Industrial, pesticide-dependent agricultural practices in the United States are creating a death trap for the honeybee and threatening the human-bee symbiotic relationship forged over millenia. (Photo: Getty Images)
When I was teaching at Humboldt State University in northern California 20 years ago, I invited a beekeeper to talk to my students. He said that each time he took his bees to southern California to pollinate other farmers' crops, he would lose a third of his bees to sprays. In 2009, the loss ranges all the way to 60 percent.
Honeybees have been in terrible straits.
A little history explains this tragedy.
For millennia, honeybees lived in symbiotic relationship with societies all over the world.
The Greeks loved them. In the eighth century BCE, the epic poet Hesiod considered them gifts of the gods to just farmers. And in the fourth century of our era, the Greek mathematician Pappos admired their hexagonal cells, crediting them with "geometrical forethought."
However, industrialized agriculture is not friendly to honeybees.
In 1974, the US Environmental Protection Agency licensed the nerve gas parathion trapped into nylon bubbles the size of pollen particles.
What makes this microencapsulated formulation more dangerous to bees than the technical material is the very technology of the "time release" microcapsule.
This acutely toxic insecticide, born of chemical warfare, would be on the surface of the flower for several days. The foraging bee, if alive after its visit to the beautiful white flowers of almonds, for example, laden with invisible spheres of asphyxiating gas, would be bringing back to its home pollen and nectar mixed with parathion.
It is possible that the nectar, which the bee makes into honey, and the pollen, might end up in some food store to be bought and eaten by human beings.
Beekeepers are well aware of what is happening to their bees, including the potential that their honey may not be fit for humans.
Moreover, many beekeepers do not throw away the honey, pollen and wax of colonies destroyed by encapsulated parathion or other poisons. They melt the wax for new combs: And they sell both honey and pollen to the public.
Government "regulators" know about this danger.
An academic expert, Carl Johansen, professor of entomology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, called the microencapsulated methyl parathion "the most destructive bee poisoning insecticide ever developed."
In 1976, the US Department of Agriculture published a report by one of its former employees, S. E. McGregor, a honeybee expert who documented that about a third of what we eat benefits from honeybee pollination. This includes vegetables, oilseeds and domesticated animals eating bee-pollinated hay.
In 2007, the value of food dependent on honeybees was $15 billion in the United States.
McGregor also pointed out that insect-pollinated legumes collect nitrogen from the air, storing it in their roots and enriching the soil. In addition, insect pollination makes the crops more wholesome and abundant. He advised the farmer he should never forget that "no cultural practice will cause fruit or seed to set if its pollination is neglected."
In addition, McGregor blamed the chemical industry for seducing the farmers to its potent toxins. He said:
"[P]esticides are like dope drugs. The more they are used the more powerful the next one must be to give satisfaction" and therein develops the spiraling effect, the pesticide treadmill. The chemical salesman, in pressuring the grower to use his product, practically assumes the role of the "dope pusher." Once the victim, the grower, is "hooked," he becomes a steady and an ever-increasing user.
No government agency listened to McGregor.
The result of America's pesticide treadmill is that now, in 2009, honeybees and other pollinators are moving towards extinction.
In October 2006, the US National Research Council warned of the" "demonstrably downward" trends in the populations of pollinators. For the first time since 1922, American farmers are renting imported bees for their crops. They are even buying bees from Australia.
Honeybees, the National Academies report said, pollinate more than 90 crops in America, but have declined by 30 percent in the last 20 years alone. The scientists who wrote the report expressed alarm at the precipitous decline of the pollinators.
Unfortunately, this made no difference to EPA, which failed to ban the microencapsulated parathion that is so deadly to honeybees.
Bee experts know that insecticides cause brain damage to the bees, disorienting them, making it often impossible for them to find their way home.
This is a consequence of decades of agribusiness warfare against nature and, in time, honeybees. In addition, beekeepers truck billions of bees all over the country for pollination, depriving them of good food, stressing them enormously, and, very possibly, injuring their health.
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Evaggelos Vallianatos, former EPA analyst, is the author of "This Land Is Their Land" and "The Passion of the Greeks.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai Last Updated: 1:01PM BST 24 Apr 2009
Support for the Falun Gong sect is 'growing' in China, ten years after a protest in Beijing by 10,000 practitioners triggered one of the most aggressive suppressions in modern Chinese history.
Thousands of members of the Falun Gong religious group sit in silent protest along Chang'an Avenue in 1999Photo: AP
Lawyers representing imprisoned Falun Gong members said the decade-long campaign to wipe out the spiritual movement had not dimmed its fanatical support inside China.
"There are still huge numbers of Falun Gong members in China, in the tens of millions," claimed Han Zhiguang, of the Gongdao law firm in Beijing. "We do not know the exact number but one thing is certain: it is expanding."
Falun Gong is a mixture of traditional Chinese breathing exercises with philosophy drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the often unorthodox teachings of Li Hongzhi, its founder. The government, however, has labelled it an "evil cult".
Saturday marks the anniversary of a silent protest outside Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party leadership compound, which is said to have panicked the then-leader, Jiang Zemin, into an iron-fisted response. Huge numbers of Falun Gong practitioners are still imprisoned in China and followers allege that more than 3,200 have been killed.
According to a report on torture in China by the United Nations in 2007, Falun Gong members accounted for two-thirds of all reported torture cases and for half of China's prison camp population. There are continuing allegations that China used organs from executed Falun Gong followers in transplant operations.
Cheng Hai, a Beijing-based lawyer, said he had been attacked and badly beaten earlier this week while on the way to a meeting in Chengdu with the mother of a Falun Gong follower. His client, Tao Yuan, is appealing for release from prison to receive medical treatment.
Mr Cheng, who said he felt it was his "duty" to uphold the human rights of his clients, said the government had not succeeded in "rooting out the belief".
He said: "There are more people sticking to their beliefs. Many people have been thrown in prison several times, but they do not give up."
He added that there had been a particular period of pressure ahead of last year's Olympic games, but that there had been a slight relaxation this year.
He said, however, that anyone publicly admitting to following the movement would place himself in extreme danger and almost certainly rule out being able to find any future employment.
Mr Cheng said lawyers had won a series of small victories in representing the Falun Gong. "We have managed to hold open trials in which we were able to plead not guilty to the charges. That is a good way of increasing people's awareness about what is going on. We have managed to get retrials and rulings for probation rather than imprisonment."
He added, however, that the movement suffered from a credibility problem because of the fanaticism of its members. "When they speak out, they are never convincing," he said.
Jiang Yu, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said that the government had moved to protect people by banning the Falun Gong. "The movement has caused illness, disability and even the death of many innocent people," he said. "The cult violates human rights by seeking to control people's minds."
Glenn Herbert Gould (September 25, 1932 – October 4, 1982) was a Canadian pianist noted especially for his recordings of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, remarkable technical proficiency, unorthodox musical philosophy, and eccentric personality and piano technique. He is one of the best known and most celebrated pianists of the twentieth century. He stopped performing concerts in 1964, dedicating himself to the recording studio for the rest of his career—as well as performances for television and radio, non-musical radio documentaries, and other projects.
Glenn Herbert Gould was born at home in Toronto on September 25, 1932, to Russell Herbert ("Bert") Gould and Florence ("Flora") Emma Gould (born Greig), Presbyterians of Scottish and English ancestry. His maternal grandfather was a cousin of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.
Gould was known for his vivid musical imagination, and listeners regarded his interpretations as ranging from brilliantly creative to, on occasion, outright eccentric. His piano playing had great clarity, particularly in contrapuntal passages. He was considered a child prodigy and in adulthood was also described as a musical phenomenon. As he played, he often swayed his torso, almost always in a clockwise motion.
Gould's interest in music, and his talent as a pianist, became evident very early on. Both his parents were musical and his mother, especially, encouraged the infant Gould's early musical development. He had perfect pitch and could read music before he could read words. At a young age, he reportedly behaved differently from typical children at the piano: he would strike single notes and listen to their long decay. Gould's first piano teacher was his mother until the age of ten. At ten he began attending the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he studied piano with Alberto Guerrero, organ with Frederick C. Silvester and theory with Leo Smith.
Gould claimed he almost never practiced on the piano, preferring to study music by reading it rather than playing it, a technique he had also learned from Guerrero. His manual practicing was unusually attentive to articulation, rather than exercises for basic facility. He may have spoken ironically about his practicing, but there is evidence that he did, at least occasionally, practice Bach and Beethoven in a way that was nuanced and efficient.
Glenn Gould statue in Toronto
Glenn Gould received many honors before and after his death, although he personally claimed to despise competition in music.
He suffered a stroke on 27 September 1982, which paralyzed the left side of his body. He was admitted to the hospital and his condition rapidly deteriorated. He was taken off life support on October 4. He is buried in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery. In 1983, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Falun Gong practitioners gathered outside Zhongnanhai to silently, peacefully appeal for fair treatment. (The Epoch Times)
Ten years ago, on April 25, I was attending a Beijing wedding when I heard a rumor that a large crowd of people had gathered at Zhongnanhai, the central Chinese leadership compound. I phoned my friend Jasper Becker, the Bureau Chief for the South China Morning Post.
Who are they? I asked him.
We think they are called “Falun Gong,” he said. “Apparently it’s a huge Chinese religious movement, but we don’t really know anything about them. Ethan,” he said, “we’ve simply been caught with our pants down.”
As we commemorate the 10 year anniversary of Falun Gong’s catastrophic oppression, we must acknowledge that—with a few special exceptions, the Western response has essentially given the Chinese Communist Party a free hand.
We have only begun to assess the damage: Over 3000 confirmed deaths by torture, abuse and neglect. According to my current research, at a minimum, over ten thousand Falun Gong have been harvested for their organs. The final tally is likely to go well over 100,000.
According to my colleague, Leeshai Lemish, quantitative analysis shows that media mentions of Falun Gong fell in proportion to rising fatalities. So I submit that our pants are still down. And I submit that the failure starts with the Western media’s interpretation of April 25 itself.
You can’t even refer to the event without feeding into a set interpretation, a pre-fabricated picture. Out of the clear blue sky, 10,000 majestically disciplined Falun Gong practitioners “surrounded” (that’s AP and Reuters) or “besieged” (that’s AFP) Zhongnanhai. These are straight-ahead translations of the Communist Party line. And they are repeated in scholarly works on Falun Gong history.
Even Falun Gong practitioners writing in The Epoch Times—perhaps feeling it’s too hard too explain—often refer to April 25 as a mass “gathering” at Zhongnanhai. The only difference is that they treat the word “demonstration” as if it’s a dirty word. Well, it is to the Chinese Communist Party. But not in the West right?
Henry Kissinger justified the Tiananmen Square Massacre with the statement: ''No government in the world would have tolerated having the main square of its capital occupied for eight weeks by tens of thousands of demonstrators…” That sentiment was recently echoed by Charles Freeman, the Obama Administration’s nominee to chair the U.S. intelligence council.
If the foreign policy elite talks this way about the student demonstrators of ‘89, imagine how they view an obscure Buddhist Revival movement in ‘99. How about: Well, that’s China. Those Falun Gong were asking for it.
Scholars might phrase it a little differently: the oppression of Falun Gong began as an action-reaction phenomenon. It’s a tragedy. A misunderstanding. A mistake.
Well, yes, Falun Gong practitioners have made plenty of mistakes. But I don’t accept that they asked to be martyred. And I don’t think you should accept that either. But if you do, you should interview people who actually participated on April 25, and its precursor, Tianjin.
Set Up at Tianjin
In early 1999, a physicist published an article in a Tianjin University journal attacking Falun Gong, essentially portraying it as a dangerous cult. Since the physicist and the journal were relatively obscure, Falun Gong has been accused of hypersensitivity to criticism.
But this isn’t the West and these things aren’t random. The physicist, He Zuoxiu, is said to be the brother-in-law of Luo Gan, at that time, the head of Public Security. And the Tianjin university journal answers to the state.
Li Hongzhi’s book Zhuan Falun had already been banned from formal publication in the mid-1990’s, in part because of Party concerns over runaway sales. By 1999, Falun Gong had attracted at least 70 million practitioners, 5 million more than the membership of the Party.
So the article wasn’t obscure at all; it was a flare in the night sky, a signal that the Party was trying something out. Something of consequence.
In China, when you see a signal like that, you have two choices. You can keep quiet. And probably get crushed. Or you can stand up. And you may well get crushed—yet spreading truth, refuting lies, these are essential parts of Falun Gong morality.
So Falun Gong stood up quietly; about 5000 practitioners staged a silent demonstration on April 22 at Tianjin Education College asking for a retraction of the article or dialogue. The police were called in. Officer Hao Fengjun was one of them. His “entire police force was suddenly maneuvered to the college.” They “were told to enforce martial law and close off the area.” When they arrived at the scene: “We all realized that it was nothing like what had been described to us—Falun Gong looking for a fight, disturbing public order, and so on. But we had no choice.”
Video surveillance records a bunch of people sitting around. So what prompted some policemen to wade into the crowd, beating and arresting 40 practitioners? Many practitioners—Jennifer Zeng is one—tried to reason with Tianjin officials and the police. The answer? The police were powerless. “This has been taken up by the Public Security Ministry, under the central government, so you need to go to Beijing to appeal.”
In the two days following the Tianjin arrests, that word “appeal” (or “petition”) spread widely among practitioners—not by some sort of central command, simply by word of mouth. But it had an explicit meaning: the National Appeals Office, the only location in China where a citizen can legally complain about their local or central government.
Auntie D (let’s call her that) says: “Everyone who was in China at the time knew that [the arrest of practitioners in Tianjin] was a very frightening thing. But we also knew that we should be allowed to appeal at the Appeals’ Office. We had the legal right to appeal. So we didn't think about it too much.”
Looking for the Appeals Office
Echoing the Party’s own reticence about the petitioning process, the National Appeals office location wasn’t well publicized. Not a single practitioner that I have interviewed could place it precisely on a map, although it was widely believed to be in the hutongs, the twisting alleyways right off of Fuyou Street. And Fuyou Street abuts the western entrance to the Zhongnanhai compound.
So as April 25 dawned, a lovely, crisp spring morning, every single practitioner (that I have interviewed) sincerely believed were following legal protocol, not that they were going to Zhongnanhai to demonstrate.
They were not naïve about the risks. Some practitioners made out their wills the night before. If that sounds melodramatic, consider this.
Early in the morning, a practitioner couple, on their way to the appeals office, walking by the moat on the Eastern side of the Forbidden City, observed something very strange: A large unit of Red Army soldiers, bayonets fixed and ready, sitting in jeeps, facing west, towards Zhongnanhai.
When they and other practitioners arrived in Fuyou Street around 7 a.m., and tried to make their way into the hutongs, where the fabled appeals office was believed to be, a huge police presence suddenly materialized. Yet Fuyou Street was wide open—Jennifer Zeng, having worked for the state council office in Zhongnanhai, thought this was odd too. Normally, “The security there was very tight and there were a lot of guards and it was hard to get near the street. But at that time nobody tried to remove people from there. Normally anybody who shows up there is questioned right away…it seemed they were very well prepared, they were expecting us.”
With some vague assurances that the appeals office would open later, the practitioners were herded onto Fuyou Street, directly in front of the gate to Zhongnanhai. Auntie D remembers official buses and police cars carefully arranged up and down Fuyou Street: “Cameras were also set up and were pointing directly at us. I was rather afraid and didn't dare to stand in the front row. I thought if they caught me on film, they would come for me later.” (Auntie D would end up in a labor camp for several years).
Those practitioners who believed that the appeals office was on Southern Fuyou Street, or thought that they could circle around the block and enter the hutongs from the West, found their way blocked at Chang’an Boulevard and were encouraged to move north again in front of the Zhongnanhai Western gates. Those who came in from the north were allowed into the dragnet, and quickly herded directly opposite the northern exposure of Zhongnanhai and down Fuyou Street. Auntie C (a friend of Auntie D’s) described it this way: “At the time they just told us—go this way, go this way, and we just followed.”
The stage was set for the Kabuki performance that followed. Premier Zhu Rongji’s reassuring public appearance, and Jiang Zemin’s smolderingly slow circle around Zhongnanhai in his smoked-glass limousine. Throughout it all, for 16 hours, no record, film, or plausible account suggests that the Falun Gong practitioners did anything that could be construed as even faintly provocative. No littering. No smoking. No chanting. No talking to reporters (or anyone else).
One practitioner suggested that they take turns to go eat or get something to drink, but the other practitioners “Said no, definitely not. Because if we drink, we’ll have to go to the bathroom and that would disturb those living or working in that area.” Even by the Party’s rather creative standards, there was simply no pretext that could justify the use of the troops waiting by the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City.
The evening announcement that the Tianjin prisoners would be released was greeted with quiet relief and practitioners left feeling optimistic. The next day, according to Auntie C, the official media reports said: “FLG gathered at Zhongnanhai,’ they didn’t say we surrounded Zhongnanhai. It also said that there is freedom to practice or not practice as one wishes.”
Advanced Planning
In the days following there were constant reassurances from the Party that everything was okay, and that the “three no’s” (no promoting, no criticizing, no debating chi-gong) were still operational—while practitioner phones were tapped, spies appeared at practice sites, warnings were selectively issued at workplaces, and the Party created the 6-10 office, one of the most terrifying secret police agencies ever to receive extra-constitutional powers. On July 20, the well-oiled machine of the crackdown was given free reign to roam China at will. And it was all justified by an image of a day of infamy—April 25—an image used to stage an unprecedented persecution, one that continues to this day.
One final point. Officer Hao Fengjun went to work at the 6-10 Office in 2000. Here’s the first thing he noticed: “our monitor room already had a comprehensive record and data on the Falun Gong practitioners. These things are not something that can be done and collected in just one or two years.”
Hao’s suspicion is correct. According to a former district-level official, I’ll call him “Minister X,” the Party’s decision to eliminate Falun Gong—and preparations towards that goal—was actually made long before any ban was made public. It was circulated explicitly in internal Party meetings: Jiang Zemin could not resolve the Tiananmen slaughter except by creating a new target. Falun Gong was it. Minister X, for his part, was told to quietly stop granting business licenses to practitioners. April 25 was simply the unfolding of an elaborate bait and switch with Falun Gong as the patsy.
Perhaps that last term could just as well be applied to the West.
It’s ten years. Did the Party really mean to kill so many? Of course not. The Party is prone to believing in its own rhetoric. Generals always imagine short wars. So too, it seems, do Western reporters.
But today, let’s dispel at least one myth, one ugly relativist notion that feeds the misplaced idea that we in the West have no business commenting on an obscure family quarrel.
Falun Gong did not start this war. The Chinese Communist Party did. I submit that the Party should be held fully accountable for the results.
Ethan Gutmann is the author of Losing the New China: A Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal and of a forthcoming book on the Chinese state and Falun Gong. This article is the text of a talk given on April 15 at the International Conference on Religious Freedom in China, hosted by Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice President of the European Parliament, in the European Parliament, Brussels.
Laughter really could be the best form of medicine - because it is good for the heart, a new study shows.
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Doctors found that they could potentially cut the risk of people suffering a heart attack by encouraging them to watch comedy programmesPhoto: GETTY
Doctors found that they could potentially cut the risk of people suffering a heart attack by encouraging them to watch comedy programmes.
Patients prescribed the "mirthful laughter" went on to increase the amount of good cholesterol, which protects against heart disease, in their blood stream.
The researchers say that the findings could point to laughter as a useful treatment for a number of conditions.
Dr Lee Berk, from Loma Linda University, California, who led the study, said: "The best clinicians understand that there is an intrinsic physiological intervention brought about by positive emotions such as mirthful laughter, optimism and hope.
"Lifestyle choices have a significant impact on health and disease," he added.
Using laughter as a form of medicine has been suggested for decades, however there has been little hard evidence of its health effects on patients.
For the latest study, patients were asked to select whichever comedy programmes or films that they found the funniest.
There were then asked to watch them for at least half an hour a day over the course of 12 months.
The findings, presented at the Experimental Biology conference in New Orleans, show that after one year the group prescribed laughter saw a 26 per cent rise in their good cholesterol.
Patients who took the medication without any extra laughter had just a 3 per cent rise.
The group watching comedy programmes also saw a drop of 66 per cent in the amount of harmful C-reactive proteins, which increase the risk of heart disease, in their bodies.
While the control group also saw a fall in the amount of the proteins, it was much smaller at 26 per cent over the course of the year.
The study looked at 20 patients with diabetes, a condition which increases the risk of heart problems, who were also suffering from high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.
The researchers say that the findings show that laughter therapy can also lower stress levels in patients.
They called for more research into the use of comedy as a potential treatment for those at risk of developing heart problems.
More than two million people in Britain currently suffer from diabetes, although that number is predicted to increase dramatically in coming decades, in part because of the growing obesity crisis.
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Wei Yalan from Anshun City, Guizhou Province, was illegally sentenced to a five-years prison term for her belief in Falun Dafa and the wish to live by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Her physical condition had deteriorated dramatically and she was in poor health when released after years in Yang'ai Prison. On September 14, 2007, Ms. Wei passed away, shortly after her release. She was only 50 years old.
When Ms. Wei was detained, her daughter was an elementary school student. The poor little girl waited for five years to see her mother again and then had to watch her die as a result of the torture she had suffered in prison at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party's minions.
On June 5th, 2001, Ms. Wei was distributing truth-clarification materials about Falun Gong and the inhuman persecution in villages in Ziyun County. Someone reported her to the police and she was arrested. After being detained for several days in the Ziyun County Detention Center, Ms. Wei was taken to the Anshun City Second Detention Center. In March 2002, Ms. Wei was secretly sentenced to a five-year prison term and taken to Yang'ai Prison.
While in prison, Ms. Wei did not renounce Falun Dafa and she was considered by those in charge a "die-hard" and "stubborn" practitioner, so her family was not allowed to visit her. The guards said, "Wei Yalan is not cooperating with us. You cannot visit her." Ms. Wei suffered abuse and torture in wards 5, 7, and 8 in Yang'ai Prison.
Ms. Wei was forced to work on gemstones and make cotton tapes. The working conditions were inhuman. She was forced to work more than 12 hours daily. The workshops had no windows and were full of production dust. These factors contributed to Ms. Wei's health problems. Also, they tried to prevent her from practicing Falun Dafa. Therefore, some of her former illnesses, such as gastric ulcer and a cyst, which were cured after she practiced Falun Dafa, recurred. Once she fainted due to high blood pressure and had to be taken to a hospital emergency room.
Ms. Wei was released after five years in prison. Soon after, she died. She was only 50 years old.
Ms. Wei's elderly mother was also persecuted during these years. In 2004 when Ms. Wei was in prison, the police took her mother to a brainwashing center.
Cool down ... ice is expanding in much of the Antarctic, experts say / Reuters
Ice expanding in much of Antarctica
Eastern coast getting colder
Western section remains a concern
ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.
The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.
Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.
However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.
East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week's meeting ofAntarctic Treaty
Australian Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison said sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica.
"Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally," Dr Allison said.
The melting of sea ice - fast ice and pack ice - does not cause sea levels to rise because the ice is in the water. Sea levels may rise with losses from freshwater ice sheets on the polar caps. In Antarctica, these losses are in the form of icebergs calved from ice shelves formed by glacial movements on the mainland.
Last week, federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett said experts predicted sea level rises of up to 6m from Antarctic melting by 2100, but the worst case scenario foreshadowed by the SCAR report was a 1.25m rise.
Mr Garrett insisted global warming was causing ice losses throughout Antarctica. "I don't think there's any doubt it is contributing to what we've seen both on the Wilkins shelf and more generally in Antarctica," he said.
Dr Allison said there was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was melting. "The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west," he said. And he cautioned that calvings of the magnitude seen recently in west Antarctica might not be unusual.
"Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off - I'm talking 100km or 200km long - every 10 or 20 or 50 years."
Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m.
A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.
(Clearwisdom.net) The guards at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Liaoning Province are notoriously cruel to Falun Dafa practitioners.
Because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, practitioner Ms. Jia Yahui from Shenyang City was blindfolded and then shocked with electric batons. The guards tried to brutally force her to put her fingerprint on a document renouncing Falun Gong. Another time, when Ms. Jia shouted "Falun Dafa is wonderful!" they hung her up by her handcuffed wrists and cruelly tortured her.
Another practitioner, who also did not cooperate with the evil, is Ms. Zhang Min, age 49. She was detained in the Strict Monitoring Team in August 2008. One morning in September 2008, she was tortured to the point that she was unable to walk, only because she shouted, "Falun Dafa is wonderful!" Because she refused to sign a form renouncing Dafa, she was beaten until her face and entire body was badly bruised and swollen.
When practitioner Ms. Li Hong was trying to clarify the facts to a guard L, he didn't listen to her, and instead shocked her with electric batons. Another time, when Ms. Li Hong spoke out a little bit, she was slapped on the face by the guard. This guard later called Ms. Li into her office, where several other guards were waiting, and started torturing her with electric batons. They also hit her on her head while Ms. Li was shouting "Falun Dafa is wonderful." She became bedridden as a result of the torture.
Practitioner Ms. Sheng Lianying, from Dalian City, is 53 years old. She went on a hunger strike to protest the maltreatment at Masanjia. Consequently, the guards forcibly inserted an object into her mouth to hold it open, and left it for 24 hours. In August 2007, while Ms. Sheng was on a strike and refused to cooperate with any demands from the camp authorities, she was locked in a dark room for ten days. While in solitary confinement, she was not allowed to wash and her feet became extremely swollen. During her detention, the guards shocked her with two electric batons simultaneously. Ms. Sheng has started a hunger strike in protest, and has been subjected to daily abuses. She currently weighs only 90 pounds.
Practitioner Ms. Zhang Lianying from Beijing was taken to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp and put in detention during the Beijing Olympics. When she got out of the police car, she shouted right away, "Falun Dafa is wonderful!" Immediately, guards Zhang Jun and Zhang Zhuohui slapped her face to the point of bleeding. Ms. Zhang began a hunger strike the following day, and when the guards couldn't open her mouth to force-feed her, they used a big iron spoon and chopped at her mouth, but they still couldn't force her to open her mouth. They then handcuffed her hands and feet, and locked her in a very humid room full of mosquitoes and other insects. Ms. Zhang has been resisting her maltreatment by not cooperating with the camp's unreasonable demands. As a result, she has been shocked with electric batons, hung up by her handcuffs, and deprived of using the bathroom for four days. The guards have exhausted their torture methods.
Ms. Liu Guifang from Dandong City had been hung up for five days, because she resisted the maltreatment. Her mouth was severely swollen after a guard, whose last name is Fan, beat her face. These bruises didn't disappear until quite some time later.
By Daniel Martin Last updated at 10:14 PM on 16th April 2009
Soaring numbers of children are being diagnosed with allergies to fruit and vegetables.Doctors have seen the numbers rise by as much as five times in some areas of the country, putting children at risk of asthma. Experts fear the rising tide of intolerance to fruit and veg could be the new peanut allergy, which affects one in 50 children.
'We wish we could eat what everyone else can': Allergy sufferers Jack and Jerome
Symptoms of the new phenomenon - known as 'oral allergy syndrome' - include swelling in the mouth and throat, which in the worst cases can lead to severe breathing difficulties.
The syndrome is linked to hay fever, a seasonal condition. But because fruit and veg are consumed all year round, the effect is more debilitating.
Dr Pamela Ewan, an allergy consultant at Addenbroke's Hospital in Cambridge, said cases or oral allergies to fruit and veg were rising, particularly among children.
'We have seen a big rise in the number of cases in the past four to five years,' she said. 'It is a bit like the peanut was the epidemic of the 1990s.
'I think fruit and vegetables are becoming the epidemic now. In terms of numbers, fruit and vegetables are the new form of peanut allergy.'
She added: 'We think fruit and vegetables are healthy, which they mostly are, but you can be allergic to them. Early on when we first picked is up, it was passed off as not being serious. It began with fairly mild itching in the mouth.
'But now we are seeing people who are getting really severe throat closure, a significant swelling at the back of the throat which can impede breathing.'
Figures are hard to come by, but in south Wales, the numbers being diagnosed have gone up from one for every 100,000 of the population to five - in just six years.
Muriel Simmons, chief executive of the charity Allergy UK, said: 'What is happening is that people who have hay fever also react to fruit and vegetable items.
'At the moment, birch pollen is very much around, and people with this allergy may have trouble with apples, pears, tomatoes and celery because of the cross reaction with the pollen.
'This doesn't happen to everyone but, with 25 per cent of the population having hay fever, up to that number could have oral allergy syndrome. And that would make it all year round.
'GPs are certainly seeing more of these cases, but too often they don't understand what it is and dismiss it. If they do, the allergy can lead to asthma if it is ignored.'
She said children might be becoming more susceptible because of the 'hygiene hypothesis' - where living environments are too clean for people's good.
'Children play with computers a lot more in their room and don't play outdoors where they can take a tumble and come into contact with bacteria,' she said.
'Another possibility is that there are far more different types of fruit and veg commonly available. A few years ago, kiwi, mango and sweet potato were not so easily available.'
Allergy UK believes 40 per cent of adults now have allergies - up from 15 per cent in the 1990s. The number of children with food allergies has tripled in a decade.
They say more varied diets are to blame - and warn the number of sufferers is sure to rise as more exotic foods enter the diet.
Oral allergy syndrome usually affects people who are already allergic to pollen. It happens because the protein in some of the pollens is structurally similar to proteins in certain foods.
For example, the protein in birch pollen is similar to that found in apples and bananas.
The body's immune system which overreacts to birch pollen can therefore overreact in the same way to apples and bananas.
However, this cross-reactivity does not always occur - meaning those allergic to certain pollens will not always be allergic to associated fruit.
Dr Adam Fox, a consultant paediatric allergist at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, said: 'We are certainly seeing lots of oral allergy syndrome.
'This affects people who are allergic to pollen - such as birch pollen. There is a cross-reactivity between the protein in that pollen with those in fruit and vegetables, so people start getting a reaction to fruits such as apples and pears.
'Normally we would see this among young adults as they start to develop hay fever but we are starting to see more of it among young children. As there is more allergy, the severity seems to be increasing and the patterns are changing.'
Dr Jonathan North, an immunologist from Birmingham, said fruit allergies would rise in the future.
'The chance of cross-reactions with fruits increases with the larger number of types of fruit to which we are exposed, he said.
'I wish I could eat what everyone else can'
Schoolboy Jack Harrison is allergic to most types of fruit. A banana can bring him out in a rash.
And even the tiniest piece of celery in a salad can leave him gasping for breath.
'I can eat some types of apples, as well as blackberries and raspberries - but beyond that I can't eat any of the fruits most people eat: oranges, pears, bananas, most type of apples,' said the 15-year-old from Wymondham in Norfolk.
'And celery too I have to avoid. I have quite a bad reaction to that. My throat swells up and I often get a rash. I have to carry my inhaler everywhere.'
Both Jack and his seven-year-old brother Jerome suffer from fruit allergies. Their intolerance is linked to pollen from birch trees.
'There are times when it is so annoying and you wish you could eat what everyone else can,' says Jack. 'If someone has a banana or something I think - yeah that'd be nice.
'It's difficult because it makes it much harder to get my five a day. I have to work hard to get just two or three.
'I've got used to it now. When I go out with my mates I have to be more careful, and when I am abroad I have to look a lot harder.'
Their mother Margaret says the allergies make life more complicated - and more expensive.
'They can't have tomatoes, they can't have oranges. I've had to ban melons, and kiwi are a no no. I have to buy same sort of apples all the time: they can eat Royal Gala, one can eat Granny Smith. One can eat raspberries but it makes it very much more expensive.
'The anxiety is they're not getting enough nutrients. They can't have school dinners, and I have to supply food if they go to someone's birthday party. If they eat out they can have a baked potato - and that's about it. Celery is lethal so you can't just pick what you want out of the salad bar.
'You always have to have it in mind. You can't just walk out of the door and think it's ok - because it isn't. I carry antihistamine cream wherever I go with them.'
The allergies first became apparent when Jack was as young as 18 months, but it was not until he was 10 that the full list of problematic foods became apparent.
'Jack knows what he's doing now, but with Jerome I usually spot the signs before he does - he starts to scratch, or the lips start to swell.
'When they go out they have to ask before they eat anything. I've had to train Jerome to say - I won't have that till mummy comes.
'Some doctors say they will grow out of this. It'd be lovely but we're not holding out much hope.'
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Zhang Zhiqin, 47, is originally from Qingyang County, Fushun City. She is now a Dafa practitioner in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. At around 10 p.m. on March 31, 2009, a police officer found her in the Changan Community, the Dadong District. The officer and an accomplice beat Ms. Zhang horribly, kicking her head, body, and legs. Ms. Zhang covered her head with her hands and cried out, "Falun Dafa is good!" Many bystanders witnessed the beating. The officer reported her and had her arrested. Ms. Zhang was detained first at the Xiaodongmen Police Station in the Dadong District and was then transferred to the Shenyang City Detention Center on April 2.
Shenyang City practitioner Ms. Zhang Zhiqin
From 2001 to 2003, Ms. Zhang was imprisoned and tortured at the Wujianbao Forced Labor Camp and Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Fushun City for practicing Falun Dafa.
In the Wujianbao Forced Labor Camp, guard Wu Wei kicked Ms. Zhang and beat her with a 1.5-inch thick wooden bed board. She was hit with so much force that the board broke. Her ribs were so badly injured that she could not straighten up. She had injuries to her heart and brain. She could not lift one of her feet and had to drag it as she walked. Guard Wu grabbed Ms. Zhang by her hair, kicked her, stomped on her, and repeatedly slapped her face. She was punched and assaulted with a chair. The leg of the chair broke off she was hit so hard with it. Wu also savagely kicked Ms. Zhang in the head. As a result, her head would not stop humming and she saw nothing but black. There was a dent in her head, and she lost consciousness.
During her stay in Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, Ms. Zhang was handcuffed behind her back while a dozen people kicked her, beat her, and slapped her face. She was forced to squat for many hours and also to stand for excruciatingly long periods of time. She was also subjected to electric shocks and sleep deprivation.
Patrick and Melissa Wojtowicz play Scrabble with daughter Gabrielle, 15, left, and her friend Brittney Watson, foreground. They've made family time a higher priority. By Al Goldis for USA TODAY
When the economy started to squeeze the Wojtowicz family, they gave up vacation cruises, restaurant meals, new clothes and high-tech toys to become 21st-century homesteaders.
Now Patrick Wojtowicz, 36, his wife Melissa, 37, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, raise pigs and chickens for food on 40 acres near Alma, Mich. They're planning a garden and installing a wood furnace. They disconnected the satellite TV and radio, ditched their dishwasher and a big truck and started buying clothes at resale shops.
"As long as we can keep decreasing our bills, we can keep making less money," Patrick says. "We're not saying this is right for everybody, but it's right for us."
Hard times are creating economic survivalists such as the Wojtowicz family who are paring expenses by becoming more self-sufficient.
Reviving "almost lost" skills and preparing for tough days make people feel more in control, says Charlotte Richert, consumer sciences educator for Oklahoma State University's Extension Service in Tulsa County.
Karen Gulliver, MBA program chair at Argosy University in Eagan, Minn., expects the movement to grow as the sour economy forces people to reassess priorities. People are asking, "Do I really want to be 100% vulnerable with no self-sufficiency skills if something happens?" she says.
Gabrielle Wojtowicz, left, and her father Patrick feed animals on their 40 acres near Alma, Mich.By Al Goldis for USA TODAY
Some signs of the trend:
•Stockpiling. When the stock market drops, orders surge for freeze-dried food, survival kits and emergency supplies, says Nitro-Pak president Harry Weyandt. One best seller: a $3,375 food reserve that feeds four people for three months.
•Gardening. Sales of vegetable seeds and transplants are up 30% from 2008 at W. Atlee Burpee, the USA's largest seed company. The National Gardening Association says 7 million more households will grow food this year than in 2008 — a 19% rise. A book on building root cellars is the top seller at Johnny's Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine, supervisor Joann Matuzas says.
•Canning. Jarden Corp. says sales of its Ball and Kerr canning and preserving products are up more than 30% from 2008. Sonya Staffan, owner of The Jam and Jelly Lady commercial cannery in Lebanon, Ohio, is offering twice as many classes this year.
•Sewing. More people are learning to sew so they can mend clothes and make home décor, says Rachel Cohen, spokeswoman for SVP Worldwide, owner of sewing-products makers Singer and Husqvarna Viking.
•Relocating. Steve Saltman, general manager of LandAndFarm.com, a national real estate company, says more customers want to "live simply in a less-expensive place." Jonathan Rawles of SurvivalRealty.com says more people moving to rural areas "are specifically worried about economic and social instability."
Patrick Wojtowicz's family decided to transform their lives when his paycheck began to shrink last year. A truck driver, he was spending more time on the road, paying his own expenses while waiting for loads. He disliked being away from home for weeks at a time and worried about losing his job. Melissa Wojtowicz is self-employed and works from home.
Their dual paychecks allowed them to live comfortably, but they weren't satisfied, Patrick says. "We would basically buy stuff to feel good," he says. "When that stuff stopped filling the voids we had, we started analyzing what it was that we were really missing. We were missing being around each other."
The Wojtowiczes made a list of the things they could give up if Patrick quit his job and they relied on Melissa's income. They already lived in a house on property Patrick inherited from his father a few years ago.
Gabrielle "put up enough resistance to qualify as being a teenager," Patrick says, but soon she was reminding her parents to turn off lights to save electricity.
Steps such as that, and keeping the thermostat set on 63 degrees this winter, cut monthly electric bills from $300 to $150, Patrick says. He hunts deer and turkeys. Instead of buying books and going to movies, they visit the library weekly. For Christmas, they got canning gear so they can preserve the food they grow.
"The earn, spend, earn era has come to an end for us," he says on truenorthfound.blogspot.com, their blog. "The idea of living a fuller, more satisfying life seems simple to us now. ... Money, cash, credit, maybe they don't matter. Maybe, just maybe, it is those things that impede our ability to be truly happy."
Whatever happens to the economy, the Wojtowicz family hopes to remain self-sufficient. Instead of spending their tax refund, as they usually did, they used it to pay down debt. They stopped using credit cards and they're trying to build up savings. "I'm working harder than ever," Patrick says, "but it's more satisfying work and ... it's much easier to sleep at night."
(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Dafa practitioners held at the Daqing City Prison in Heilongjiang Province are not able to enjoy the most basic of human rights. They are cruelly tortured for even the slightest provocation, including not fulfilling the guards' unreasonable demands. Mr. Sun Dianbin, 38, from Jixi City, is among those practitioners who was tortured recently.
Mr. Sun Dianbin from Jixi City
On March 22, 2009, Mr. Sun' s mother traveled to the Daqing City Prison to see her son. The guards told her that she was not allowed to visit with him because he refused to wear the official prison uniform. When his mother went to the chief of the Political Department, Li Weilong--who is in charge of persecuting practitioners at the prison--and requested to see her son, her request was denied. After some discussion between prison officials and Mr. Sun, someone put the prison uniform on Mr. Sun and only then was he allowed to see his mother.
During the meeting, the mother saw that her son looked weak and his hand was trembling while holding the telephone. She realized that the guards must have deprived her son of food because he refused to wear the prison uniform. In addition, every time Mr. Sun's aunt went to visit him, the guards turned her away. After the meeting with his Mom, Mr. Sun took off the uniform and threw it to the floor, saying, "We are not criminals, so how could we wear a criminal's uniform?!"
Practitioners who refuse to wear a prison uniform at the Daqing City Prison are routinely tortured using food deprivation and many are currently in critical condition. After witnessing their pitiful state, some guards were moved to speak out on behalf of the practitioners.
Mr. Sun, who lives at the Lishu District in Jixi City, has been unemployed for a while. His previous employer was the No. 2 Well of the Muling Mine of the Jixi Coal Mine. In 2001, he was arrested by officers from the Lixinkuang Police Station and sentenced to ten years in prison by the Jiguan District Court in Jixi City, in December of that same year.
In April 2002, Mr. Sun was transferred to the Harbin City Prison and locked in a small, dark cell at the No. 1 Ward by Zhang Jiushan, the deputy leader of the Group Training Section. He is also the person in charge of forcing practitioners to write the three statements.
Zhang assigned Xu Ziqiang and Yu Junjie (inmates) to handcuff Mr. Sun and force him to wear shackles weighing 40 lbs. In addition, Mr. Sun's handcuffs and shackles were tied together to a ring that was bolted to the floor, forcing his body into a very uncomfortable position. Xu then punched and kicked Mr. Sun's head, chest, back, and legs causing injuries all over his body. Mr. Sun was hit so hard and for so long that at one point he stopped breathing.
Mr. Wang Dayuan, from Harbin City, was beaten to death at the Daqing City Prison because he refused to write the "four statements" (see http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/9/3/52042.html). The guards were so afraid that their crimes would be exposed that they transferred four practitioners to different prisons. In July 2004, Mr. Sun was transferred to the Daqing City Prison and has been tortured there ever since.
In March 2009, Li Weilong, a prison official, started another round of persecution at the Daqing City Prison. During meal times, they let other inmates eat, but would not let practitioners enter the gate of the dining hall. The guards often used various excuses to take the practitioner's clothes off and beat them.
On February 17, 2009, the guards began to specifically target four practitioners: Mr. Zhai Zhibin, Mr. Li Chao, Mr. Li Hongkui, and Mr. Liu Guifu, who were all being held at the No. 4 Ward. Using the excuse of needing to "reorganize" the ward, they tortured these four practitioners by forcing them to go outside to perform very strenuous physical exercises every morning and every afternoon.
At one point, the practitioners refused to do the torturous exercises. Guards Chu Zhongxin, Liu Guoqiang, and Li Jinhao, who are in charge of persecuting practitioners at the No. 4 Ward, brutally beat them. Mr. Zhai's developed a large bump on his head that bled profusely, while the other three practitioners suffered arm, leg, and hip
Health officials say a large number of existing multivitamins contain more or less of an ingredient than that mentioned on their labels.
According to a report recently released by ConsumerLab.com, more than 30 percent of multivitamin products do not contain the same amount of an ingredient as they claim.
Many of them are reported to be contaminated with lead.
The report revealed that many of the tested multivitamins contain exceeded levels of ingredients such as niacin - which can cause skin tingling and flushing - and zinc, responsible for immune deficiency and anemia when overused.
Other multivitamins were found to contain high levels of vitamin A and folic acid when compared to limits considered tolerable by the Institute of Medicine.
Excess consumption of these products is linked with various health conditions. In the short term, too much vitamin A may cause nausea and blurred vision, while osteoporosis and liver problems are frequently reported in the long-term.
Adding too much folic acid to men's multivitamins on the other hand may increase the risk of prostate cancer in the consumers.
ConsumerLab.com, a private company based in White Plains, New York, performs independent evaluations of health- and nutrition- related products. The company is not owned by nor has a financial interest in any companies that make, distribute or sell consumer products.
(Clearwisdom.net) Shen Chunfang, 57, lives in Yueyang City, Hunan Province. Because she persists in practicing Falun Gong, she has been repeatedly persecuted. This is just one account of a recent police arrest and torture attempting to obtain a "confession."
On March 3, 2008, Ms. Shen was reported to the police because she explained the facts about Falun Gong in public. On the night of March 7, 2008, seven to eight people tricked her into opening her door. They then dragged her into a vehicle and took her to the Zhenzhushan Police Station. These people came from the Zhenzhushan Police Station, the Beigang Township Police Station, and the Baishiling Police Sub-bureau. The police ransacked her home and confiscated two new cellphones and a copy of the book Zhuan Falun.
That night the police interrogated Ms. Shen. When she did not cooperate, they took her to the Hubin Detention Center for two days and then detained her in the Dongting Hotel in Yueyang City, attempting to extort a "confession." One police officer beat her three times with a three-inch-thick tree branch and handcuffed her behind her back. Another officer lifted up her handcuffed hands, causing her great pain. She sweat so much from the pain that her clothing was soaked.
Planning to force her betray other practitioners, the officers put Ms. Shen into a vehicle to locate them. She didn't cooperate, so they beat her while she was in the vehicle. At the hotel, she was handcuffed to a chair the entire night. She was then taken to the city detention center where she was held for nine and a half months.
In the detention center, she was forced to do hard labor 16 hours per day. When higher authorities came, detention center officials hid all the work tools. One day Ms. Shen seemed to have a heart attack. She was in great pain and her hands and feet shook. No officer came to her aid until every person in the cell informed the officers. Handcuffed and shackled, she was taken to a hospital in Yueyang City for observation. She fainted because of pain, but the hospital still said she was fine and charged her family 300 yuan in medical fees. She was given no medication.
One day, a woman officer handcuffed her hands behind her back for 11 hours. It was so painful that Ms. Shen cried out. After the handcuffs were removed, her hands swelled. Even today one of her hands hurts.
Ms. Shen was detained for nine months and thirteen days, and 6,000 yuan was extorted from her. She was charged 50 yuan when the TV in the cell was fixed. In addition, the Beigang Township Police Station and the Zhenzhushan Police Station appropriated two cellphones she carried, which were worth 2000 yuan and included a 400-yuan phone credit. They used up the phone credit, broke one cell phone, and exchanged the parts in the other one.
A screenshot of the GhostNet report released by the Information Warfare Monitor group in Canada. (Suman Srinivasan/The Epoch Times)
People may have heard of all kinds of cyber-espionage stories. But none is as strange as this one.
Chinese hackers are reported to have penetrated 103 government offices. This means that they can break into most of the electronic doors around the world. Can you imagine: as you sit comfortably in a government office working on a computer—assuming unwisely that it is guarded like your border—someone in China can watch every keystroke including spaces and deletions?
A system like this has been uncovered recently by researchers in Canada—a system called Ghostnet.
Daisy is a senior IT consultant who helps clients improve their network security. She describes the security compromise as follows: a user is tricked to open a document or a web page containing malware, and then some backdoor programs are planted on his computer. "On many of the Trojans we inspected, [we found that] they opened network connections to some network addresses inside China. Many of these Trojans contained key-loggers, which captured every single keystroke that the user made. These Trojans are becoming harder and harder to detect and remove. Once a user’s computer has such a Trojan implanted on it, a lot of information can get leaked out."
“Another common phenomenon is, after the user's PC was compromised, someone would login to his email account, download all messages in the mailbox, and then the Trojan would send infected emails to the contacts from his account. The infected emails contained either attachment files or links to web pages, and the content of these emails were normally well-tailored to each recipient to make him or her believe that it was a legitimate e-mail.”
So, the biggest question is—who are these hackers? "If you look at the attacking methods and patterns, the scale, the effort, and the skills required for these attacks are often too enormous to be carried out by some individual 'script kiddies.' I don't see how it could be possible without significant funding for these attacks." says Daisy.
Although the Chinese regime denies its involvement in Ghostnet, it is hard to imagine that any individuals would have that much interest in gathering government information around the world, "walk" into the Dalai Lama's office virtually, and monitor other dissident activities.
The Falun Gong group, which the Chinese communist regime has made the most effort to persecute, has long been the target of its cyber war. According to the Falun Gong group's reports, their websites have often been attacked, and their emails hijacked.
The Chinese Communist regime is probably the only government that blacklists its own people overseas and invests a tremendous amount of money to monitor the activities of its own people.
Congressman Frank Wolf, who has long been outspoken about human rights violations in China, called on the U.S. government to task over the China's cyber warfare last year. "In August 2006, four of the computers in my personal office were compromised by an outside source.
"This source first hacked into the computer of my foreign policy and human rights staff person, then the computers of my chief of staff, my legislative director, and my judiciary staff person. On these computers was information about all of the casework I have done on behalf of political dissidents and human rights activists around the world. That kind of information, as well as everything else on my office computers—e-mails, memos, correspondence and district casework—was open for outside eyes to see".
In 2003, the Asian Pacific News Service reported that FBI Director Robert Mueller had testified to the United States Congress that China has more than 3,000 "front" companies that conduct direct espionage efforts. He also testified that thousands of Chinese visitors, students and business people who come to the United States each year are assigned intelligence tasks from the Chinese Communist regime.
“Left unchecked, such a situation could greatly undermine U.S. national security and U.S. military and economic advantage," Mueller said.
In the same article, David Szady, FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, is quoted as saying, “They figured out that what they want is throughout the United States, not just embassies, not just consulates. It’s a major effort."
Internet hacking and attacks can be found in every country. But Ghostnet is the only government espionage that has been organized on such as large scale.
An organized crime with the resource of an entire nation under the grip of a dictatorial regime is a million times more dangerous than an individual crime. It has the potential to terrorize the world.
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Liu Guangfeng, 52, was a staff member at the Grain Department in Guangshui City, Hubei Province. She was honest, quiet, kind, industrious, and well respected. After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) staged the persecution of Falun Gong, she suffered a tremendous amount of persecution.
On September 30, 2004, she was arrested by police officers from the Xingyang City Police Department. She was detained in the Guangshui City First Detention Center, and later sentenced to two years of forced labor. In the Shayang Forced Labor Camp, she was forced to stand for several days and nights. Her legs developed big blisters from being shocked by electric batons, and the guards prohibited her from rolling up her pants, fearing that it would expose the blisters.
On December 26, 2004, the women's unit of the Shayang Forced Labor Camp moved to Hongshan District, Wuhan City, and was renamed the Hubei Province Women's Forced Labor Camp. The guards subjected practitioners to sleep deprivation, forced them to squat or stand for long periods of time, had drug addict prisoners kick their abdomen and private areas and pinch their breasts, shocked them with electric batons, and forced them to sit on a small stool for a long time. Ms. Liu's abdomen, private areas and thighs were black and blue all over due to the physical abuse. In spite of that, she was still forced to work in the workshop for more than ten hours each day. Sometimes, she was prohibited from brushing her teeth and washing her face. When all of the others went to bed, Bao Kun and Liu Xiaoli, the inmates assigned to persecute her, took turns watching her and forced her to squat until 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. One time, when she disclosed the persecution she suffered to others, guard Yu Lijun threatened her, "You will suffer even more in the future."
On January 7, 2009, Ms. Liu took a train to Wuhan City, and she was arrested for reading Zhuan Falunon the train by police officers from the Hubei Police Station. At around 2:00 a.m. on January 8, 2009, more than ten police officers from the Wuhan City Railway Police Department broke into her home and seized her computer and truth clarifying materials.
On February 8, 2009, Ms. Liu was taken to the Guangshui City First Detention Center and detained there. On the afternoon of April 2, 2009, the authorities of the detention center suddenly notified her family to pick her up. In the detention center, her family members found that she could not speak, walk, or eat, and the skin from her neck to her feet and her fingers was all black and blue. There were scars around her neck.
She was critically ill when she arrived at home. At 1:00 a.m. on April 4, 2009, she passed away.
Fields support one crop a year and farmers are refusing to plant it
Jane Macartney in Beijing
Tibetan discontent at Chinese rule has taken a new twist, with farmers refusing to till their fields in a show of passive resistance against Beijing.
So anxious are officials at the latest action that they have sent in troops from the People's Liberation Army to work with farmers - or in their place if need be - to carry out spring planting in mountainous regions able to support only one crop a year.
Local sources said that many farmers in areas of Sichuan province with large ethnic Tibetan populations have decided to down tools and leave their barley fields fallow this year.
“The farmers know that they will be the ones to suffer if they do this,” one source told The Times. “But this is a way for them to show their unhappiness.”
State-run TV broadcast footage, shot by army cameramen, of soldiers accompanying Tibetan farmers into the fields to plough and hoe. The Government has even ordered officials and party members into the fields themselves to get on with the spring planting.
The extent of the protest was impossible to gauge since foreign reporters are barred from Tibet and have been prevented from entering Tibetan-populated regions. However, it appears to be serious enough to have prompted a statement this week from the Dalai Lama's base in India, saying: “The Tibetan Government in exile of the Dalai Lama appeals to Tibetans not to make this sacrifice and to stop their ‘refusal to till the fields'.”
A huge police and army presence across Tibet has failed to still simmering unrest, local residents said. Incidents occur almost daily across the Ganze area of Sichuan, which experienced some of the most widespread protests after peaceful demonstrations by monks in Lhasa in March last year spiralled into a riot that left 22 people dead.
A Tibetan monk was killed and eight people wounded when Tibetan farmers and paramilitary police clashed in Luhuo county late last month. The farmers had refused to commit to plant a certain amount of their land with crops and the police were called in. The dead monk had been organising the farmers to refuse to plant crops, local residents said.
Fearful of losing control, the paramilitary People's Armed Police on Sunday paraded detainees in seven trucks around the streets of Ganze. Each suspect was held by two police, who forced them to bow their heads. A notice was hung around the neck of each one, although a Tibetan source said that he could not read them because he was unfamiliar with Chinese characters.
By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Fengcheng City in Liaoning Province
(Clearwisdom.net)
Mr. Liang Yuncheng is from Fengcheng City in Liaoning Province, and he was illegally arrested on March 7, 2009. He is being brutally tortured at the Erlongshan Prison. Officials and guards are trying to brainwash him and threatening him with further imprisonment.
Liang Yuncheng is forty-two years old and firmly believes in Falun Dafa. In recent years, his family has been broken up, and he has lost his parents. Mr. Liang used to be a teacher at a middle school. Later, he passed an exam for a position at the Fengcheng City Court and started to work there. Mr. Liang began to practice Falun Dafa in 1996 and follows Truth-Compassion-Forbearance in his daily life.
After the Jiang Zemin regime started the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, Mr. Liang was transferred to the Water Resources Bureau of Fengcheng City after he refused to give up practicing Falun Gong. At the Water Resources Bureau, he continued to do an excellent job. Every year, he won an award for good work, and he never gave up practicing Falun Dafa. Because of this, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecuted him and forced his wife to leave him.
On January 3, 2006, Mr. Liang was illegally arrested when clarifying the truth to people in Kuandian County. He was then taken to the Benxi Brainwashing Center. In order to force him to give up Falun Dafa, they sent a dozen people to talk to him day and night, so he couldn't sleep for over ten days. They also beat him using police batons. When he still refused to give up practicing Dafa, they stretched him and tied him up on a bed twice, for 21 days at one time. Mr. Liang still firmly maintained his belief in Falun Dafa. He was then taken to the Anshan Brainwashing Center.
Mr. Liang's parents were in their seventies. When they learned that their son had been illegally arrested and tortured, they were devastated. His mother went to Kuandian County and Benxi City several times, trying to visit him, but she wasn't allowed to see him. Finally, at the Anshan Brainwashing Center, she saw her son. Mr. Liang used to be about 215 pounds. However, when his mother saw him, he was very thin, weighing less than 145 pounds. He couldn't see clearly, and most of his hair had either fallen out or turned gray. His mother was heartbroken at the sight. When she got home, she told Mr. Liang's father in tears about their son's condition. His father fell ill after that and was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He wanted to see his son one more time, but the police refused. About twenty days later, his father died. Two months later, his mother also passed away.
On January 3, 2008, Liang completed the illegal imprisonment term and was released. When he got home, he learned that his parents had died. He went to his parents' graves and cried for over four hours there. Mr. Liang went back to work, but his salary was cut dramatically at the CCP's orders. Mr. Liang's wife knew her husband to be a very good man. However, placed under tremendous pressure, she divorced him in April 2008.
On March 7, 2009, someone reported Mr. Liang as he was "clarifying the truth" to people in Hepanxincheng District. The National Protection Squad of the Fengcheng City Public Safety Bureau immediately sent police cars to arrest him. Four policemen pulled his hair, twisted his arms behind his back, and pushed him down on the ground. They stepped on his head with their boots and beat him up. Then they took him to the Beishan Detention Center.
During the illegal detention, the police brutally tortured him. They tied his hands and feet to iron rings on the ground so that he couldn't move. He was not released even to go to the bathroom. He started a hunger strike, and the police force-fed him. He suffered tremendously both physically and mentally.
The torture continued until March 13, when he was taken to the Erlongshan Prison. The CCP claimed that they would sentence Liang to at least three years of imprisonment and swore that they would "transform" Liang.
Li Hongquan is the Deputy Secretary of the Politics and Law Committee, and Ma Xiuli is a policeman from the National Protection Squad. They are both actively involved in persecuting Liang Yuncheng. They are still planning to sentence him to a forced labor camp or prison.
Life is so strange when you don't know How can you tell where you're going to You can't be sure of any situation Something could change and then you won't know
You ask yourself: Where do we go from here? It seems so hot in here Just as far beyond as I can see I still don't know what this all means to me
So you tell yourself: I have nowhere to go I don't know what to do And I don't even know the time of day I guess it doesn't matter any way
Life is so strange Destination unknown When you don't know Your destination Something could change It's unknown And then you won't know Destination unknown
You ask yourself: When will my time come? Has it all been said and done? I know I'll leave when its my time to go 'Til then I'll carry on with what I know
Life is so strange Destination unknown When you don't know Your destination Something could change It's unknown And then you won't know Destination unknown
(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Gu Suoxiang was from Jintan City, Jiangsu Province. He died as a result of long-term abuse, torture and gross mistreatment under the persecution on March 22, 2009, at the age of 48.
Mr. Gu worked at the Jintan City Telecommunications Company. Prior to practicing Falun Gong, he was plagued by all kinds of illnesses and had to take medicine all the time. All of his illnesses gradually disappeared after beginning the practice in 1996. He followed the principles of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance in his conduct and paid no attention to personal gain. He worked hard at his job, and his boss and colleagues regarded him favorably. His family relations also became much more harmonious.
After the persecution began in 1999, Mr. Gu was arrested and detained numerous times. Due to torture while he was in detention, he became emaciated and eventually lost his ability to work.
One morning in 2000, while practicing the Falun Gong exercises in public, he was arrested and detained and shackled for 15 days. On New Year's Day in 2001, he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested. The police beat him and knocked his head against a wall, torturing him this way from early morning until past 2:00 p.m. Afterwards, Gu was fired from his job and sent to serve three years of forced labor.
In May 2003, Mr. Gu wrote a truth-clarification letter to provincial officials. In the letter he also requested he be given back his job. He again was detained. The guards handcuffed him behind his back and hung him by the handcuffs to a window for 19 days in a row. He was forbidden to sleep during that time and was also brutally beaten. In the end, he was sent to two years of forced labor.
On November 28, 2007, Mr. Gu was at work when he was seized and taken to a brainwashing center, where he was hung up for 19 days straight, without sleep. The guards also forbade him to eat or use the restroom. They even stepped forcefully on his stomach, severely injuring his liver, intestines and other internal organs. Following his release, he went for a medical exam and was told he had only two months to live.
On August 2, 2008, the police arrested him again using the pretext of safeguarding the Beijing Summer Olympics. By the time he was released, he was bruised and injured all over. The police didn't bother to give him a ride home, so he walked home in his severely weakened condition. Later on he developed diarrhea and had blood in his stool. He died at 2:00 a.m. on March 22, 2009 as a result of traumatic injuries to his internal organs.
Shi Yong and Yu Yao are the two agents from the Huacheng Police Station that once participated in Gu Suoxiang's torture and mistreatment.
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