currency while dumping U.S. Treasury debt on the open market.
• A Russian-led severing of undersea fiber optic cables.
• Russian-launched nuclear missiles targeting U.S. coastal cities.
• China-led assault on U.S. Navy warships using anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs).
• A cyber warfare attack on key U.S. infrastructure, including water delivery systems, nuclear power plants and the power grid.
As all this is going on, the Obama administration -- a treasonous regime of criminals who have seized control of the U.S. government in an effort to destroy America from within -- has been firing all the top military commanders who know how to survive such an assault. Instead of America's military focusing on how to win wars, troops are now subjected to sensitivity training and the politically correct push for female troops on the front lines.
This is not fiction. Even the U.S. White House is now openly preparing for a massive EMP attack launched by China.
Dave Hodges also reports in this article about World War III:
Congress has now heard testimony that the United States is not ready for World War III while Russia is chomping at the bit to “get it on”. Further Congress has learned that Obama has been once again been badly outmaneuvered by Putin, the master chess player... the Chinese and the Russians are going to kick America’s rear end in the upcoming war.
Very disturbingly, there is a growing awareness, among Congress, that the United States cannot win World War III. There was only discussion, in these congressional meetings, as to whether, or not, the U.S. could prevail in World War III, not win the conflict.
To stay up to speed on all these events and how you might survive them, I strongly urge you to pay attention to the following websites:
TalkNetwork.com - the new talk radio network where I will be discussing this Trident missile launch during tomorrow's show. It airs at 11am Pacific / 2pm Eastern.
NationalSecurity.newsBugout.newsAlternativeNews.comSpace.newsCyberwar.newsCollapse.newsTreason.newsFETCH.newsstevequayle.comallnewspipeline.comthecommonsenseshow.com
Listen to my 4-part broadcast series on this entire story:
The NaturalNews Network is a non-profit collection of public education websites covering topics that empower individuals to make positive changes in their health, environmental sensitivity, consumer choices and informed skepticism. The NaturalNews Network is owned and operated by Truth Publishing International, Ltd., a Taiwan corporation. It is not recognized as a 501(c)3 non-profit in the United States, but it operates without a profit incentive, and its key writer, Mike Adams, receives absolutely no payment for his time, articles or books other than reimbursement for items purchased in order to conduct product reviews.
The vast majority of our content is freely given away at no charge. We offer thousands of articles and dozens of downloadable reports and guides (like the Honest Food Guide) that are designed to educate and empower individuals, families and communities so that they may experience improved health, awareness and life fulfillment.
The American Dream Is Becoming A Nightmare And Life As We Know It Is About To Change
The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Permanently Locking In The Obama Agenda For 40 Percent Of The Global Economy
By Michael Snyder, on October 5th, 2015
We
have just witnessed one of the most significant steps toward a one
world economic system that we have ever seen. Negotiations for the
Trans-Pacific Partnership have been completed, and if approved it will
create the largest trading bloc on the planet. But this is not just a
trade agreement. In this treaty, Barack Obama has thrown in all sorts
of things that he never would have been able to get through Congress
otherwise. And once this treaty is approved, it will be exceedingly
difficult to ever make changes to it. So essentially what is happening
is that the Obama agenda is being permanently locked in for 40 percent
of the global economy.
The United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico,
Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and
Vietnam all intend to sign on to this insidious plan. Collectively,
these nations have a total population of about 800 million people and a
combined GDP of approximately 28 trillion dollars.
In
hailing the agreement, Obama said, “Congress and the American people
will have months to read every word” before he signs the deal that he
described as a win for all sides.
“If we can get this agreement to
my desk, then we can help our businesses sell more Made in America
goods and services around the world, and we can help more American
workers compete and win,” Obama said.
Sadly, just
like with every other “free trade” agreement that the U.S. has entered
into since World War II, the exact opposite is what will actually
happen. Our trade deficit will get even larger, and we will see even
more jobs and even more businesses go overseas.
Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal Struck As "Corporate Secrecy" Wins Again
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/05/2015 17:46 -0400
Once again the corporatocracy wins as the so-called "Trojan horse" Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has been finalized. As WSJ reports,
the U.S., Japan and 10 countries around the Pacific reached a historic
accord Monday to lower trade barriers to goods and services and set commercial rules of the road for two-fifths of the global economy, officials said.
For the U.S., the TPP (reportedly)
opens agricultural markets in Japan and Canada, tightens intellectual
property rules to benefit drug and technology companies, and establishes
a tightknit economic bloc to challenge China’s influence in the region (likely forcing their hand into separate trade agreements).
However, Obama is likely to face a tough fight to get the deal through Congress(especially in light of presidential candidates' opposition).
The
US, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim economies have reached agreement to
strike the largest trade pact seen anywhere in two decades, in what is a huge strategic and political win for US President Barack Obama and Japan’s Shinzo Abe.
It
is amazing how the elite media can be dragged along by their noses into
accepting that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) can have a big
impact on trade and growth. If I had a dollar for every time the deal
was described as “massive,” or that we were told what share of world trade
will be covered by the TPP, I would be richer than Bill Gates. The
reality is that the vast majority of the trade between the countries in
the TPP is already covered by trade agreements, as can be seen:
We continue to hear superlatives even as the evidence suggests the trade impact will be trivial. For example, the New York Timesreported that US tariffs on Japanese cars will be phased out over 30 years. Wow! The most optimistic growth estimates show a cumulative gain by 2027 of less than 0.4 percent, roughly two months of normal GDP growth.
This doesn’t mean that the TPP can’t have an impact. It will lock in a regulatory structure,
the exact parameters of which are yet to be seen. We do know that the
folks at the table came from places like General Electric and Monsanto,
not the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club. We also know that it will mean
paying more for drugs and other patent and copyright-protected material
(forms of protection, whose negative impact is never included in growth projections), but we don’t yet know how much.
We also know that the Obama administration gave up an opportunity to include currency rules.
This means that trade deficit is likely to persist long into the
future. This deficit has been a persistent source of gap in demand,
leading to millions of lost jobs. We filled this demand in the 1990s
with the stock bubble and in the last decade in the housing bubble. It
seems the latest plan from the Fed is that we simply won’t fill the gap
in this decade.
Economist Dean Baker is co-director of the
Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. A version of
this post originally appeared on CEPR’s blog Beat the Press (10/6/15).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Beijing still not releasing soil pollution data: Xinhua
Xinhua
Technical staff examine soil contaminated by heavy metal pollution. (File photo/Huang Chih-liang)
China's
Ministry of Environmental Protection will not issue data related to
soil pollution for the time being but will discuss the situation after
an in-depth investigation, the ministry confirmed on Thursday. The
ministry said it will be difficult to investigate soil pollution
nationwide, adding that it will conduct further investigations in
heavily polluted areas.
In January, Beijing lawyer Dong Zhengwei
sent an application to the ministry asking it to issue soil pollution
data, as well as create detailed measures to handle it.
The
ministry said in February that the data is a state secret and refused to
issue it. Dong was not satisfied and sent a second request. In response
the ministry said soil pollution is still being investigated and
related data remains a state secret, adding that data will be released
after further evaluation. After news of Dong's requests spread online,
many people began to wonder just how polluted the country's soil is.
Ma
Jun, head of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said in
an interview with the Legal Daily that polluted soil may affect public
health via food, crops and underground water.
"Soil pollution is
related to public health. Therefore, the public should have the right to
be informed about the situation," Ma said.
More dead pigs found in China river: report Beijing
(AFP) April 17, 2014 - At least 170 dead pigs have been found in a
Chinese river, state media reported Thursday -- the latest in a string
of similar incidents that have raised fears over food safety.The
animals were found floating in a tributary of China's second-longest
waterway, the Yellow River, in northwestern Qinghai province, the
official Xinhua news agency said.The grim discovery follows a series of
scandals involving dead pigs in Chinese rivers. Last year 16,000
carcasses were found drifting through the main waterway of the
commercial hub of Shanghai.In Qinghai -- the furthest west such an
incident has been reported -- "the source of the dead pigs is still
under investigation," Xinhua said, citing local authorities.Industry
analysts say sick pigs are sometimes dumped in rivers by farmers hoping
to avoid paying the costs of disposing of the animals by other means.Around
500 dead pigs are recovered every month from a Chinese reservoir in the
southwestern province of Sichuan, state-run media reported in March.
Authorities also found 157 dead pigs last month in a river in central Jiangxi province.
China is a major producer of pork, which surveys have found to be the country's most popular meat.
A
huge area of China's soil covering more than twice the size of Spain is
estimated to be polluted, the government said Thursday, announcing
findings of a survey previously kept secret.
Of about 6.3 million
square kilometres (2.4 million square miles) of soil surveyed -- roughly
two thirds of China's total area -- 16.1 percent is thought to be
polluted, the environmental protection ministry said in a report.
The study, which appeared on its website, blamed mining and farming practices among other causes.
"The
national soil pollution situation is not positive," the ministry said,
adding that more than 19 percent of the farmland which was surveyed is
polluted.
The ministry last year described the results of its soil
pollution survey as a state secret and refused to release the results, a
move which incensed environmental campaigners.
The government has
come under increasing pressure in recent years to take action to
improve the environment, with large parts of the country repeatedly
blanketed in thick smog and waterways and land polluted.
In
many parts of China, officials are caught between two competing
priorities: industrial development and food production. Most often,
officials’ prime concern is industrial development—characterized by
factories and mining, usually—since it is the bigger driver of economic
growth. But, predictably, unfettered industrial development results in
extremely poor conditions for food production. And it’s getting worse.
Much worse. An article in yesterday’s New York Times has some sobering statistics.
An
alarming glimpse of official findings came on Monday, when a vice
minister of land and resources, Wang Shiyuan, said at a news conference
in Beijing that eight million acres of China’s farmland, equal to the
size of Maryland, had become so polluted that planting crops on it
“should not be allowed.” [...]
One-sixth of China’s arable land —
nearly 50 million acres — suffers from soil pollution, according to a
book published this year by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
The book, “Soil Pollution and Physical Health,” said that more than 13
million tons of crops harvested each year were contaminated with heavy
metals, and that 22 million acres of farmland were affected by
pesticides.
The result of farming on polluted land is
unsurprising: poisoned food. 155 batches of rice collected from markets
and restaurants in Guangdong Province in May were found to have excess
levels of cadmium.
Land contaminated by waste from factories in Lanzhou, Gansu province. (File photo/Xinhua)
.....
China Begins Soil Pollution Clean-up amid Doubt over Funding
Apr 11, 2014
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China has announced its first pilot projects to treat metal
pollution in soil and prevent farmland from further contamination, but
critics say the government's overall efforts are underfunded and
inefficient.
The Ministry of Finance will subsidize soil pollution
prevention and treatment in three cities in the central province of
Hunan, state media reported, as pilot efforts to halt developments that
have rendered 3.33 million hectares (8 million acres) of Chinese
farmland too polluted to grow crops on.
Hunan was the source of rice containing dangerous levels of toxic cadmium sold in the southern city of Guangzhou last year.
Under
the plan, the Ministry of Agriculture will monitor and control metal
residues to prevent them from leaking into the soil, while the rice crop
will be replaced with cotton and other non-edible products.
But
government efforts to protect agricultural and urban soil fall massively
short of what is needed, said Lan Hong, a professor at Renmin
University's School of Environmental and Natural Resources.
In the
current five-year plan, the Ministry of Finance has budgeted 30 billion
yuan ($4.8 billion) in spending on soil pollution prevention efforts,
but Lan said it would cost at least 140 billion yuan, nearly five times
above the budget, to solve the problem.
"The funding is based on
data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, but it is at the
lower end of estimates. Some of the environmental damage will only be
exposed after many years," Lan told Reuters.
Chinese scientists have developed soil remediation technologies to prepare for large-scale applications.
The technologies focus on using plants to absorb heavy metal contaminants in soil.
The
technologies were developed by the Center for Environmental Remediation
of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Resources Research under
the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which began research 10 years ago.
Soil contamination is serious in China, with large areas of cropland polluted, said Lei Mei, a professor at the center.
Soil
remediation technologies have been applied on 133 hectares of land in
the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, Henan, Yunnan and Hunan provinces
and Beijing on a trial basis, and Lei said she believes the technologies
will have “good application prospects”.
A
report from the Ministry of Environmental Protection on Thursday showed
that about 19.4 per cent of farmland in China was polluted, according
to Xinhua News Agency.
“The publication of the survey result is a milestone for soil remediation in China,” Lei said.
Papua New Guinea recorded the heaviest prevalence of rape. Photograph: Rocky Roe/AFP/Getty Images
Nearly a quarter of men in the Asia-Pacific region have admitted to committing rape at least once in their life, according to a new survey (pdf), with more than half of those respondents claiming they raped for the first time while in their teens.
The study covering six countries – Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka
– found that 10% of men admitted to raping at least once a woman who
was not their partner, a figure that rose to nearly 25% when rape of a
partner was included.
Nearly 75% of those who had committed rape
said they did so because they felt sexually entitled; more than half
said they did it for entertainment.
The UN-led study on men and violence collected data from more than 10,000 men and 3,000 women
aged 18-49 between 2010 and 2013 in order to understand why men commit
violence against women and what can be done to prevent it.
The
findings are significant because the Asia-Pacific region is home to over
half of the world's population, making the amount and range of
information collected "unprecedented and ground-breaking", said Dr Emma
Fulu of Partners for Prevention, the joint-UN programme that
co-ordinated the study.
"This is really the first time we've had
data on rape perpetration on this scale, not just in the region but in
the world, and I think it probably suggests rape is more widespread than
we had thought, and the perpetration of rape starts earlier than people
perhaps thought, which really highlights the need to start working with
younger boys and girls to stop the violence," she said.
A
well-known and outspoken Chinese academic is facing a vote next month
to fire him from his post at Peking University. Economist Yeliang Xia
has made waves by signing Charter 08, an open letter calling for
political freedom, and for criticizing censorship and the so-called
"Chinese Dream." He joins LinkAsia to discuss the implications of
dissent and next month's vote.
By Michael Snyder, on October 5th, 2015
