Monsanto linked to coup that ousted Paraguayan president

The political system in Paraguay is undergoing some major turmoil right now following the forced impeachment of former President Fernando Lugo, a "left-of-center" politician democratically voted into office by the people of Paraguay back in 2008. And among those who initiated and brought about this controversial coup was multinational biotechnology giant Monsanto, which was apparently threatened by Lugo's resistance against the company's genetically-modified (GM) crop agenda.

For years, Paraguay's government has been dominated by so-called "right-wing" politicians that have served the interests of the country's local oligarchy, as well as the interests of the U.S. embassy and transnational corporations that have established a powerful stronghold in the country. Among these corporate influences was Monsanto, which over the years has converted much of Paraguay's arable land into plantations that grow GM crops.

But with the election of Lugo in 2008, things were beginning to change in many ways, according to reports, which triggered serious upset amongst Paraguay's status quo class. Unwilling to capitulate to every demand made by the likes of Monsanto, Lugo was clearly a problem for these movers and shakers, who had long controlled national policy to their liking at the expense of the underclasses who have had to endure extreme poverty as a result.

"Monsanto planned to introduce a genetically modified seed for commercial use in the country ... (But) [u]nder Lugo's administration, Paraguay's National Service for Plants and Seeds Quality and Health (SENAVE) refused to approve the seed's use," writes Berta Joubert-Ceci of Workers World concerning Monsanto's involvement in the coup.

"The right-wing oligarchs favor dissemination of Monsanto seeds, while the peasantry has been demonstrating against it. The Union of Associations of Producers, a landowners group tied to Monsanto, was preparing a demonstration for June 25 against Lugo to benefit the giant transnational and the 'liberalization' of its genetically modified seeds."

Though not perfect by any means, Lugo had at least tried to fight back in some ways against Monsanto's gradual takeover of Paraguay's agricultural land, the vast majority of which is now owned by less than three percent of the entire population. Many of Paraguay's family farms have been eliminated over the years and forcibly replaced with large mono-crop plantations that now grow Monsanto's GM soy and other cash crops. (http://www.naturalnews.com/030390_GMO_soy_poverty.html)

Unholy alliance between corporations and government destroying the world

The coup against President Lugo was undeniably engineered by special interests concerned about losing control over a nation that they have been exploiting for decades. By stacking Paraguay's legislature with pro-industry hacks that have no regard for the interests of the people; corporate interests in Paraguay once against successfully marked their territory, just like they continue to do here in the U.S.

You see, countries like the U.S. and Paraguay, though they may differ externally in their political structures, operate in a disturbingly similar fashion. Private industry in both countries has essentially morphed with the government into a single, fascist entity that serves the interests of corporations and a select "elite" at the expense of everyone else.

The working class in Paraguay is obviously much worse off than the working class in America, at least at this point in time. But the principle remains that any government, including the American government, that operates for the sole benefit of its corporate masters is really nothing more than a dictatorship in which the people are no longer considered to be sovereign individuals, but rather slaves.

Security experts: Iranian virus has hit Israeli computers

Russia's Kaspersky computer security lab and Israel's Securlet announced Tuesday that they have discovered that a "Trojan Horse" that has been active in the Mideast for months has infected computers of senior Israeli officials.

According to the security companies, the program collected data, screen shots, and sensitive material from individuals involved with national infrastructures, financial entities, and academic institutions. The experts discovered parts of the program that indicate that it originated in Iran.

Source: Ynet

Gold nanoparticles and tea compound treat prostate cancer with fewer side effects than chemotherapy

Currently, large doses of chemotherapy are required when treating certain forms of cancer, resulting in toxic side effects. The chemicals enter the body and work to destroy or shrink the tumor, but also harm vital organs and drastically affect bodily functions. Now, University of Missouri scientists have found a more efficient way of targeting prostate tumors by using gold nanoparticles and a compound found in tea leaves. This new treatment would require doses that are thousands of times smaller than chemotherapy and do not travel through the body inflicting damage to healthy areas. The study is being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"In our study, we found that a special compound in tea was attracted to tumor cells in the prostate," said Kattesh Katti, curators' professor of radiology and physics in the School of Medicine and the College of Arts and Science and senior research scientist at the MU Research Reactor. "When we combined the tea compound with radioactive gold nanoparticles, the tea compound helped 'deliver' the nanoparticles to the site of the tumors and the nanoparticles destroyed the tumor cells very efficiently."

Drs. Kattesh Katti and Cathy Cutler, and their colleagues, have found that gold nanoparticles, when combined with a compound found in tea, can fight aggressive forms of prostate cancer. Credit: University of Missouri

Currently, doctors treat prostate cancer by injecting hundreds of radioactive 'seeds' into the prostate. However, that treatment is not effective when treating an aggressive form of prostate cancer, said Cathy Cutler, research professor at the MU Research Reactor and co-author of the study. The size of the seeds and their inability to deliver effective doses hampers their ability to stop the aggressive form of prostate cancer.

In the study, the MU scientists created nanoparticles that are just the right size. Instead of hundreds of injections, the team only used one or two injections, and the nanoparticles were more likely to stay very close to the tumor sites.

Cutler and Katti have been working with colleagues Raghuraman Kannan, Anandhi Upendran, Charles Caldwell as well as others in the Department of Radiology and at the MU Research Reactor to develop and design the nanoparticles to the correct shape and size to treat prostate cancer. If the nanoparticles produced are too small, they can escape and spread; if they are made large enough, the nanoparticles will stay inside the tumor and treat it much more effectively than current methods.

"Current therapy for this disease is not effective in those patients who have aggressive prostate cancer tumors," Cutler said. "Most of the time, prostate cancers are slow-growing; the disease remains localized and it is easily managed. Aggressive forms of the disease spread to other parts of the body, and it is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in U.S. men. However, we believe the gold nanoparticles could shrink the tumors, both those that are slow-growing and aggressive, or eliminate them completely."

"This treatment is successful due to the inherent properties of radioactive gold nanoparticles," Kannan said. "First, the gold nanoparticles should be made to the correct size, and second, they have very favorable radiochemical properties, including a very short half-life."

With a half-life of only 2.7 days, the radioactivity from the gold nanoparticles is finished within three weeks.

"Because of their size and the compound found in tea, the nanoparticles remain at the tumor sites," Upendran said. "This helps the nanoparticles maintain a high level of effectiveness, resulting in significant tumor volume reduction within 28 days of treatment."

In the current study, the team tested the nanoparticles on mice. Prior to human trials, the scientists will study the treatment in dogs with prostate cancer. Prostate cancer in dogs is extremely close to the human form of the disease.

"When it comes to drug discovery, MU is fortunate because we have a combination of experts in cancer research, animal modeling, isotope production and nanomedicine, and state-of-the-art research infrastructure to take discoveries from 'the bench to the bedside' and never leave campus," Katti said. "For example, we developed the nanoparticles here at our research reactor, which is one of the few places in the world that produces therapeutic, clinical grade radioisotopes. We then tested the radioactive gold nanoparticles in small animals in collaboration with other radiology researchers using testing facilities located at the Harry S. Truman Veterans Hospital. Our next steps include partnering with the College of Veterinary Medicine to treat larger animals with the hopes of having human clinical trials, held on our campus, soon."

How Google is becoming an extension of your mind

It's time to think of Google as much more than just a search engine, and that should both excite and spook you.

Search remains critical to the company's financial and technological future, but Google also is using the search business' cash to transform itself into something much broader than just a place to point your browser when asking for directions on the Internet.

What it's now becoming is an extension of your mind, an omnipresent digital assistant that figures out what you need and supplies it before you even realize you need it.

Think of Google diagnosing your daughter's illness early based on where she's been, how alert she is, and her skin's temperature, then driving your car to school to bring her home while you're at work. Or Google translating an incomprehensible emergency announcement while you're riding a train in foreign country. Or Google steering your investment portfolio away from a Ponzi scheme.

Google, in essence, becomes a part of you. Imagine Google playing a customized audio commentary based on what you look at while on a tourist trip and then sharing photo highlights with your friends as you go. Or Google taking over your car when it concludes based on your steering response time and blink rate that you're no longer fit to drive. Or your Google glasses automatically beaming audio and video to the police when you say a phrase that indicates you're being mugged.

Exciting? I think so. But it's also, potentially, a profoundly creepy change. For a Google-augmented life, you must grant the Googlebot unprecedented privileges to monitor your personal information and behavior. What medicine do you take? What ads did you just glance at while walking by the bus stop? What's your credit card number? And as Google works to integrate social data into its services, you'll have to decide how much you'll share with your contacts' Google accounts -- and the best way to ask them to share their data with your Google account.

Where your Google comfort zone ends It'll be foolhardy to be as cavalier with tomorrow's Google as you might be with it today. I think some of those sci-fi possibilities I just described could be real within three to five years, so now is a good time to start thinking about where your Google comfort zone ends.

Me? I'm immersed in Google services, but I worry that handy new features will arrive in a steady stream of minor changes that are all but imperceptible until one day I wake up and realize that Google has access to everything that makes me who I am.

Google Now says it needs access to my calendar? Sounds useful. My Android phone needs to turn on my phone's microphone so the Google Maps app can judge by ambient noise whether I'm indoors or outdoors? Well, that'll help me get through the airport faster. My glasses need to identify the faces of people in my company so Google can deduce who gets consigned to the Google Voice answering machine and who gets through to my phone even at 3 a.m.? Well, I sure don't want to have to set all that up manually.

Read more: CNET

The Face of Fracking Victims (Moving and Powerful Video)

Very often when we in the alternative media cover events, we speak in the abstract of the horrors against "humanity." It is more rare, however, that we are able to focus on individual human beings and their personal horrors from being subjected to the fallout of non-human institutions like banks, corporations and bureaucratic government institutions.

We are given insight into real human suffering when we hear the stories of those who wind up beaten and tortured at the hands of a police state war culture gone wild; those who fall victim to a Ponzi-scheme economy; those suffering with vaccine injuries, and other harsh realities. Perhaps worst of all are those who are deemed to be nothing more than a cost of doing business, as we saw with the BP Gulf Oil Disaster. It is then that health, wealth, and even hope fall prey simultaneously.

Fracking is one such environmental evil that is falling hard upon select communities in places across America. The following video is powerful in that it is not a technical overview of what fracking is, not an analysis of the damage it potentially causes, nor is it political. It is simply a few human stories of people who desperately want their voices heard, and are having it fall on deaf ears among those whose duty it is to protect them.

This film is shared courtesy of Nature Abounds' friend, Rich Waters, a local photographer and videographer who is documenting how fracking is changing the lives of his neighbors in Southwest Pennsylvania.

It is activism at its most poignant.