BEST INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY – 2006 LOS ANGELES INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL. **WINNER: BEST DIRECTOR for an INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY – 2006 NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. (excerpt) “…This documentary reveals Canada’s darkest secret – the deliberate extermination of indigenous (Native American) peoples and the theft of their land under the guise of religion. This never before told history as seen through the eyes of this former minister (Kevin Annett) who blew the whistle on his own church, after he learned of thousands of murders in its Indian Residential Schools…”

CDC launch investigation on Morgellons’ Disease

Preliminary findings suggest a link between Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making GM crops; has genetic engineering created a new epidemic? 

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins

A fully illustrated and referenced version is posted on ISIS members’ website. Details here.

An electronic version of the complete report, or any other complete ISIS report, can be sent to you via e-mail for a donation of £3.50. Please e-mail the title of the report to: report@i-sis.org.uk

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States announced the launch of an investigation on ‘Morgellons Disease’ in January 2008 [1], after receiving thousands of complaints from people with this bewildering condition, which it describes as follows [2]: “Persons who suffer from this unexplained skin condition report a range of cutaneous (skin) symptoms including crawling, biting and stinging sensations; granules, threads, fibers, or black speck-like materials on or beneath the skin, and/or skin lesions (e.g., rashes or sores). In addition to skin manifestations, some sufferers also report fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, and changes in visions.”

Morgellons Disease first became known in 2001, when Mary Leitao created a web site describing the illness in her young son, which she named after a 17th century medical study in France describing similar symptoms [3]. Until then, people with Morgellons Disease have been diagnosed as cases of “delusional parasitosis”, in which the symptoms are deemed entirely imaginary, and lesions allegedly due to self-inflicted wounds.

Indeed, the debate over Morgellons Disease has continued in the pages of medical and scientific journals right up to the CDC’s announcement [4-7]

Dr. Michele Pearson, principal investigator for the CDC said [1] that the primary goals of the study are “to learn more about who may be affected with this condition, the symptoms they experience and to look for clues about factors that might contribute to the condition,” adding that the condition is “complex”, and “may be due to multiple factors.”

In response to questions from journalists at the CDC press conference, Pearson said:

“ We are aware that many patients have suffered from this condition. And, I can tell you that here at CDC, we have really been seeing an increasing number of these reports over the past year or so.”

CDC’s investigation is to be carried out in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Division of Research and the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Dr. Joe Selby, Director of the Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Division of Research, said the study would proceed in three stages. In the first stage, they will identify all members who may have seen a Kaiser Permanente physician with symptoms suggestive of this condition at any point during the 18 months between July 1 2006 and December 31, 2007, and determine whether they meet eligibility criteria for the study. In stage two, all eligible members will be invited to complete a comprehensive web based or telephone survey conducted by the CDC that examines the duration and severity of a variety of symptoms. And in stage three, those with active symptoms will be invited to the division of research for an extensive clinical examination including collection of skin biopsies, blood and urine samples.

In a paper [6] published in 2006, researchers from the Morgellons Research Foundation [3] identified the states of California, Texas and Florida as having the highest number of cases of Morgellons disease in the United States. Primary clusters were noted in Los Angeles and San Francisco (California) and Houston, Dallas and Austin (Texas). California accounted for 26 percent of cases in the US, but all 50 US states and 15 other nations, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands, have reported cases of Morgellons disease. The two main occupational groups reporting symptoms are nurses and teachers, with nurses outnumbering teachers three to one. The risk factor common to both groups is suspected to be the possibility of transmitted infectious agents.

Skin lesions and fibres may not be readily apparent in all individuals with the disease, as family members of patients often report similar systemic disease symptoms without skin symptoms. Families in which all members are affected often have suspected simultaneous exposure to an inciting agent. Contact with soil or waste products appears to be associated with the disease. Cases have been reported in cats and dogs, as well as horses.

What finally prompted CDC to investigate the disease? The Morgellons Research Foundation [3] was set up in 2002 in honour of Mary Leitao, the Foundation’s executive director. It publicises the plight of patients with similar conditions and operates a registry of afflicted families. The Foundation also funds scientific research. It has a Medical Advisory Board of seven with M.D. degree and two with nursing degrees. In addition, it has a Board of Nursing with five other nurses, and a Scientific Advisory Board of six scientists, all with Ph.D. degree; one of which is Vitaly Citovsky.  It may have been Citovsky’s discovery last year that finally persuaded the CDC to announce an investigation.

The Agrobacterium connection

Vitaly Citovsky is a professor of molecular and cell biology at Stony Brook University in New York (SUNY). He is a world authority on the genetic modification of cells by Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium causing crown gall disease in plants, that has been widely used in creating genetically modified (GM) plants since the 1980s because of its ability to transfer a piece of its genetic material, the T-DNA on its tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid to the plant genome (see later for details).

Citovsky’s team took scanning electron microscope pictures of the fibres in or extruding from the skin of patients suffering from Morgellons disease, confirming that they are unlike any ordinary natural or synthetic fibres (see Fig. 1, assembled from Citovsky’s website [8]).

Figure 1. Scanning electron microscope images of fibres from skin biopsies of patients with Morgellons Disease –  a, white fibre with calcite, scale bar 10 mm; b, green fibre with alumina ‘rock’ protruding, scale bar 20 mm; c, various ribbon-like, cylindrical and faceted fibres all coated with minerals, scale bar 10 mm; d, skin lesion with fibres stabbing through the epidermis, scale bar 300 mm

They also analysed patients for Agrobacterium DNA. Skin biopsy samples from Morgellons patients were subjected to high-stringency polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for genes encoded by the Agrobacterium chromosome and also for Agrobacterium virulence (vir) genes and T-DNA on its Ti plasmid. They found that “all Morgellons patients screened to date have tested positive for the presence of Agrobacterium, whereas this microorganism has not been detected in any of the samples derived from the control, healthy individuals.” Their preliminary conclusion is that “Agrobacterium may be involved in the etiology and/or progression” of Morgellons Disease.

The unpublished findings have been posted on a website [8] since January 2007. They were further publicized in the “first ever” Morgellons conference in Austin Texas, attended by 100 in March 2008 [9]. A growing list of people are registered with Morgellons Disease, totalling 12 106 worldwide recorded by Morgellons Research Foundation [3], as of 12 April 2008.

San Francisco physician, Raphael Stricker, one of only a few doctors who believe the disease is real, said [9]. “There’s almost always some history of exposure to dirt basically either from gardening or camping or something.”  He is one of the co-authors on the Agrobacterium research done in SUNY, which reported finding Agrobacterium DNA in all 5 Morgellons patients studied. Stricker suggests it is transmitted by ticks, like Lyme disease, and in a recent survey of 44 Morgellons patients in San Francisco, 43 of them also tested positive for the bacterium causing Lyme disease. Another factor consistent with Agrobacterium being a causative agent, if not the causative agent, is that when patients are treated with antibacterials for their Lyme disease, remission of Morgellons symptoms is seen in most of them [6].

Stricker also told his audience that Agrobacterium lives in the soil, and is known to cause infections in animals and human beings with compromised immune systems. It can cause skin lesions when injected into Swiss mice, a strain that is immune deficient, he said.

At this point, the findings on the Agrobacterium connection are still preliminary, as only seven patients have been studied. Nevertheless, the implications are far-reaching if this connection is confirmed, as existing evidence (reviewed below) suggests a link between Agrobacterium and genetic engineering in the creation of new disease agents, and it is paramount for the CDC investigation to include this aspect, if only to rule it out.

Agrobacterium and the genetic engineering connection

Agrobacterium not only infects human and other animal cells, it also transfers genes into them. It was SUNY professor Citovsky and his team that made the discovery some years ago [10]. Until then, the genetic engineering community had assumed that Agrobacterium did not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them.

Agrobacterium was found to transfer T-DNA into the chromosomes of human cells.

In stably transformed HeLa cells, the integration occurred at the right border of the T-DNA, exactly as would happen when it is being transferred into a plant cell genome, suggesting that Agrobacterium transforms human cells by a mechanism similar to that involved in transforming plants cells (see Box 1). Human cancer cells, neurons and kidney cells were all transformed with the Agrobacterium T-DNA. Commenting on this research in 2001, Joe Cummins had warned of hazards to laboratory and farm workers [11] (i-sis news11/12)

The Agrobacterium vector system for gene transfer

Since the discovery in the 1970s that Agrobacterium can transfer genes into plants causing crown gall disease, the soil bacterium has been developed into a vector for inserting desirable genes into the plant genome to create transgenic (GM) plants [12].

 Agrobacterium transfers T-DNA – a small region of approximately 5 to 10 percent of a resident tumour-inducing (Ti) or root-inducing (Ri) plasmid – into numerous species of plants; and as later turns out, also to fungi, algae, and even animal and human cells [13, 14] (see main text).

Transfer requires three major elements [13]: T-DNA border direct repeat sequences of 25 base pairs that flank the T-DNA and delineate the region transferred into the host, the virulence (vir) genes located on the Ti/Ri plasmid, and various genes on the bacterial chromosome. Plant genes are also involved in the successful integration of T-DNA [15]. The T-DNA contains oncogenes (cancer genes or gene for forming tumours) and genes for synthesizing opines; none of which is essential for T-DNA transfer, so they can be deleted and replaced with genes of interest and selectable markers.

Furthermore, the vir genes and T-DNA region need not be on the same replicating plasmid. This gave rise to the binary vector systems in which T-DNA and the vir genes are located on separate replicating units. The T-DNA containing unit is the binary vector and contains also the origin(s) of replication that could function both in E. coli and Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and antibiotic resistance marker genes used to select for the presence of the binary vector in bacteria. The replicating unit containing the vir genes is the ‘helper’ plasmid. Strains of Agrobacterium harbouring the two separate units are considered ‘disarmed’ if they do not contain oncogenes that could be transferred to a plant.

The association of Morgellons Disease with dirt and soil where Agrobacterium lives, the widespread use of Agrobacterium in genetic engineering of plants, and the ability of Agrobacterium to infect human cells, all point towards a possible role of genetic engineering in the aetiology of Morgellans disease via Agrobacterium.

Extensive genetic manipulation of Agrobacterium does have the potential to transform it into an aggressive human pathogen. Genetic engineering is nothing if not enhanced and facilitated horizontal gene transfer and recombination, which is widely acknowledged to be the main route for creating new pathogens. Mae-Wan Ho was among an international panel of scientists have raised this very issue in 1998, calling for a public enquiry into the possible contributions of genetic engineering biotechnology to the aetiology of infectious diseases which has greatly increased since genetic engineering began in the 1970s [16]. 

The epidemiological data of Morgellons Disease are very incomplete, and the Morgellons Research Foundation’s registry of more than 12 000 families afflicted worldwide is almost certainly only a fraction of the emerging epidemic. Still, it is significant that the majority of the cases are in the United States, the first country to release GM crops and remaining the top producer ever since.

There are other findings implicating Agrobacterium in transgenic plants released into the environment, particularly during the early years of field trials, when knowledge was poor and safety measures not as stringent as they may be today.

Agrobacterium persists in transgenic plants and is a vehicle for gene escape

By the late 1990s, the Agrobacterium vector system became very widely used, and many GM crops created were commercially released.

Scientists at the Kinsealy Research and Development Centre in Dublin, Ireland, and the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee, Scotland, were concerned that the inserted genes in plants would spread to wild populations by cross-pollination or by horizontal gene transfer to unrelated species, which was by then well-documented in the scientific literature.

They considered it “imperative” to address the risk posed in using Agrobacterium as a tool in genetic engineering [17], given its ability to transfer genes to plants. The transformation procedure involves inoculating the cells or tissue explants with Agrobacterium and co-cultivation the plant cells and bacterium for a short period, followed by the elimination of the bacterium with antibiotics.

However, if all the bacteria were not eliminated, then “release of these plants may also result in release of the Agrobacterium [with the foreign genes]”, which will serve as a vehicle for further gene escape, at least to other Agrobacterium strains naturally present in the soil.

Although various antibiotics have been used to eliminate Agrobacterium following transformation, the researchers stated that “very few authors actually test to ensure that the antibiotics succeed.”

The difficulty is compounded because the bacterium can remain latent within the plant tissue. So putting transgenic plant material into culture medium without antibiotics and finding no Agrobacterium is no guarantee that the transgenic plant is free of the bacterium, as was often assumed.

In their study, they investigated the ability of antibiotics to eliminate Agrobacterium tumefaciens after transformation in three model systems: Brassica (mustard), Solanum (potato), and Rubus (raspberry). The antibiotics carbenicillin, cefataxime and ticaracillin were used respectively to eliminate the bacterium at four times the minimum bactericidal concentration, as recommended. They found that none of the antibiotic succeeded in eliminating Agrobacterium.

The contamination levels increased from 12 to 16 weeks to such an extent that transgenic Solanum cultures senesced and died. Contamination in shoot material decreased over 16 to 24 weeks possibly because only the apical node was used in further culture, but even that did not eliminate Agrobacterium from all the samples; 24 percent remained contaminated at 24 weeks.

The binary vector was also present under non-selective conditions up to 6 months after transformation, where approximately 50 percent of contaminated material still harboured bacterial cells with the binary vector at high levels of about 10⁷ colony forming units per gram.  The researchers pointed out: “Here is where the possibility of gene escape arises. The presence of the disarmed Agrobacterium in the tissue would not be a problem if the binary vector had been lost, but now its survival and spread are real possibilities.” The binary vector contains the foreign genes as well as antibiotic resistance marker gene(s).

There is no limit to the foreign genes that can be inserted into the binary vector. A few years earlier, a research group in Israel had inserted a viroid that causes disease in citrus fruits into the disarmed Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium and used that to infect and transform several plant species including tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) Gynura aurantiaca, avocado (Persea americana), and grapefruit (Citrus paradisi) grafted on Troyer citrange (Pancirus trifoliate x C. sinensis) [18]. Extracts prepared from tissues of the infected plants 38-90 days after inoculation were plated on selective media and found to contain large amounts of the engineered bacteria.

The researchers warned of “newly formed combinations of persistently transmitted viruses” coupled with “the opportunistic and systemically moving Agrobacterium vector infectious to a wide host range might eventually cause infection and damage to crop plants or natural vegetation” that are “not presently visited by the traditional vectors of the virus disease.” 

In other words, Agrobacterium persisting in transgenic plants released into the environment has the potential to spread new diseases, and to plants that normally would not be infected by the disease agents. At the time, the researchers did not know that Agrobacterium would also infect animals and humans, and could spread new diseases to them as well.

Have these warnings been heeded by other researchers? There is no evidence they have been taken on board. Agrobacterium has since been shown to transform at least 80 different non-plant species including yeasts and other fungi, algae, mammalian and human cells, also the gram positive bacterium Streptomyces lividans. In a recent review, the researchers stated [14]: “Future research has to show whether Agrobacterium-mediated transformation contributed to horizontal gene transfer between microorganisms in the rhizosphere.”

But there is already evidence suggesting that Agrobacterium can indeed engage in horizontal gene transfer with a wide range of bacteria in the soil. (For more on horizontal gene transfer see [19]  Horizontal Gene Transfer from GMOs Does Happen, SiS 38)

Agrobacterium gene transfer mechanisms similar to conjugation in bacteria

Ho first alerted regulators to the potential of Agrobacterium contaminating GM plants to facilitate the escape of transgenes in 2003 (see Living with the Fluid Genome [20] and The Case for A GM-Free Sustainable World [21] ISIS publications). By then, Gayle Ferguson and Jack Heinemann at the University of Canterbury, Christchurh, New Zealand, had already pointed out in a review that the process whereby Agrobacterium injects T-DNA into plant cells strongly resembles conjugation, the normal mating process between bacteria [22].

Conjugation, mediated by certain bacterial plasmids, depends on a sequence called the origin of transfer (oriT) on the DNA transferred. All other functions – called tra for trans-acting functions – can be supplied from unlinked sources. Thus, ‘disabled’ plasmids with no trans-acting functions, can nevertheless be transferred by helper plasmids, the same as the binary vector system of Agrobacterium (Box 1). The resemblance does not stop there.

The left and right borders of T-DNA are similar to oriT and can be replaced by it. Furthermore, the disarmed T-DNA binay vector, lacking oncogenes as well as virulence genes, can be helped by similar genes belonging to many other pathogenic bacteria. The trans-kingdom gene transfer apparatus of Agrobacterium and the conjugative systems of bacteria are both involved in transporting macromolecules, not just DNA but also protein.

Thus, transgenic plants with contaminating Agrobacterium [20] “have a ready route for horizontal gene escape, via Agrobacterium, helped by the ordinary conjugative mechanisms of many other bacteria that cause diseases, which are present in the environment.” In the process, new and exotic disease agents could be created.

Investigations on the role of Agrobacterium in Morgellons Disease urgently needed

The investigation launched by the CDC needs to clarify the role of Agrobacterium in the aetiology of Morgellons Disease as a matter of urgency. This should include:

• Molecular characterization of Agrobacterium DNA sequences in Morgellans Disease patients
• Design of suitable probes for diagnostic purposes and for monitoring soil samples and other suspected sources of infection
• Introduction of stringent tests for Agrobacterium contamination for all transgenic plants already released or about to be released into the environment. 

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/agrobacteriumAndMorgellons.php

____________________________________________________________________________

Related Links :

- Letter From A Morgellons Family

- Hildegarde Staninger, Ph.D., RIET-1

Five members of a Palestinian family and a passerby have been killed by Israeli tank fire in the Gaza Strip. As Robert Berger reports from VOA’s Jerusalem Bureau, the incident could torpedo efforts for a ceasefire.

An Israeli tank shell slammed into a Palestinian home in Gaza, killing four children, under six years old, and their mother. The family was eating breakfast when the explosion occurred.

The Israeli army said it used tanks and aircraft to target Palestinian gunmen in an area often used to fire rockets. A tank shell apparently went astray and struck the home.

The Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, promises revenge.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum is calling on all factions to launch attacks against Israel. The response came quickly, as militants in Gaza fired rockets across the border.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak blames Hamas for the incident, saying the army is operating in Gaza because of daily Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli border communities.

Barak says Israel will continue to strike at Hamas. He accuses the group of using civilians as human shields.

The incident occurred several days after Israel rejected an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire offer from Hamas. Israel says Hamas would use a truce to rearm for the next round of violence. And, now, Hamas says Israel will be responsible for the escalation resulting from what it describes as the “massacre” in Gaza.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-28-voa18.cfm

Richard Lloyd Parry in Khao Ngam

Until a few months ago, Booncherd Leekasem would never have been caught astride a muddy tractor or squelching through buffalo dung in a rice paddy. As a headman of Khao Ngam in central Thailand he had far more respectable things to attend to, such as organising village affairs and running the restaurant where his wife serves her famous crispy catfish salad.

Mr Booncherd rented his 14 hectares (35 acres) of land to poor relatives and let them endure the backbreaking labour of planting, weeding and harvesting the rice. This year all that has changed and now Mr Booncherd gladly spends his days in the fields beneath the tropical sun. “In the past, when kids in school were asked what their father did, they would be ashamed to say, ‘He is a farmer’,” he says. “But now being a farmer is nothing to be ashamed of — we can be proud of what we do.”

All over the country, Thais are returning to the paddies like prospectors chasing gold. After a global surge in the price of grain, a gruelling, unglamorous occupation has become highly lucrative. The economic opportunities have also brought risks as farmers get deeper into debt, fight over scarce water resources and are forced to defend their fields from a new breed of rice bandit.

Thailand’s 20 million farmers find themselves at the centre of an unprecedented surge in global food prices — a “silent tsunami”, in the words of the UN World Food Programme — that is threatening starvation for millions.

Its causes are multiple. A newly affluent middle class in countries such as China and India is increasing demand for food at a time when more and more crops are being diverted toenvironmentally friendly biofuels. A series of natural disasters, from droughts in Australia to floods in North Korea and cyclones in Bangladesh, have ruined harvests and further reduced food stocks.

As prices have risen, there have been riots and protests in 33 countries, from Haiti to the Philippines. To keep rice affordable in local markets, big producers such as Vietnam and India have restricted exports — further driving up the international price. In Thailand, the world’s biggest exporter, the result has been a rice bonanza.

A year ago, a tonne of Thai Grade B rice sold for $325 (£164); last week, the rate was $960 and climbing. Rice farming has become three times more lucrative, and rice farmers are galloping to cash in. Fields that have lain fallow are being ploughed and planted; in wet and fertile central Thailand, where Mr Booncherd lives, farmers are contemplating three or even four harvests a year, beyond the usual one or two.

The boom is not bringing uncomplicated happiness, however. Mr Booncherd has been engaged in a bitter dispute with neighbours about access to water, solved only after investing in expensive new pumps to draw in supplies from a distant canal.

If rice is now more expensive, so are the fertiliser and insecticide that farmers use to nurture and protect it and the fuel for tractors and harvesting machines. In any case, the grain passes through the hands of several middlemen — traders, millers and exporters — who all take their cut before it is sold at the international market price.

And the preciousness of the commodity has created fears of rice bandits marauding the fields by night. Daourieng Kitsamit, a farmer in Ayutthaya province, had 63 buckets of seed rice stolen from his fields. Thai police are laying on night-time patrols and farmers have formed village militias.

As long as the price is going up, these risks will be handsomely outweighed by profits, but if Thailand were to resort to its own export restrictions, local prices would fall, burdening farmers with debt. If that happens, Mr Booncherd will be glad of his restaurant and his wife’s spicy catfish.

Cooking the books

— 40% The increase in world rice consumption in the past 30 years from 62kg (136lbs) per person to 86kg (190lbs)

— 225million The number of people —- roughly the population if Indonesia — who could be fed for a year by the six per cent of Asia’s rice production that is lost to rats annually

— 33% The number of food shortages that it is believed could be alleviated by better connecting small farmers to markets

— 2000 Vietnam’s rice yield was nearly twice that of Thailand that year

— 200kg a year is the highest per capita rice consumption in the world, a record held by Burma

Sources: Rice Today, UN, Times database

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3828373.ece

Opec chief warns of $200 a barrel oil price

David Robertson

The president of Opec, the cartel of oil-producing countries, has given warning that the price of crude could hit $200 a barrel, sparking fears that rising fuel costs will force more businesses into bankruptcy.

Chakib Khelil, the Algerian Energy Minister and president of Opec, said that the falling value of the US dollar would continue to drive up oil prices as investors sought to store their wealth in other assets.

Lehman Brothers, the bank, has said that high prices are being sustained by an influx of money into the oil market from investment funds.

It estimates that “hot money” accounts for between $20 to $30 of the recent increase in oil prices and about $40 billion (£20 billion) has been invested in the sector so far this year — equal to all the money pumped into oil last year.

The price of oil hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel today after North Sea production was shut down yesterday because of a strike at the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland.

In early trading the price of US light crude rose $1 to $119.93 amid concern about the impact of industrial action at Grangemouth.

This came on top of a $2.50 gain on Friday and leaves the price of oil up more than 25 per cent since the start of the year.

The price of Brent oil rose 83 cents to $117.17 and oil analysts have predicted that further price rises are likely in the coming months.

Supply shortages are expected to get worse over summer, which is hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico.

In addition, demand usually rises in hot months when air-conditioning units are operating at full blast. If financial investors continue to pour money into oil funds, as the president of Opec has suggested, this could cause prices to spike even higher.

Today’s price rises came as workers at Grangemouth, which is operated by Ineos, a chemical company, began a two-day walkout yesterday over pension benefits.

This forced the closure of the 700,000 barrel-a-day Forties pipeline and sparked fears that Scotland and the North of England could face petrol shortages.

Grangemouth supplies 10 per cent of the UK’s petrol but also produces power for BP’s Kinneil plant, which processes the oil from the Forties pipeline.

The oil price was also supported by concern over a surge in violence in oil-rich southern Nigeria, which led to five policemen being shot dead on Sunday.

Attacks by militia forces forced Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobile to shut down oil production temporarily two days ago.

Traders were also spooked by continued tensions between the United States and Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer.

A cargo ship hired by the US Navy fired on Iranian forces on Friday.

The rise in oil prices comes despite a 400,000 barrel-a-day reduction in physical demand from the United States, which is consuming less because of its economic slowdown. This has been more than offset by rising financial demand as funds seek alternative investments to the falling US dollar.

Analysts fear that the price will rise even higher as supply shortages get worse in the coming months while both physical and financial demand increase.

On the supply side, shortages may occur if there is a bad hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico and because the oil industry typically saves maintenance work at fields such as the North Sea for good weather.

Summer usually brings a rise in demand as air-conditioning use rises, particularly in the Middle East.

Rapid economic growth in the region has led to a large increase in energy consumption, which is diverting oil and gas away from export markets to feed domestic needs.

This has exacerbated the effect of rising energy demand in the region.

The high price of oil is already having an impact on the global economy, with airlines going bust and drivers paying more to fill their cars.

Eos, the business-class-only airline, went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday and joins at least six other carriers that have also been grounded in the past two weeks by high costs.

LINK

Wright: U.S. ‘Capable’ of Inventing HIV for Genocide

By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer

Washington (CNSNews.com) – The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former long-time pastor to Sen. Barack Obama (D.Ill.), said at the National Press Club on Monday that he believes the U.S. government is “capable” of having invented HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as a means of committing genocide against people of color.

Wright’s statement was a modification of the claim he made in an April 2003 sermon that the U.S. government had “lied” about inventing HIV as a means of perpetrating genocide.

“Based on the Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything,” Wright said at the press club.

(The Tuskegee experiment was a notorious study conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service in which a group of black men were not told they had syphilis and were denied treatment for 40 years, starting in 1932, so that researchers could study what the disease did to them. The secret study was terminated in 1972 after its existence was publicly reported.)

Wright made the assertion about what he believed the United States was “capable of doing” on Monday when he was asked about what he had said about HIV in his controversial April 2003 sermon at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Obama is a member. “Governments lie,” Wright said in that sermon. “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.”

At the press club, the moderator asked Wright: “In your sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. So I ask you: Do you honestly believe your statement and those words?”

Wright responded by first asking the moderator if she had ever read two books, one of which was “Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola” by Leonard Horowitz.

According to a brief summary from Booknews.com that is posted on the Barnes and Noble Web site (where the volume is offered for sale), the book is “characteristic of a ‘conspiracy genre.’”

The author’s “bias toward the theory that HIV was introduced into the general population by vaccine experiments conducted in New York City and Africa is apparent,” says the Booknews.com summary. “He generalizes from this thesis that the AIDS epidemic may have been deliberately deployed as a genocide tactic as part of the CIA foreign policy activity in Central Africa.”

“I read different things,” Wright explained at the press club. “As I said to my members, if you haven’t read things, then you can’t–based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything.”

“In fact,” said Wright, “one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a non-question, because all we had to do was check the sales records. We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people.”

“So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable,” he said.

In a 1998 interview with National Public Radio, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Horowitz’s theories about how HIV developed were “really not founded in reality.”

“The evolution of HIV, AIDS epidemic from an epidemiological, a molecular biological, and public health standpoint is really quite incompatible with those theories that are really rather far-fetched,” said Fauci. 

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200804/POL20080428e.html

Canada’s C-51 Law May Outlaw 60% of Natural Health Products; Big Pharma Pushing to Criminalize Supplements

by Mike Adams )

(NaturalNews) A new law being pushed in Canada by Big Pharma seeks to outlaw up to 60 percent of natural health products currently sold in Canada, even while criminalizing parents who give herbs or supplements to their children. The law, known as C-51, was introduced by the Canadian Minister of Health on April 8th, 2008, and it proposes sweeping changes to Canada’s Food and Drugs Act that could have devastating consequences on the health products industry.

Among the changes proposed by the bill are radical alterations to key terminology, including replacing the word “drug” with “therapeutic product” throughout the Act, thereby giving the Canadian government broad-reaching powers to regulate the sale of all herbs, vitamins, supplements and other items. With this single language change, anything that is “therapeutic” automatically falls under the Food and Drug Act. This would include bottled water, blueberries, dandelion greens and essentially all plant-derived substances.

The Act also changes the definition of the word “sell” to include anyone who gives such therapeutic products to someone else. So a mother giving an herb to her child, under the proposed new language, could be arrested for engaging in the sale of unregulated, unapproved “therapeutic substances.” Learn about more of these freedom-squashing changes to the law at the Stop51.com website: http://www.stopc51.com

New enforcement powers allow Canadian government to seize your home or business

At the same time that C-51 is outlawing herbs, supplements and vitamins, it would grant alarming new “enforcement” powers to the thugs enforcement agents who claim to be “protecting” the public from dangerous unapproved “therapeutic agents” like, say, dandelion greens. As explained on the www.Educate-Yourself.org website ((http://educate-yourself.org/cn/canadian…), the C-51 law would allow the Canadian government’s thugs enforcement agents to:

• Raid your home or business without a warrant
• Seize your bank accounts
• Levy fines up to $5 million and a jail terms up to 2 years for merely selling an herb
• Confiscate your property, then charge you storage fees for the expense involved in storing all the products they stole from you

C-51 would even criminalize the simple drying of herbs in your kitchen to be used in an herbal product, by the way. That would now be categorized as a “controlled activity,” and anyone caught engaging in such “controlled activities” would be arrested, fined and potentially jailed. Other “controlled activities” include labeling bottles, harvesting plants on a farm, collecting herbs from your back yard, or even testing herbal products on yourself! (Yes, virtually every activity involving herbs or supplements would be criminalized…)

There’s more, too. C-51 is the Canadian government’s “final solution” for the health products industry. It’s a desperate effort to destroy this industry that’s threatening the profits and viability of conventional medicine. Natural medicine works so well — and is becoming so widely used — that both the Canadian and American governments have decided to “nuke” the industries by passing new laws that effectively criminalize anyone selling such products. They simply cannot tolerate allowing consumers to have continued access to natural products. To do so will ultimately spell the destruction of Big Pharma and the outdated, corrupt and criminally-operated pharmaceutical industry that these criminally-operated governments are trying to protect.

Join the rally to protest C-51

On May 9th, 2008, Canadian citizens will be gathering at the Calgary Federal Court to protest C-51 and help protect their access to natural health products. Call 1-888-878-3467 to learn more, or visit the action page of Health Canada Exposed at: http://www.stopc51.com/c51/what_you_can_do.asp

NaturalNews is looking to hire someone with a good video camera to film the event. We’ll gladly pay you to video tape this and send us the resulting file, which we will edit and then post for NaturalNews readers. If you have a video camera (with good audio, hopefully) and can attend the May 9th rally, please contact us at (U.S.) 520-232-9300 for details. If you do film there, be sure to use the camera buddy system, where you have somebody in the distance filming YOU with the camera, so that if Canadian law enforcement thugs decide to assault you and steal your video camera in order to censor the event, then somebody else in the distance has THAT on video! You got that? So there are two cameras working, camera A is filming the rally, and it’s very close to the action. Camera B is set back farther from the scene, and it’s filming the person holding camera A. This is standard operating practice for filming such events, and it makes it very difficult for government thugs to shut down the video. Often, the person filming with camera B is in a car somewhere, or filming covertly so that they don’t attract attention. Zoom lenses help a lot.

In any case, if you manage to get some video of this event, then we’d be thrilled to share it with NaturalNews readers. And like I said, we’ll pay for footage, so call us for details. Together, we can help spread the word about this important rally for health freedom in Canada.

http://www.naturalnews.com/z023121.html

Global systemic crisis: Four big trends over the 2008-2013 period

Global systemic crisis: Four big trends over the 2008-2013 period
- Public announcement GEAB N°24 -

As we approach the climax of the global systemic crisis (which should be reached in the second half of 2008 according to LEAP/E2020), it becomes easier to grasp the big trends about to affect foreign exchange rates, global trade and regional dynamics over the next five years. Indeed some of the characteristics of the so-called “decanting” phase of the crisis (1) are beginning to emerge. In this 24th issue of the GEAB, LEAP/E2020 therefore decided to introduce its first anticipations on big trends between now and 2011/2013. These anticipations are of course meant for the use of private investors willing to enhance their mid-term visibility. They are also relevant for exporting companies and for the economic and financial authorities in need of a similar visibility to make their strategic decisions, at a time when all the landmarks and beliefs which used to found the global economy and finance in the past decades are collapsing altogether.

In the past weeks, the world’s economic and financial operators appeared utterly disoriented, while the institutions in charge of dealing with market regulation and of supervising global economic trends display sheer powerlessness.

In this 24th issue of the GEAB, we describe four trends particularly illustrative of the global systemic crisis’ impact phase as it is about to unveil between mid-2008 and 2011/2013. It is the first time that our team is able to provide some accurate indications (completed in the “Strategic recommendations” section, P. 17) about the next 3/5 year-period.

Global financial crisis – Savers and investors trapped into USD 10,000-billion worth of « ghost-assets »

USD-denominated asset crisis – End of 2008: The US Federal Reserve and its network of « Primary Dealers » fight for their institutional and financial survival

Foreign exchange crisis – Horizon 2011/2013: Sustainable changes in the hierarchy of foreign currencies

Global social crisis – From hunger riots worldwide to the 25 million unemployed of the Very Great US Depression

Each of these sector-based crises both illustrates the historic scope conveyed by the ongoing global systemic crisis, and indicates that we are just at the beginning of the phase of impact, indeed as protections disappear one after the other, the situation automatically gets worse. This is the specific “spiralling” process of development of the present global systemic crisis, described by LEAP/E2020 in the previous issues of the GEAB.

In this public announcement, LEAP/E2020 chose to present an excerpt of the first part on the global financial crisis: Savers and investors trapped into USD 10,000-billion worth of “ghost-assets”

Global financial crisis – Savers and investors trapped into USD 10,000-billion worth of « ghost-assets »
If your banker managed to convince you to invest in the USD 10,000-billion worth of ghost-assets currently haunting the financial planet, then you have most probably lost everything even if you do not know it yet (2).

And neither G7-finance ministers nor IMF governors (who met last April 11, 12 and 13) can do anything about it. All of them are totally helpless in the face of the ongoing crisis. With staff cuts and gold sales in order to fill its deficit, the IMF today embodies the sinking of all the institutions created after WWII to regulate the world economy. The outcome of the mid-April meeting clearly reveals how incapable of working together are the various players gathered within the IMF and its various branches: on the one hand, public institutions longing for greater supervision over banking activities in order to prevent further financial catastrophes; on the other hand, banks quite satisfied with pledges of better behaviour. The only tangible result is near-to-mid-term inaction: the current crisis will continue to worsen while debates will go on at the IMF. As a matter of fact, the very concept upon which the IMF is based is outdated.

In any event, according to our experts, the estimated USD 1,000-billion worth of assets lost in the current crisis is largely underestimated (3). It is probably closer to 10,000-billion of USD (4) that are about to be lost over the coming two years (5). In other words, several large international banks will be swallowed up in the maelstrom, and along with them many companies, too fragile or depending too much on the US consumer (6).

Chart N°1: Total credit market debt in the US (in billion USD) / Chart N°2: Total credit market debt outstanding/GDP ratio – Source TheChartStore
Indeed, LEAP/E2020 would like to insist once more on this aspect: the nature of the current financial problem is both very simple to define and extremely difficult to grasp properly. There are today approximately 10,000 billion of fictitious US dollars (7) circulating on the planet which large banks are now trying to get rid at any cost in order to limit their own losses (8). But even at a reduced price, these assets remain dangerous traps because they are not worth anything and will not recover any value (9). They are “ghost-assets” no longer capable of being “embodied” in real assets.

Most of these « ghost-assets » are made of US mortgage loans, US dollars, and more generally US dollar-denominated assets, as well as British Pound Sterling-denominated assets (10). They were created from nothing in the financial euphoria of the past decade by the “sorcerers’ apprentice” of Wall Street, the City and the other major financial places of the world (11). Remember! Those were the times when every one raved about the “miracle” of this new finance which permitted to create a “financial economy” 1,000 times worth the real economy (12). Well, for some months now, the happy beneficiaries of these infinite virtual riches have been striving to find them some tangible incarnation (13). But derivative markets altogether are either collapsing or giving birth to new bubbles always more fragile and transient: real estate, US T-bonds, stocks, food commodities,… these enormous virtual financial masses are spinning around the world at an increasing pace in search of some profitable investment, of some sustainable incarnation… in vain! This quest generates fast tectonic up and down movements (over a few weeks) of asset bubbles (knowing that in the past decades bubbles used to last a few years at least), causing a general rise in prices and bringing the world each day closer to the ultimate outcome: galloping inflation… at a time when fear of a collapse in the value of all assets (including the benchmark currency) is the only thing that prevails.

The « fabulous » reserves in US currency or T-bond of China, Japan, UK, etc… are part of this cohort of « ghost-assets », and for many years to come they shall continue to haunt bank balance sheets, investors’ losses and central bankers’ nightmares. The favourite shape collectively taken by these “ghost-assets”, when they can be embodied, is called inflation. Therefore, according to LEAP/E2020, real inflation (food and energy included) will reach a yearly 10 percent average in the US, starting in the second semester of 2008 (14); it will go above 5 percent in Europe; and approach 20 percent in China. In developing countries, which depend a lot on the rate-variations of the US currency, inflation will surge as a result of different strains: energy, food, currency weakness… (complete article available in GEAB N°24 – on subscription)

(1) According to the sequencing established by LEAP/E2020 as early as May 2006 in GEAB N°5. About our sequencing of the global systemic crisis, see also GEAB N°6 and N° 18.

(2) Cases of savers trapped by their own bank into « risk-free » investments are multiplying. Source: New York Times, 04/13/2008

(3) Sources: Bloomberg, 03/31/2008 & Turkish Daily News, 04/10/2008

(4) It is on purpose that LEAP/E2020 uses the « billion » as benchmark unit for the enormous amounts at stake on global markets. Indeed the word « trillion », overwhelmingly used in the financial media, does not mean the same thing according to the country. In the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil in particular, a « trillion » refers to one million million, 10 to the power 12 ; but elsewhere in the world, it refers to one million million million, 10 to the power 18. Source: Wikipedia. The current crisis could nearly find its explanation in an unfortunate misunderstanding: the rest of the world thought that Wall Street was trading “big trillions” (1018) of USD-denominated assets when in fact it was “small trillions” (10 to the power 12 ), i.e. one million times less. A good enough reason to start a global systemic crisis! Ultimately, History is settling the question between defenders of the short scale and defenders of the long scale (source: Wikipedia), between those who see more billions in a trillion and those who see less of them.

(5) All those who are surprised by such an enormous figure may remember the first estimations of the subprime crisis-related losses: last summer 2007, only nine months ago, anticipated losses reached a maximum of USD 100 billion. Over less than a year, the “official” estimation was multiplied by 10. It is high time to understand once and for all that, in the coming period, worse is more likely than better, contrary to the rule that prevailed in the past ten years.

(6) The great victim of this crisis, as already explained by LEAP/E2020 in the previous issues of the GEAB.

(7) With 45,000 billion worth of CDS (Credit Default Swap – see GEAB N°19) losing value day after day, 10,000 billion only means a 25 percent drop in value. Therefore, according to LEAP/E2020, this estimation is extremely reasonable. As a matter of fact, Citigroup illustrates this situation with its recent sale of USD 12 billion of leveraged loans and bonds at an average price of 90 cents on the dollar, with a guarantee for the purchaser that Citibank will cover up to 20 percent of any further drop in the value of the loans (i.e. an anticipated drop reaching up to 70 cents on the dollar: already a 30 percent drop in the value of the financial assets of America’s largest bank). Knowing that, in the light of the past months, it is very unlikely that Citigroup was completely honest about the situation. For an increasing number of operators, these assets could be worth 10 to 30 cents on the dollar only in a few months; that is why derivative markets are frozen. Source: Reuters, 04/09/2008

(8) After Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have also began selling off their dubious assets. Source: Reuters & MarketWatch/DowJones, 04/14/2008

(9) Worth reading: « Banks : Bleeding value and Hiding Desperation », Financial Sense, 03/24/2008

(10) In the past two years, on various occasions, LEAP/E2020 warned that the British currency would certainly collapse against the other main currencies (except the US dollar) and that the British economy, which depends completely on the US economy on the one hand and on international finance on the other hand, would be sucked up into the global systemic crisis affecting in particular those two components of the global economy. It is now obvious, even to the British authorities, that the British pound and economy are free falling. But it is only in the coming months that the negative impact of the collapsing British pound-denominated assets will combine with the negative impact of the collapsing US dollar-denominated assets. From Hong-Kong to Scandinavian countries (thus two times exposed), the shock will be hard.

(11) Worth reading: an interesting article by the Institutionnal Risk Analyst dated 04/14/2008 illustrates how « ghost assets » in fact pullulate inside financial institutions’ balance sheets.

(12) It is always enlightening to review the learned analyses produced by those institutions in charge of regulating the development of regional or global economies, such as this enthusiastic contribution published by the European Central Bank in 2005 about the evolution of financial markets by 2015. Source: ECB, 10/28/2005

(13) Senior officials from international accountancy institutes today acknowledge that bank off-balance sheet accounting rules (off-balance sheet assets accounted for a large part of the last decade’s financial growth) were « irretrievably broken ». This confession, quite surprising coming from high-level international accountants, indicates clearly that no one has the faintest idea what these assets are worth. Source: Financial Times, 04/09/2008

(14) Asia today exports its inflation towards the US. Source: New York Times, 04/08/2008

Link

The Ten MOST DANGEROUS Organizations in America

By: Nicole Belle on Thursday

Jane Hamsher found this little gem from FamilySecurityMatters.org.

What would you guess would be on the list? Blackwater? The KKK? The John Birch Society? Skinheads? Pfffft. Amateurs.

No, no, no…FSM takes “danger” to America very seriously: (click the link at your own peril, I’ve cited it here so you don’t have to)

10 ) Think Progress

9 ) Muslim Student Association

8 ) CodePINK

7 ) American Civil Liberties Union, National

6 ) Family Research Council

5 ) Center for American Progress

4 ) League of the South

3 ) MoveOn.org

2 ) Universities and Colleges

1 ) Media Matters for America

Um, “universities and colleges“??? Never mind the ridiculously transparent hatred for watchdog groups like Media Matters, they think that higher education is dangerous. Just definitive proof that being stupid and uneducated is valued among the authoritarian right. As much as this is mockable (and it is, make no mistake about it), it’s also so sad to think that the chasm between “right” and “left” (and I hate labels like that, the definitions are so ambiguous) look more and more unbridgeable.

UPDATED: MBH pointed out to me that it’s worth noting FSM’s advocating of George W. Bush as “President for Life”. The mind reels. That is, if they had a mind.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/25/the-ten-most-dangerous-organizations-in-america/