A new vaccine for influenza has hit the market, and it is the first ever to contain genetically-modified (GM) proteins derived from insect cells. According to reports, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the vaccine, known as Flublok, which contains recombinant DNA technology and an insect virus known as baculovirus that is purported to help facilitate the more rapid production of vaccines.
According to Flublok’s package insert, the vaccine is trivalent, which means it contains GM proteins from three different flu strains. The vaccine’s manufacturer, Protein Sciences Corporation (PSC), explains that Flublok is produced by extracting cells from the fall armyworm, a type of caterpillar, and genetically altering them to produce large amounts of hemagglutinin, a flu virus protein that enables the flu virus itself to enter the body quickly.
So rather than have to produce vaccines the “traditional” way using egg cultures, vaccine manufacturers will now have the ability to rapidly produce large batches of flu virus protein using GMOs, which is sure to increase profits for the vaccine industry. But it is also sure to lead to all sorts of serious side effects, including the deadly nerve disease Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GSB), which is listed on the shot as a potential side effect.
"If Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) has occurred within six weeks of receipt of a prior influenza vaccine, the decision to give Flublock should be based on careful consideration of the potential benefits and risks," explains a section of the vaccine’s literature entitled "Warnings and Precautions." Other potential side effects include allergic reactions, respiratory infections, headaches, fatigue, altered immunocompetence, rhinorrhea, and myalgia.
According to clinical data provided by PSC in Flublok’s package insert, two study participants actually died during trials of the vaccine. But the company still insists Flublok is safe and effective, and that it is about 45 percent effective against all strains of influenza in circulation, rather than just one or two strains.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039013_flu_vaccine_insect_virus_GMOs.html#ixzz2KWd3iLCG
African government is denying vaccines harmed children. It has now been officially confirmed that in December 2012, 38 children were hospitalized after receiving the meningitis vaccine, MenAfriVac, during a vaccination campaign arranged by the Chadian government. News program France 24 stated that Saleh Ahmat Bodoumi, a former Member of Parliament in Chad, confirmed that seven of the most seriously affected children have since been evacuated from hospitals in the capital city of Ndjamena to the Republic of Tunisia in northern Africa to undergo further investigation and specialized treatment. [1]
This news was confirmed by the ‘Medical Xpress’ a health news service, which said Health Minister Mamouth Nahor N’Gawara made the following statement to the Agence France-Presse, the largest French news agency in the world (AFP):
“During the last phase of the vaccination campaign organized at Gouro (near the Libyan border) on December 11 to 15, 2012, unusual reactions were noted.”
N’Gawara added that “their state of health is not worrying.” [2]
FORCED VACCINATIONS
However, the Medical Xpress, along with other websites, followed this story the next day by backtracking and stating the following information:
“In a statement, the country’s health ministry said tests “failed to establish a causal link between the clinical manifestations observed in the patients and the MenAfriVac vaccine.”
According to the statement, one child who never received the meningitis shot ‘complained of suffering from the same symptoms’ found in the other children.” [3]
However, a contact in Chad gave VacTruth an extremely different version of events. He said:
“The government and the World Health Organization have made up these facts.
The government banned journalists from visiting the hospital since the children brought in. (sic) All the children from Gouro received the vaccine.
Firstly, they (Government/WHO) collaborated with the school’s headmaster who locked the school’s main door before vaccinating all the children. The school headmaster told the children that anyone who refused the vaccine would be banned from school and be arrested.
Secondly, they went door to door and injected the babies over one year.”
If you find this event difficult to believe, then cast your mind back to 2007 when the news broke that children in Maryland had been forcibly vaccinated at gunpoint under orders from the state Attorney General, various state judges and the local school board director, all of whom illegally conspired to threaten parents with imprisonment if they did not submit their children to vaccinations. [4]
Another example of these bully boy tactics was seen in Malawi last year, where 131 children were vaccinated at gunpoint after their parents had refused the measles vaccine. [5] [6]
A TRAGIC TIMELINE
Interestingly, the health minister ended his official statement by saying that the state of the paralyzed children’s health is not worrisome. If that is true, then why did the Chadian government move them to another hospital and why was this move done in secret?
Our Chadian contact informed me that the parents were not even allowed to know where the children were being evacuated to prior to evacuation. He confirmed that on the day that the children were evacuated, the N’Djamena International Airport had been closed to visitors!
VacTruth reported on the Chadian tragedy on January 6, 2013. [7] However, a team of experts in Chad did not begin to investigate the situation fully until January 9. The Prime Minister of Chad did not visit the sick children in hospital until a few days later. On January 13, VacTruth released a film of the TV footage of this visit that had been copied and forwarded to us. [8]
So, why did the Chadian government take so long to act on this appalling situation? According to France 24, the Health Minister did not make his announcement until January 9, five weeks after the incident occurred.
Another false representation of the facts being portrayed to the public is the following information which has been reported by several websites:
“In total, more than 100 million people in ten African countries have been vaccinated against the disease.”
It is a possibility that tens of millions of people were vaccinated with MenAfriVac, although highly unlikely. However, it is a total impossibility, by the WHOS’s own admission, that this number was vaccinated using the controlled temperature chain (CTC) implementations. In November 2012, WHO stated:
“Evidence of the heat stability of MenAfriVac® was validated by a team of experts from WHO, PATH, SIIL, and Health Canada. In collaboration with the government of Benin, the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), Optimize, and the WHO regional office for Africa, a pilot use of the MenAfrivac® vaccine in a CTC will be conducted during the upcoming MenAfriVac® campaign in the northern part of the country, from November 15 through 25. Benin is the 10th country to introduce the vaccine, as well as the first country to work with the new CTC implementation guidelines, developed through WHO’s Immunization Practices Advisory Committee”. [9] (emphasis added)
BREAKING THE RULES, AT LEAST TWICE
So, what has been going on behind the scenes?
MenAfriVac was a pre-licensed vaccine still in the testing stages. It had been advertised by all the major organizations involved in the campaign, including UNICEF, FDA, CDC, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, Meningitis Vaccine Project and WHO, as a vaccine that could be kept in a controlled temperature chain (CTC) at temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius for up to four days. However, according to the manufacturer, this information was not strictly true because they state:
“MenAfriVac should be stored and transported between 2-8ºC. Protect from light. The diluent should be stored at 25°C. It is recommended to protect the reconstituted vaccine from direct sunlight.” [10]
According to a report of a meeting which took place in October 2012 between the World Health Organization’s Immunizations, Vaccines and Biologicals group and the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (IPAC), the MenAfriVac vaccine had not been fully licensed and would not be due to be fully endorsed until 2013, at the earliest. [11]
The children of Gouro were vaccinated in December 2012, apparently with a vaccine that was still being tested which had not yet gained approval to be used outside of a cold temperature chain. According to sources, Dr. Diego Buriot read this message in French on Chad TV, a local television station:
“We have done all analyses, we believe that the vaccine was not the cause of the paralysis and the children are not in danger. It is clear that the vaccine is not the cause. All seems to show that the vaccine, which already has been largely used on the whole of the chain, does not produce vaccinal complications.
We have retested the vaccine, both at the level of the producer, as well as at the level of random checks, which are undecided. These will give their results within several weeks, but actually we are sure that the vaccine is not the cause.
What we are sure of is first of all that there is no danger whatsoever for the children, that is very important to say. All the clinical trials that we have done are completely normal other than this agitation, which is real, it translates the fear of the children.” [translated from French]
This is the first public acknowledgement admitting that the children had became ill and paralyzed after they had received the vaccination, as well as the first of likely many denials that the vaccine is not to blame.
So, who is Dr. Diego Buriot and who does he represent?
IT’S ALL IN THEIR HEAD
Dr. Diego Buriot is the Director of the WHO Office in Lyon, France. He is in charge of the Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response and with impressive credentials and “considerable experience in the public health problems of developing countries.” [12]
Of course he would say that the vaccines did not cause the children’s injuries, even though he has admitted that all the test results have not yet been received and won’t be for several weeks. Remember his words?
“We have retested the vaccine, both at the level of the producer, as well as at the level of random checks, which are undecided. These will give their results within several weeks, but actually we are sure that the vaccine is not the cause.”
On January 20, 2013, the human rights organization ECOTERRA International and I wrote a letter to the resident representative of WHO in Chad, Dr. Saïdou Pathé Barry. We have checked the WHO website [13] regularly since submitting our inquiry, but we have not found any report or update. For this reason, we have been forced to make a public appeal to WHO and ask them to answer our fourteen questions regarding the MenAfriVac vaccination tragedy at their earliest convenience.
On January 22, we were given a copy of the original press release signed by The Minister of Public Health, Dr. Mamouth Nahor N’gawara. It makes interesting but predictable reading:
The findings were the same old same, although the release did admit to the inadequate hospital conditions, the lack of medical follow-up — especially on the psychological level — and the dialogue between the community and the health personnel as being insufficient.
No cause for the illness of the children appears to have been found. Interestingly, the Experts’ Recommendations stated:
• Make sure of a progressive yet fast return of the children to their families, and a medical follow up
• Maintain the dialogue with the families, the actors and the partners of the vaccination
• Reinforce the medical structure at the local level by adding a doctor and a state registered nurse for a better tracking of the health of the population and the routine activities
• Reinforce the health personnel capacity in crisis communication and rumor control
The experts want to stress that the analysis of the epidemiological, medical, clinical and paraclinical data do not permit us to establish a causal link between the clinical manifestations observed in the patients, and the MenAfriVac™ vaccine.
The symptoms observed in the patients resemble those, which have been described in the literature under several names:
In other words, the “experts” are trying to say that the children’s condition is psychological. This move is growing in popularity governments and the medical profession uses the ‘its all in their heads’ phenomenon to minimize vaccine damage, thus shifting the blame to the parents or the victim.
They finish by stating, translated from French:
“The independent experts thank the population and the Chadian authorities for the confidence placed in them. They appeal to the diligence of the authorities to put quickly into action the recommendations, which will facilitate the return to a calmed down situation, beneficial to the correct proceeding of the vaccination programs.”
The press release also says that a final report will be completed by the health services in Tunisia.
What the press release fails to say is the following: out of the 500 children vaccinated, a total of 106 became ill. Only 38 of the sick children were hospitalized, leaving 62 sick children in Gouro to be cared for by relatives. [13]
HOW ARE THE CHILDREN DOING?
When I asked my contact if the conditions of the hospitalized children were improving, he replied:
“The children in hospital are still paralyzed. Most of the children still can’t stand up. Some have convulsions so badly that they need four people to attend. Those who have convulsions end with their up arms straight and their eyes are fixed and open without reaction.
We are not receiving enough information about the children the government and WHO took to Tunisia.
There are sick children left in Gouro who may be evacuated to Libya.”
CONCLUSION
We have yet to see the full outcome of the MenAfriVac vaccine tragedy. There is little doubt that these children are very sick and may need lifelong care and attention. They will likely be returned home, if they recover sufficiently, without adequate care and attention and their parents left without help or support to care for their children’s disabilities alone. Unfortunately, many third world countries do not have access to basic equipment such as wheelchairs that we in the Western world take for granted.
Surely it is now time for the Chadian government and the organizations involved to stop trying to cover up this tragedy and instead, look after all of the sick children properly. I believe that the real tragedy of this whole situation is in a few months, these children like thousands of others, will be forgotten and it will be ‘business as usual’ for all of the organizations involved.
The MenAfriVac vaccination will likely be given to millions more third world children across Africa. The vaccination of children with pre-licensed and unlicensed vaccines, which may be life-threatening, needs to cease. This is not health care, but a total disregard for human life in the name of profit.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Namaste UK Publishing and ECOTERRA International; Desiree Rover for translations; and my Chadian contacts.
Bill Gates is primarily known as the multi-billionaire who Microsoft, the company behind the most popular computer operating system known as Windows. With this massive wealth, he has retired from leading Microsoft and now instead focuses his money and time on furthering genetically modified technology, geoengineering, experimental vaccinations, and preaching about how Monsanto is the answer to world hunger.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Gates owns 500,000 shares worth 23 million US dollars (or more) of Monsanto stock. The very same company that has been caught running slave rings in Argentina in which workers were forced to work 14+ hours a day while withholding payment, has used their massive finances to fund organizations that literally fake FDA quotes to support GMOs, and of course peddling through GMOs that have been linked to numerous health concerns.
This is not even taking into account the farmer suicides that occur around every 30 minutes due to Monsanto’s failing GMO crop yield bankrupting small-time farmers in India’s notorious ‘suicide belt‘.
Bill Gates Funding Corporations Caught in Child Slave Rings
And if that’s not enough, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has even teamed up with Cargill to pump GMO soy into the third world. Cargill, of course, is the the 133 billion dollar corporation that also has been found in direct violation of human rights laws. Cargill was sued by the International Labor Rights Fund for trafficking children from Mali and forcing them to work on cocoa bean plantations for around 12 to 14 hours each day without pay, food, or sleep. The company even continues to purchase cotton from Uzbekistan, where it is well known that child slave labor is used in the cultivation.
Bill Gates himself even filmed commercials for Monsanto’s GMOs, propping them up as the ‘solution’ to world hunger despite even the United Nations admitting that GMOs cannot fight hunger as effectively as traditional farming. Headed by an entity known as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a team of 900 scientists and researchers studied the issue of world hunger. The results of the major study were very simple: 900 scientists agreed that GMO crops were not the answer to the world hunger, and revealed this in 2008 — long before Bill Gates began claiming that GMOs were the answer while ignoring this readily available information.
Even the Union of Concerned Scientists examined the true yield of GMO crops, only to find that the GM crops do not produce increased yields over the long run — despite their excessive cost and extreme danger to health and environment. The lack of scientific support behind the GMO crops was so startling to the Union that they documented all the details in a 2009 report entitled ”Failure to Yield.”
Watchdog groups have criticized Gates’ support of these corporations after finding out about his massive funding. One such group, a part of the Community Alliance for Global Justice, stated:
“Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well being of small farmers around the world… [This] casts serious doubt on the foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa…”
So why is Bill Gates, a man who is propped up by the media as an angel of philanthropy, pumping millions (if not billions) into these operations? And why is he claiming that GMOs can fight world hunger when we know this is not true due to decreased yields and other problems?
I Asked Bill Gates Why
In a unique opportunity to ask Bill Gates himself why he has purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto behind the scenes (expelled into the news thanks to tax information) and teamed up with Cargill to expand GMOs worldwide, myself and several others asked him ourselves.
Yesterday Gates opened himself up to questions from online users via the social sharing site Reddit, in which he posted an open interview of sorts known as an ‘Ask me Anything’ post. This is essentially an invitation for questions that the subject will answer via text. While I had a large number of questions for Gates, such as if he actually eats GMOs himself, I simply asked him:
“Why did you buy 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock?”
Unsurprisingly, the comment received a large degree of feedback. Users asked Gates to please respond to the question, and several others posed similar variations to Gates that all went unanswered (as to be expected). Some quotes from users in response to my question included:
User Lawfairy replied: “I wish he’d answered this one — to me, this is one of the most curious things about Mr. Gates, whom I otherwise respect as one of the foremost humanists of our generation… Mr. Gates’ relationship with Monsanto is, in my mind, simultaneously the most morally troubling thing about Mr. Gates”
Another user posted (with links intact): “Would you be willing to take some time to give us some insight with your investments in Monsanto? Despite having the headlines of “ending world hunger”, this company has done some despicable things in the past 100 years and I don’t believe they have the public’s best interest in mind. Having a single company or entity trying to “control”, “manipulate” or “own” the world’s food supply, in my opinion, is not the way to end world hunger.”
Another user answered with: “Because he is supporting the Bilderberg group!”
None of these received a response nor did the many others I could not include in this article. The answer, it seems, is to bring this topic to the mainstream. The very same mainstream that seems to think Bill Gates is some sort of philanthropic super star that can do no evil. I am opposed to all wrongdoing at every level, and I find it absolutely disturbing that someone funding the GMO agenda and slave-labor-linked companies has been met with applause.
There's a drug whose appeal shows no sign of slowing. It's a stimulant for the central nervous system and it was an ingredient in 136 million bags exported around the world in 2012.
Those bags were coffee and the drug was caffeine - but there's a lot more to it than just the one beverage. Tea, energy drinks, chocolates, chewing gum, sweets and even weight-loss tablets have all got a caffeine content. We compare them here.
2 cups of tea = 1 cup of coffee
There are 20mg of caffeine in your average 100g of brewed tea compared to 40mg in the same amount of black filter coffee. But the type of tea, as well as the brewing time makes a difference
2 colas = 1 tea
We were surprised too. 100g of your average cola contains just 8mg of caffeine - although for reduced sugar varieties that number goes up to 15mg.
More caffeine in coffee than Red Bull
One of the biggest brands in high-sugar energy drinks, Red Bull, has just 30mg of caffeine per 100g which still leaves the traditional americano in first place in the caffeine contest.
But a look at other energy drinks shows that Red Bull is a relative light-weight in the alkaloid department. New energy shots like Ammo (whose site claims "was developed for the U.S. Military Special Forces like Navy Seals, Green Berets, and Delta Force) are supposed to be drunk in low volumes but 100g of the stuff would contain a dizzying 570mg of caffeine - that's 14 cups of coffee.
Here are the ten most caffeinated energy drinks - along with brand names that are as neon as the liquids within.
Caffeinated alcoholic drinks
There's also a growing trend for mixing drugs - in this case alcohol and caffeine. The US Food and Drug Administration lists (not without a note of caution) 70 of these products.
One of four companies adding caffeine to their alcoholic malt beverages which the FDA warned was an "unsafe food additive" Photograph: Fda
It's not just drinks
From jelly beans to energy infused potato chips, caffeine is increasingly coming in a chewable form. Foosh energy mints have 5,555 mg of caffeine per 100g - that's 139 cups of coffee (and, we assume, without the halitosis). Buzz Bites Chocolate Chews were the second highest on the adult sweeties list with 1,639mg of caffeine per 100g.
It's not all plain (highly alert?) sailing though - when gum giant Wrigley attempted to launch a caffeinated chewing gum earlier this year they ended up having to halt production after officials raised concerns about children and adolescents consuming the stuff.
Companies are coming up with increasingly creative ways to cash in on consumer fatigue Photograph: /Designtaxi
Drugs in drugs
From Aspirin to Triaminicin (used to reduce fever and relieve pain) several doses of drugs will also contain a hit of caffeine. There are 65mg of caffeine in Aspirin Bayer Select Maximum Strength and 40mg in Repan (used to treat headaches).
Many of the weight-loss supplement pills listed by the US authorities also include high dosages of caffeine - presumably in the belief that it may act as an appetite suppressant. For those who are seeking a direct fix, a range of caffeine tablets are also widely availble that have dosages between 175mg and 200mg.
You can compare the main caffeine products from cola to dark chocolate coated coffee beans in the chart below.
Doctors are urgently trying to contain a potentially fatal superbug that has been found in 21 of the state's most vulnerable babies at Monash Medical Centre and Casey Hospital in Melbourne's south-east.
There are also fears that the antibiotic-resistant bacterium - vancomycin resistant enterococcus, or VRE - may have travelled with one baby to another hospital in Melbourne. This hospital has not yet been identified. The head of infection control for Monash Health, Dr Rhonda Stuart, said 21 babies at the Monash Medical Centre and Casey Hospital special care and intensive care units had tested positive for VRE in recent weeks.
VRE is a bacterium that can colonise the gut and remain harmless for healthy people. However, it can cause serious infections in people with weakened immune systems, particularly cancer, transplant and kidney dialysis patients.
As its name suggests, VRE is resistant to vancomycin, an anti-biotic that is used to treat serious infections.
Dr Stuart said so far none of the 21 babies had fallen ill because the bacteria appeared to have colonised their guts without causing an infection. However, she said there was a risk the bacterium could become a difficult-to-treat infection for the babies if it got into their bloodstreams.
''If the bacteria get into the baby through a tube or if they are being fed intravenously, potentially they could develop an infection that way, but with strict hand hygiene and good environmental control we don't expect that to happen,'' she said. Dr Stuart said that although VRE had been increasingly found in Victorian hospitals this year, with most detecting several cases a week, it was the first time Monash Health had discovered it in its newborn wards.
She said Monash Health - Victoria's largest health service - was working hard to contain and eliminate the superbug.
Staff working with the babies are wearing gowns and gloves and washing their hands thoroughly. Babies coming into the wards will not be exposed to babies potentially carrying the organism and each nursery bay is being isolated for disinfection as babies are discharged.
The service has also begun ''precautionary screening'' at Dandenong Hospital's nursery and said it was limiting the transfer of babies between Monash Health sites and other health services.
However, Dr Stuart said that before the service detected the first case of VRE in an infant, it had transferred one baby to another hospital's special care nursery. While it is still unknown if this baby is carrying VRE, she said the hospital had been notified on Monday so it could test the baby and take infection-control measures if necessary. She was not willing to name the hospital in case there was no risk and it would alarm the public unnecessarily. Source: http://www.sott.net/article/269205-The-end-of-antibiotics-Superbug-strikes-babies-in-hospitals
A Sheriff’s department in West Virginia confirms this morning that a scuffle over a parking spot at a Walmart in Tazewell County resulted in a stabbing, which is, of course, how we know that the holiday shopping season is upon us.
We’re collecting videos and tweets of the Black Friday madness this morning.
We’ll begin in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, which experienced a stampede for savings!
Shoppers are racing through the aisles of stores in search of a deal. Each year, the Black Friday offerings start earlier and earlier, but the people keep coming.
Shoppers we found had carts full of stuff, some people had to get multiple carts just to fill their lists. Toys R Us is where FOX59 found an absolutely heartwarming story of a couple who got up from their thanksgiving table to do some good for the community.
“Just to give back to the community, to help, I mean, times are tough nowadays,” said Renee Hull.
The toys they put in to their numerous carts are for needy kids in Central Indiana. Each year, for the last 20 years, the Hulls team up with some of Renee’s friends who pool their money and spend it on toys to make sure kids have a merry christmas. The Pike Township Trustees and Fire Department give them out to the families so something is under their trees. If what is purchased on Black Friday isn’t enough, no worries.
“We’ll come back out and help them back out and we’ll get what they need. So, it’s fun, it’s fun to see the kids open their gifts,” Hull said.
The Hulls we’re among the thousands of people who came out to Toys R Us and other stores after loading up on turkey to load up on deals. Toys R Us was mobbed, and it was no easy trip through the aisles.
You had to squeeze through the crowded Best Buy store next door. Electronics were marked down big time, and Trey Taylor hoped to find a cheap iPad 2. Dealing with the crowds was another story.
“This is one of the first times, and it is a little but insane for me, but I knew they had deals so I couldn’t resist. I’m already kinda wanting to go home,” Taylor said.
This video has been popular this morning, showing a manic shopper pushing through a crowd like a fullback sniffing the end zone…
Here’s a scuffle over something — tablets? — which results in an arrest that a Walmart employee doesn’t want filmed…
And here’s a frenzy over some Rachael Ray cookware in Tennessee…
The holiday shopping season kicked off much earlier this year, as at least a dozen national retail chains from Macy's to Gap to Target opened their stores on Thanksgiving Day despite planned protests from workers' rights groups opposed to employees working on the holiday.
The early start to this year's shopping mayhem did not prevent several reported violent confrontations at stores around the nation that opened up for Black Friday, which is typically considered the biggest shopping day of the year.
A New Jersey man was arrested Thursday in a Walmart and charged with disorderly conduct and aggravated assault on a police officer after allegedly arguing with a store employee over a TV, NBCNewYork.com reported.
In the Chicago suburb of Romeoville, a driver believed to be involved in a shoplifting scheme was shot by authorities after dragging a police officer who was trying to stop him in the parking lot of a Kohl's department store late Thursday, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The suspected shoplifter and two additional suspects were arrested, police told the newspaper. Both the driver and the officer sustained injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening, according to the report.
At a Wal-Mart in the Southern California city of Rialto, a police officer was injured while trying to break up a fight after a store manager decided to open the doors early, which police said led to the melee, according to the San Bernardino County Sun.
Police said there were three fights at the store, two of which were inside over merchandise and the third outside that left the officer injured. All of the people involved in the fights were taken into custody, the newspaper reported.
In Las Vegas, a customer who had purchased a big-screen television at Target was shot in the leg while walking to a nearby apartment complex, KLAS-TV reported. The victim was taken to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries, according to police.
In the past few years, retailers have pushed opening times into Thanksgiving night. They've also pushed up discounting that used to be reserved for Black Friday into early November, which has led retail experts to question whether the Thanksgiving openings will steal some of Black Friday's thunder. Overall, The National Retail Federation expects retail sales to be up 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion during the last two months of the year. That's higher than last year's 3.5 percent growth, but below the 6 percent pace seen before the recession.
Analysts expect sales to be generated at the expense of profits as retailers will likely have to do more discounting to get people into stores.
About 15,000 shoppers were at Macy's Herald Square in New York City right before the doors opened, estimated Terry Lundgren, CEO, president and chairman of the department store chain. Last year, the store had 11,000 people right before the midnight opening.
Lundgren, who was at the entrance, told The Associated Press that the retailer knew it had to open when it found out other competitors were planning to open on Thanksgiving night. He also said it received positive feedback from its employees. "We're a competitive group," he said. "It's very clear they (the shoppers) want to be here at 8 p.m."
The store was featuring 375 doorbusters, up from last year's 200. Some of the deals included $79.99 jackets originally priced from $195 to $250, and cashmere sweaters for $39, marked down from 129.
Shelby Wheatley, 17, was with her mother, her mother's friend and her best friend, who all traveled from Orlando, Fla. Wheatley was looking for a prom dress and wanted to buy it in New York.
"I did Black Friday-but never Thursday--and never in New York," she said.
As for Thanksgiving, the group celebrated early with family last week.
The Thanksgiving openings are part of retailers' holiday strategy of trying to lure shoppers in early and often during the holiday shopping season. But the stores face challenges in doing that.
Some workers have petitions on change.org to protest against Target and Best Buy. The Retail Action Project, a labor-backed group of retail workers, also is planning to have members visiting customers at stores including Gap and Victoria's Secret in Manhattan to educate them about the demands on workers.
Wal-Mart has been the biggest target for protests against holiday hours. Most of the company's stores are open 24 hours, but the retailer is starting its sales events at 6 p.m. on Thursday, two hours earlier than last year.
It sounds like science fiction but many new TVs can watch you - telling advertisers your favourite shows or even filming you on the sofa. And there's no off switch!
You are sitting in bed in your pyjamas, drinking a cup of cocoa. A loved one lies next to you, watching late-night television. Pillow talk is exchanged. An alarm clock is set. Eventually the lights are turned out.
Earlier, you sat on the living-room sofa eating supper, before loading the dishwasher and heading upstairs.
You have, in other words, just enjoyed a perfectly normal night, in a perfectly normal home. The curtains are drawn, the central heating turned up. It’s cosy, relaxing and, above all, completely private. Or so you thought.
The truth turns out to be quite the opposite. For on the other side of the world, people you didn’t know existed are keeping a beady eye on your every move.
On the other side of the world, people you didn't know existed are keeping a beady eye on your every move
These characters can see what clothes you have been wearing and what food you’ve eaten. They heard every word you said, and logged every TV show you watched. Some are criminals, others work for major corporations. And now they know your most intimate secrets.
It may sound like a plot summary for a futuristic science-fiction movie. But real-life versions of this Orwellian scenario are being played out every day in towns and cities across the globe — and in most cases the victims have no idea.
At fault is a common electronic device invented nearly a century ago and found in almost every modern household: the domestic television set.
Put simply, our TVs have started spying on us.
Last week, there was a high-profile case in point. An IT consultant called Jason Huntley, who lives in a village near Hull, uncovered evidence that a flat-screen television, which had been sitting in his living room since the summer, was secretly invading his family’s privacy.
He began investigating the £400 LG device after noticing that its home screen appeared to be showing him ‘targeted’ adverts — for cars, and Knorr stock cubes — based on programmes he’d just been watching.
Huntley decided to monitor information that the so-called smart TV — which connects to the internet — was sending and receiving. He did this by using his laptop effectively as a bridge between his television and the internet receiver, so the laptop was able to show all the data being sucked out of his set.
He soon discovered that details of not just every show he watched but every button he pressed on his remote control were being sent back to LG’s corporate headquarters in South Korea.
Smart televisions, which connect to the internet, could be invading ordinary families' privacy (stock picture)
There, the electronics company appeared to be using its customers’ data to make money. A promotional video shown to commercial clients suggested that data was being used to provide ‘the ad experience you have always dreamed of’.
The information Huntley’s TV had sent — without his knowledge — included the contents of his private digital video collection, which he’d watched on the television. This included camcorder footage of family celebrations containing images of his wife and two young children.
Most worrying of all, the device continued sending such information to Korea even after Huntley had adjusted the television’s default settings to ‘opt out’ of data sharing.
Huntley wrote about the findings on his blog. After his case was picked up by mainstream news outlets, LG announced an investigation. ‘Customer privacy is a top priority,’ the firm said. ‘We are looking into reports that certain viewing information on LG smart TVs was shared without consent.’
LG has also removed its promotional video about targeted advertising from its website.
The Information Commissioner’s Office says it is now investigating the firm for a ‘possible breach’ of the Data Protection Act. Jason Huntley, meanwhile, tells me he is ‘very suspicious and also a little worried’ by the affair.
‘I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this. Who knows what else these televisions are doing that we don’t know about?’
It doesn’t take much digging to find out. Talk to any IT security expert and they will tell you that Huntley’s discovery is probably the tip of the iceberg.
What’s to blame is the continuing rise of smart televisions, which account for most new TV sets sold and are predicted to be in more than half of British homes by 2016. These high-tech devices differ from traditional televisions in that they are not just passive boxes that receive a signal and transfer it to a backlit screen.
Instead, they are essentially computers that connect to the internet — and so also send information back the other way.
In theory, this can be extremely useful. For example, many smart TVs have shopping ‘apps’ to access Amazon. They connect to iTunes. They allow us to watch YouTube, instantly download films via Netflix, stream BBC shows on iPlayer, and talk to friends using the video phone link Skype.
But in practice, like almost every type of computer, they can be all-too-easily hacked. And unlike PCs, almost all of which have fairly good anti-virus ‘firewalls’, smart TVs have little or no such software.
Indeed, most have been designed so that outside software — including anti-virus programmes — can never be installed.
This year, Luigi Auriemma, an IT security researcher and computer programmer from Malta, demonstrated the risks that these devices pose when he showed it was possible to hack into several types of Samsung smart television.
Last week, IT consultant Jason Huntley uncovered evidence that his LG flat-screen television, which had been sitting in his living room since the summer, was secretly invading his family's privacy
After accessing the devices via the internet, Auriemma was able to control them: turning the TVs off and on, and secretly accessing data they held about a user’s viewing habits.
Had he been a criminal, he could also have obtained details of the credit cards that users had uploaded to access pay-per-view TV, download films or use shopping apps.
Other experts recently made the chilling discovery that it is possible to remotely access the video cameras built into the front of thousands of smart televisions, and spy on the users in their own home.
One such expert is Kurt Stammberger, who works for the IT security firm Mocana. He says the company was recently asked by a television manufacturer to do ‘penetration tests’ on its devices.
‘We weren’t just able to find out what someone was watching, and had watched,’ he says. ‘We could also install “spyware” that could, if they had a video camera, allow us to see through that camera — without even activating the little light that indicates it’s on.
‘It was a fairly straightforward thing to do. People who work in IT often place tape over their computer’s camera lens [in a laptop they are usually set into the inside of the lid] unless they want to actually use it, because it’s so common to hack them. We should all do the same with smart TVs.’
Such an attack, which Stammberger describes as ‘frighteningly easy’ to mount, could provide voyeuristic hackers with a chance to snoop on unsuspecting home-owners in their living rooms or bedrooms.
You have only to witness the extraordinary success of the critically acclaimed Channel 4 show Gogglebox, in which consenting families allow the viewing public to watch them watching television, to appreciate how enticing that prospect could be.
More commercially minded hackers could use such an attack to steal commercial secrets. It could even be used to spy on foreign powers.
‘It’s a serious prospect and I would be very surprised if the Government ever puts in a big order for TVs from, for example, a Chinese manufacturer such as Huawei,’ adds Stammberger, referring to the giant corporation that has been banned in America because of fears over espionage.
French English-language newspaper The Connexion is reporting that mysterious fibres have dropped from the sky over Drôme and Ardèche in Southern France, leaving residents puzzled while others point to the chemtrail phenomenon:
Reports of the fibres were first raised on Thursday, but no one has yet been able to identify what they are – giving rise to theories that they are the by-product of plane exhausts.
Some website[sic] are already speculating that the fibres are proof behind a conspiracy theory that “chemtrail”, contrails from planes that take a long time to disperse, are deliberately injecting chemicals into the atmosphere to spread disease and kill of[sic] the sick and infirm.
Many continue to debate whether or not weather modification (or worse) in the form of chemtrails — white lines that at first appear to be jet contrails sprayed across the sky, but instead of readily fading away behind the jets, these trails fan out, stay in the air and sink into a murk on the horizon — exists.
While talking about the chemtrail phenomenon may quickly earn someone a ‘conspiracy theorist’ label (a seemingly automatic, conditioned response that dissuades anyone from critical analysis or doing their own research), in reality scientists and climate change advocates have been openly calling for the spraying of aerosols into the atmosphere to advert supposed man-made climate crises for some time now.
Articles such as, “Geoengineering Could Turn Skies White” published last summer in Scientific American blatantly discuss a Carnegie Institute study on geoengineering via chemtrails as if it is already occurring as we speak: The white haze that hangs over many major cities could become a familiar sight everywhere if the world decides to try geoengineering to create a cooler planet. A Michigan Congressman is even promising to hold a hearing on chemtrails.
Morgellons is a disease specifically involving fibers many have tied to the chemtrail phenomenon. According to Wikipedia, Morgellons is “where sufferers have the delusional belief that they are infested with parasites, whereas in reality no such parasites are present,” yet “Sufferers may exhibit a range of cutaneous symptoms such as…unusual fibers in the skin”. If someone is delusional, how can they actually exhibit fibers growing out of their skin? (On an aside, this must be why most college professors won’t allow students to cite Wikipedia as a trusted source on anything).
In reality, multiple scientific papers (see here and here for just two examples) have already linked Morgellons — and the very real fibers it causes to grow out of lesions in people’s skin — to a spyrochetal infection, but the official etiology on Mogellons is still unknown. Moregellons has also been associated in the literature with Lyme’s Disease — a tick-borne illness tied to World War II and U.S. Operation Paperclip in alarming ways that are outside the scope of this article to discuss, but definitely worth further research.
According to writer Michael Winter, “The composition of chemtrails is surprisingly simple, even if the chain of events that said composition initiates is not. Chemtrails are comprised of three basic ingredients: powdered aluminum, barium salts and a synthetic carrier substance called polymer fibers.” [emphasis added] Winter goes on to say, “When you look into the sky and see chemtrails, know at least two things: One – they are composed of ingredients deadly to humans, and Two – they are in the sky. Remember the old song Spinning Wheel? “What comes up…must come down…”
The question is, are these deadly fibers currently falling all over residents in Southern France?
