Friday, May 31, 2013

US Report On Chinese Spy Activities

this is very damning..

Recruiting Spies

the lengths the CCP will go

Chinese General Saves Face

Chinese spies around the world-Really?

Chinese Spying Activities in Canada: Timeline

http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/spies-canada/

Dirty Little Secrets


Chinese Students Are CCP Spies

It's been revealed that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spies
are violating human rights by employing threats
and using eavesdropping equipment overseas.
Many victims have exposed these spies behavior, asking for help.
They've advised Chinese foreign students not to assist CCP spies.

In late September, Falun Gong practitioner, Jin Zhaoyu, from
northern Finland, learned that CCP spies had threatened
her friend, demanding that she discontinue her relationship
with Jin, or else her friend would be in trouble when she went back to China.

Jin Zhaoyu: "A man and a woman claiming to be CCP affiliates,
told her that if she and I remained friends, she would be in trouble
if she goes back to China.
The man warned her that Chinese consulate spies are
everywhere and know what she's doing, adding, 'You won't know who they are!'"

Jin's mother, Chen Ping, also a Falun Gong practitioner, was
illegally sentenced to eight years by the Zheng Zhou City
Jinshui Court in Henan Province in 2008, and is currently.
imprisoned in the Xinxiang Women's Prison in Henan Province.
Over the past 3 years, Jin has made many calls to rescue her Mom,
for which she has been repeatedly harassed by the CCP.

Jin feels that the CCP's threats seriously violate her human rights,
thus she exposed them to the public, hoping to address the problem.
She said many overseas Chinese students are CCP spies
who monitor other Chinese on a part-time basis,
especially dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners,
who regularly send information to the Chinese consulate.

Prior to this, many lawyers, professors, computer experts in
Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, and other cities had
reported similar activity to the FBI, claiming that
student leaders knowingly engaged in espionage for the CCP.
The fact that some pro-communist groups become secret agency,
drew the attention of some of Congressmen.

In July 2005, a Chinese spy who surrendered in Belgium,
exposed the Chinese Students and Scholars Association as a
"front organization" for an espionage ring.
In addition, in 2007, former Chinese Australian consul secretary,
Chen Yonglin, confirmed that the Chinese consulate
routinely manipulates overseas Chinese students associations.

Data from the 2006 Strategic Intelligence Forum,
showed that U.S. and EU intelligence agencies are warning that
the increasing number of Chinese spy cases is just a small part
of a wider threat to Western economies and security.

Jin Zhaoyu said that overseas CCP spies use a type of
wiretapping equipment to monitor conversations within
1km range (0.62 mile).
She reminded students that this behavior is illegal,
and that they should not be induced to be spies for the CCP,
thus becoming their victims.

Jin: "Many overseas Chinese students need to learn about
local laws and never violate them.
If they're lured by the Chinese consulate and are offered
money to commit wrongdoings or crimes,
they should not be tempted as it would be a pity to be sent
back to China with no hope of going abroad anymore.
Aren't they victims of the CCP?
Why do the Chinese monitor the Chinese?
Why are the Chinese people being taken advantaged of by the CCP?"

Xia Xiaoqiang, the author of Overseas Chinese Spy Memo,
pointed out that there might be an FBI agent behind every active
CCP spy in the U.S., monitoring their every move,
and arresting them if necessary.
He urged the CCP spies, saying,
"Even you do not care about the whole world
and just care about your family and your future,
stop spying and step out of your shadowy world of crimes."


Packem'Stackem, 40 Children All Told

talk about rush hour..!!

Rubber Ducky All Fall Down

Avian flu? Hong Kong's rubber duck deflates

Bright yellow art installation in Victoria harbour sparks social media conspiracy theories to explain why it suddenly shrank
Hong Kong's Rubber Duck
Duck soup: Florentijn Hofman's Rubber Duck floats – flattened – in Hong Kong's Victoria harbour, prompting a slew of conspiracy theories. Photograph: Jerome Favre/EPA
 
A huge inflatable duck that has been floating in Hong Kong's Victoria harbour for the past two weeks has been unexpectedly reduced to a puddle of yellow plastic, drawing howls of protest – and accusations of 'fowl play'.
The 16.5m-high yellow piece of conceptual art, created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, has drawn tens of thousands of visitors since it bobbed into town on 2 May. It is scheduled to be on display in Hong Kong until 9 June.
Floating Duck 
   Hong Kong's duck in happier times. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/Getty Images But on Tuesday night, the waterfront shopping mall Harbour City, which organised the exhibit, announced the duck's imminent dismantling on its Facebook page. "Special announcement: attention, duck fans! The rubber duck needs some rest, and to undergo a quick body check. The rubber duck will resume its 'duck' shape in no time," it said.
That didn't stop microbloggers in mainland China from speculating on more likely reasons for the duck's demise. By Wednesday afternoon'Big yellow duck loses air and collapses' was the number one trending topic on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter.
In a post that has been forwarded more than 8,000 times, user Huxiang Mountain Person proposed 10 tongue-in-cheek explanations, including: "Avian flu was too strong," "Asia's water quality was too rough," and "It worked overtime for seven days in a row and suddenly died".
Many Hong Kong residents were disappointed by its untimely leave of absence.
"The sky looks like it is crying for me – I took time off from work just to see the duck, now it is just a blob," 45-year-old clerk Mirinna Chan told Agence France-Presse. "It's really our childhood dream, because when we bathed as children, we would have one or two of the rubber ducks next to us."
The installation, called Rubber Duck, has appeared in 13 cities since 2007, including Osaka, Sydney, São Paolo and Amsterdam.

Serious Intel Breach by Hackers In OZ

Hacking: Chinese spies steal ASIO blueprints

binary code hacking

SECRET and highly sensitive blueprints outlining the layout of Australia's top spy agency's new headquarters have been stolen by Chinese hackers, the ABC says.
The documents contained details of the ASIO building's floor plans, communication cabling layouts, server locations and security systems, potentially putting the entire organisation at risk, Monday night's Four Corners program alleges.
It is unclear precisely when the alleged theft took place, or if there have been diplomatic ramifications from the embarrassing breach.
But it comes amid deepening concern about widespread, aggressive state-sponsored hacking by China, with further allegations that its cyber spies have recently obtained sensitive Australian military secrets and foreign affairs documents.
Companies including BlueScope Steel and Adelaide-based Codan, which makes radios for military and intelligence agencies, are also said have been targeted by the Chinese, according to the ABC.
The allegation comes just weeks after Canberra softened its stance towards China, claiming in May's Defence White Paper that it no longer saw the rising superpower as a threat.
Aside from the diplomatic implications, the alleged ASIO theft may help explain why its new headquarters, overlooking Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin, is millions over budget and still not operational.
ASIO said in its October annual report that the building would cost taxpayers about $630 million - $41 million more than expected.
It was due to open in April, but staff are yet to move in.
The ABC did not cite the source of its claims, but said the blueprints had been taken from a contractor involved with the project.
"It reeked of an espionage operation. Someone had mounted a cyber hit on a contractor involved in the site," Four Corners reported.
"The plans were traced to a server in China."
Professor Des Ball, from the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, suggested the theft meant China could bug the building.
"At this stage with construction nearly completed you have two options," he told the ABC.
"One is to accept it and practice utmost sensitivity even within your own headquarters.
"The other, which the Americans had to do with their new embassy in Washington ... was to rip the whole insides out and to start again."
Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus refused to confirm the theft.
Whistleblowers interviewed by Four Corners also allege the Australian defence department's classified email and restricted networks have been hacked.
"A factor of of ten times the entire database, or the entire amount of information stored within the Defence Restricted Network, has been leached out over a number of years," one worker said.
Another whistleblower said a "highly sensitive document" belonging to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had been stolen by China.
"It's a project that would give an adversary a significant advantage when dealing with Australia," the source told the ABC about the DFAT document.



China calls Australian spy HQ plans hacking claims 'groundless'

Foreign ministry spokesman shrugs off 'groundless accusations' by Australian media that Chinese hackers stole Asio blueprints
Link to video: China rejects Asio hacking allegations

China has shrugged off allegations by Australian media that Chinese hackers have stolen the blueprints for the new Australian spy headquarters.
"China pays high attention to cybersecurity issues, and is firmly apposed to all forms of hacker attacks," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular press briefing on Tuesday afternoon. "Groundless accusations will not help solve this issue."
The response came amid separate allegations that Chinese hackers had compromised some of the US's most advanced weapons systems designs.
According to a classified report prepared for the Pentagon, the breaches compromised more than two dozen weapon designs for highly advanced missiles, fighter jets, helicopters and combat ships, the Washington Post reported.
Designs believed to have been compromised include those for the advanced Patriot missile system, the Black Hawk helicopter, and the $1.4tn F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive weapons system ever built.
While the Defence Science Board, a senior advisory group that prepared the report, did not explicitly accuse the Chinese of stealing the designs, "senior military and industry officials with knowledge of the breaches said the vast majority were part of a widening Chinese campaign of espionage against US defence contractors and government agencies," the Washington Post reported.
"In many cases, [the defence contractors] don't know they've been hacked until the FBI comes knocking on their door," an unidentified senior military official told the newspaper. "This is billions of dollars of combat advantage for China. They've just saved themselves 25 years of research and development. It's nuts."
In Canberra, the Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr, said claims that Chinese hackers stole top-secret blueprints of the Australian spy agency Asio's new headquarters would not threaten bilateral ties.
Carr refused to confirm ABC reports that the cyber-attack netted documents containing details of the building's floor plan, communications cabling layouts, server locations and security systems.
Concern has been rising over state-sponsored hacking emanating from China, with further allegations that its cyberspies have recently obtained sensitive Australian military secrets and foreign affairs documents.
Carr said the government was "very alive" to emerging cybersecurity threats but refused to confirm the ABC's specific claims on Tuesday.
"I won't comment on matters of intelligence and security for the obvious reason: we don't want to share with the world and potential aggressors what we know about what they might be doing, and how they might be doing it," he said.
The Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, referred in parliament on Tuesday to "these inaccurate reports" without elaborating on which elements of the reports were wrong.
George Brandis, a senator with the opposition Liberal party, said on Wednesday that he had received a confidential briefing from Asio officials and the report was accurate. The Australian newspaper reported that the plans were stolen three years ago and no longer posed a threat to the operations of Australia's main spy agency.
The Asio building's construction had been plagued by delays and ballooning cost, with builders blaming late changes made to the internal design in response to cyber-attacks.
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei was last year barred from bidding for construction contracts on the national broadband network amid fears of cyber-espionage.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

maybe those passport holders know something the Federal Government doesn't know, er, like a shrinking economy

Fisher: Canada’s shrinking passports makes no business sense

 
 
 

Fisher: Canada’s shrinking passports makes no business sense
 

At 36 pages, Canada will have the distinction of having the thinnest, most quickly exhausted passports in the world.

BANGKOK, Thailand — The Harper government has dispatched ministers worldwide — especially to Asia — to shout that Canada is open for business and that the country’s economic future depended on it.
Unfortunately that message has not crossed the Ottawa River to Passport Canada headquarters in Gatineau, Que.
A group of Canadians at a recent meeting of the Thai-Canada Chamber of Commerce were stunned when they discovered that beginning in a few weeks Passport Canada was shrinking the “frequent traveller passports” that most of them travel with from 48 pages to 36.
Once those new passports are issued, Canada will have the distinction of having the thinnest, most quickly exhausted passports in the world.
“Typical bureaucratic myopia,” thundered a Canadian, who does consulting for the UN from Bangkok and often works in the Middle East, when he was informed of the new arrangements.
Equally incredulous was a Canadian who works in Asia for a well-known international television news outfit. Even with a 48-page passport he was already reluctantly forced to often travel on the U.S. passport he was able to get because one of his parents was born there. His current 48-page Canadian passport has often had no room for additional entry and exit stamps and visas after only 12 or 15 months of use. It was a similar story for another Canadian living in Asia and working in the Middle East. Although born and raised in Canada and employed by a Canadian company, he mostly travels on a British passport he is entitled to because one of his grandparents was born there because his Canadian passport almost always has few clean pages left.
Passport Canada has trumpeted the fact that its new passports will be valid for 10 years. Unsaid is that means Canada has just caught up to other western countries. Having 10 years validity will be of no help to those captains of industry, salesmen, oil, construction and aid workers who are constantly on the move.
The upshot of having fewer pages for these folks is that the amount of time they can use their passports is about to be reduced by one-quarter before they have to get new ones while the cost of each new, slimmer passport they are issued will go up by a third or more.
To a commuter stuck on a bus in Toronto or a farmer sowing wheat in Saskatchewan this must sound like whining by a privileged global elite. But other western countries, recognizing the importance of international commerce and how many jobs such “rainmakers” can produce, provide their most peripatetic citizens with passports that are far more useful. Americans can get 52 page passports that may be doubled in size with an insert of additional pages. Canada is one of the few western nations that prohibits this.
Furthermore, almost alone among its allies, including the U.S. and Britain, Canada makes it immensely difficult for its citizens to carry two valid passports at the same time. Not having a second passport can have serious consequences for the nearly three million Canadians who live and work overseas as well as for those living in Canada who frequently scramble to find business opportunities overseas. This is because many countries — especially those in the Middle East and Africa — insist on holding on to visa and residency applicants’ passports for weeks during processing. Those travellers without second passports can spend months every year in travel lockdown because their passports are not with them.
Germany, with an export-driven economy, may understand the issue best. It grants 48 page inserts to its passports and trusts its citizens to carry two or more valid passports at the same time.
The buzz on web forums such as Flyer Talk about the new passports has been strongly negative. “This was so dumb,” one anonymous Canadian wrote. Another concluded that it “doesn’t make sense if there’s no option to add extra pages.”
The problem of Canada’s shrinking passport is well-known at embassies in Asia, where expanding trade is supposed to be priority number one. Consular officers in three regional capitals physically winced when asked recently about the 36 page passports. The new arrangements could, they acknowledged, complicate the hectic lives of some of Canada’s most dynamic citizens.
Although few Canadian consular officials appear to be aware of it, Canada has apparently slightly relaxed its rules in regards to holding “two valid concurrent passports,”  although information about this is practically a national secret. During the 2012-2013 fiscal year less than 100 duplicate passports were issued, a spokesman said. Most were presumably not for Canada’s busiest travellers but for Canadians visiting the Middle East where most Arab countries prohibit entry to travellers with Israeli stamps in their passports.
Ottawa’s declared rationale for the 36-page passport — from a choice between 24 and 48 pages — is to save Canadians money. This explanation is perplexing as Canada has nearly doubled its fees, making its travel documents just about the most expensive in the West.
Producing 72- or 96-page passports or allowing pages to be inserted in existing passports are two possible solutions to the constant travellers’ dilemma. The easiest way forward would be for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, whose department is taking responsibility for passports away from the Department of Foreign Affairs, to make it widely known that those Canadians who require two valid passports to work and live their lives will be able to get them.

Tastes Like Mutton, Yummm Rat!


 Gotta Get Me Some Of  This "Stuuff"

China's Current Fake Meats Scandal, Fox, Rat and Mink...[wait there's always more].

China arrests 900 in fake meat scandal

Chinese authorities seize 20,000 tonnes of illegal meat products and detains gang passing off fox, mink and rat as mutton

in Beijing 
 
A Chinese vendor sells pork in a Hong Kong market
 
China's other food safety scares include reports of glow-in-the-dark pork, exploding watermelons and fake eggs. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP
 
Police in China have arrested 904 people for "meat-related offences" over the past three months, including a gang that made more than £1m by passing off fox, mink and rat meat as mutton, the country's public security ministry has announced.

Since January, authorities have seized 20,000 tonnes of illegal products and solved 382 cases of meat-related crime – primarily the sale of toxic, diseased and counterfeit meat.
One suspect, named Wei, earned more than £1m over the past four years by purchasing fox, mink and rat meat, treating it with gelatin, carmine (a colour produced from ground beetles) and nitrate, then selling it as mutton at farmers' markets in Jiangsu province and Shanghai. Authorities raided Wei's organisation in February, arresting 63 suspects and seizing 10 tonnes of meat and additives.
Suspects in the Baotou city produced fake beef and lamb jerky from duck meat and sold it to markets in 15 provinces. Levels of E coli in the counterfeit product "seriously exceeded standards", the ministry said.
A baby who suffers from kidney stones after drinking tainted milk powder, Chengdu, China. September 22, 2008 A baby treated for kidney stones after drinking tainted milk powder, in Chengdu, China. Photograph: China Photos/Getty Hao, another suspect, from Fengxiang city, Shaanxi province, last year sold mutton that had turned black and reeked of agricultural chemicals to a barbecue restaurant, killing one customer and poisoning a handful of others.
In Fujian province, five suspects were arrested and two factories shut for butchering disease-ridden pig carcasses and selling their meat in nearby provinces. The suspects had been hired by the agriculture ministry to collect the carcasses from farmers and dispose of them properly.
Authorities closed two factories in the south-western province of Guizhou for soaking chicken feet in hydrogen peroxide before shipping them to markets. And in Zhenjiang city, Jiangsu province, two people were arrested for selling pork products that were made with meat from "poor quality pig heads".
China's meat markets are already reeling from a spring riddled with food safety scares. Pork sales plummeted in March after about 16,000 pig carcasses were dredged from a river in Shanghai, an incident authorities have yet to fully explain. A virulent strain of avian flu has killed 26 people and put more than 129 in hospital since mid-April, wreaking havoc on the domestic poultry industry.
New guidelines calling for harsher penalties for those found guilty of producing or selling unsafe food products were announced by the country's top court on Friday.
The supreme people's court said the guidelines would list as crimes acts such as the sale of food excessively treated with chemicals or made from animals that have died from disease or unknown causes.
rats A gang made more than £1m by passing off mink and rat meat as mutton. Photograph: PA China's food safety authorities are turning their attention to dairy products, according to the Xinhua state news agency. In 2008, more than 54,000 infants became ill and six were killed after being fed milk and baby formula that was tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.
Other food safety scandals in recent years include reports of glow-in-the-dark pork, exploding watermelons, cadmium-laced rice, fake eggs, salmonella-tainted seafood, carcinogenic recycled cooking oil and pesticide-soaked fruit.

bee colony death is serious now

will the answer be found sooner than later

Could Killing Off Global Bee Colonies Be Advantageous To Chinese "Farmers" s Bee Colonies?

hmmm, is there a conspiracy here?

What's in Your Honey Nut Cheerios, and Where Does It Come From?

Questions About Chinese Honey Imports, as U.S./Canada Supply Dips


The United States normally consumes somewhere between 400 - 450 million pounds of honey each year, but produces between 150 and 200 million pounds. This year's crop will be in the 150 – 175 million pound range when all is said and done. Just so you know, five years ago a 240 million pound crop would be considered normal.
Some fraction of U.S.-produced honey is used in the less expensive, somewhat generic-tasting industrial market – Honey Nut Cheerios, for instance. We use about three times as much industrial honey as table honey ... maybe even more. We import a significant amount of industrial honey.
Table honey, by comparison, is a good-tasting, high-quality and more expensive product. Table honey is generally produced from more common and popular floral sources such as clover, basswood, orange blossom, alfalfa and the like, and certainly the exotic varietal and artisan honeys qualify here. But we don't produce enough for that top end market so we also have to import table honey from various countries also.
This overall reduction in honey production is due to a variety of factors but certainly includes fewer beekeepers focusing on this aspect of their business. Rather, they are putting most of their efforts into the more profitable, but more difficult pollination business, and production of table honey, thus not competing with less costly imported honey in the barely profitable industrial honey market. Then there are the continued losses each year due to varroa mites, pesticides and colony collapse disorder. As a result of reduced domestic production a couple of things have happened, one of which is that, happily, the price of table grade honey has increased substantially due to reduced supply but continued demand. Interestingly, this has caused some beekeepers to again look at increasing their production of that of honey rather than push their bees through the pollination grist mill again ... because beekeepers can be flexible to some degree, the scene is always changing.
Overall, however, domestic production for both table and industrial honey is slowly declining while demand for both of these products continues to gradually increase, especially for industrial grade. To make up the difference imports – no surprise - are increasing.
But food security is an ongoing issue. Having enough of it continues to be an undercurrent, but making sure it is safe, no matter the source, comes to the top of the pile again and again, and honey is not above the fray.
And here is where honey imports are being scrutinized - for what's coming in, where it is coming from, is it coming in legally, and is it safe - particularly honey from China. Contamination with several antibiotics commonly used in agriculture has been an issue with Chinese honey in the past (and to some degree honey from Argentina, also). This was to the point of actually refusing entry into the U.S. of honey from China because of this problem. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Commerce has determined (with considerable assistance from the U.S. beekeeping industry) that China has purposefully dumped honey on the American market, selling it far below their cost of production, sometimes for as little as $0.19 -$0.20 per pound. By comparison, wholesale honey from India was recently selling for about $1.29 per pound, and bulk honey from the U.S. is selling for about $1.50 per pound.
To compensate, the Dept. of Commerce has placed antidumping tariffs on Chinese honey, bringing the price up to a nearly competitive level (read ... about the same as U.S. honey) when U.S. packers purchase it. Not to be thwarted, Chinese honey sellers then started selling "Packer's Blend" honey, which isn't subject to the tariff because it supposedly was mixed with 51% corn syrup when in reality it was pure honey, and, some figured, it was known by both seller and buyer that this indiscretion was intentional. Wink, wink, nod, nod.
Further, it is strongly suspected that Chinese honey has been transshipped to the U.S. through several countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Australia, India and Thailand to avoid paying this tariff. Some of this has been detected and stopped, but it is an ongoing process to keep exporters in line and paying full duty on their exports. More winks, more nods.
Cheap honey has been a bane to U.S. beekeepers for years, and it thoroughly distorts the honey market in the U.S. It is plain to see why it is easy for U.S. beekeepers to abandon bulk (industrial) honey production in their operations and focus on the off-season, smaller, more profitable, easier to produce shelf market products, and of course, pollination. Though more difficult, and certainly harder on their bees, pollination is more profitable, and pollination can't be imported (well, actually it can, but we'll leave that for another time).
The economics of bulk honey production indicate that when it costs you five times as much to produce a product as your competition you don't produce it for long. U.S. honey packers (those who buy bulk honey from beekeepers – both domestic and imported) work on pretty thin margins and preserving the U.S. beekeeping industry isn't at the top of their list ... not when you can get all the honey you want (and can sell) off shore it seems.
Other countries export honey to the U.S., however. A good fraction of our table grade honey comes in from Argentina and Canada and you often see shelf honey that originated in those two countries that has been blended with U.S. honey. Brazil, too, is producing a table-grade honey that is being imported, but these countries, for the most part, are following the rules for exporting safe, legal products. And they sell at competitive, but realistic prices.
Certainly a multitude of other countries contribute to the pool of less expensive honey imported into the U.S. each year because we are one of the largest honey consumers on the planet. It is a competitive and cutthroat global market.
We are, however, on an individual basis not a big player. We consume only a pound and two ounces of honey per capita each year. This is much lower that some European countries where consumption can be as much a five or six pounds per capita per year. However, there are just over 300 million of us, which makes for a lot of honey by year's end.
If you are concerned about the ramifications of Colony Collapse Disorder, do not overlook the effect that it has had on honey production in the U.S.,Canada and other countries in the world. Though not the driving force and major cash machine it once was for beekeepers, honey production still maintains a healthy second place in the business of bees. And, consider too, the fraud and deceit that is part of the global honey market.
Who would have thought something so sweet could create such a foul situation?
Photo Credit: Rade Lukovic / Istock

Read more: What's in Your Honey Nut Cheerios, and Where's It Come From? - The Daily Green
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Chinese With Diabetes

Chinese Canadians may have higher diabetes risk than previously believed: study

Diabetes blood glucose A health worker, left, takes a blood sample from a diabetes patient's hand in this 2008 file photo. (AP Photo/Bikas Das)


Michelle McQuigge, The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, May 30, 2013 10:04AM EDT
TORONTO -- Canadians of Chinese descent may be at higher risk of developing diabetes than their historically low obesity rates would indicate, new research suggested Thursday.
A study from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences found that the rate of diabetes diagnoses soared sharply among Ontario's Chinese Canadian population over a 10-year period, while the increase in cases among their European counterparts was comparatively small. The findings were published Thursday in the journal Diabetes Care.
Study co-author Dr. Baiju Shah said the data came as a surprise, since Chinese Canadians have not historically been treated as a high risk group.
Canadians of South Asian, African or Aboriginal origin have widely been recognized as being vulnerable to diabetes, he said, adding the latest research suggests the Chinese population ought to be considered in the same light.
"I think we've shown now that the rate of new cases is going way, way up. So in a few years, the proportion of the Chinese population with diabetes is going to have caught up and exceeded that of Europeans," Shah said in a telephone interview.
Shah and a team of researchers gathered their data by focusing on Ontario residents who self-identified as either of European or Chinese descent in Statistics Canada surveys compiled in the mid 1990s.
Between 1996 and 2005, they went on to track the medical histories of more than 77,000 people and sought out newly diagnosed cases of diabetes.
Canadians of European descent reported 7.8 new cases per 1,000 people per year in 1996. That number had jumped by 24 per cent to 9.7 by the study's conclusion. The number of those reported as overweight or obese had climbed to 55 per cent from 50 over that time, the study found.
While the Chinese population registered a similar five point spike in obesity rates, the numbers were noticeably lower than they were among Europeans.
Researchers found only a quarter of the Chinese population was deemed to be overweight, up from 20 per cent in 1996.
The rate of diabetes diagnosis, however, was out of proportion with obesity rates. The number of new cases soared 15-fold from 1.3 cases per 1,000 people to 19.6 over the decade.
Shah said the 10-year period of the study saw rates of diabetes in the Chinese community jump to more than double those seen among the white population.
The cause for the dramatic spike remains a mystery, Shah said, adding common wisdom in the medical community suggests certain ethnic groups are more susceptible to developing diabetes once they begin eating highly processed North American diet and leading more sedentary lifestyles.
"When people were having traditional diets and not having energy-dense foods and were not gaining weight and were sort of healthy, you didn't see the diabetes. But these genes predisposed them to really explode with diabetes once they start to adopt more westernized lifestyles," he said. "That's the theory."
The study findings should serve as a red flag for both health care practitioners and policy makers, Shah said, adding both groups need to begin accounting for the needs of Chinese Canadians in their future plans.
Those of Chinese origin may need to be the focus of more rigorous diabetes screening and more targeted prevention strategies just like their counterparts in other ethnic groups considered at higher medical risk, he said.
"We need to think about that in Chinese communities as well as we already do in South Asian communities or African-Canadian communities, and making sure we have the health-care resources available for diabetes and its complications."

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/chinese-canadians-may-have-higher-diabetes-risk-than-previously-believed-study-1.1303499#ixzz2Un5GyTr4



China Faces Diabetes Epidemic

 

N'Americans [Canadians too of course] Eating More Chinese Foods Whether They Like It Or Not

China’s Food Deal Extends Its Reach, Already Mighty

 


Top from Left: J.Scott Applewhite/AP; Skip Nall/Digital Vision via Getty Images; Gerry Broome/AP; Mid from Left; J.Scott Applewhite/AP; Andrew Scrivani for the NYT: Genaro C. Armas/AP; Bot from Left: Fred R. Conrad/The NYT; Evan Sung for The NYT; Karsten Moran for The NYT


If you dined on tilapia recently, chances are it came from China. And that artificial vanilla you just used to make cookies? It, too, may have made the same long journey to your kitchen in the United States.
Multimedia
A growing amount of food commonly consumed by Americans — ranging from canned tuna and mandarin oranges to fresh mushrooms and apple juice — is now being imported from China. By the end of last year, the United States imported 4.1 billion pounds of food products from China, according to the Agriculture Department.
American imports of Chinese food products gained more attention on Wednesday, when Smithfield Foods, one of the biggest and oldest pork producers in the United States, agreed to sell itself to Shuanghui International, one of China’s largest meat processors.
The $4.7 billion deal amounts to the largest takeover to date of an American company by a Chinese one. Although Smithfield emphasized that the deal was intended to deliver more pork to China, not the reverse, it nonetheless prompted concern about China’s expanding role in the American food supply and the implications that might have for food safety in the United States and Canada too.
“We are importing more and more food from China at the same time we are hearing more and more about food scandals involving Chinese companies,” said Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food and Water Watch who testified in Congress at a hearing on Chinese food imports. Food safety problems, like melamine deliberately put into pet foods and baby formula as well as unsafe levels of cadmium in rice, have plagued China. The latest episode involved fox, rat and mink meat that was doctored with gelatin, pigment and nitrates and sold as mutton.
“We should definitely give the Chinese an award for creativity in adulterating foods,” said Jeff Nelken, a food safety expert. “They are a great resource for counterfeited foods, like honey products that don’t seem to have any pollen in them.”
A 2009 study by the Agriculture Department concluded that while Chinese officials were working to improve food safety and the regulation of food production — requiring the small number of food exporters there to gain certification — imports from China were still problematic. “Monitoring the wide range of products and hazards that can arise at various points in the export chain is a challenge for Chinese and U.S. officials,” the report stated.
The United States government has continued to have concerns about Chinese food exports, with a Congressional hearing this month that was billed as “The Threat of China’s Unsafe Consumables” as the latest example. “The health and safety, not only of the United States and Europe but that of people around the world, has come to be dependent on the quality of goods imported from China,” Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who heads the House Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, said in opening the hearing. “Yet the task of inspecting and testing Chinese goods is beyond the ability of governments, considering the magnitude of that challenge.”
Imported foods sold in groceries and other food stores must be labeled with their country of origin, but a substantial portion of imports end up in restaurant and food service meals, where consumers have no idea of their source.
Additionally, once imported foods are processed in any way, such labeling is no longer required under government regulations.
Thus, frozen imported peas and carrots would require a label if packaged separately, but mixed together and sold in a single package, they do not need labeling, Ms. Lovera said. Fish fillets must carry labeling, but imported fish sticks or crab patties do not.
Many of the scandals over Chinese food stuffs imported to the United States have involved products that fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for monitoring seafoods and fruits and vegetables coming into the country.
Americans have long been eating foods imported from China, the world’s largest agricultural economy and one of the biggest exporters of agricultural products. China shipped 4.1 billion pounds of food to the United States last year, according to the Agriculture Department, including almost half of the apple juice, 80 percent of the tilapia and more than 10 percent of the frozen spinach eaten.
China is also a big source of ingredients used in food, like xylitol, a candy sweetener; artificial vanilla, soy sauce and folic acid.
China is not, however, allowed to export fresh pork or beef to the United States because it still has outbreaks of hoof and mouth disease.
The Smithfield announcement reminded many people of video footage this spring that showed thousands of pig carcasses floating down a river that supplies drinking water to Shanghai. The source of the floating pigs remains a mystery, but they were hailed as a sign that a Chinese government crackdown on people selling dead and diseased pigs for pork was working.
In 2011, Shuanghui itself got caught up in that enforcement effort, after Chinese officials found it selling pork laced with clenbuterol, a veterinary medicine banned for use in animals intended for human consumption.
Smithfield and Shuanghui on Wednesday emphasized that the deal aimed to increase the supply of high quality, safe pork to China.
James Roth, director of the Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State University, said he had no concerns about food safety arising out of the deal because any pork processed in the United States would have to go through the Agriculture Department’s inspection systems. “They’re doing this to enhance exports to China because they need safe meat for their population, not to bring Chinese pork to the United States,” Professor Roth said.
Processed pork products like smoked hams, sausages and bacon could conceivably be imported from China, but only if they met standards set by the World Organization for Animal Health, which require cooking at high heats for a specific amount of time, he said.
China has been pressing for permission to export poultry, which does not contract hoof and mouth disease, to the United States for some time,
Neal Keppy, a farmer in Iowa who raises hogs from about three weeks of age until they are slaughtered, said he was confident that Smithfield under Chinese ownership would continue to produce high quality, safe pork products.
“What I think is more concerning is if China owns Smithfield, who knows if that pork will stay in this country if the food supply gets tight?” Mr. Keppy said. “In that case, a lot of pork will head for China instead of feeding U.S. mouths.”
He said he hoped regulators would keep that in mind as they reviewed the deal.

Bilderberg You Say...Why China, Of Course


inextricably connected, natch..meet the usual suspects through dogged, determined and hard-hitting journalists like these

China's New best friend: Justin Trudeau, As Yet Uncrowned PM of Canada

Justin Trudeau On [Bilderberg, Power Corp, And The Bank Of Canada]

 

 

what a vacuous shmoozer & liar...artfully doging all questions

Heavy Metals and High Fructose Corn Syrup In Our Honey?

Your Honey Isn’t Honey

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fake honey
After my post revealing the shocking truth about olive oil adulteration, I received a number of outraged comments along the lines of this one: “Is nothing sacred? First honey, and now this?!!!”
My interest was piqued. Honey? Since when was my honey fake?
Oh, I’d known about the fake “honey” they serve in single-serving packets at restaurants and cafeterias. That’s because I read the ingredients label. Almost all of them fessed up to being what they are — honey-flavored corn syrup. But I didn’t know that the vast majority of the major labels of honey sold in the U.S. aren’t real honey. Thankfully, I always buy mine from one of two local farms. My favorite is from a little old lady who keeps bees just a few miles from me. The other is from a farm in the town next door. According to my recent research, that means I’m safe. But those rows and rows of non-local honey from major distributors found in the supermarket? Those aren’t safe. In fact, they’re almost guaranteed to be fake.
According to the FDA (as well as the food safety divisions of the World Health Organization and the European Commission), the one test that authenticates honey is the presence of pollen. If the liquid gold doesn’t contain pollen, it isn’t honey.
This prompted Food Safety News to test more than 60 different samples of store bought honey for pollen. The results were damning:

76% of grocery store “honey” had no pollen in it!

When buying from drug stores like Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS, the failure rate went as high as 100%!
The good news is that every sample bought from farmers’ markets, co-ops, and natural food stores was loaded with pollen. So, as with olive oil, the real stuff is out there. You just have to make sure it was sourced from a single farm or small co-op of farms.

Why is all the pollen missing?

Good question! When asked why the pollen is removed, Mark Jensen, president of the American Honey Producers Association said this:
“I don’t know of any U.S. producer that would want to do that. Elimination of all pollen can only be achieved by ultra-filtering and this filtration process does nothing but cost money and diminish the quality of the honey,” Jensen said.
“In my judgment, it is pretty safe to assume that any ultra-filtered honey on store shelves is Chinese honey and it’s even safer to assume that it entered the country uninspected and in violation of federal law,” he added.
(source)
This idea is confirmed by Richard Adee, a U.S. honey producer who keeps 80,000 hives. He said:
“There is only one reason to ultra-filter honey and there’s nothing good about it. It’s no secret to anyone in the business that the only reason all the pollen is filtered out is to hide where it initially came from and the fact is that in almost all cases, that is China.”
(source)
In the normal honey-making process, honey is filtered to remove bee parts, waxes, and other debris. This routine filtration is no cause for alarm. Almost all the pollen remains intact in the honey, and it helps make a slightly more shelf-stable product.
But when you purposefully use ultra-filtration — a high-temperature, high-pressure extraction process — you remove all the pollen. Without the pollen, the origin of the honey is untraceable.

Why are these companies bothering to hide the honey’s origin?

Because it’s likely to have come from China, and Chinese honey is cheap, diluted with high-fructose corn syrup and sweeteners, and tainted with crazy chemicals and antibiotics.
In 2001, Chinese beekeepers experienced an epidemic of the foulbrood disease that ransacked their hives. They fought off the disease with strong animal antibiotics, including chloramphenicol — a carcinogenic antibiotic that’s been banned by the FDA. As recently as 2010, the FDA confiscated $32,000 worth of imported Chinese honey that was contaminated with this drug.
And, get this! The FDA only tests about 5% of imported honey. So who knows how much more of this tainted honey is being smuggled into the U.S.?
Chinese honey is also high in heavy metals.
The Chinese have many state-of-the-art processing plants but their beekeepers don’t have the sophistication to match. There are tens of thousands of tiny operators spread from the Yangtze River and coastal Guangdong and Changbai to deep inland Qinghai province. The lead contamination in some honey has been attributed to these mom-and-pop vendors who use small, unlined, lead-soldered drums to collect and store the honey before it is collected by the brokers for processing.
(source)
After enough scandals involving cheap adulterated Chinese honey flooding the American market, the FTC imposed stiff tariffs on Chinese honey in 2001 to try to stop it from being imported.
Of course, that just means that now the Chinese honey is laundered through other Asian and some European countries before being imported to the U.S. Despite the extra cost mark up from these middle-men countries, laundered Chinese “honey” is still cheaper than U.S. honey. So, it’s still getting bought and distributed. And, to hide this alarming fact, honey suppliers are ultra-filtering their so-called honey to hide its origins.
As recently as last year, U.S. District Attorneys arrested a number of individuals who had ties to a global honey laundering conspiracy involving the largest honey importer in the country.
After the U.S. tariffs were levied, ALW, the largest honey importer in the U.S., began networking with Chinese honey producers and brokers desperate to unload cheap products.
In exchange for contracts with ALW, honey brokers agreed to move Chinese-origin honey to Russia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, according to court documents.
The brokers also agreed to repackage the honey and muddy its trail by using a series of shell companies to ship it to the U.S. That meant falsifying country of origin certificates and, in some cases, deliberately mislabeling honey as molasses, fructose or glucose syrup so customs officials would not notice a suspect increase in honey shipments. Brokers were told to hire specific labs that specialized in filtering the honey to remove markers (such as pollen or soil) that could be used to trace shipments back to their true origin, according to court documents that outline the U.S. government’s case.
(source)
But beekeeper Richard Adee wasn’t hopeful about the arrests, or the uncovered conspiracy. He said, “It’s kind of like they’re running a car-stealing ring. You catch the guy stealing the car and put him out of business. But the guy that’s laundering, the chop shop or the packer, he just finds another supplier.” (source)

Where can you find REAL honey?

Your first priority should be to stick with buying local honey from a single farm or small co-op. This is always guaranteed to be real.
If you don’t know of any local suppliers or have a hard time finding them, chances are fair to medium-good that if you stick to organic store-bought honey, it will be real. The Food Safety News study revealed that five out of seven “organic” honeys contained pollen, meaning only 28% failed.
Yet, if you’re like me, that 28% failure rate is still unconscionable.
In that case, I highly recommend you check out these online suppliers of honey, who I personally vouch for. (I know the families behind these companies, and they’re good people!)

(where to find REAL honey)

 

yes, but those cute little bear containers...ahhhh