Israël and Its Nuclear Arsenal: Is It Using Tactical 'Mini-Nukes' in Yemen? (Video)

During his interview of the 14th July on TF1 and France2, President François Hollande denied that Israël possesses the atomic bomb. But the Hebrew state has between 80 and 400 nuclear war-heads, and has already used neutron bombs against civilian populations. Is Mr. Hollande ignorant, to the point where he should be judged inapt to assume the responsibilities of Head of the Armed Forces and the strike force, or simply using bad faith in contempt of his fellow citizens ?

Israeli / Saudi Arabia Tactical Nuclear Strike on Yemen?
Two-Stage Dual Warhead Strike: A nuclear bunker buster, also known as an Deep Earth-Penetrating Weapon (EPW).
The first blast is the first stage blasting the surface layer and the second blast  a few seconds later is the Main
Charge detonating deep under the ground.
(Watch the video below)

By Thierry Meyssan, Translated by Pete Kimberley
On the 20th May 2015, Israël, which participates in the Common Arab Force, dropped a neutron bomb in Yemen. This type of tactical nuclear weapon kills living creatures without damaging the infrastructures.

The traditional interview of the President of the French Republic on the 14th July, the date of the national celebrations, was this year the occasion for François Hollande to express all sorts of indecent and absurd opinions.

I would like to draw your attention to the following passage in response to a question from Claire Chazal about the 5+1 agreements with Iran :

« France has been very firm in these negotiations, and Laurent Fabius chaired the meetings with much rigour and solidity.

What was my preoccupation ? Avoiding nuclear proliferation. What does nuclear proliferation mean ? That would mean that Iran could develop the atomic bomb. If Iran were to develop the nuclear bomb, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries would also want to develop a nuclear bomb. It would be a risk for the entire planet. So, we had to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. » [1]

So President Hollande, the Head of the Armed Forces and as such, controller of France’s nuclear capability, claims that Israël has no nuclear weapons.

Yet everybody knows that Israël is one of the four nuclear powers who have not signed the non-proliferation treaty (with India, Pakistan and the Popular Democratic Republic of Korea.

______________

The Third Temple's Holy of Holies: Israel's Nuclear Weapons
(Despite this study by a US Army officer, US officials—and corporate media
—must pretend Israel's nukes don't exist)

______________

It was in 1956 that the President of the French Council, Guy Mollet (François Hollande’s predecessor at the head of the Socialist Party), organised the transfer of nuclear technology from France to Israël. In order to do so, he organised an office at the Hôtel de Matignon for Shimon Peres (future President of Israël) from which Peres supervised the project. France built the nuclear plant at Dimona in the Negev desert, and Shimon Peres became its director. Israël also participated in the French nuclear experiments in the Algerian desert. A partisan of colonisation, Guy Mollet relied on Israël in his fight against the Algerian FLN and the war against Egypt (the Suez Canal « crisis »).

This cooperation deteriorated under Charles De Gaulle and ended with the decolonisation of Algeria. When Israël attacked its Arab neighbours, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, in 1967 (theory of « preventive war») De Gaulle broke off his relations with Israël. A few days later, the United States signed a secret agreement with Israël which authorised it to keep the bomb on the condition that it did not publicise it, and would refrain from any new experiments.

RELATED STORY: Israel could use dirty nuke in false flag attack in US — Ex-CIA contractor

Israël continued its research with British aid at first – Britain notably supplied it with ready-to-use combustibles – then, from 1975, with the help of South Africa. It benefited from the South African nuclear explosions, especially in 1979 in the Indian Ocean, without this being considered a violation of her agreement with Washington.

Israël currently has between 80 and 400 nuclear war-heads, and a large number of neutron bombs. Indeed, because of the topography, strategic nuclear weapons are impossible to use in the environment close to Israël. So the Hebrew state has specialised in neutron bombs, whose range of action is smaller. These are capitalist armements par excellence, because they kill people but do not damage property.

Not All Nuclear Weapons Are "Massive"
Clockwise From Top Left: Suitcase Nuke, Backpack Nuke, and
the so called "Davey Crockett" Nuke (alledgedly the smallest
nuke in the US arsenal).

The entire programme was revealed by an Israeli scientist who was opposed to apartheid, Mordechaï Vanunu, in 1986 in the Sunday Times [2]. He was then kidnapped in Rome by the Mossad, repatriated to Israel. and kept under secret imprisonment for 18 years. Freed in 2004, but kept under house arrest, he gave an interview to Silvia Cattori and was immediately reincarcerated for having spoken to journalists [3].

In 2002, the Israeli strategist Martin Van Creveld made a public statement about the status of the Israeli nuclear arsenal, and threatened the Europeans with retaliation on their territory if they continued to support the Palestinians [4]. There was talk at that time of the « Samson complex », in other words, the threat of a destructive Israeli suicide rather than a defeat.

On the 6th December 2006, the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, admitted during a Senate hearing that Israel possessed the atomic bomb. A few days later, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, admitted as much with a throw-away phrase during an interview with the German channel, N24.

The most powerful unclassified nuclear detonation ever was by what was then the Soviet Union.
Code Name: IVAN — Equivalent to 57 million tons of TNT: Detonated on October 30, 1961.
Russia and the United States has nukes twice as powerful.

In 2010, 18 Arab states managed to include the question of « Israeli nuclear capacities » in the Agenda of the AIEA (International Agency for Atomic Energy). The United Nations then organised a conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, during which the Islamic Republic of Iran proposed the creation of a « nuclear-free zone in the Middle East » [5], on the model of the agreements made in Latin America and Central Asia. However, the project failed due to the opposition of Israël and the United States. The US had been illegally storing nuclear weapons in Turkey.

Recently, Israël used neutron bombs in Khiam, during the war of 2006 against Lebanon, and again in Yemen on the 20th May 2015. In both cases, measures of radioactivity were made.

Why would President Hollande deny facts which have been so comprehensively established ? Is it ignorance, or because he is attempting to justify the French position during the negotiations with Iran, to the point of becoming confused by his own propaganda ?

On the 17th November 2013, when he arrived at Ben-Gourion airport in Tel-Aviv, François Hollande declared, in Hebrew, « "Tamid écha-èr ravèr chèl Israël" - "I am your friend and I always will be." » [6].

Reprinted with permission from Voltairenet

Gene Engineered Cotton In Africa: GMO Cotton Will Harm, Not Help, Africa's Small Farmers

After years of resistance, some governments and local producers appear convinced that GM technology will boost competitiveness of African cotton. But a look at how GM cotton has fared where it has been tried, particularly its socio-economic impact on smallholder farmers, reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure.

cc AM

By Haidee Swanby

Cotton is cultivated on about 2.5 percent of the world’s arable land across 80 countries making it, after wheat, rice, maize and soybeans, one of the most important global crops in terms of land area. It is grown mainly for lint, which can be spun and woven to make cloth. The seeds also yield edible oil used in a variety of foodstuffs and industrial products. Once the oil is extracted the dry meal is used to produce animal feed. One hundred countries are involved with cotton imports and exports. China, India, the USA and Pakistan are the major global cotton producers, followed by Brazil and Uzbekistan. Together these countries account for 80 percent of the world’s cotton, while 28 African countries contribute about 5 percent to global production. The top five producers on the African continent, between 2007 and 2011, were Burkina Faso, Egypt, Mali, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, who together accounted for 54 percent of Africa’s total production. Most of Africa’s cotton is produced by smallholder farmers for whom the cotton sector is a vital source of employment and income.

Genetically modified (GM) cotton has been produced globally for almost two decades, yet up to the present time only three African countries have grown GM cotton on a commercial basis—South Africa in 1997, Burkina Faso in 2008 and Sudan in 2012. According to unverified industry figures these three countries together grew GM cotton on about 616,000 hectares. African governments have been sceptical of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for decades and have played a key role historically in ensuring that international law—the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety—takes a precautionary stance towards genetic engineering in food and agriculture. They have also imposed various restrictions and bans on the cultivation and importation of GMOs, including on GM food aid. But now, almost two decades later, this resistance is crumbling as a number of African countries such as Ghana, Malawi, Swaziland and Cameroon seem set to allow the commercial cultivation of their first GM crop—cotton. Nigeria and Ethiopia are planning to follow suit in the next two to three years and further down the line.

Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that characterizes the global cotton market. At the moment African cotton productivity is declining—it now stands at only half the world average—while global productivity is increasing. The promise of improving productivity and reducing pesticide use through the adoption of GM cotton is compelling. However, our African leaders and cotton producers need to take a close look at how GM cotton has fared in South Africa and Burkina Faso to date, particularly its socio-economic impact on smallholder farmers. Scrutiny of actual experiences reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production. As stated by a farmer during a Malian public consultation on GMOs, "What's the point of encouraging us to increase yields with GMOs when we can't get a decent price for what we already produce?"

In Malawi, Monsanto has already applied to the government for a permit to commercialize its GM pest resistant cotton, Bollgard II. There has been a strong reaction from civil society to this development and an alliance of organizations has submitted substantive objections. Even Malawi’s cotton industry, the Cotton Development Trust (CDT), has publicly voiced its concerns over a number of issues, including inadequate field trials, the high cost of GM seed and related inputs, and blurred intellectual property arrangements. In addition, CDT has expressed unease over the development of pest resistance and the inevitable applications of herbicide chemicals.

REGIONAL TRADE BODIES TO OPEN THE WAY FOR GMOS

Regional Economic Communities (RECs), such as the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), are also key players in readying their Member States for the commercialization of and trade in GM cotton, through harmonized biosafety policies. The COMESA Policy on Biotechnology and Biosafety was adopted in February 2014 and Member States validated the implementation plan in March 2015. The ECOWAS Biosafety Policy has been through an arduous process for more than a decade now and pronounced conflicts between trade imperatives and safety checks have stalled agreement between stakeholders. However, recent reports indicate that agreement between the Member States and donor parties has been reached and a final draft of the Biosafety Policy will soon be published. Together COMESA and ECOWAS incorporate 34 countries in Africa.

These regional biosafety policies and laws have been primarily controlled and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has financially supported an array of African expert legal and scientific bodies, working in collaboration with American experts to craft harmonised regional policies designed to maximize market size and minimise biosafety regulations, such as case-by-case risk assessments and ‘strict liability’ for producers if the technology goes wrong. Within these policies investor profits are high on the priority list while safeguards for human, environmental and socio-economic well-being are relegated to mere afterthoughts.

GM COTTON IN BURKINA FASO AND SA: CRIPPLING DEBT AND TECHNOLOGICAL GLITCHES

Burkina Faso began cultivating pest resistant cotton (known as ‘Bt’ cotton) in 2008 and the media has since been awash with reports of miraculous performance and increased yields. In reality, the cultivation of Bt cotton has been dogged by technical problems for the short time that it has been in production in that country and in June 2015, media reports announced that GM cotton will be gradually reduced over the next three years and then stopped altogether. After only two seasons of cultivation farmers were up in arms because their cotton harvest was downgraded due to short fibres, causing them to lose out on decent prices while having paid for the more expensive GM technology. Many farmers also reported low yields and, amongst other things, this was ascribed to the need to apply very precise doses of fertilisers and pesticides for good yields, a practice that farmers are not used to.

In 2013/14 Burkina Faso’s largest cotton company, SOFITEX, responsible for the production of about 40 percent of the national cotton seed production in that country, discontinued the use of FK96, one of the two available Bt cotton seed varieties, due to the short fibres it was producing. This created a shortage of Bt seed in the country.

The year 2014 also saw the development in some areas of insect resistance to the Bt toxin expressed in GM cotton. This is very surprising in such a short period and is a serious problem because farmers are led to believe that their crops will be protected against certain pests—and they pay extra for that protection. It is not clear if any compensation was given to farmers who experienced crop losses due to product failure.

The issue of delaying insect resistance in Bt crops is somewhat of a conundrum in smallholder production systems and the biotech industry has yet to develop a workable solution. The standard method over the past 20 years has been to impose a contractual obligation on farmers to plant between 5–20 percent of their field to non-GM cotton, to create what is known as a ‘refuge’. The refuge provides a habitat in which insects can thrive as they are not exposed to the Bt toxin and therefore do not develop resistance to it. Insects feeding on the Bt crop are killed by the pesticide expressed in that cotton, while insects thriving in the refuge dominate season after season, delaying the onset of resistance.

Managing ‘refugia’ can be onerous, and they have been difficult for large scale farmers around the world to implement and just as difficult for government and industry to monitor and enforce. When it comes to smallholder farmers, it is impractical for them to plant up to 20 percent non-GM cotton on small plots and economic losses in these refugia is a worry for them—refugia are cultivated primarily for insect resistance management and can therefore be damaged by pests. GM developers have suggested that in contexts where smallholders dominate, nearby wild vegetation would be sufficient to provide the necessary refugia, but many experts consider this strategy unrealistic.

The introduction of Bt crops, in the absence of a credible system to manage the development of insect resistance, puts farmers at risk of crop failures due to insect damage. In addition, this risk is accompanied by higher seed costs and uncertain global prices.

In May 2015 the Director General of the Gourma Cotton Company (a subsidiary of the French group Geocoton) in Burkina Faso announced that the country would reduce GM cotton production across the country, over the next three years, due to “technical problems”. The final blow to GM cotton in Burkina Faso was announced the following month in the media, when the cotton industry umbrella body, Association Interprofessionnelle du Coton du Burkina (AICB), which includes notably Burkina Faso Textile Fibre Company (SOFITEX), public sector leader, Faso Coton and the Gourma Cotton Company, announced that they would withdraw from their contracts with Monsanto and phase out GM cotton altogether over the 3-year period. Key issues of concern included lower yields than promised and low quality cotton. As they withdraw from their contracts, stakeholders are currently assessing the amount of compensation they will demand for losses related to the cultivation of GM cotton since 2008.

The introduction of GM cotton in Burkina Faso has been made possible by the closed value chain in that country where one parastatal cotton company manages all aspects of production, including credit supply, seed production and distribution, extension support, transport ginning, etc. This arrangement assists farmers to access credit for the substantially more expensive seed—because the institution that gives the farmer credit is the same one to which he or she will sell the product, at which time repayment of the loan can be deducted from the price received for the harvested crop.

In South Africa, Monsanto mounted an aggressive campaign in the late 1990s to introduce GM cotton to smallholders in a poverty-stricken area called the Makhathini Flats, where farmers also operated within such a closed value chain. However, when a competitor moved into the game, farmers chose to sell their GM cotton to the new gin to avoid paying back their loans.

In 2003 the entire system fell like a house of cards, with the local credit institution collapsing under the weight of unpaid debt to the tune of R22 million (approximately US$ 2 million). Without the certainty of using cotton harvests as collateral for loans, credit became unavailable in the area and cotton production dried up. Many farmers were left destitute and with their social relations in tatters due to these unpaid debts.

GM cotton in Sudan is still very new and, for now, the information available on the performance of GM cotton there consists mostly of media reports trumpeting ‘world record breaking’ yield gains. These echo the media reports from South Africa and Burkina Faso over the years. The true story in Sudan has yet to be revealed.

RESISTANCE AND OBSTACLES IN AFRICA

KENYA

In 2012 Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in partnership with Monsanto was on the brink of commercialising Bt cotton, having concluded field trials and submitted the results to the National Biosafety Authority (NBA). However, in the same year, a Parliamentary Decree that banned the import of GMOs into the country was passed. This caused Monsanto to withdraw its funding and interest in the project, due to the uncertain environment the Decree had created.

In May 2015 a national taskforce, mandated to advise the Kenyan Parliament on how to proceed with the ban, recommended that the ban be lifted on a case-by-case basis but only after new legislation dealing with the health impacts of GMOs has been implemented. The report found that safety data on GMOs and health is completely lacking and that the country has limited capacity to regulate and monitor GMOs. Parliament has yet to announce how it will take up the recommendations of the taskforce, but its decision will have an impact on Monsanto’s willingness to invest further in GMOs in that country.

GHANA

Multi-location field trials with Bt cotton began in 2013 and further trials with herbicide resistant cotton began the following year. Ghanaian authorities have expressed eagerness to commercialise GM cotton in the immediate future. There are plans to expedite the risk assessment and approval process by ‘domesticating’ research results from Burkina Faso, as the two countries share very similar ecological conditions.

However, the biotech industry faces a hostile environment in Ghana. In April 2015 a local activist group, Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG), sought an injunction against the government in the Ghanian courts to stop the commercial release of GM crops, noting that decisions on GM activities were being made illegally—the National Biosafety Committee had not yet been constituted as required by their Biosafety Act of 2011. A temporary injunction was granted by the court and further proceedings are being delayed due to Ghana’s largest farmer association, Ghana National Association of Farmers and Fisherfolk (GNAFF), having applied to join on the side of the defence.

Prior to these events, a report written in 2014 by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) stated that the US Programme for Biosafety Support (PBS) had sought to neutralise the growing anti-GM campaigns in Ghana by arranging for GNAFF to come out in support of GM crops. The report said that going forward, “PBS in collaboration with the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) and the African Biotechnology Network of Expertise (ABNE) are planning to have other farmer groups come out publicly in support of GM crops in Ghana. They also intend to buy space in key print media to highlight the benefits of GM technology; assist key farmer groups to make positions on the introduction of GM and identify individuals who will promptly respond to issues of GM on radio and in the newspapers”.

UGANDA

In 2009 open field trials on Bt cotton and herbicide resistant cotton were initiated and in 2010 field trials of ‘stacked varieties’ (combining both traits in one plant) were begun. These trials were run by Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO) and funded by Monsanto and USAID. The trials were supposed to run for three seasons but after just two seasons funding was withdrawn by Monsanto who, instead, concentrated its efforts in Burkina Faso.

Monsanto said that the company withdrew due to the “the lack of a favourable legal environment to protect its interests in the country” but that it would consider returning to Uganda “if the legal environment improves, such as passing the proposed law on regulation of biotechnology”. In May 2015 Uganda’s Parliamentary Caucus gave the green light to the National Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill, signalling that it would soon be adopted. The passage of the Bill has been long, arduous and full of conflict, which no doubt fuelled Monsanto’s discomfit.

Legal issues aside, the trials also did not go well. According to a lead researcher the “results were quite inconclusive; morphologically and chemically the GM plants expressed themselves in unexpected ways. Hence, management became intensive at times, especially due to secondary pests”. (Secondary pests have often been a challenge with Bt crops, where non-target pests that were previously not a problem increase and need chemical applications to control them.)

Recommendations were made that more research be undertaken to determine how to manage Bt crops effectively at the smallholder farmer scale. Other topics of concern included how small scale farmers could manage the onerous insect resistant management strategies that must be employed with Bt crops, plus issues such as the difficulty of small family labour teams handpicking uniform cotton bolls that all ripen at the same time.

CAMEROON

Cameroon began greenhouse experiments on GM cotton in 2012, field trials followed in 2015 and the country hopes to commercialise a crop as early as 2017. However the Managing Director of a local cotton company, Sodecton, has said that the country is “far from the stage of widespread cultivation,” and that much more experimentation is still needed to ascertain safety.

CONCLUSION

Experiments and open field trials with GM cotton have been running for many years in a number of African countries and are increasingly at a stage where applications for commercial release are imminent. However, there are many obstacles to the birth of a new GM era in Africa, chief amongst them being the fact that this high-end technology is simply not appropriate to resource-poor farmers operating on tiny pieces of land, together with fierce opposition from civil society and sometimes also from governments.

Attempts by the biotech industry to impose policies that pander to investors’ desires at the expense of environmental and human safety may be easier to realise at the regional level, through the trade-friendly Regional Economic Communities. This is where many biotech industry resources and efforts are currently being channelled. However, despite whatever legal environments may be implemented to enable the introduction of GM cotton regionally or nationally, the fact remains that Africa’s cotton farmers are operating in a difficult global sector—prices are erratic and distorted by unfair subsidies in the north, institutional support for their activities is often lacking, and high input costs are already annihilating profit margins. Fighting for the introduction of more expensive technologies that have already proven themselves technologically unsound in a smallholder environment is deeply irresponsible and short-sighted.

It is time that African governments turn their resources to improving the local environments in which cotton producers operate, including institutional and infrastructural support that can bring long-term sustainability to the sector, without placing further burdens and vulnerability on some of the most marginalised people in the world. Civil society actions will continue to vehemently oppose and challenge the false solutions promised by Monsanto and its GM cotton and will insist on just trading environments and true and sustainable upliftment for African cotton producers.


_______________________
Haidee Swanby is Senior Researcher, African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB).


REFERENCES
• African Markets Statement on the Biosafety and Biotechnology Bill 2012. Food Rights Alliance (FRA). 20 February 2013. http://tinyurl.com/pbds7vb
• AGROW. 13.11.2014. Cameroon to start GM cotton field trials. https://www.agra-net.net/agra/agrow/markets-regulatory/africa/cameroon-to-start-gm-cotton-field-trials--1.htm
• Berger et al. 2009. Perspective on the development of stem borer resistance to Bt maize and refuge compliance at the Vaalharts irrigation scheme in South Africa. Crop Protection 28 (2009) 684–689.
• Clinard’s Cotton Update. Volume 1, issue 4. 21 March 2012.
• Cotton South Africa www.cottonsa.org
• Daily Nation. 27.2.2012. GM cotton to be in farms by 2014: KARI. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/GM+cotton+to+be+in+farms+by+2014+Kari+/-/1056/1355192/-/ro6mepz/-/index.html
• Estimating the Potential Economic Benefits of Adopting Bt Cotton in Selected COMESA Countries http://www.agbioforum.org/v16n1/v16n1a02-mulwa.htm
• Food Sovereignty Ghana. 5 May 2015. Injunction on GMOs in Ghana still in effect till May 11. http://foodsovereigntyghana.org/injunction-on-gmos-in-ghana-still-in-effect-till-may-11th/
• Friends of the Earth. 2015. Who Benefits from GM Crops? The expansion of agribusiness interests in Africa through biosafety policy. http://tinyurl.com/pf89nom
• Gailard, R. April 2006. Resistance to GM continues. Mali: not on my farm. http://tinyurl.com/neb4tyc
• Ghana Business News. 12.2.2015. Food Sovereignty Ghana sues government over GMOs. https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2015/02/12/food-sovereignty-ghana-sues-government-over-gmos/
• Gouse, M. Bt Cotton in KwaZulu Natal: Technological Triumph but Institutional Failure. Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development, University of Pretoria. http://tinyurl.com/o3mzfnl
• ISAAA. Crop Biotech Update. COMESA Regional Biotechnology and Biosafety Policy Implementation Plan Validated. http://tinyurl.com/pym4y36
• James, C. 2014. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2014. Executive Summary. http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/49/executivesummary/default.asp
• Jeune Afrique. 01.06.2015. Le Burkina dit stop aux OGM de Monsanto. http://economie.jeuneafrique.com/regions/afrique-subsaharienne/24957-le-burkina-dit-stop-aux-ogm-de-monsanto.html
• NTV Kenya. 14.4.2014. Taskforce report on GMOs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxaQGEbftfA
• Objection to the application from Monsanto Malawi (Pty) Limited for the general release of genetically modified MON 15985 and all cotton varieties derived from this event in Malawi. http://tinyurl.com/q4xcye5
• Pschorn-Strauss, E. 2005. Bt cotton in South Africa: the case of the Makhathini farmers. Grain. Seedling – April 2005. http://www.grain.org/article/entries/492-bt-cotton-in-south-africa-the-case-of-the-makhathini-farmers
• Researchers in a fix over GMO ban http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Researchers-in-a-fix-over-GMO-ban/-/2558/2421314/-/item/0/-/qprcmnz/-/index.html
• RFI. 7.5.2015. Uganda ruling party greenlights superbananas and other GMO. http://tinyurl.com/nmswdv9
• Spyghana. 8.05.2015. Burkina Faso to reduce production of transgenic cotton http://www.spyghana.com/burkina-faso-to-reduce-production-of-transgenic-cotton/
• The Sunrise. 18.12.2013. Monsanto chief points at roadblock which failed Uganda’s Bt cotton trial http://www.sunrise.ug/news/201312/monsanto-chief-points-at-roadblocks-which-failed-uganda-s-bt-cotton-trial.html
• UN CBD Biosafety Clearing house. https://bch.cbd.int/about/news-post/?postid=104871
• United Nations. 2011. Commodities at a glance. Special issue on cotton in Africa.
• USDA Gain Report 2014. 2014 Ghana Agricultural Biotechnology Report. Agricultural Biotechnology Annual. http://tinyurl.com/pzadw3p
• USDA Gain Report, 2014. 2014 Francophone West Africa Biotechnology Report. http://tinyurl.com/nb48q6g
• USDA Gain Report, 26.9.2013. 2013 West Africa Cotton and products. Update. http://tinyurl.com/oap6qmd
• Via sat one news. SARI Conducting Trails on Roundup Ready Herbicide Bt Cotton 14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5DO1vB1RpU

Reprinted with permission from Pambazuka News.

Killings of Migrants in South Africa Reportedly Sparked by Bigoted Statements of Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini

Zwelithini referred to migrants as "lice" and said they should pack up and leave South Africa. His statements were said to have sparked killings and the looting of homes and businesses owned by migrants from other African countries.

 'King' Goodwill Zwelithini. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Aljaseera via AllAfrica

Scenes of looted stores are greeting Johannesburg residents in South Africa as police assist foreign nationals to safety in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, following a second day of violence.

Overnight, looting and road blockages by anti-immigrant protesters were reported in Alexandra, Malvern, Thokoza and Cleveland on Saturday.

Colonel Dlamini, Gauteng police spokesperson, told Al Jazeera: "We believe these are pure criminal acts. People are taking advantage of the situation and then they are robbing small businesses."

Late on Friday a group of protesters barricaded portions of the M2 highway with rocks and refuse, and police were forced to fire rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

"There were problems in Cleveland last night where the residents from the informal settlement attacked foreign nationals but police have attended to the situation," Dlamini said.

King Goodwill Zwelithini Says Foreigners Must Go

Dlamini said more than 30 people were arrested on Friday night in the Cleveland and Thokoza policing area, while another five were arrested in Alexandra.

In the port city of Durban, meanwhile, no new incidents of violence against foreigners have been reported.

RELATED STORY: Nigerian Organization Calls for Reprisals Against the South African Government for its Inability to Deal with Xenophobic Attacks on Nigerians in South Africa

Police, however, established overnight that a sixth person had been confirmed dead in the violence

that has plagued the city for over two weeks.

RELATED STORY: Human Rights Commission wants King Goodwill to clarify comments

According to investigations by Durban police, the body of a 58-year-old man found dumped in Verulam, north of Durban, on Wednesday, has been revealed to be a foreign national who was attacked by a mob at his home in the area.

Thousands displaced

The UN Refugee Agency estimates that a total of 5,000 people have been displaced in the current wave of violence.

RELATED STORY: President Zuma faces pressure to end violence in South Africa

Makeshift shelters for displaced foreigners has been set up around Durban, from which many foreigners are now preparing to leave South Africa.

According to UNHCR, some 1,400 people, mostly single men, with few families, are being accommodated in Chatsoworth, while, 300 others are sheltered in Isipingo, and another 450 in Greenwood Park.

Read More

The ANC’s Stranglehold On Justice: South Africa's 'Liberators' No Longer the Party It Used to Be

By Douglas Schorr
The African National Congress is not the party it used to be. Jacob Zuma, now into his second term as President of South Africa, is spearheading a new movement in South African politics. The President and his party are conducting a war on the judiciary and in the process making corruption unprosecuteable - a new word for a new political practice.

In 1995- General George Fivaz was appointed by President Nelson Mandela as the first National Commissioner of the new South African Police Service (SAPS). Mandela required that the General’s first task was to transform the many Apartheid forces into one and to tackle crime. Fivaz lasted his term but only just. By coincidence my neighbor at the time, I recall him saying something about the interference becoming too much to tolerate. In 2000 out of the bag came a Mr Jackie Selebi[1] to replace him.

A former head of the ANC youth league and holder of the Human Rights Award from the International Service for Human Rights, Selebi took corruption by the horns. A report by Rademeyer and Wilkinson states that it was on Selebi’s orders that the police’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) was shut down, seven years after it was instituted. In that period (1996 – 2001) the unit received 20,779 allegations of police corruption. Between 1995 and 1999 an average of 1,320 polic men and women were convicted each year on criminal charges. As of June 2014, and with no terminations in sight, 1,448 serving police officers were convicted criminals, among them a major-general, ten brigadiers, 21 colonels, ten majors, 43 lieutenant-colonels, 163 captains, 84 lieutenants and 716 warrant officers.[2]

Given that the police force numbers nearly 160,000 officers that isn’t a big number at all, except for the type of crimes those 1,448 committed. They range from murder and attempted murder to rape, assault, corruption, theft, robbery, house-breaking, drug trafficking, domestic violence and aiding escapees. The report concludes, ‘The record suggests police crime higher than police admit.’

Selebi wasn’t to last. In 2008 he was charged with corruption, put on extended leave and in 2009 replaced by former Member of the Executive Council for Transport, Safety and Security in KwaZulu-Natal, Bheki Cele - a man who had already proven a liking for treating government money as an entertainment and advertising fund for the ANC in support of Zuma in rural KwaZulu-Natal.[3]

Cele has an odd background in the party. He always appeared high on the party lists yet never made it into either Mbeki or Zuma’s cabinet, except here. Compared to a cabinet post, National Commissioner of Police is administrative and normally, at least in the British system, a career appointment. Cele assisted Zuma until his own double-dealing came to light. It seems he authorized gross over-payments to the tune of R1.7 billion on two building leases, at least allegedly. Zuma declared Cele ‘unfit for office’ and in the same breath installed him in the easier to skive and dive job of Deputy Minister for Agriculture. In July 2012 Cele launched a court application to contest the findings (alleging) ‘the president’s decision was actuated by ulterior motivates’[4] but it seems to have fizzled out and the two have called a truce. Cele is still going strong. In 2013 he was placed on the ANC's list of preferred candidates to go to parliament. In 2014 he attempted to delay the South African Public Protector's report on wasteful expenditure at Nkandla, President Zuma’s private homestead.

Out with Cele then, in with Ms Riah Phiyega (full name Mangwashi Victoria Phiyega), a more sophisticated proposition. With a BA in Social Work, an MA in Social Sciences and a post-graduate diploma in Business Administration Phiyega was a fire-cracker who had held some high-powered posts including Group Executive for corporate affairs of ABSA and separately of Transnet, jobs reserved for the crème de la crème.

It didn’t take Phiyega long to get sucked into controversy. At the Marikana commission of inquiry, where the deaths of 34 protesting miners at the hands of police were being investigated, she did a sterling job of being evasive - fueling speculation that she was protecting Police Minister Mthethwa.[5] She has also been fingered in the tipping off of Western Cape police commissioner Arno Lamoer, regarding a probe against him carried out by crime intelligence.[6]

‘In the 18 months or so since her appointment, Phiyega and the SAPS have stumbled from one crisis to the next’, reported the Mail and Guardian in a sad account of her performance so far.[7] It’s important to note too that the saga surrounding Transnet for pension plundering during Phiyega’s tenure is ongoing.[8] ABSA is but a part of the world’s biggest bank, Barclays, an institution not adverse to criminal activity either. ‘Ed Miliband demands criminal probe into Barclays interest rate rigging scandal as £3.2bn is wiped off bank in share plunge’, roared a recent Daily Mail news story.[9] The fine the bank got amounted to a tee-hee-hee slap on the wrist; relatively speaking black folk in South Africa have been hit far harder for nicking bread to eat. Of course both instances are damning by association only, but certainly a murky background worth noting if only for the standard business practice and the fluid line between business and politics.

While the police are at the front line of crime prevention, behind them are other bodies set up to further combat specialised crime. An excellent idea in theory, but one that has been violated in practice.

In January 2001 the Scorpions, brainchild of the Fivaz/Mbeki era, were formed. They were different from the everyday prosecution service. Through the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) they reported direct to the Minister of Judiciary and Correctional Services, meaning that they were independent, as independent as the judges and magistrates were. Their charge was to gun for crimes of national priority. President Mbeki showed he was serious by making sure they were kitted out with the best brains and equipment.

Soon, with a prosecution success rate of over 90%, the Scorpions were proving the principle of equality before the law in South Africa. However the national priority targets were all too often ANC and business aligned. Included among many dropped cases were the arms deal connections and high profile types like Mac Maharaj, Jacob Zuma and Shabir Shaik.

In 2008 Mbeki was to go and Kgalema Motlanthe, the stand-in while Zuma was being cleared (taking a step from the dock and a pesky rape trial to Government House), decided Mbeki’s Scorpions would be better placed to serve if it were a subordinate member of the police force, despite Mbeki’s original mandate having been “to deal with all national priority crime, including police corruption".[10] In 2009 the Scorpions were disbanded, ANC Chief Whip Mthethwa was a principal agent in their demise.[11] Yes, he is the Minister of Police referred to above.

The Hawks replaced the Scorpions. Its CEO Mr Anwa Dramat was also the police Deputy Commissioner, creating a cozy arrangement with the SAPS which manifested itself in the close-down of all Scorpion investigations and on-going prosecutions. The new Hawks were out to tackle ‘serious crime referred to it by the National Commissioner of the South African Police Service’,[12] making the already proven corrupt now in charge of investigations on their own.

In 1996, Act No. 108 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa created a single National Prosecution Authority (NPA), a body with the power to institute criminal proceedings on behalf of the State, accountable to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services. The first man chosen to head up the NPA was multimillionaire Bulelani T Ngcuka, described by opposition Democratic Alliance spokeswoman Sheila Camerer as being "… a tough-minded crime-buster who played rough and acted without fear, favour or prejudice when pursuing criminals as required by the constitution and therefore he was the right man for the job.”[13] But after 10 years and having investigated Jacob Zuma to the point of declaring “there was prima facie evidence to suspect Mr. Zuma of corruption in a multi-million dollar arms deal, but not enough to prosecute him”[14] , he suddenly resigned. It was a film script written for Zuma; he was able to immediately proclaim Ngcuka’s action robbed him of the opportunity of proving his innocence. Further factions of the ANC accused Ngcuka of being an Apartheid spy and a stooge.

Ngcuka’s actions after leaving the NPA have openened a new perspective on the man, however. He became Chairman and co-incidentally had a substantial holding in Basil Read, one of the 15 major construction companies fined R1.46 billion ‘for “rampant” collusive tendering’, cheating all South Africans, between 2006 and 2011. To give perspective, that fine is roughly equivalent to being fined R2 for stealing R10, not even a slap on the wrist.

In 2005 Ngcuka was succeeded by advocate Vusumzi "Vusi" Pikoli, a man who earned his degree from the University of Zimbabwe and completed military training in Angola as part of the ANC’s armed resistance. Pikoli the firebrand instituted criminal charges against Selebi as well as Zuma. He was first suspended and then fired. However the Ginwala Commission recommended he be restored to his post once “sensitized to the broader responsibilities of his office and in particular to enhance his understanding of the security environment in which that office should function.”[15] While the tussle was on public prosecutor and longtime advocate Mokotedi Mpshe stood in as Director of the NPA. In April 2009, Mpshe ‘decided to drop more than 700 corruption and other charges against Jacob Zuma.’[16]

Pikoli wasn’t re-appointed. Zuma had found someone else. In 2009 former justice director general Menzi Simelane was given the job by the president. But the High Court found differently, declaring Simelane unfit to hold office. Importantly, the court found Zuma’s subjective appointment was ‘not in keeping with the constitutional guarantee of prosecutorial independence’. Significant here is that the ANC knew before the appointment that Simelane was tainted. The Ginwala inquiry had already severely criticised his abilities while justice director general, his conduct found to be “irregular” and his action of drafting a letter to Pikoli instructing him to abort the imminent arrest of former police boss Jackie Selebi held to be a potential contravention of the NPA Act.[1]7 Simelane’s removal has so far stood, but he’s not bothered as he’s been moved to another lucrative spot; legal advisor to the Minister of Public Service and Administration – it is good work when it’s offered.

As Stephen Grootes pointed out, once Zuma had control over the NPA he had no need to challenge the judges – they can only hear what is brought to be heard and to that extent it would have been a smart move to get Simelane’s appointment through.[18]

While the legalities were being attended to Nomgcobo Jiba, wife of former Scorpions member Booker Nhantsi (who was convicted of the theft of R193,000 in trust funds), held the top post. Her man is crucial to the tale since Jiba’s claim to fame - the attempted arrest of ex-Scorpion Gauteng Head Gerrie Nel just as he was to prosecute Selebi in January 2008 - is still seen as an act of revenge against Nel who was instrumental in prosecuting her husband. Nel won that tussle; Selebi got a 15-year prison sentence[19] and the City Press story “Jiba wanted Nel ‘by hook or by crook’” of 4 August 2012[20] indicates the attempt was all part of the political hit to get rid of the Scorpions.

Incidentally, President Zuma had Nhantsi’s record expunged. Incidentally also, Richard Mdluli, then crime intelligence boss, signed an affidavit putting his support behind Jiba in the matter, instrumental in allowing her to keep her job. Ms Jiba has since claimed she was ‘innocently involved in the Nel matter and not the main driver of it.’ Perhaps so, but it doesn’t detract from the assault on South Africa’s legal integrity. Nor does it answer why Jiba went after Natal Hawks head Major General Johan Booysen, on, as Judge Trevor Gorven described it, charges that ‘did not meet even the barest of minimum requirements.’[21]

In May 2013 the well-followed Breytenbach case finally came to a head, perhaps the most damning indictment of the NPA’s rotten core. NPA prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach was diligently at work on several high profile prosecution cases, including one against Richard Mdluli - the details of which hinged around a letter Mdluli wrote to Zuma where he offered to use his position as crime intelligence head to assist Zuma in achieving a second presidential term. Another case on Breytenbach’s docket was the mineral rights quarrel between the Sishen Iron Ore Company and Imperial Crown Trading (ICT). ICT is partly owned by the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma – one of the President’s sons.[22]

The trauma Breytenbach was put through was serious but more so the long-term outlook for equality before the law. Constitutional Law expert Pierre de Vos wrote: ‘The acquittal of prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach on all 15 charges brought against her by her superiors at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) raises serious questions about the independence and impartiality of the NPA and its leadership. It will strengthen the increasingly widely held perception that senior NPA leaders are appointed because of their political loyalty to the dominant faction inside the ANC and not because of their personal integrity, independent attitude and ability to act without fear, favour or prejudice (as required by the Constitution).’[23]

Next up to bat for the NPA was Mxolisi Sandile Oliver Nxasana, effective 1 October 2013. It appears all was fine, Nxasana was getting on with the job and then suddenly ‘a character who was fit for high office is shown to be flawed. Comrades of decades feign surprise, condonation becomes condemnation.’[24] Nxasana had been through a thorough selection phase only to have the ANC and President’s office turn on him. The debate is ongoing. The opposition Democratic Alliance says: ‘We believe that Nxasana’s attempts to reinstate charges of murder, kidnapping and defeating the ends of justice against disgraced crime intelligence head, Richard Mdluli, have put his job on the line.’[25]

Why it is good to be a part of the ANC? This was explained at a gala dinner held in Durban on Friday 11 January 2013, one that raised R21 million for the party. “Support is fine, we love it. But if you just go beyond that and become a member, you’ll realise everything of yours will go very well. If you are a businessman business will thrive. Everything you touch will multiply” said Zuma, quoted in the City Press. All of the self-made billionaires and millionaires present confirmed.[26]

How far is corruption going to go? The spider’s web between the ANC’s main political players and big business’ stand-out personalities only grows thicker. Eskom and water affairs were long ago lined up for privitisation – allow it to fail a little longer and its processing will be ready for Zuma and Co’s picking. Mr Ramaphosa is the likely man for the job. It seems South Africans need not worry about switching off the lights; they’ll only come on when paid for.

I end with a summary from P Smith of Africa Confidential. I can’t phrase it better. He calls it ‘No-Fly Zone For Legal Eagles’, written in 2015: ‘The presidency is working to remove police and prosecutors who refuse to suspend actions against highly influential people. The decline in independence of South Africa's top criminal justice institutions is accelerating as President Jacob Zuma redoubles his efforts to immunise himself and his entourage from prosecution over corruption. That is the verdict of a growing number of legal experts as more and more senior police officers and prosecutors are removed. Corrupt business links with the governing African National Congress and the Presidency are mounting, so the pressures on prosecutors and investigators to be soft on them multiply. State officials are increasingly facing administrative suspension if they do not comply.’

____________
* A former soldier and District Commissioner in then Rhodesia, Douglas Schorr is today a committed critic of capitalism and colonial legacies, citing them as the source of poverty in Africa. His first book, The Myth of Smith, an autobiographical account of his awakening to the reality of the Rhodesian Bush War while involved in it, is available for sale on [url=bit.ly/TheMythOfSmith]Amazon Kindle[/url]. He is currently at work on his second book ‘God Chose Mugabe?’, dealing with the global economic and political forces that played a part in Robert Mugabe’s election, and how those forces continue to shape the destiny of Zimbabwe and other countries in the region. Schorr blogs at http://dougschorr.blogspot.com and can be found on [url=https://www.facebook.com/DouglasSchorrAuthor
]Facebook[/url]

END NOTES

[1] http://www.saps.gov.za/about/history.php
[2] http://africacheck.org/reports/south-africas-criminal-cops-is-the-rot-far-worse-than-we-have-been-told ...
[3] ‘Institutionalizing Elites: Political Elite Formation and Change’ by Suzanne Francis https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/18561/ASC-075287668-3104-01.pdf?sequence=2 ‘Even back in those days, 2009, the government was doing extensive project and promotion work for the people of the Nkandla area specifically – Zuma’s birthplace’ (p163).
[4] http://mg.co.za/article/2014-11-09-jacob-zuma-defends-his-decision-to-fire-bheki-cele
[5] http://mg.co.za/article/2013-03-20-phiyega-survives-day-one-of-marikana-cross-examination
[6] http://mg.co.za/article/2013-10-30-ipid-plans-probe-into-allegations-against-phiyega
[7] http://mg.co.za/article/2013-10-30-phiyegas-distress-was-inevitable
[8] http://www.timeslive.co.za
[9] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165468/Ed-Miliband-demands-CRIMINAL-probe-Barclays-scandal-3-2bn-wiped-bank-share-plunge.html
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpions_(South_Africa)
[11] http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-11-14-analysis-the-multiple-ironies-of-nathi-mthethwa
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawks_(South_Africa)
[13] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3925955.stm
[14] ‘South Africa's crime-buster quits’ … http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3925955.stm
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Prosecuting_Authority
[16] http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/top-prosecutor-post-mired-in-controversy-1.1700949#.VPbwgjoWFFI
[17] http://mg.co.za/article/2009-11-25-menzi-simelane-to-head-up-npa
[18] http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-06-09-npa-leadership-fiasco-president-jacob-zumas-not-so-hidden-hand/
[19] http://whoswho.co.za/gerrie-nel-586516
[20] http://www.citypress.co.za/politics/jiba-wanted-nel-by-hook-or-by-crook-20120804/
[21] http://mg.co.za/article/2014-03-31-charges-dropped-against-suspended-hawks-head
[22] http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-05-28-breytenbach-too-little-fear-favour-and-prejudice/#.VPgOmzoWFFI
[23] http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-05-28-breytenbach-too-little-fear-favour-and-prejudice/#.VPgOmzoWFFI
[24] ‘Control over comrades’ @ http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/
[25] http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Nxasana-inquiry-a-witch-hunt-DA-20150201
[26] http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-01-21-south-africas-power-elite

Reprinted with permission from Pambazuka News.

 

Black Billionaires: 11 Make Forbes' List — Five Nigerians, Two Americans, and Three Women

Aliko Dangote, $15.7 billion

Nigerian, Sugar, Cement, Flour

Mohammed Al-Amoudi, $10.9 billion

Saudi Arabian, Oil

Mike Adenuga, $4 billion

Nigerian, Oil

Isabel Dos Santos, $3.3 billion

Angolan, Investments

Oprah Winfrey, $2.9 billion

American, Television

Patrice Motsepe, $2.1 billion

South African, Mining

Folorunsho Alakija, $1.9 billion

Nigerian, Oil

Mohammed Ibrahim, $1.1 billion

British, Mobile Telecoms, Investments

Michael Jordan, $1 billion

American, Basketball

Femi Otedola, $1 billion

Nigerian, Gas stations

Abdulsamad Rabiu, $1 billion

Nigerian, Cement, Sugar

'Mafia Family' Arrested in South Africa for Facilitating the Extermination of Rhinos — For Their Horns

The Groenewald family in court.

By Laurel Neme
The Groenewald brothers own and operate Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris, an outfitter that organizes and conducts trips in private hunting areas in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, including at their 10,600-acre (4,300-hectare) game farm, Prachtig, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) south of the town of Musina, in South Africa's Limpopo Province.

U.S. authorities will be seeking to extradite the brothers from South Africa.

According to the 18-count indictment, between 2005 and 2010 the Groenewald brothers duped nine American hunters at their ranch into illegally shooting rhinos.

The brothers would then cut off the horns and sell them on the black market in Asia.

The Groenewalds and their safari company solicited American hunters at large regional sportsmen's shows, including Safari Club International conventions.

They also donated hunts to local chapters of Safari Club International in Kansas City, Missouri, and a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

Read More

Weaponized Ebola Was Manufactured By South Africa's White Supremacists From 1980's - 1994: The US Was Involved — And There's No Evidence It Was Destroyed

Wouter Basson testifying before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The so-
called "Doctor of Death" led South Africa's development of bio weapons that targeted native
Africans, and he got lots of help from the United States (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Daniel Taylor
Operating out of South Africa during the Apartheid era in the early 1980’s, Dr. Wouter Basson launched a secret bioweapons project called Project Coast. The goal of the project was to develop biolunogical and chemical agents that would either kill or sterilize the black population and assassinate political enemies. Among the agents developed were Marburg and Ebola viruses.

Basson is surrounded by cloak and dagger intrigue, as he told Pretoria High court in South Africa that “The local CIA agent in Pretoria threatened me with death on the sidewalk of the American Embassy in Schoeman Street.” According to a 2001 article in The New Yorker magazine, the American Embassy in Pretoria was “terribly concerned” that Basson would reveal deep connections between Project Coast and the United States.

Wouter Basson is described as "unrepentant." — So what is he and
his white supremacist cronies up to nowadays?

In 2013, Basson was found guilty of “unprofessional conduct” by the South African health council.

Bioweapons expert Jeanne Guillemin writes in her book Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, “The project‘s growth years were from 1982 to 1987, when it developed a range of biological agents (such as those for anthrax, cholera, and the Marburg and Ebola viruses and for botulinum toxin)…“

Basson’s bioweapons program officially ended in 1994, but there has been no independent verification that the pathogens created were ever destroyed. The order to destroy them went directly to Dr. Basson. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The integrity of the process rested solely on Dr. Basson’s honesty.”

Basson claims to have had contact with western agencies that provided “ideological assistance” to Project Coast. Basson stated in an interview shot for the documentary Anthrax War that he met several times with Dr. David Kelly, the infamous UN weapons inspector in Iraq. Kelly was a top bioweapons expert in the United Kingdom. He was found dead near his home in Oxfordshire in 2003. While the official story claims he committed suicide, medical experts highly doubt this story.

In a 2007 article from the Mail Online, it was reported that a week prior to his death, Dr. Kelly was to be interviewed by MI5 about his ties to Dr. Basson.

Dr. Timothy Stamps, Minister of Health of Zimbabwe, suspected that his country was under biological attack during the time that Basson was operating. Stamps told PBS Frontline in 1998 that “The evidence is very clear that these were not natural events. Whether they were caused by some direct or deliberate inoculation or not, is the question we have to answer.”

Stamps specifically named the Ebola and Marburg viruses as suspect. Stamps thinks that his country was being used as a testing ground for weaponized Ebola.

“I’m talking about anthrax and cholera in particular, but also a couple of viruses that are not endemic to Zimbabwe [such as] the Ebola type virus and, we think also, the Marburg virus. We wonder whether in fact these are not associated with biological warfare against this country during the hostilities… Ebola was along the line of the Zambezi [River], and I suspect that this may have been an experiment to see if a new virus could be used to directly infect people.”

The Ghanaian Times reported in early September on the recent Ebola outbreak, noting connections between Basson and bioweapons research. The article points out that, “…there are two types of scientists in the world: those who are so concerned about the pain and death caused to humans by illness that they will even sacrifice their own lives to try and cure deadly diseases, and those who will use their scientific skill to kill humans on the orders of… government…”

Indeed, these ideas are not new. Plato wrote over 2,000 years ago in his workThe Republic that a ruling elite should guide society, “…whose aim will be to preserve the average of population.” He further stated, “There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small.”

As revealed by The Age, Nobel prize winning Australian microbiologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet secretly urged the Australian government in 1947 to develop bio weapons for use against the “overpopulated countries of South-East Asia.” In a 1947 meeting with the New Weapons and Equipment Development Committee, the group recommended that “the possibilities of an attack on the food supplies of S-E Asia and Indonesia using B.W. agents should be considered by a small study group.”

This information gives us an interesting perspective on the recent unprecedented Ebola outbreak. Is it an organic natural phenomenon? Did this strain of Ebola accidentally escape from a bioweapons lab? Or, was it deliberately released?

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

Behind the Mask of Altruism: Imperialism, Monsanto and the Gates Foundation in Africa

Bill Gates: Using his foundation to force his views on the rest of the world? (Illustration by
DonkeyHotey)

Since 2006, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to the tune of almost $420 million. Activists from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Ethiopia recently attended the US-Africa Food Sovereignty Strategy Summit in Seattle to argue that the Foundation’s strategy for agriculture in Africa is a flawed attempt to impose industrial agriculture at the expense of more ecologically sound approaches.

Daniel Maingi works with small farmers in Kenya and belongs to the organization Growth Partners for Africa. The Seattle Times reported him as saying that while the goal of helping African farmers is laudable, the ‘green revolution’ approach is based on Western-style agriculture, with its reliance on fertilizer, weed killers and single crops, such as corn [1].

Maingi was born on a farm in eastern Kenya and studied agriculture from a young age. He remembers a time when his family would grow and eat a diversity of crops, such as mung beans, green grams, pigeon peas, and a variety of fruits now considered ‘wild’.

Following the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s and 1990s and a green revolution meant to boost agricultural efficiency, the foods of his childhood have been replaced with maize, maize, and more maize.

The Seattle Globalist reported him as saying:

“In the morning, you make porridge from maize and send the kids to school. For lunch, boiled maize and a few green beans. In the evening, ugali, [a staple dough-like maize dish, served with meat]… [today] it’s a monoculture diet, being driven by the food system – it’s an injustice.” [2]

As much of Africa is so dry, it’s not suited for thirsty crops, and heavy use of fertilizer kills worms and microbes important for soil health. Maingi argued that the model of farming in the West is not appropriate for farming in most of Africa and that the West should invest in indigenous knowledge and agro-ecology.

Growth Partners Africa works with farmers to enrich the soil with manure and other organic material, to use less water and to grow a variety of crops, including some that would be considered weeds on an industrial farm. For Maingi, food sovereignty in Africa means reverting back to a way of farming and eating that pre-dates major investment from the West.

Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety in South Africa says that many countries are subsidizing farmers to buy fertilizer as part of the chemical-industrial model of  agriculture, but that takes money away from public crop-breeding programmes that provide improved seeds to farmers at low cost.

Seattle times quoted her as saying:

“It’s a system designed to benefit agribusinesses and not small-scale farmers.”

She added that so many institutions, from African governments to the World Bank, have ‘embraced’ the ‘green revolution’ that alternative farming methods are getting short shrift.

Elizabeth Mpofu, of La Via Campesina, grows a variety of crops in Zimbabwe. During a recent drought, neighbours who relied on chemical fertilizer lost most of their crops. She reaped a bounty of sorghum, corn, and millet using what are called agro-ecological methods: natural pest control, organic fertilizer, and locally adapted crops.

Anna Goren of The Seattle Globalist reported that panelists at the Summit discussed the loss of traditional diets and ways of life and were also concerned about theincreased reliance on expensive inputs and the dramatic drop in price of crops. This has resulted in poverty for the small farmer.

Goren quoted Daniel Maingi as saying:

“What the World Bank has done, the International Monetary fund, what AGRA and Bill Gates are doing, it’s actually pretty wrong. The farmer himself should not be starving”.

He added that what AGRA is doing is “out of sync with the natural process” by bringing in imported seeds, which are not adapted to the land and require excessive fertilizer and pesticides.

Maingi has every right to be concerned. While small farms produce most of the world’s food, recent reports show they face being displaced from their land and are experiencing unnecessary hardship [3,4].

AGRA is part of a global trend that is being driven by big agritech that seeks to eradicate the small farmer and undermine local economies and food sovereignty by subjecting countries to the vagaries of rigged global markets [5,6].

Giant agritech corporations like Monsanto with their patented seeds and associated chemical inputs are working to ensure a shift away from diversified agriculture that guarantees balanced local food production, the protection of people’s livelihoods and environmental sustainability.

Small farmers are being displaced and are struggling to preserve their indigenous seeds and traditional knowledge of farming systems. Agritech corporations are being allowed to shape government policy by being granted a strategic role in trade negotiations [7].

They are increasingly setting the policy/knowledge framework by being allowed to fund and determine the nature of research carried out in public universities and institutes [8]. They continue to propagate the myth that they have the answer to global hunger and poverty, despite evidence that they do not [9,10].

The Gates Foundation, Monsanto and Western governments are placing African agriculture it in the hands of big agritech for private profit and strategic control under the pretext of helping the poor [11].
Of course there is another major concern pertaining to the motives of the Gates Foundation and Monsanto in Africa and elsewhere; that of depopulation [12,13].

These two entities are not just linked together through their involvement in Agra. The Gates Foundation has substantial shares in Monsanto [14]. With Monsanto’s active backing from the US State Department [15] and the Gates Foundation’s links with USAID [16], together they comprise a formidable geopolitical strategic force.

Given that the Gates Foundation is about to be hauled through the Indian legal system for its vaccination programme in that country [17] and Monsanto has a decades’ long track record of deception and criminality [18], it is important for everyone (not least the mainstream corporate media) to question why agriculture is being handed over to such entities.

“… take capitalism and business out of farming in Africa. The West should invest in indigenous knowledge and agro-ecology, education and infrastructure and stand in solidarity with the food sovereignty movement.” Daniel Maingi, Growth Partners for Africa.

Notes/Links

 

1] http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024758081_gatescriticsxml.html

2] http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2014/10/14/gates-agriculture-farming-revolution-africa/29493

3] http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland

4]http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/OI_Report_Down_on_the_Farm.pdf

5] http://www.bhoomimagazine.org/article/cash-food-will-strike-very-foundation-economy

6] http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/flood-cn.htm

7] http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/walmart-and-monsanto-on-indous-agriculture-initiative-board/article3176462.ece

8] http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/monsanto-a-contemporary-east-india-company-and-corporate-knowledge-in-india/

9] http://www.cban.ca/Resources/Topics/Feeding-the-World

10] http://www.globalresearch.ca/india-genetically-modified-seeds-agricultural-productivity-and-political-fraud/5328227

11] http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jun/07/g8-new-alliance-flawed-project

12] http://www.globalresearch.ca/genetic-engineering-eugenics-and-the-ideology-of-the-rich/5329025

13] http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html

14] http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2012751169_gatesmonsanto29m.html

15] http://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/05/14/revealed-how-us-state-department-twists-arms-monsantos-behalf

16] http://www.globalresearch.ca/weaponization-of-the-food-system-genetically-engineered-maize-threatens-nepal-and-the-himalayan-region/30512

17] http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-vaccine-empire-on-trial-in-india/

18] http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/06/20/complete-history-monsanto-worlds-evil-corporation/