BP is burning rare sea turtles alive, blocking efforts to save them

(NaturalNews) The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation continues to throw its support behind risky genetically modified (GM) seeds as a means for feeding hungry Africans, ignoring safer and more reliable technologies that already exist.

Not long after publicly blaming GM critics for prolonging hunger in Africa, Gates announced that his foundation is partnering with DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred to develop higher yield GM strains of corn. Two years ago, the Gates Foundation also partnered with Monsanto to develop drought-tolerant GM corn.

The companies claim that these GM seeds will be delivered to small farmers free of charge. Yet Monsanto says its drought-tolerant corn will not be ready until 2012, at which point it will be introduced into the commercial market. It will not be made available to poor African farmers until 2016.

Pioneer is using conventional (non-GM) breeding techniques to produce higher yielding corn by 2014. There is no projected date for when a GM version of this new strain will be developed.

"It's hard not to think that Monsanto, Dupont and their ilk are turning into the Bernie Madoff of agriculture," writes "Grist" blogger Tom Laskawy. "Convince gullible foundations along with the federal government to send billions in research dollars their way based on a promise of magically awesome results. Sometime down the road, of course."

As Laskawy notes, the Nigeria National Variety Release Committee has already developed -- without the use of biotechnology -- various new corn strains that are resistant to drought, pests, disease, and poor soil fertility. These conventionally bred seeds do not pose any of the well-documented risks of GM crops, such as toxic health and environmental effects; the production of "super-weeds" and contamination of organic crops through cross-pollination; increased pesticide use; or encouraging monocultures and a loss of seed diversity.

"If only Bill Gates, not to mention USDA Chief Tom Vilsack or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would spend some of their money getting those Nigerian seeds into farmers' hands today," Laskawy writes. "Instead, they'd prefer to funnel billions of dollars to biotech giants because, well, 2016 isn't really so long to wait."

Sources for this story include: www.grist.org/article/gates-foundat....

17 big questions about the handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill

(NaturalNews) What's clear about the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is that the independent journalists are doing a better job of asking the really tough questions than the mainstream media. Sure, CNN, Fox and others are bringing some attention to the matter, and they've done some solid reporting on it, but they haven't yet found a way to ask the deeper questions like why the U.S. government seems to be colluding with BP to cover up the truth about the spill.

Just the other day, I found an article entitled, "16 Burning Questions About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill" on the TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com site (http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...). It was a really insightful collection of important questions, so I've repeated them below. The author of these questions wasn't mentioned on the page, so I regret I cannot properly attribute the list, but I do think they're worth reviewing, so I've included my own commentary and an extra question below.

Here are the 16 questions:

#1) Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used "as needed" by state governors. So what are all of these National Guard troops going to be doing exactly? Are the troops going to be used to stop the oil or to control the public?

Mike's comment: Good question. Much of the response activity to the spill seems to be about controlling the public's perception and limiting media access to the spill site rather than actually cleaning up the mess.

#2) Barack Obama has also announced the creation of a "Gulf recovery czar" who will be in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico region following the oil spill. So is appointing a "czar" Obama's idea of taking charge of a situation?

#3) Because it is so incredibly toxic, the UK's Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK's North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. So why is BP being allowed to use Corexit 9500 in the Gulf of Mexico?

Mike's answer: Because Corexit kills sea animals and makes them sink and disappear rather than allowing them to wash up on shore where the emotional outcry would be even worse than it is already.

#4) It is being reported that 2.61 parts per million of Corexit 9500 (mixed with oil at a ratio of 1:1o) is lethal to 50% of fish exposed to it within 96 hours. That means that 1 gallon of Corexit 9500/oil mixture is capable of rendering 383,141 gallons of water highly toxic to fish. So why was BP allowed to dump 1,021,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 into the Gulf of Mexico, and why aren't they being stopped from dumping another 805,000 gallons of these dispersants that they have on order into the Gulf?

Mike's answer: Sadly, BP is running the show in the Gulf, not the government! The U.S. government has sold out to private corporations who now think they own the gulf and can run operations there however they see fit.

#5) If these dispersants are so incredibly toxic to fish, what are they going to do to crops? What are they going to do to people?

Mike's answer: They're obviously going to poison the entire Gulf Coast region if hurricanes whip up these chemicals and deposit them on land. We could be looking at a complete wipeout of the Florida citrus industry, for example, if all the worst conditions converge.

#6) If the smell of the oil on some Gulf beaches is already so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to wildlife that encounter it?

#7) Is it a bad sign that birds from the Gulf region are flocking north by the thousands?

Mike answer: Remember the Tsunami in the Indian ocean a few years back? The animals fled first, while the clueless people stayed behind and got clobbered by the deadly wave. I think a similar thing could be happening in the Gulf. All it takes is one hurricane to turn the entire region into a toxic stew of chemical poison.

#8) Why is BP being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites?

Mike's answer: Yes, this is the real question. BP is running security in the Gulf the same way Halliburton runs security in the Middle East. The corporate contractors are now the police force in the area, and they're running the Gulf as if they owned it! This is a clear indication that the corporations have taken over our government.

#9) Why is BP openly attempting to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo?

#10) Why has the FAA shut down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? What don't they want the American people to see?

Mike's answer: There are lots of answer to this one: The feds probably don't want people in small airplanes taking aerial photos and posting them online (because the Obama administration is working overtime to cover up the truth here, much like the Bush administration did with the flag-draped coffins coming home from war in the Middle East). It could also be that they are planning something really crazy like a deep ocean nuke to collapse the well, and they don't want civilians falling out of the sky when the mushroom cloud appears.

#11) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida says there are reports that there are additional ruptures in the sea floor from which oil is leaking. If there are quite a few of these additional ruptures, then how in the world does BP expect to completely stop this oil leak?

Mike's answer: BP actually doesn't expect to stop this leak anytime soon. They are clearly in full-on spin mode, just trying to deny the truth and spin the words to buy themselves more time to offload stock shares before the whole thing comes tumbling down.

#12) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters?

Mike's answer: Because BP broke the ocean floor, and now huge volumes of gas hydrates (which contain methane) are bubbling up from places that were previously trapped safely underground.

#13) At some testing stations in the Gulf of Mexico, levels of benzene have been detected at over 3000 parts per billion, and levels of hydrogen sulfide have been detected as high as 1192 parts per billion. Considering that these levels would be highly toxic to humans, why hasn't the general public been warned?

#14) Why are so many Gulf oil spill disaster workers showing up at local hospitals complaining of a "mysterious illness"?

Mike's answer: This is going to be the Gulf War Syndrome of the Gulf Coast. Or the 9/11 asbestos question affecting firefighters. There will be a wave of toxic side effects from the use of chemicals in the Gulf, and both BP and the federal government will predictably deny any link between the chemicals and the health effects for years to come.

#15) If "70% or 80%" of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all to stop the oil, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore?

Mike's answer: Nothing, of course. The oil is going to reach the shore, and there's nothing BP or the feds can do to stop in. In fact, it seems as if they are trying to interfere with the cleanup by halting the barges that were supposed to be vacuuming oil just off the beaches.

#16) It is being reported that the deep sea oil plumes are creating huge "dead zones" where all creatures are dying as they are deprived of oxygen. If this oil spill continues to grow could the vast majority of the Gulf of Mexico become one gigantic "dead zone"?

Mike's answer: Indeed, that is precisely what looks likely to happen. The Gulf of Mexico could become a massive dead zone, adding to the long list of humanity's crimes against the planet. See my related CounterThink cartoon at: http://www.naturalnews.com/029015_a...

I've also added one more question of my own:

#17) Why is our government colluding with BP to cover up the truth about the spill?

Remember the BP press conferences on cable news? A U.S. Coast Guard representative was standing right there beside the BP spokesperson, almost as if she were a subordinate of BP. This is insane! If anything, the US Coast Guard should be telling BP what to do, not the other way around.

And why is the US Coast Guard restricting reporters' access to the spill areas, threatening them with arrest if they "trespass." Trespass into PUBLIC waters? Doesn't anybody realize that BP does not own the Gulf of Mexico and if we want to take our boats out into the Gulf to get some video of what's really happening there, that's our right! But the U.S. government is now working for BP, it seems, and they're trying to protect BP's image by restricting the freedoms of ordinary Americans.

Sound familiar? That's why I think this Gulf of Mexico disaster is another 9/11 reactionary freedom squasher in the works. Just wait... you'll see what kind of freedom-destroying ideas are put forth by our lawmakers in response to this catastrophe. When it's all said and done, it won't only be British Petroleum that loses; it will be all of us.

The Corporatocracy and government collusion

What we're really witnessing here with the BP disaster is our own government colluding with the powerful corporatocracy to cover up the truth all while making it worse by interfering with legitimate cleanup efforts.

It's almost as if the federal government were actively working to worsen the problem and expand the impact of the disaster. But that brings up the question: Why?

Why would our own government worsen a catastrophe? The answer, of course, is right in front of you. Just visit ground zero in New York City and remind yourself of all the various ways the U.S. government expanded its power following the collapse of the twin towers. "Never waste a good crisis" is the mantra of Big Government today, and the easiest way to steal even more power away from the people is to turn a small disaster into a big disaster, then leap in with a "government solution" that enacts some large, oppressive new act that never would have been possible before the disaster.

So what kind of oppressive new laws does the Obama administration want to put in place in response to this disaster? Perhaps government control over all oceans, or government control over all seafood. Maybe they want to outlaw oil over the next 25 years and force everybody to transition to some other form of energy (which may not actually be a bad idea from an ecological perspective, but at what price to freedom?).

There are a thousand other conspiracy theories that try to guess at what the government's true agenda might be in this moment. While it's hard to say which of them (if any) might be true, one thing is crystal clear: The government does not seem interested in solving the problem in the Gulf of Mexico. It is covering up the truth, threatening mainstream journalists who try to photograph the region, restricting air travel over the well site, restricting boat travel anywhere near the spill, and basically lying to the public on a daily basis about what's really happening there.

That alone should make any thinking person suspicious. If the situation were really under control, why would they have to lie about it?

US government poisons its own citizens

There is precedent for believing that the U.S. government might try to poison its own citizens in order to achieve a political goal. During Prohibition, the U.S. government actually released poisoned alcohol in order to harm (or kill) those who were defying the law and drinking liquor.

That story is published today here on NaturalNews.com. Read it to learn more about what our own government may be capable of doing when it wishes to exercise power of the People.

Toxic Corexit dispersant chemicals remained secret as feds colluded with Big Business

(NaturalNews) After weeks of silence on the issue, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally decided to go public with the list of ingredients used to manufacture Corexit, the chemical dispersant used by BP in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. There are two things about this announcement that deserve our attention: First, the ingredients that have been disclosed are extremely toxic, and second, why did the EPA protect the oil industry's "trade secrets" for so long by refusing to disclose these ingredients until now?

As reported in the New York Times, Brian Turnbaugh, a policy analyst at OMB Watch said, "EPA had the authority to act all along; its decision to now disclose the ingredients demonstrates this. Yet it took a public outcry and weeks of complaints for the agency to act and place the public's interest ahead of corporate interests."

On the toxicity question, you could hardly find a more dangerous combination of poisons to dump into the Gulf of Mexico than what has been revealed in Corexit. The Corexit 9527 product has been designated a "chronic and acute health hazard" by the EPA. It is made with 2-butoxyethanol, a highly toxic chemical that has long been linked to the health problems of cleanup crews who worked on the Exxon Valdez spill.

A newer Corexit recipe dubbed the "9500 formula" contains dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, a detergent chemical that's also found in laxatives. What do you suppose happens to the marine ecosystem when fish and sea turtles ingest this chemical through their gills and skin? And just as importantly, what do you think happens to the human beings who are working around this chemical, breathing in its fumes and touching it with their skin?

The answers are currently unknown, which is exactly why it is so inexcusable that Nalco and the oil industry giants would for so long refuse to disclose the chemical ingredients they're dumping into the Gulf of Mexico in huge quantities (over a million gallons dumped into the ocean to date).

But it gets even more interesting when you look at just how widespread this "chemical secrecy" is across Big Business in the USA... and how the U.S. government more often than not conspires with industry to keep these chemicals a secret.

It's time to end chemical trade secrets

Armed with the accomplices in the FDA, EPA, FTC and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, powerful corporations have been keeping secrets from us all. It's not just the toxic chemicals in Corexit, either: Large manufacturers of consumers products -- such as Unilever, Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson -- routinely use toxic chemical ingredients in their products -- ingredients which are usually kept secret from the public.

Similarly, virtually every perfume, cologne and fragrance product on the market is made with cancer-causing chemicals that their manufacturers refuse to disclose, claiming their formulas are "trade secrets."

Throughout Big Business in America, the toxic chemicals used in everyday products such as household cleaners, cosmetics and yard care remain a dangerous secret, and the U.S. government actually colludes with industry to keep these chemical ingredients a secret by, for example, refusing to require full disclosure of ingredients for personal care products. The FDA offers us virtually no enforcement in this area, depending almost entirely on companies to declare their own chemicals are safe rather than requiring actual safety testing to be conducted.

This is why the following statement is frightening yet true: What BP is doing to the Gulf of Mexico, companies like Proctor & Gamble are doing to the entire population. We are all being mass poisoned by the toxic chemicals in personal care products, foods, medicines, fragrance products and other concoctions created by powerful corporations that use toxic chemicals throughout their product lines... but who refuse to disclose those ingredients in the public.

Thanks to the widespread use of secret chemicals in foods, medicines and personal care products, we are awash in synthetic toxic chemicals that have already reached the shores of public health. The rates of cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and infertility that we're seeing right now are a reflection of the devastating health cost associated with ongoing the ongoing chemical contamination of our population. Even public water fluoridation policies are a kind of "water contamination disaster" where chemicals from an undisclosed source are dumped into the water supply (on purpose, no less!).

What's doubly disturbing about all this is that many of the chemicals used in foods, medicines, household cleaners and personal care products end up in the Gulf of Mexico as well because they get flushed down stream. So now the Gulf isn't just polluted with crude oil and dispersant chemicals; it's also heavily contaminated with all the chemical runoff from the products made by large corporations that refuse to disclose the actual chemical ingredients, claiming they're trade secrets.

It's time to end the chemical secrecy

As this Gulf of Mexico oil disaster clearly demonstrates, it's time to end the chemical secrecy maintained by Big Business. We must demand that all ingredients be fully disclosed for all products so that the curtain of chemical secrecy is lifted once a for all.

Neither oil companies nor consumer product companies should be able to hide behind the excuse of "trade secrets" to avoid disclosing the actual chemicals contained in the products they sell. As consumers, we must demand chemical transparency from these companies or refuse to buy their products.

Legislatively, we must demand new laws that require full disclosure on all consumer products so that ordinary people can see what's contained in the products they buy.

In a world where one person's chemical runoff impacts every other person, there is no justification for chemical secrecy. We all have the right to know what we're putting on (or in) our bodies, and if companies refuse to be honest with us, we should boycott their products and publicly shame them for engaging in deceptive, secretive behavior.

Because the truth is that consumer product companies don't dare want you to know what's actually found in their products. And that's because most of their products are made with poison. If the average perfume product listed its chemical ingredients on the label, for example, product sales would plummet as consumers realized just how many of those ingredients are linked to cancer and liver disorders.

Big Business wants us all to remain ignorant... blinded to the truth of what poisons they're slathering on our skin or dripping down our throats. But it's time to halt this dark era of chemical secrets in our modern world. It's time to demand transparency, clean up our waterways and stop poisoning ourselves and our planet.

Sources for this story include:
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/0...