The West and Others~~Western Civilization, Global Continuity & The 'Third' World~~
Photo; the Turf... a little bit of Heaven, Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria
I actually found myself dripping with tears. It was so very difficult for me to take sides, they were such gorgeous and beautifully mannered girls. Marion so graceful in victory and Sabine wonderfully upright in defeat.
It broke my heart to see 'butterflies' ruin Sabine's game and to acknowledge how so very right Marion had been when she said she's been there before and hoped that between her and Sabine, perhaps, she would be the better to handle her nerves for that experience.
I completely agreed with Marion when she said to Sabine, not to worry, that her turn will surely come to win Wimbledon. Of that, she said "I am sure". Me too, and God willing I'd be there to watch her lift that trophy and share in her beautiful "Service with a smile!"
For now, they both have my very best wishes and congratulations. Very well done ladies.
Well, all that glitters truly isn't gold. I kept searching for the Janowicz that beat Fererer and he just wasn't there. What a complete mess of a game! Double faults like I've never counted before in any tourney, much more Wimbledon. If Janowicz was paid to lose the game to Murray he couldn't have done a better job.
Janowicz was a complete disaster! His body language said it, his "close the roof" tantrums emphasized it. All said, I'm sure we'll be hearing and seeing much more from this twenty two year old rookie but how I wish his teething problems had stayed home. So, we're all in for a seriously boring, one-sided final. I think I'll sleep this one through having already watch the final before it (Djokovic Vs Del Potro). Just in case you're wondering, yeah, I lost quite a bunch backing the lame horse :)
There is no other main event, the finals when it comes will be a walkover and terribly boring, unless we have Janowicz/Djokovic final which I here now predict. From what I have seen so far, Murray/Djokovic final will be a walkover and of no consequence; Djokovic will grind Murray into the green. Djokovic Vs Del Potro ended it all for me. The epic already happened and if you missed it, well, too bad.
Novak Djokovic won, yes, but l would have sure loved to see him play Del Potro without a nagging knee. They were both winners and the crowd knew it, there were no victors and no vanquished. It was simply a game we all waited a decade to see. Incomparable!!!
US President Barack Obama met with the president of Senegal, Macky Sall, and judges and lawyers of the country’s supreme court Thursday at the start of a three-nation, week-long African tour aimed at promoting US strategic and profit interests on the continent. A key goal is to counter China in what amounts to a new scramble for markets and the substantial energy, mineral and other resources of the continent.
The tour marks the first time that Obama has set foot in Africa since a 20-hour stopover in Ghana en route back to the US from a summit conference in Europe four years ago. Then, the new president declared, “I have the blood of Africa within me.”
This rhetorical flourish made explicit the central importance to US imperialism of Obama’s presidency: to present a new face to the world, while pursuing the same predatory and criminal policies that had provoked international anger and hatred under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Four years later, the novelty of the first African-American US president has substantially faded, and, according to media reports from Africa, there is widespread cynicism about Obama’s attempts to use his family history to claim some special affinity for the continent. In point of fact, US aid to Africa has declined under Obama, falling from $8.24 billion during the last year of the Bush presidency to less than $7 billion today.
His own presidency is even more deeply mired in international criminality than that of Bush, from drone assassinations to the massive NSA spying on the people of the US and the world and the manhunt being mounted against Edward Snowden for exposing this crime. These issues have followed Obama to Africa, rendering a key stated theme of his trip—the promotion of “democracy”—absurd and hypocritical.
According to a White House press release on Obama’s Africa tour: “The President will reinforce the importance that the United States places on our deep and growing ties with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including through expanding economic growth, investment, and trade; strengthening democratic institutions; and investing in the next generation of African leaders.”
US Trade Representative Michael Froman, who is accompanying Obama, said before the trip that, “Africa wants investors, especially American investors.” He and other US officials stressed that the emphasis of the trip was on promoting deals for US corporations rather than aid, which has always been employed by Washington as an instrument for subordinating former colonial countries to its interests. While several business executives are accompanying Obama on the tour, it was by no means clear what the US concretely was offering.
Obama’s trip is following in the footsteps of a tour made three months ago by China’s new president Xi Jinping, who visited the two countries where the US president is going after Senegal—South Africa and Tanzania. In what was his first overseas tour after taking office in Beijing, Xi also visited the Republic of Congo.
During his tour, Xi offered African countries a $20 billion line of credit and signed major deals that included a $10 billion port project in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.
China has eclipsed the US in terms of African trade and investment. It is Africa’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade nearly doubling in the last five years alone to nearly $200 billion, twice that of the US with the continent.
Much of Chinese investment involves mining and infrastructure to facilitate the extraction of raw materials and their shipment to China.
Washington’s “democracy” mantra is aimed at compelling African governments to carry out free market reforms, including privatizations and the abolition of subsidies and import controls demanded by transnational capital. It is also directed at countering Chinese influence with the charge that Beijing, supposedly unlike Washington, is uninterested in “democracy” and “human rights.”
Such ideological claims appear to be falling on deaf ears in Africa. On the eve of Obama’s visit, Foreign Affairs, a US journal that is closely connected to the foreign policy establishment, asked Senegalese President Macky Sall whether increased Chinese investment was “not good for the prospects of African democracy.”
Sall replied: “Well, I can’t see why the development of Chinese investment would constitute a danger for democracy. The cooperation with China is much more direct and faster than the cooperation we have with Western countries—the United States, European countries, and other bilateral donors. There are a lot of criteria on governance, on this and that, and a lot of procedures … I’m not saying that what China is doing is better, but at least it’s faster.”
As for Washington’s “democracy” agenda, Obama’s itinerary belies his administration’s claims. It has been widely noted that the US president is not including visits to Washington’s closest African allies: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.
The first country, which provided its army as a proxy force for US intervention in Somalia, is notorious for internal repression. And in the second, the US is supporting a counterinsurgency campaign against the Boko Haram armed Islamist movement in the northeast of Nigeria, which has seen massacres, summary executions and disappearances.
Uganda, which has also provided proxy troops for the war in Somalia, has violently repressed political opposition, closed down newspapers for criticizing the government and pursued a vicious campaign against gays. And Kenya, the homeland of Obama’s father, while a close ally, is led by a president and vice president who are wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for their role in orchestrating violence that left more than 1,000 people dead following the 2007-2008 elections. Such are US imperialism’s “democratic” partners.
US imperialism is resorting ever more openly to its residual military superiority to counter China’s rising influence in Africa. The US-NATO war in Libya served to deprive China of billions of dollars’ worth of investments and forced it to evacuate thousands of its citizens. Two years later, however, the Chinese state oil firms Sinopec and PetroChina are aggressively bidding for Libyan petroleum concessions.
The US military’s AFRICOM has set up a drone base in Niger, backing French imperialism intervention in Mali. It has deployed troops in Central Africa, ostensibly in the hunt for militia leader Joseph Kony, and has dispatched special-forces training teams across the continent to solidify US relations with African militaries. In Somalia, meanwhile, it has carried out repeated deadly air strikes.
The growing US militarism on the continent has aroused widespread hostility. US officials had expressed concern that Obama’s trip to South Africa, the second leg of his tour, would be overshadowed by the approaching death of former president and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, with whom the US president had hoped to stage a photo op.
However, the visit will also face protests over his administration’s policies. While the ANC government of President Jacob Zuma has hailed the visit as a boon to the South African economy, the ruling party’s two political partners, the COSATU union federation and the South African Communist Party, are participating in a “NObama” protest march in Pretoria on June 28, the day of the US president’s arrival.
And two organizations have gone to court seeking to have Obama arrested for war crimes.
South Africa’s Muslim Lawyers Association filed a motion for the Pretoria High Court to order Obama’s arrest, but their application was dismissed.
And the Society for the Protection of our Constitution filed an affidavit charging the US president with “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Mohamed Hussain Vawda of the society said that the affidavit accused Obama of responsibility for the killing of thousands of people, including women and children, in Pakistan, Syria and other countries that “have been no threat to the US.”
The document also indicted Obama for the drone assassinations of people deemed hostile to the US government. “These attacks are not authorized in terms of orders issued in a court of law,” said Vawda.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Marc Rich, Lonely and Cold, Dies in Hiding
Marc Rich
"[Marc Rich] a beautifully sinister executive who could frame deals with the artistry of a pool shark"~~author, A. Craig Copetas.
"Marc Rich is to asset concealment what Babe Ruth was to baseball,"~~Arthur J. Roth, New York state commissioner of Taxation and Finance.
To his critics, he was a white-collar criminal, a serial sanctions breaker... who admits to bribing officials in countries such as Nigeria and to assisting the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.
LUCERNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - Billionaire Marc Rich, who invented oil trading and was pardoned by President Bill Clinton over tax evasion, racketeering and busting sanctions with Iran, died on Wednesday in Switzerland aged 78...
Belgian-born Rich, whose trading group eventually became the global commodities powerhouse Glencore Xstrata, died in hospital from a stroke, spokesman Christian Koenig said.
At the cream-painted, red-roofed villa, with views of the nearby mountains and grounds sloping down to the banks of the lake, security guards and other staff could be seen but there was no sign of family members.
"He will be brought to Israel for burial," Avner Azulay, managing director of the Marc Rich Foundation, said by telephone. Rich will be buried on Thursday at Kibbutz Einat cemetery near Tel Aviv.
Many of the biggest players in oil and metals trading trace their roots back to the swashbuckling Rich, whose triumph in the 1970s was to pioneer a spot market for crude oil, wresting business away from the world's big oil groups.
To his critics, he was a white-collar criminal, a serial sanctions breaker, whom they accused of building a fortune trading with revolutionary Iran, Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, apartheid-era South Africa, Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania, Fidel Castro's Cuba and Augusto Pinochet's Chile.
In interviews with journalist Daniel Ammann for his biography, "The King of Oil", the normally obsessively secretive Rich admitted to bribing officials in countries such as Nigeria and to assisting the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.
Explaining Rich's route to riches in an interview with Reuters in 2010, Ammann said: "He was faster and more aggressive than his competitors. He was able to recognize trends and seize opportunities before other traders. And he went where others feared to tread - geographically and morally."
A U.S. government web site once described Rich more simply, as "a white male, 177 centimeters in height ... wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Marshall Service." In 1983, he was on the FBI's 10 most wanted list indicted for tax evasion, fraud and racketeering. At the time, it was the biggest tax evasion case in U.S. history...
"Marc Rich is to asset concealment what Babe Ruth was to baseball," said Arthur J. Roth, New York state commissioner of taxation and finance.
He remained under threat of a life sentence in a U.S. jail until Clinton pardoned him during the last chaotic days of his presidency, a move that provoked moral outrage and bewilderment amongst some politicians.
Clinton later said he regretted granting the pardon, calling it "terrible politics."
"It wasn't worth the damage to my reputation," he told Newsweek magazine in 2002.
Rudolph Giuliani, a former New York mayor and a prosecutor on the Rich case, said: "I'm shocked that the president of the United States would pardon him."
Clinton said the fact that Rich's ex-wife, Denise, had donated funds for his presidential library was not a factor, but he had acted partly in response to a request from Israel...
In one biography, "Metal Men: Marc Rich and the 10-billion-dollar Scam," author A. Craig Copetas described Rich as "a beautifully sinister executive who could frame deals with the artistry of a pool shark".
Rich inherited his business acumen from his father, who became a millionaire by setting up an agricultural trading firm after emigrating to the United States.
Rich, who was born Marcell David Reich in Antwerp on December 18, 1934, started his career at Philipp Brothers, a top global commodities trader after World War Two.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Thought for Today
“The word treason has been batted around in recent days, [but] we need to ask who has betrayed who?… Is this [Snowden’s revelations] betraying the citizens of the world, or betraying some elites that are in power in a certain country?”~~~Ricardo Patino, Ecuador's Foreign Minister.
Junkie USA: 70 Percent Of Americans On Prescription Drugs
“However, the second most common prescription was for antidepressants — that suggests mental health is a huge issue and is something we should focus on. And the third most common drugs were opioids, which is a bit concerning considering their addicting nature.”~~~Dr. St. Sauver, in his Mayo Press Release.
Researchers find that nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half receive at least two prescriptions.
Mayo Clinic researchers report that antibiotics, antidepressants and painkiller opioids are the most common prescriptions given to Americans. Twenty percent of U.S. patients were also found to be on five or more prescription medications.
The study is uncovering valuable information to the researchers about U.S. prescription practices.
“Often when people talk about health conditions they’re talking about chronic conditions such as heart disease or diabetes,” Dr. St. Sauver stated in a Mayo Clinic press release. “However, the second most common prescription was for antidepressants — that suggests mental health is a huge issue and is something we should focus on. And the third most common drugs were opioids, which is a bit concerning considering their addicting nature.”
Nearly one in four women ages 50-64 were found to be on an antidepressant, with 13 percent of the overall population also on antidepressants. Seventeen percent of people in the study were being prescribed antibiotics, and 13 percent were on painkilling opioids.
As a whole, women and older adults received the most prescription drugs. Antidepressants and opioids were most common among young and middle-aged adults.
The percentage of people who took at least one prescription drug in the past month increased from 44 percent in 1999-2000 to 48 percent in 2007-08, the Mayo Clinic reports. Expenditures on prescription drugs reached $250 billion in 2009, and accounted for 12 percent of total personal health care expenditures.
According to the CDC, the percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past month increased nearly 50 percent between 2007 and 2010.
And the researchers said prescription drug spending will only increase in the future.
********
Cocaine Use
According to The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in 2010, the regions with a high prevalence of cocaine use remained North America (1.6 per cent), Western and Central Europe (1.3 per cent) and Oceania (1.5-1.9 per cent) — the latter effectively reflecting its use in Australia and New Zealand.
North America and Western and Central Europe remain the two main regions in terms of their high numbers of cocaine users, with nearly one quarter of global estimated cocaine users in Western and Central Europe (4.2 million past-year cocaine users) and more than one third in North America (5 million cocaine users).
Opioids
North America (3.8-4.2 per cent), Oceania (2.3-3.4 per cent) and Eastern Europe and South-Eastern Europe (1.2 - 1.3 per cent) are the regions with a higher than global average prevalence of opioid users. It is important to note, however, that in North America and Oceania prescription opioids are used more than heroin, whereas in Eastern Europe and South-Eastern Europe, opiates (heroin and to a lesser extent, “kompot”) are the main concern (prevalence of opiate use is estimated at 0.8 per cent).
Ecstasy
While “ecstasy” use had previously been declining, it appears that it started to increase in 2010. In Europe, overall trends in “ecstasy” use have remained stable but recent reports indicate an increase in the purity of “ecstasy” available in Europe and a possible resurgence in its use. European studies suggest that patterns of “ecstasy” use are becoming increasingly divergent and show higher prevalence of “ecstasy” use among club goers in comparison with such use among the general population.
In the United States, there are reports of a resurgence in “ecstasy” use among 12th grade students, in particular; however, there is a declining trend in the use of “ecstasy” in Australia (from 3.5 per cent in 2007 to 3.0 per cent in 2010).
After the massive crash that rocked global markets in 2008, as Congress, central bankers and major financial institutions met in secret to mitigate the crisis, billionaires like Warren Buffet were buying up shares of some of the hardest hit companies.
At the time, the world was literally on the brink of an unprecedented economic collapse. It was so serious, in fact, that members of Congress were told that should they fail to come to an agreement the fallout would leave the United States in such a state of disarray that martial law would be declared and tanks would be deployed to major American cities.
In the midst of it all, as if they had a private pipeline into the bailout meetings, the big boys were positioning themselves to profit. And profit they did, as the stock market rose from 6500 points in late 2008 to record highs as recently as last month. They made billions of dollars on the backs of bailouts funded by taxpayers who were themselves struggling to pay their mortgages and put food on the table.
They knew then what their friends at the Federal Reserve, Treasury and investment banks were planning to do. And they took the opportunity to make a killing.
Now, with the stock market indicating to the masses that the promised recovery has taken hold, and with mainstream analysts arguing that happy days are here again, those same moguls of finance who were undoubtedly tipped off in 2008, are making some very big moves yet again.
But these particular moves are exactly the opposite of what you might expect given that we’re at the beginning of a supposed recovery:
Despite the 6.5% stock market rally over the last three months, a handful of billionaires are quietly dumping their American stocks . . . and fast.
Warren Buffett, who has been a cheerleader for U.S. stocks for quite some time, is dumping shares at an alarming rate. He recently complained of “disappointing performance” in dyed-in-the-wool American companies like Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Kraft Foods.
In the latest filing for Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett has been drastically reducing his exposure to stocks that depend on consumer purchasing habits. Berkshire sold roughly 19 million shares of Johnson & Johnson, and reduced his overall stake in “consumer product stocks” by 21%. Berkshire Hathaway also sold its entire stake in California-based computer parts supplier Intel.
With 70% of the U.S. economy dependent on consumer spending, Buffett’s apparent lack of faith in these companies’ future prospects is worrisome.
Unfortunately Buffett isn’t alone.
Fellow billionaire John Paulson, who made a fortune betting on the subprime mortgage meltdown, is clearing out of U.S. stocks too. During the second quarter of the year, Paulson’s hedge fund, Paulson & Co., dumped 14 million shares of JPMorgan Chase. The fund also dumped its entire position in discount retailer Family Dollar and consumer-goods maker Sara Lee.
Finally, billionaire George Soros recently sold nearly all of his bank stocks, including shares of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs. Between the three banks, Soros sold more than a million shares.
So why are these billionaires dumping their shares of U.S. companies?
They know that Americans have lost 55% of their wealth since this crisis started.
They know nearly 25% of Americans are out of work (as opposed to the official 7.5% figures from the BLS) and that no meaningful jobs are being created.
They know this is wholly unsustainable, and they are getting out of Dodge before the next phase of this crisis takes hold and hammers the world yet again.
Ben Bernanke’s magic show will soon come to an end, and all of his tricks will be exposed for the statistical illusions they really are.
Billionaires know this and they are preparing for the inevitable. The government, likewise, is preparing for financial collapse and the potential for widespread violence that will follow.
Click to enlarge and be sure to get your copy today :)
A Curse For Erdogan
Tai Yippie Kai Yay (motherfucker!) Erdogan has got an RSVP to one of The Pit's, Erdogan specific ghettos; the inferno's equivalent to East St. Louis. What a despicable creature you are Erdogan. What a vile mockery upon the human estate. You should be drilled through the ankles like Hector and dragged by a chariot around the circumference of Istanbul. One can only hope that the hand of the cosmos, delivers you into the hands of the populace.
Here are crimes that warrant the Braveheart treatment. You ruthless and depraved sonofabitch! You have put yourself on a par with Henry Kissinger and Benjamin Shitwityahoo. You are, plainly and truthfully speaking, a monster in the camouflage of human form. Those who serve you, are an extension of your will and, God willing, will share your fate. I note that I was not amiss in referring to you as a wannabe sultan yesterday.
You shall reap the whirlwind, Erdogan. You have damned yourself and wiped away all of the good you ever accomplished. You are a maggot in the afterbirth of these terrible times. I cannot find the words to fittingly portray you. You have impressed me in all the worst ways. May you be taken soon, you and all of your peers, who presently commit outrage after outrage, upon those you were put into the position to 'serve and protect'; like your American counterparts in their brutal excesses.
They should be branded on their foreheads with the words, 'Made in Israel' because that is who is training them, by fiat of Howdy Doody Obama and his predecessor. What takes place within you now, you unfortunate soul? Do you reflect upon and contemplate what has been done on your orders? You will come to know the meaning of the word 'wrath', I promise you.
May your countrymen make a regular pilgrimage to piss on your grave. May the ingenious among your 'subjects' go immediately to Istanbul's oldest graveyard and dig you a grave, attended by a headstone and left open and waiting for the occupant. Let it be videoed and published round the world.
“Bring me the head of Erdogan”, sings the invisible judge, “bring me that poisonous, toxic head. Let a candle be lit and set atop it, in memory of the numbered dead. Let the head be set on a mound of dung, this headless man who should have been hung, drawn and quartered, flogged and whipped, then set on fire like flaming shit, until half past midnight on a frozen clock.
Tick tock, tick tock, go the hours and minutes till your fitting end. Toss the body to the scavengers to tear and rend. You whore of Ersatz Israel. You will surely burn in Hell”~~~Les Visible; Reflections in a Petri Dish.
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Looking back... at things said in the light of today
“It is axiomatic that the principal purpose of government is the welfare of the people. It is this welfare that gives meaning to governance. Broadly, the peoples’ welfare can be defined in terms of life, liberty and property. Life must be sustained and protected, liberty must be assured and defended, property must be guaranteed and secured” Gani Fawehinmi, Senior Advocate of Nigeria's masses.
Nestle has gone on record in South Africa as saying that “it took consumer preferences into consideration and therefore all its infant cereals in South Africa used non-GM maize”, the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) announced Friday.
“This can only be a result of the action that so many…took last year after we released the results showing that Nestle’s Cerelac Honey contained 77.65% GM Maize. This is a victory indeed!” ACB continued.
ACB recently released results of tests conducted on 7 baby formulas and cereals, by an independent and accredited GM testing laboratory. The results reveal that Purity baby cereals contain extremely high levels of GM content whereas Nestlé’s infant formulas and cereal indicate that Nestle appears to be going GM free. Aspen’s infant formulas also indicate GM avoidance. Shockingly, comparisons also reveal that Purity’s GM baby cereals cost 250% more than non-GM cereals, exploding the myth that GM free food is an expensive and impractical luxury.
PURITY’S BABY CEREALS
Purity’s Cream of Maize tested positive as containing 56.25% GM maize; and Purity’s Purity Baby First tested positive as containing 71.47% GM maize.
Neither of these baby foods were labeled as containing products derived from genetically modified maize. This is not the first time that Purity’s Cream of Maize cereal tested positive for GM. In 2008, consumer watchdog SAFeAGE revealed the product to contain more than 24% GM maize.
“Why has Purity not labeled its products? By failing to label, Purity has acted disingenuously and deprived parents of crucial information about their baby’s nutrition. Adult consumers in SA do not want to eat GM food, much less feed their babies with GM cereals, given that the safety of GM food is highly questionable” said Zakkiya Ismail, ACB’s Labeling Campaign Co-ordinator.
Purity has a long history of producing and marketing jarred baby food in South Africa. Food giant, Tiger Brands owns Purity. Tiger Brands was fined R98.8 million (roughly $10 million) in 2007 by the Competition Commission for colluding with other bread producers in a bread price fixing scandal. Tiger Brand products are ubiquitous and account for around 15% of goods sold at every major retailer in the country. Its products include popular brands such as Ace Maize Meal, Albany Bread, All Gold Tomato Sauce, Black Cat Peanut Butter, and Koo bottled and canned food.
NESTLE’S INFANT FORMULAS AND CEREAL
Last year, the ACB tested Nestlé’s baby cereal Cerelac Honey, which contained 77.65% GM maize. This resulted in a huge public outcry. Now, the test results indicate a deliberate effort on the part of Nestle to avoid the use of GMOs in its baby products containing maize and soya products, as its formulas, Nan Pelargon and NAN AR Infant are both GM free. Nestlé’s Mixed Cereal, comprising of maize flour, contained extremely low levels of GM maize and GM soya that would not have triggered labeling. Curiously, however, soya is not listed as an ingredient on the packaging.
These results indicate that Nestlé is not using ingredients or products derived from GMOs in their baby cereals, and considering that 72% of maize grown in South Africa is GM, Nestlé must indeed be trying to avoid it. The traces of GM found in its cereal may well be attributable to contamination along the value chain. “Is Nestlé’ giving in to the demands of South African consumers?” asked Ismail.
NESTLÉ’S DOUBLE STANDARDS
The test results contrast starkly with Nestlé’s pro-GM stance, and its donation of $1.2 million to support an anti-GM labeling initiative in California last year. On 3rd May 2013, Nestlé’ was reported as having dismissed calls by US consumer groups for it to refrain from using GM ingredients in its baby formulas in the US.1 ”We call upon Nestlé’ to stop using double standards, and desist from using GM ingredients in all its food products, in all countries, as it does in European countries” said Ismail.
HUGE PRICE DISPARITY
The ACB is shocked to learn that Purity’s GM-laden cereals are 250% more expensive than Nestlé’s baby cereal that contains only traces of GM contamination. “This belies the claim of the food and biotech industry that segregation of GM and non-GM grains along the value chain and the labeling of GM products will dramatically increase costs, which will inevitably be passed on to the consumer. It appears as if Nestlé has found a way to either absorb such costs, if indeed they do exist, or source non-GM maize economically” said Mariam Mayet, Director of the ACB.
ASPEN’S INFANT FORMULAS
Nestlé’ is not alone in its avoidance of GMOs. Aspen’s Infacare Infant was tested to be GM free, and its InfaCare Gold Soya 1 to contain very low traces of GM maize and soya, also indicating possible contamination along the value chain. Multi-national company Aspen is a supplier of branded and generic pharmaceuticals and infant nutritional products. It recently bought Nestlé’s interest in Pfizer to distribute a portfolio of infant formulas to several countries in Africa.
“These latest findings make a mockery of the ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ argument of the pro-GM machinery in their opposition to GM labeling. They can no longer peddle the myth that the provision of non-GM food is an onerous luxury we cannot afford” said Mayet.
South Africans have been eating GM maize, soya and products preserved or containing GM cotton-seed oil for more than a decade without even knowing it. This is because up until 2011 there was no obligation to label GM foods and provide consumers with information to make a choice. This changed in October 2011 when the Consumer Protection Act came into force. According to the law, all foods containing 5% or more GM content must be labeled. Despite this law, only a handful of companies are beginning to label, the majority are not.
In March 2012, the ACB had four products tested for GM content: Cerelac Honey infant cereal, Wheat Free Pronutro, Impala Maize Meal and Future Life Energy Meal. Very high levels of GM content were found yet none of these products were labeled. It emerged that according to the food industry, it felt that it was not under any legal obligation to label GM food because the Consumer Protection Act is not clear as to whether the law applies to processed food.
The Consumer Goods Council of South Africa claimed that the labeling laws only apply to live GMOs such as whole kernels of maize. This view means that the majority of the food derived from GMOs on our market will not be labeled. This precipitated widespread consumer pressure on food producers and the government to ensure immediate labeling.
On the 9 October 2012 the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) published draft amendments to the regulations governing the labeling of GM food. According to the draft amendments, all locally produced and imported food containing 5% or more GM ingredients or components must be labeled as “contains genetically modified ingredients or components”. The proposed amendments convey the clear intention of government that the food industry must now step up to the plate and label their products. The final regulations have to date, however, not yet been promulgated.
Nevertheless, several products derived from GMOs are being labeled:
**Pioneer’s Sasko bread is labeled as “soyabean produced using genetic modification”
**Premier’s IWISA maize is labeled as “contains genetically modified organisms”
**Pioneer (Sasko’s) Food’s White Star maize meal is labeled as “produced using genetic modification”
**Pioneer Food’s (Bokomo’s) corn flakes are labeled as “corn 90% (genetically modified)”
