by Jon Rappoport
Infowars.com

Whole Foods has announced that, by 2018, it will label all products in its stores that contain genetically-modified ingredients.

Mike Adams, at naturalnews.com, has written an excellent article covering this development. You should read it.

Whole Foods cites customers’ concerns as a major reason for its change in policy. One picture of the future: by overwhelming popular acclaim, non-GMO products at Whole Foods stores will squeeze out GMO products.

The other picture? At some point, customers will lose interest in the new labeling program and buy whatever they want to eat, regardless of whether it contains GMOs.

Monsanto views labeling as less than ideal, but far better than outright county-by-county bans on growing GMO crops. Several counties in California, for example, have already enacted such bans. That’s the real threat to the Monsanto crime empire.

Monsanto, with its very deep pockets, can sustain an endless propaganda campaign aimed at convincing consumers that GMO food is equivalent, in all ways, to non-GMO. So far, this PR blitz has won over most politicians, as well as a major sector of the technologically-educated class.

So what will happen, up the road, as Whole Foods customers move beyond their initial excitement at being able to tell whether they’re buying GMOs? Will they continue to care? Or will the labels evoke about as much interest as fat and carb content do now?

If Whole Foods’ buying public falls into apathy on the GMO issue, presumably the stores will continue to offer GMO products in profusion, because the cash registers keep ringing.

As Whole Foods bosses calculate their strategies, there is another obvious point that must be hammered home. Again. GMO food is nutritionally polluted, deficient, and, in the case of the Roundup Ready crops, drenched with far more toxic chemicals than would ordinarily be present.

Farmers across America, who have locked themselves into contracts with Monsanto, are now facing disaster, because superweeds that don’t fold up and die under assault from the Roundup herbicide are taking over their growing fields.

So the farmers are doing what are called burndowns. Not once, but several times a year, they’re saturating their land with chemicals stronger than Roundup, like Paraquat, which has been banned in 32 countries. The burndowns are undertaken to kill the march of the superweeds. This means more toxicity in the soil and in the food crops.

To present customers with the choice of buying GMO or non-GMO food in stores isn’t like making a distinction between red tomatoes and orange tomatoes. It’s not even an assertion that GMOs are unhealthy. It’s: “let the customer decide.”

By this logic, selling food containing, say, high levels of mercury, is acceptable because “people want it.”

The trouble, of course, begins with Monsanto and its government-agency allies, who insist, based on nothing, that GMOs are safe and non-toxic. From there, it appears that consumer choice is sane policy.

But it isn’t sane. That’s an illusion.

Yes, we can say that Whole Foods has made a step in the right direction, but that’s only true if its customers will really shun GMOs. And in the meantime, this “let the consumer decide” is a deception.

“Well, we’re in business to make money. We can’t just strip all GMO products off the shelves. We have to bow to the free market, to the customer.”

If that’s really Whole Foods’ position, then let them state it clearly. Don’t beat around the bush while you’re breaking your arm patting yourself on the back.

“Yes, like every other retailer in America, we’re selling bad products. We know they’re bad. They’re called GMOs. Nobody should be eating GMOs, but what the hell are we going to do?”

Of course, this kind of honesty would be a killer in the world of consumerism. It’s also one reason why GMO food has proliferated to this point. It’s a rare company that wants to step up to the plate and speak the unvarnished truth.

“Hey, we sell shit. Lots of it. But don’t blame us. You people want to buy it. You want it, we stock it. That’s the reality.”

Try this one on for size. Do you support the sale of ANYTHING, no matter WHAT it contains? Do you support poison in food, along with a major operation of concealment, so that the majority of the buying public isn’t informed that the poison is in their food? Is that okay? Is that LEGAL?

The answer to the last question is, of course, no. It’s not legal.

For the next five years, as Whole Foods starts labeling GMO products in their stores, they should undertake a full-bore education campaign across America. They should book halls and have their execs stand up and say:

“You know that big sign we have posted on our stores? ‘Nothing artificial, ever?’ That’s bullshit. Listen, for a lot of years now, you the consumer and we the seller have been involved in a scam. It’s called GMO food. We want this to end. We also don’t want to go broke. Help us and help yourselves. Here’s the complete evidence that we’ve been selling, and you’ve been buying, food that is harmful to your health. You and we are in an embrace, in this very bad spiral. We have to get out of it.”

That would be a start, but the chances of it happening are on a par with a flea driving a Mercedes on the moon.

And it wouldn’t begin to address the fact that toxic GMO food shouldn’t, by any reasonable law, be sold at all.

You also might keep an eye on corporate mergers and acquisitions, just in case Whole Foods decides to sell itself to a larger (and more predatory) company. Anything could happen in the next five years.

Here are a few of the largest shareholders in Whole Foods. They’re investment funds: JP Morgan Large Cap Growth Select; Wells Fargo Advantage Growth Inv; Fidelity Growth Company; JNL/Mellon Cap Management; T Rowe Price Growth Stock. Given this array of stock owners, it might be easier to step out into the spotlight and promote GMO labeling than to say, “Look, we’re eliminating GMO products from our stores, they’ll all be gone in a few years, no matter what.”

And what will Whole Foods do if, as they gradually place GMO labels on their products, those products continue to sell about as well as they’re selling now with no labels? Will the company keep pushing its pure agenda, or will it simply acquiesce, and end up with a half-GMO and half-non-GMO inventory, to “accommodate all tastes?”

Jon RappoportThe author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com.

(In the below report, Infowars Nightly News investigative team Melissa Melton and Aaron Dykes uncovered the ugly facts about the ‘organic elite’ cooperating with Big Agra, the USDA and even Monsanto, all while deceptively positioning themselves to customers under misleading premises.)

Says Latinnews: A consummate democrat committed to transforming Venezuela to benefit the poor, or an archetypal autocrat bent on amassing personal power? It is axiomatic to call President Hugo Chávez a polarising figure but when on 5 March he finally succumbed to the cancer which he had doggedly fought for two years, the ledger of his political life could be opened and examined. It showed more debits than credits.

The sheer power of his personality and his innate talent for inspiring loyalty by conveying the impression that he cared personally is inimitable within his Bolivarian Revolution.

Venezuelans are likely to elect his anointed heir Nicolás Maduro as a valedictory homage to Chávez in forthcoming elections, but Maduro lacks this talent and he will not be able to sidestep serious economic and public security problems as Chávez could. The warring factions within Chavismo are united now but it is far from clear he can keep them that way.

Venezuelan CNE admitted seven presidential candidates

The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela admitted today seven presidential candidates of a total of eight registered for the elections of April 14, convened in line with the Constitution.

The session of the CNE rejected the nomination of Gonzalo Contreras, from Cambio Pana party, as he did not submitted the presidential management plan, requirement set in the Constitution and the regulations.

Thus, the list of applicants includes Nicolás Maduro, nominated by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and other 13 political organizations; the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, on behalf of the Democratic Unity Table, while also repeating Queen Sequera, from Labor Power Party and Maria Bolivar, from the Democratic Party United for Peace and Freedom.

It is also included Christian Pastor Eusebio Mendez, who will represent the organization New Vision for My Country, created in 2012, Fredy Tabarquina Organized by the Youth party of Venezuela and Julio Mora, from Udemo group.

Life sentences given to five Argentinean oppressors

Five Argentinean oppressors accused of committing crimes against humanity against 20 victims held at Campo de Mayo under military dictatorship (1976-1983) were given life prison sentences today.

The sentence was ruled by the Federal Criminal Trial Court No.1 of Buenos Aires against ex de facto ruler Reynaldo Benito Bignone and ex-commander of Military Institutes, Santiago Omar Riveros.

The Judicial Information Center also said that life sentences were also given to Luis Sadi Pepa, Eduardo Oscar Corrado and Carlos Tomas Macedra. Campo de Mayo was a main clandestine detention center in Buenos Aires. At least 4,000 people are estimated to have been held there.

This ruling comes as 25 oppressors are being tried as part of the Operation Condor case. They are accused of illegal assembly to systematically killing political opponents, among other crimes.

by Ethan A. Huff

A recent study published in the Polish journal Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis raises new and pertinent questions about the intensifying link between mercury toxicity and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Far from being the definitively debunked hoax that the mainstream media and so-called “skeptics” have arrogantly declared it to be, the purported connection between mercury exposure, particularly in vaccines, and autism is becoming nearly undeniable, as evidence continues to emerge showing that the official story on the matter is complete bunk.

Entitled Evidence of parallels between mercury intoxication and the brain pathology in autism, the 41-page paper identifies a shocking 20 parallels between mercury poisoning and autism. Among these are intracellular degeneration, neuroinflammation, brain immune response activation, oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation, reduced glutathione levels, mitochondrial dysfunction, pathological changes of blood vessels, decreased cerebral and cerebellar blood flow, and increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the brain, as well as many others.

Put more simply, the research team, headed by Janet K. Kern from the Institute of Chronic Illnesses in Maryland, identified nearly two-dozen metabolic and systemic changes that occur inside the body as a result of mercury intoxication.

And it just so happens that these same changes also commonly occur in children with ASD, many of whom were injected with mercury in the form of Thimerosal as a result of childhood vaccinations.

“Although there may be genetic or developmental components to autism, the evidence in this current review of the brain findings in autism clearly indicates the reality of brain injury in ASD … (and) the brain injury symptoms which characterize autism closely correspond to those seen in sub-acute Hg (mercury) intoxication,” wrote the authors in their conclusion.

“The evidence suggests that mercury may be either causal or contributory in the brain pathology in ASD, and possibly working synergistically with other toxic compounds or pathogens to produce the brain pathology observed in those diagnosed with an ASD,” they added.

You can read the team’s full review for more details about how they came to these shockingly inconvenient (at least for the vaccine industry) conclusions here: http://www.ane.pl/linkout.php?pii=7212.

Stop injecting your children with mercury-laden vaccines, and tell all your friends and family to do the same Interestingly, J.K. Kernet al. cite earlier work on the subject from 2000 that found a whopping 79 similarities between mercury intoxication and autism, which is outlined on page 139 of the journal (page 27 of the PDF file of the study). From this diagram, you can see for yourself how mercury intoxication exhibits virtually the exact same symptoms as ASD, a fact that even the most dedicated and outspoken skeptic cannot deny.

Similar research published in the Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology back in June found that perinatal exposure to Thimerosal, or exposure to mercury in vaccines shortly after birth, is directly responsible for inducing neurotoxic effects on the developing brain.

Particularly in the cerebellum, mercury was found to stunt gene expression as it pertains to hormone regulation, particularly from the thyroid gland, which is responsible for brain development in humans (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22791642).

With all this in mind, it is clearly not worth the risk to inject your little ones with this toxic poison just because the establishment insists, without any sort of proof, that mercury is safe. The group Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs, also known as CoMeD, has been working for years to get mercury banned from all vaccines and medicines, as it is clearly an unsafe neurotoxin with life-altering affects — but until that time, be sure to avoid all mercury-containing vaccines, and tell your friends and family to do the same.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Hugo Chávez

Venezuelans on Wednesday are mourning President Hugo Chávez, who died after a two-year battle with cancer, while government officials make preparations for his funeral and succession.

The armed forces fired a 21-gun salute to Chávez at 8:00 a.m. and announced that a cannon would be fired once an hour until the late president was buried on Friday.

The order for the continuous salute was given by Defense Minister Adm. Diego Molero, armed forces strategic command chief Gen. Wilmer Barrientos said.

“This is one of the top honors for a head of state,” the general told VTV.

The 58-year-old Chávez died on Tuesday after battling cancer for nearly two years.

Chávez’s death was announced by a tearful Vice President Nicolás Maduro, who will serve as interim president.

Elections will be held within 30 days and Maduro is expected to be the candidate of the governing Venezuelan United Socialist Party.

The Venezuelan leader’s death made headlines around the world and his funeral is expected to be attended by several world leaders.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica and Bolivian President Evo Morales have already arrived in Caracas, while other leaders are expected to arrive on Thursday, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Wednesday. Chávez had undergone four operations, as well as courses of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, since first being diagnosed with cancer in June 2011.

The socialist president spent more than two months in Cuba due to complications that followed his Dec. 11 cancer surgery in Havana.

Government officials make preparations for his funeral and succession.

The armed forces fired a 21-gun salute to Chavez at 8:00 a.m. and announced that a cannon would be fired once an hour until the late president was buried on Friday.

Latin America vows to protect sharks and fight Asian interests

Latin America adopted a nearly unanimous position Wednesday at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, meeting in Bangkok to protect sharks, putting its weight behind a proposal that the Asian bloc considers unacceptable. Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Honduras took the lead in advancing the shark-protection position, which is backed by the European Union and the United States.

Advocates of shark protection want to regulate captures and the trade in whitetip reef sharks, hammerhead sharks, sardine sharks and stingrays.

The proposals won the near unanimous support of the regional bloc formed by South America, Central America and the Caribbean at a previous CITES meeting.

The Latin American bloc wants sharks included in Appendix 2 of CITES, which regulates captures, to avoid endangering the animals’ populations.

Mexican priest activist criticizes police focus on migrants

The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, who is known for his work with Central American migrants, said during a conference in Mexico City that he was concerned about the government’s increasing emphasis on policing in its immigration policy.

Officials have been turning the National Migration Institute, or INM, into more of a police agency, Solalinde said at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

The Catholic priest, who founded the Hermanos del Camino shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca, was forced to leave Mexico for a short time last year after receiving threats.

“Sometimes there are few migrants and up to 80 armed (Federal Police) officers, who get involved in everything” at the INM station in Acayucan, Veracruz, the priest said.

(Hispanically Speaking News contributed to this report).

by Jurriaan Maessen
Infowars.com

Scientific publication envisions “a strategic multilateral implementation (of planetary scale geoengineering) through an exclusive ‘club’ that increases benefits to members at the expense of those excluded.”

In a recent publication published by Environmental Research Letters, three scientists have published the results of a computer simulation “game”, probing several scenario’s on how to best organize a “unilateral implementation scheme” of global geoengineering.

“(…) a sufficiently powerful international coalition might be able to deploy solar geoengineering. Here, we show that regional differences in climate outcomes create strategic incentives to form coalitions that are as small as possible, while still powerful enough to deploy solar geoengineering.”

Defining geoengineering as “intentionally reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches Earth’s surface through the use of stratospheric aerosols”, the authors used climate models (such as the ones used by the IPCC) as the basis for their “gaming” activities- which they describe as “global thermostat setting game”:

“The characteristics of coalitions to geoengineer climate are modeled using a ‘global thermostat setting game’ based on climate model results. Coalition members have incentives to exclude non-members that would prevent implementation of solar geoengineering at a level that is optimal for the existing coalition.”, authors Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira point out.

Under “rules and assumptions” the authors explain that “the game takes place in two stages.”

“During the first stage players choose their memberships and the winning coalition is formed. In the second stage, the winning coalition acts as a single actor to maximize the benefits of geoengineering to all coalition members. Players outside the coalition do not make decisions in this second stage.”

From the assertion that man made climate change will have different results from region to region, the scientists involved in this modeling business factored these differences into their “global thermostat setting game”, as a result of which researched different international coalitions that would be most likely to succeed in starting and maintaining a global geoengineering effort:

“(…) If a decision were made somehow to move ahead with the deployment of an intentionally introduced stratospheric aerosol layer, some regions might prefer a cooling or warming relative to the current climate, creating complicated problems in setting the global thermostat. In addition, several modeling studies have demonstrated that if solar geoengineering is used to compensate for rising greenhouse-gas concentrations and is then stopped abruptly, very rapid warming can occur. Thus, if solar geoengineering is ever implemented, stopping suddenly poses a threat.”

From this assertion follows a draconian consequence, namely that only a sustained geongineering effort of the earth’s atmosphere on the part of an international coalition can do the job. The premise of the paper, supported by their computer simulations, is that an “exclusive club” of nations taking the rein, would be the best way to sustain such a spraying campaign for a sufficient period of time:

“a strategic multilateral implementation through an exclusive ‘club’ that increases benefits to members at the expense of those excluded. If the option of a global coalition is accounted for in formulating a system of intracoalitional transfers, the game presented here always produces a stable and powerful coalition in which all coalition members benefit from excluding other parties.”

The rational behind this seemingly contradictory statement reads as follows:

“Under an exclusive coalitions model of international agreements to geoengineer, if one coalition breaks down, another is ready and eager to take its place. As the potential harm from termination grows (i.e., as the amount of greenhouse-gas forcings being compensated for with geoengineering increases), so too do the incentives to avoid this termination among all potential coalitions.”

That the geoengineering efforts by this exclusive club are a thing of the long haul is evident from the authors’ assertion that “if the coalition so decides, solar geoengineering can be implemented starting in 2015 and negotiations among club members only will determine the setting of the global thermostat for the next ten years. In each subsequent decade, negotiations begin anew, and determine a new thermostat setting for the next ten years.”

After the publication lists the outcomes of their gaming models, they conclude by stating that the “exclusive club” scenario, as opposed to an inclusive one, turns out to be the desired way to move forward:

“(…) the results of our game simulations show the maximum achievable benefits regions can gain by acting strategically to form exclusive clubs; this necessarily imposes damages on non-members relative to their preferences”.

The outcomes of this publication are inherently draconian, especially if we take into account the fact that the World Economic Forum in its latest Global Risks report warned that a “rogue nation” or individual could “hijack” global climate change for nefarious purposes. The report mentions several possible scenario’s, or X-factors, which could occur in the coming year, among which (page 57) a geoengineering nightmare, according to the report, “in which a country or small group of countries precipitates an international crisis by moving ahead with deployment or large-scale research independent of the global community. The global climate could, in effect, be hijacked by a rogue country or even a wealthy individual, with unpredictable costs to agriculture, infrastructure and global stability.”

This is an ironical confusion like only top globalist factions can produce. Where the World Economic Forum warns us about possible “rogue” parties moving ahead with planetary-wide geoengineering schemes, another group of globalist-funded scientists suggest an “exclusive club” shoud take the reins over global spraying efforts to “offset global warming”.

In the WEF-report we get the impression that the “rogue” parties described are parties that have not or will not sign onto global agreements presided over by the UN. This, according to the report, “leaves a gap for unregulated experimentation.”

“For example”, the report states “an island state threatened with rising sea levels may decide they have nothing to lose, or a well funded individual with good intentions may take matters into their own hands. There are signs that this is already starting to occur.”

“Recent studies”, the report goes on to state, “suggest that a small fleet of aircraft could inject a million tonnes of sulphur compounds into the stratosphere – enough to offset roughly half of the global warming experienced to date – for US$1-2 billion annually.”

According to environmental writer Clive Hamilton in a 2010 article for the Guardian “a powerful coalition of forces is quietly constellating around the idea of transforming the Earth’s atmosphere by simulating volcanic eruptions to counter the warming effects of carbon pollution. Engineering the planet’s climate system is attracting the attention of scientists, scientific societies, venture capitalists and conservative think tanks. Despite the enormity of what is being proposed — nothing less than taking control of Earth’s climate system — the public has been almost entirely excluded from the planning”.

In the context of the recent modeling tables published in Environmental Research Letters, these words by Hamilton (himself a believer in man-made climate change) have been taken account before they commenced with their “global thermostat setting game”. Hamilton wrote in 2010:

“If there is no international agreement an impatient nation suffering the effects of climate disruption may decide to act alone. It is not out of the question that in three decades the climate of the Earth could be determined by a handful of Communist Party officials in Beijing. Or the government of an Australia crippled by permanent drought, collapsing agriculture and ferocious bushfires could risk the wrath of the world by embarking on a climate control project”.

Apart from the fact that any planetary scale geoengineering effort would be incomprehensibly irresponsible- and apart from the fact that anthropogenic global warming is in essence a pseudo-science- the fact that scientists are now envisioning an elite club of nations taking the reins in global geoengineering should make the alarm-bells go off all over the place.

Jurriaan Maessen’s website is Explosivereports.com.