Middle East meltdown: protests over Syria turn deadly in Lebanon – growing chaos in Turkey6/10/2013 Lebanese troops blocked streets in Beirut with tanks and barbed wire for several hours on Sunday after the killing of a protester outside the Iranian embassy raised factional tensions already inflamed by the war in Syria. The man died during a clash between rival groups of Shi’ite Muslims after militiamen from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement opened fire when protesters drew up at the embassy, the latest sign of Syria’s violence spilling over to its neighbors. In Syria itself, fighting intensified in the north, where rebels said President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies were preparing an offensive after success last week in seizing a strategic town further south. In the past week Assad’s forces and Hezbollah captured the town of Qusair, which controls vital supply routes across Syria and with Lebanon, a sign of reversing momentum after the rebels seized swathes of the country in the second half of last year. Battles raged on Sunday near Al-Nubbul and Zahra, two rural Shi’ite Muslim enclaves outside the commercial hub Aleppo in Syria’s north, and intensified in Aleppo itself. “The aim is to use the two villages as forward bases to make advances in Aleppo and its countryside,” said Brigadier General Mustafa Al-Sheikh, a rebel commander and former senior officer in Assad’s military, referring to government tactics. “The regime considers that it has received a shot in the arm after the Qusair battle, but they will find that it will not be easy to advance in Aleppo,” Sheikh said, speaking from an undisclosed location in northern Syria. The civil war now pits Assad, from the Alawite offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and Shi’ite Hezbollah against mainly Sunni Muslim rebel groups. Assad is backed by Shi’ite Iran and armed by Russia. The rebels are armed by Sunni Arab countries Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and backed by Turkey and the West. Much of the north near the Turkish border has been held by rebels since last year and frontlines inside Aleppo itself have been largely static for months. An article in the semi-official Syrian al-Watan daily said the Syrian army was “deploying heavily in the countryside near Aleppo in preparation for a battle that will be fought inside the city and on its outskirts. Besieged areas will be freed in the first stages and troops which have been on the defensive will go on the offensive,” the article said. Activists said at least ten rebel fighters and six loyalist troops were killed in intensifying combat in the last 24 hours in Aleppo, Syria’s largest metropolis, which has been divided into rebel-held and loyalist controlled sectors for a year. Sheikh said the army has been using helicopters to re-enforce Nubbul and Zahra with loyalist troops including Hezbollah fighters and recruits from Iraq. There was no independent confirmation of any Hezbollah presence near Aleppo. Hezbollah has pledged to fight alongside Assad until victory in the Syrian war, in which at least 80,000 people have been killed. It does not comment on the specific activities of its fighters in Syria. Hezbollah’s participation raises the prospect of fighting spreading to Lebanon, which has never fully recovered from its own 1975-1990 civil war. In Beirut, the Lebanese army, which has limited means to impose itself on armed factions, deployed armored vehicles and set up roadblocks to cordon the city center and neighborhoods controlled by Hezbollah. Traffic was restored toward evening. Demonstrators from a variety of groups, including Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims and Christians, in protest against Hezbollah’s newly prominent role supporting Assad. When protesters from a small Shi’ite party opposed to Hezbollah arrived at the Iranian embassy in a bus, a Reuters journalist saw them clash with black-clad Hezbollah militiamen, who opened fire. Lebanese security officials said one of the protesters, who was unarmed, was killed and several people were hurt. “What happened today makes us feel there is a very difficult period ahead. We are bringing disasters upon ourselves by interfering in others’ affairs,” said hotel owner Ali Hammoud. “No one will come to Lebanon now; our concern now is just to stay alive.” –Reuters
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The U.S. Coast Guard and BP announced Monday that the company will end activeDeepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup operations in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida by mid-June. A Coast Guard news release also said future response efforts in those states, if needed, will no longer be led by its Gulf Coast Incident Management Team, which will continue to oversee cleanup efforts in Louisiana.
Response operations remain along 84 shoreline miles in Louisiana, according to a BP news release, with another 20 miles in the state awaiting approval as being cleaned or awaiting final monitoring or inspection. There are 18 Coast Guard officials and 87 contract employees working on the Louisiana response, said Lieut. Cmdr. Natalie Murphy. She said there's still no time frame for the end of response efforts in Louisiana. "This is another important step towards meeting our goal of returning the shoreline to as close to pre-spill conditions as possible while managing the scale of the response to meet conditions on the ground," said Capt. Duke Walker, Federal On-Scene Coordinator for the Deepwater Horizon Response. Louisiana officials contend they have documented oil in locations along 200 miles of the state's coastline and have repeatedly objected to earlier proposals by the Coast Guard to have future responses to oil finds handled through the National Response Center. State officials say there's been enough oil resurfacing after tropical storms and hurricanes along beaches during the past three years, including more than 1 million pounds of oily residue collected during the past year, to merit a continued, specific response to BP oil. For Misissippi, Alabama and Florida, future sightings of oil or oily debris along their shorelines must be reported to the Coast Guard's National Response Center, which takes reports of releases of oil and other chemicals in water bodies around the nation and in the Gulf of Mexico and other U.S. ocean waters, and then contacts local Coast Guard marine response offices to have them checked out. Sightings of oil can be reported to the National Response Center by calling 1-800-424-8802 or filing a report online at http://www.nrc.uscg.mil/. "Transitioning these areas back to the NRC reporting process is part of the National Contingency Plan," said the Coast Guard news release. "The Coast Guard will maintain oversight of the responsible party and continue to follow established protocol including sampling, fingerprinting and other investigative means to identify the source of the pollution and find the responsible party. If oil is found to be MC252 oil, BP will be held accountable for the cleanup." "We will continue to respond and cleanup MC252 oil that can be removed without further damaging the environment creating the conditions for continued restoration work," said Walker. "However, we've reached a point in some areas where the impact to the environmentally sensitive land outweighs the minimal amounts of oil being collected. Making the transition at this time will allow us to adjust to a smaller footprint for cleanup while being environmentally friendly." According to the BP news release, the company has spent more than $14 billion and 70 million personnel hours on response and cleanup activities in the aftermath of the April 2010 BP Macondo well blowout, which resulted in explosions and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, the sinking of the rig and the death of 11 workers. BP said cleanup operations ended on 4272 shoreline miles in the four states. The company cleaned so-called "amenity beaches" in tourism areas to depths of up to 5 feet, using mechanical equipment to sift out oil and other debris and returning clean sand to the beach. Where oil reached marshes, contractors tried to identify treatment methods that limited damage to plant life and wildlife. "The transition is a significant milestone toward fulfilling our commitment to clean the Gulf shoreline and ensuring that the region's residents and visitors can fully enjoy this majestic environment," said Laura Folse, BP's Executive Vice President for Response and Environmental Restoration. "Even as the Coast Guard has made the decision to move these states to the National Response Center reporting system, should residual Macondo oil appear on the shoreline, BP remains committed and prepared to address it under the direction of the Coast Guard." - NOLA.com Moscow sets up Russian Golan brigade, warns Israel Sunnis plus al Qaeda are bigger threat than Assad6/10/2013 Moscow is not ready to give up on getting Russian troops posted on the divided Golan as part of the UN force policing the Israeli-Syrian separation sector, even after rejections by the UN and Israel. Monday, June 10, the Russian lawmaker Aleksey Pushkov, an influential foreign relations policy adviser to the Kremlin, said: “The issue has not been yet solved, it is being considered. We must take some real action because we cannot exclude that the Syrian-Israeli topic would be involved in large-scale military action.”
Shortly before he spoke, the military announced in Moscow that the Russian Airborne Troops had formed a separate brigade especially designed to serve as peacekeepers “under the aegis of the United Nations or as part of the force set up by the Russian-led CSTO (Russian-Asian) security bloc for combating terrorism. Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan contribute special units. Vladimir Shamanov, commander of Russian Airborne troops, said the new brigade had been awarded the status of “a peacekeeping unit” on June 1. He did not say by whom. DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose the Moscow proposes to give the “peacekeeping” brigade from the Russian Airborne Troops “teeth” in the form of of MI-24 combat helicopters. The idea of placing Russian peacekeepers on the Golan was first voiced by President Vladimir Putin on June 7, after Austria decided to withdraw its 377-strong contingent from the area over an outbreak of fighting there between Syrian troops and rebels. The idea was quickly shot down by the United Nations and Israel on the grounds that the Israeli-Syrian 1974 ceasefire accord barred veto-wielding UN Security Council members from participation in the peacekeeping force. On June 8, DEBKAfile reported exclusively that Putin was determined to override Israeli and UN objections and get Russian troops deployed on the Syrian Golan by hook or by crook. On June 9, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the Putin offer, saying Israel could not afford to place its security in the hands of international forces. Speaking at a Moscow press conference on Monday, MP Pushkov went on to say that it was too early to say that Vladimir Putin’s suggestion of placing Russian peacekeepers on the Golan Heights lacked perspectives or could not be implemented. As though on cue, the Hizballah-controlled Lebanese Al Akhbar Monday quoted President Bashar Assad as warning that, for him, opening a front on the Golan against Israel was “a serious matter” and would not just consist of firing a few improvised rockets from time to time. This gave Pushkov the opening for his warning to Israel: That Israeli authorities would oppose this step (Putin’s offer) was not surprising, he said, but he warned about possible consequences: “Assad could be replaced by radical Islamists in comparison with whom Assad would seem an angel from heaven,” said the Russian lawmaker. “The people who are now offering friendship to Israel would not necessarily see Israel as their partner when they come to power, rather they would see it as an enemy,” the Russian MP said, hinting at the references made by Hizballah and Syrian government spokesmen to the relations Israel had purportedly formed with certain Syrian rebel groups. Hizballah broadcasts even depicted outdated Israeli tanks and other equipment, booty captured in its 2006 war with Israel, to prove its point. Therefore, Pushkov advised Israeli leaders to pay more attention to the possible future scenarios in Syria and take into account that Russia could play a positive and stabilizing role in the region. DEBKAfile notes that this was the first time any Russian official had mentioned the unmentionable: a possible future turn in the wheel of the Syrian conflict that would oust Assad and bring his foes, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, to power in Damascus. - Debka Drone strikes in Pakistan have killed 1,000 civilians, activists say, while the US maintains they only target terrorists. Victims of drone warfare and their families live in constant fear of another strike, and say they are “angry and want revenge.”
A review of classified US intelligence records has revealed that the CIA could not confirm the identity of about one-quarter of those killed by drone strikes in Pakistan during a period spanning 2010 and 2011. In a review of 14 months of classified records, 26 out of 114 attacks designate fatalities as “other militants,”and in four other attacks those killed are described as “foreign fighters.” The CIA is reluctant to reveal information on its drone program, Chris Woods of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism told RT. “With so many civilians reported killed, and yet the CIA reporting that it’s killed no more than 50 or 60 civilians I think there is need for an open, not only an open inquiry, but also for the CIA to share the information it has on who it believes it’s killed in places like Pakistan. President Obama’s speech the other week did seem to promise more openness but unfortunately we’re not seeing signs of that just yet,”Woods said. In his post-election address to parliament, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called for an end to US drone attacks in the country’s northern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. "This daily routine of drone attacks, this chapter shall now be closed," Sharif said to enthusiastic applause. "We do respect others' sovereignty. It is mandatory on others that they respect our sovereignty." “Most of the strikes in Pakistan these days are really not related to Al-Qaeda or those terrorist activities but really to the war across the border in Afghanistan. The drone war has changed quite significantly over the ten years or so it’s been running. We see the US talking about using drones in Syria for example; we have had calls from Iraq and Rwanda recently for the US to use drones there. So there’s a concern among some that the US wants now to use these drones as an easy plank in their view of foreign policy,”Woods explained. Pakistani protesters from the United Citizen Action torch a US flag as they shout slogans during a protest in Multan on May 30, 2013.(AFP Photo / S.S Mirza) Residents of Pakistan say they are living “in constant fear of another strike.” Amin Ullah was on his way to work at a mine near his village when a drone struck the area. He lost his leg in the attack, and three other miners were killed. "The Americans should be able to tell an ordinary person from a Taliban leader. They should know who they're killing. What did we do to deserve this?" Ullah told RT. “We are simple villagers who are stuck in a war that we didn’t ask for. It’s a hopeless feeling. Death is above our heads all the time,” he added. Another victim of the drone attack, Nek Bahadar, lost part of his hearing and nearly his foot: “The drone’s shockwave was so intense that it threw us outside far from the place where we were sleeping. After several minutes there was another strike and it killed many more people.” “Of course this has made me hate the Americans. We are angry and want revenge. They’ve destroyed our lives. My parents, my wife my children – we all see America our worst enemy now,” Bahadar said. Pakistani human rights lawyer Shahzad Mirza Akbar has sued both the US and Pakistan on behalf of civilian victims in Waziristan, a mountainous region in northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. “I simply call it a concentration camp, that you've built a wall of military and militants, and behind this wall you are keeping more than 800,000 people who are not allowed to come out and no one from the rest of the country is allowed to go in. And that is kind of laboratory that US is using to use test its drone program,” Akbar told RT’s Lucy Kafanov. Evidence of drone strikes is difficult to gather; fragments of the attacks were collected by a local journalist Noor Behram, who spent years documenting the civilian toll of drones, especially on children. “Whenever my 3-year-old daughter hears the plane she runs inside and won’t sleep that night. The children here have been traumatized by the drones. The sound of a door banging shut is enough to terrify them,” Behram said. There are fears that the US campaign to eliminate terrorists could end up creating more. “By carrying out drone strikes, killing innocent people who are not part of the conflict, you are just widening the conflict. You are giving the reason to people who were not part of the conflict here to become part of the conflict,” Akbar explained. Breakthrough advances in unmanned aircraft technology have also sparked concerns at the UN. The UN’s rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, is calling for a worldwide ban on "killer robots"that could attack targets autonomously, without a human having to pull the trigger. According to the report, the US, Japan, South Korea and Israel have developed various types of fully- or semi-autonomous weapons. “It’s important to say there’s no particular day we’ll be able to say, now we have fully autonomous robots. But there are already very high levels of autonomy available, and full autonomy may be available within a few years. It’s important to emphasize the distinction between drones and lethal autonomous robots (LARs). With drones you have a human in the loop with somebody sitting behind the computer and taking the decision to pull the trigger. With robots there’s no human being in the loop, it’s a computer that takes a decision,” Heyns explained. The FBI and the National Security Agency are tapping directly into servers at Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Skype and other major Internet companies to keep track of the communications and interactions of known and suspected foreign terrorists, the Washington Post reported late Thursday. The report is based on an allegedly top-secret document that the Post obtained containing information on a classified data collection program code-named PRISM that was launched about six years ago. The two agencies allegedly accessed audio, video, email, photographs, documents and connection logs purportedly to help counterterrorism analysts track the movements and interactions of foreign nationals thought to pose a threat to the U.S. However, even when the system works as it is supposed to, the NSA routinely gathers a lot of information on Internet users based in the U.S. as well, the story noted. According to the Post, the document it obtained described PRISM as an increasingly important source of raw material for NSA’s intelligence reports, including those prepared for the President’s Daily Brief. Data gathered through PRISM is used in one in seven NSA intelligence reports and PRISM data was cited in a total of 1,477 articles in the Daily Brief. According to the Post’s description of the project, PRISM allows analysts from FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit and the NSA’s Special Source Operations group to search for and inspect specific items of interest flowing through the data streams of each of the companies participating in PRISM. The Post published copies of several slides that it obtained that purport to describe PRISM. One of the slides lists Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Skype and five other Internet companies as “current providers” of PRISM data. According to the Post, another slide describes PRISM data being collected ‘directly from the servers’ of these companies. A spokesman from Google denied the company’s alleged participation in PRISM. “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data,” he said in an emailed statement. “We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data.’ In a statement on its website, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan also denied the company was handing over data to the government. “Protecting the privacy of our users and their data is a top priority for Facebook,” Sullivan said. “We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law,” Sullivan said. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company provides customer data to the government only when it receives a legally binding order or subpoena and “never on a voluntary basis.” –Computer World
Just 24 hours after Austria decided to withdraw its 380-strong contingent from the UN force policing the Golan separation zone, President Vladimir Putin stepped forward Friday, June 7, with an offer of a Russian force to take its place on the highly sensitive Syrian-Israeli border. Thursday, two peacekeepers were injured by falling ordnance from a battle between Syrian and rebel troops around Quneitra.
DEBKAfile: The Russian president saw his opportunity to pluck the fruits of Moscow’s success in backing the Syrian-Hizballah forces’ advances in major battles against rebels, notably at al Qusayr, and position Russian troops face to face with the Israeli army. They would constitute a barrier against any military intervention being mounted against the Assad regime from Israel. UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Hak said: "The UN would welcome Russia’s contribution to peacekeeping efforts in the region." Our military and intelligence sources doubt whether the Israeli government will be enthusiastic about Russian troops policing the Golan sector separating Israeli and Syrian forces. Jerusalem may be expected to seek advice from Washington in order to get the Russian contribution disqualified on the grounds that Moscow can hardly claim to be a neutral party when it is so heavily committed militarily to one side of the Syrian conflict. The Obama administration’s reaction to Putin’s move is hard to predict because a rejection could torpedo the fading prospects of the US-Russian-sponsored Geneva conference for a political solution of the Syrian war - for which no date has yet been set. The Russian president appears to be aiming at having Russian troops posted on Syrian soil under the US flag when – and if - the conference ever gets off the ground. What Putin said was this: “In view of the complicated situation which is currently unfolding on the Golan Heights, we could replace the Austrian peacekeeping contingent, which is withdrawing from this region, on the disengagement line between Israeli troops and the Syrian army.” The Russian president made no mention of the presence of Syrian rebels on the Golan. Israel has four major concerns in this matter: 1. The presence of Russian troops on the Syrian side of the Golan would inhibit Israeli cross-border military action should it become necessary for its security. 2. It would upset the relations the IDF has developed with certain Syrian rebel units, manifested by their war wounded receiving treatment at the military field hospital set up especially at the Tel Hazaka post on the Golan and transferred in severe case to hospitals in Haifa and Safed. Last week, US military released data with pictures showing the movements of Israeli special forces in and out of Syria. 3. The possibility of Russian officers in blue helmets interfering with Israeli military movements on the Israeli side of the Golan as well cannot be ruled out. 4. Some of the Russian contingent may be assigned to gather intelligence on Israeli military movements in the north of the country. There is no way to stop them handing those secrets over to the Syrian and Hizballah. In the event, the UN thanked Moscow but explained that the Syrian-Israeli 1974 disengagement accord did not allow permament UN Security Council members with veto power to serve in UNDOF. - Debka The U.S. National Security Agency is collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon Communications customers, according to a secret court order obtained and published by the Guardian newspaper’s website. The order marked “Top Secret” and issued by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court directs Verizon’s Business Network Services Inc and Verizon Business Services units to hand over electronic data including all calling records on an “ongoing, daily basis” until the order expires on July 19, 2013. The order can be seen at: r.reuters.com/kap68t. Signed by Judge Roger Vinson at the request of the FBI, the order covers each phone number dialed by all customers and location and routing data, along with the duration and frequency of the calls, but not the contents of the communications. The disclosure comes as the Obama administration is already under fire on other privacy and First Amendment issues. In particular, it is being criticized for a search of Associated Press journalists’ calling records and the emails of a Fox television reporter in leak inquiries. Officials at the White House and the NSA declined immediate comment. Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden declined to comment. Verizon’s biggest rival, AT&T Inc, did not provide any immediate comment when asked if the government had made a similar request for its data. “That’s not the society we’ve built in the United States,” said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the NSA over surveillance inside the country. “It’s not the society we set forth in the Constitution, and it’s not the society we should have.” The order expressly compels Verizon to turn over both international calling records and strictly domestic records, and it forbids disclosure of the order’s existence. It refers to mobile and landline numbers, though not explicitly to Verizon’s consumer business. The order is the first concrete evidence that U.S. intelligence officials are continuing a broad campaign of domestic surveillance that began under President George W. Bush and caused great controversy when it was first exposed. In 2005, the New York Times reported that the NSA was wiretapping Americans without warrants on international calls. Los Angeles Times and USA Today later reported that the agency also had unchecked access to records on domestic calls. In addition, a former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, said that a room accessible only with NSA clearance in the carrier’s main San Francisco hub received perfect copies of all transmissions. Privacy lawsuits against the government are continuing, though cases filed against the phone carriers were dismissed after Congress passed a 2008 law immunizing the companies that complied with government requests. That law also allowed for broader information-seeking, though methods must be approved by the special court handling foreign intelligence matters. The new order cites legal language from the 2001 U.S. Patriot Act, passed soon after the September 11 attacks, that allows the FBI to seek an order to obtain “any tangible thing,” including business records, in pursuit of “foreign intelligence information.” Verizon is the second biggest U.S. telephone company behind AT&T in terms of revenue. The vast majority of Verizon’s overseas operations come from its acquisition of MCI Communications, which is also covered by the order although foreign-to-foreign calls are exempted from it. Opsahl said it was unlikely that Verizon would be the only subject of such an order and that the other major carriers probably had similar orders against them. It is unclear what the NSA and FBI do with the phone records they collect. If past practices have continued, though, Opsahl said, they are probably mined with sophisticated software in an attempt to figure out close connections between people the agencies consider to be terrorism suspects and their associates. –Reuters
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has deployed a naval unit to the Mediterranean Sea, it said on Thursday, a move President Vladimir Putin said was to defend Russian security but which comes as Moscow faces off with the West over Syria. In what is Russia's first permanent naval deployment in the Mediterranean since Soviet times, it has stationed 16 warships and three ship-based helicopters in the region, the chief of staff said. Putin said the deployment was not "saber-rattling" and not meant as a threat to any nation. Russia cooperates with NATO navies against piracy and its ships call at Western ports. But its support for President Bashar al-Assad as he fights rebels have put Moscow at odds with the West. "This is a strategically important region and we have tasks to carry out there to provide for the national security of the Russian Federation," Putin said. Large-scale naval exercises Russia held in March and ship movements near Syria have been seen in the West as muscle-flexing by Moscow, which has sold weapons to Assad's government and shielded it from any action by the U.N. Security Council. Russia also has a naval maintenance and supply facility in Syria. The announcement comes days after Moscow said it planned to resume patrols by nuclear-armed submarines in the southern seas as part of a Putin's broader effort to revive Russia's military might. Putin has stressed the importance of a strong military since returning to the presidency last May. In 13 years in power, he has often cited external threats when talking of the need for agile armed forces and Russian political unity. - Reuters
They said it couldn't happen. It was all supposed to be locked up tight and under control. Yet, despite all the assurances to the contrary, unapproved genetically modified wheat has been found in an Oregon wheat field, and the implications of its discovery are far-reaching and potentially devastating.Monsanto (NYSE: MON ) may have just single-handedly wrecked the wheat industry and the economy. Corn, soy beans, alfalfa, sugar beets. All these crops have been genetically modified by Monsanto and its GM brethren to the point where there are virtually no alternatives for farmers. GM corn accounts for 86% of the country's supply. More than 90% of the soy beans have been altered. Sugar beets are half the country's sugar supply, and 95% of those seeds are from Monsanto. All told, Monsanto, DuPont (NYSE: DD ) , and Syngenta (NYSE: SYT ) control 53% of the world's seed production, yet their control of our food supply is almost all-encompassing, because they cross-license their technology between themselves and with other companies. Monsanto recently agreed to share its technology with Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW ) and Bayer (and vice versa), while DuPont and Bayer similarly expanded their collaboration. Syngenta is cross-pollinating Dow's AgroSciences division with its GM technology. Yet, the one crop that has been saved from being altered up until now has been wheat. Not that Monsanto hasn't tried, as it experimented with modifying its DNA to make it resistant to its Roundup herbicide. Fields in 16 states including Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, and Oregon were used to test Roundup Ready wheat seed. But because the rest of the world has banned GM wheat from their bread boxes, Monsanto backed off, and suspended the program in 2005. The wheat strain discovered last month was in a field that was supposed to remain fallow. Instead, it sprouted, and was found to contain the Roundup Ready gene, even though the Agriculture Dept. supposedly destroyed all the seed that was tested except for a small amount it kept to run additional tests. Now we learn that some managed to escape. The U.S. is, by far, the world's largest exporter of wheat, shipping almost 28 million metric tons around the world, or about half of all the wheat this country produces each year. That's just as much as all of Europe and Canada combined! Countries like Japan and South Korea are huge importers of U.S. wheat, but it's done on one condition: the wheat can't be genetically modified. In the wake of the discovery of this supposed rogue GMO strain, Japan began canceling wheat imports, and so did South Korea. Both Taiwan and Europe are stepping up their monitoring of imports with an eye toward suspending them if genetically modified wheat is found. With 90% of the wheat from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho earmarked for export, the emergence of a GMO strain could cripple the market for it and, thus, the economy. While officials immediately proclaimed it an isolated incident, how do they know that? They can't even say how it got into the field in the first place, but we're supposed to believe it's not widespread. While Monsanto speculates it could be "sabotage," with the toothpaste out of the tube, it's easy to devise an equally sinister explanation, one that actually benefits Monsanto. Sure, foreign countries would initially reject U.S. exports of GM wheat; but where would they turn to make up half of the world's supply? And when it becomes a choice of feeding their people or starvation, it may ultimately lead to acceptance of genetically modified wheat. And once that happens, Monsanto controls the world's wheat supply. Tinfoil hat brigade stuff to be sure, but no more outlandish than Monsanto's supposition. Despite assurances that GM foods are safe to eat, this latest incident underscores why it's so important that such foods are labeled that they've been altered at the molecular level. Individuals should have a choice as to whether they ingest GM foods or not, but Congress has seen fit to protect Monsanto at every turn by keeping consumers in the dark. When it comes to the nation's bread basket, this country's wheat supply and its economy need to be saved from Monsanto. There are multinational companies that seek world domination through less controversial means, and profiting from our increasingly global economy can be as easy as investing in your own backyard. The Motley Fool's free report, "3 American Companies Set to Dominate the World," shows you how. Click here to get your free copy before it's gone. - Motley's Fool
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