Category: News

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China Investment Corp (CIC), a near-$300 billion sovereign wealth fund, plans to invest $700 million in Hopu-backed Iron Mining International Ltd, a source told Reuters on Thursday.

The investment would be the Chinese fund’s second involvement this week in a Mongolian mining deal as it shifts its investment strategy to natural resources from financial institutions.

CIC’s [CIC.UL] investment in Iron Mining follows a $500 million deal with SouthGobi Energy Resources (SGQ.V) earlier this week.

The fund’s investments in Mongolian mining companies come after a recent change in Mongolian mining laws that have paved the way for foreign investment. Iron Mining International, part-owned by private equity firm Hopu and Singapore state investor Temasek [TEM.UL], plans to list shares in Hong Kong late this year or early next year, hoping to raise up to $1 billion.

CIC’s deal with Iron Mining International involves a $500 million convertible loan, with an option to increase the loan to $700 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

CIC has asked Iron Mining, which owns and operates a Mongolian iron ore mine, to add partly-owned China International Capital Corp as an underwriter for the IPO, along with Credit Suisse, which was an early investor, the Journal reported.

Hopu, a China-focused private equity firm run by Fang Fenglei, chairman of Goldman Sachs’ (GS.N) securities joint venture in China, jointly invested $300 million with Temasek in International Mining, previously known as Lung Ming Investment Holdings Ltd.

Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) invested $120 million in the company at the time and private equity firm Clarity invested $20 million, according to the source, who was not authorised to speak publicly about the deal.

China’s robust economic growth and commercial property boom has made it the world’s largest iron ore buyer, consuming more than half its traded ore.

CIC, with more than $290 billion under management, has put more money into commodities, real estate and infrastructure to hedge against the risks of medium- and long-term inflation and a fall in major currencies.

Chairman Lou Jiwei said on Wednesday that CIC has invested about half its $110 billion in available funds, mainly in publicly traded assets, and has enjoyed “not bad” returns so far this year.

By Michael Flaherty and Farah Master
(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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The Android 2.0 news keeps on a comin’! According to HTC via Twitter, the Hero will be blessed with an Eclair software update although an exact release date has yet to be determined. All signs indicate HTC will forgo the 1.6 update and focus on getting the Sense UI tweaked for 2.0 and kicking on the Hero. First the DROID, now the Hero…what handset will be next to grab a little Eclair?

“The rumors are true! Hero will be getting an Eclair update. We ask for your patience as we update Sense for the fancy new Android OS.”

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Today’s headlines are all about the unveiling of the House health bill — expected later this morning.  

Finance Bill’s Fine Print May Cause Sticker Shock For Some Consumers
Proponents of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill say the legislation will limit the amount that lower- and middle-income people must pay for health insurance to a maximum of 12 percent of their incomes. But there’s a catch: The fine print shows that, over time, the premium costs could rise well beyond those caps. That’s because the cost of coverage would shift from a percentage of income to a percentage of the premium, no matter how high the premiums go (Kaiser Health News).

House Health-Care Reform Bill To Include Public Option
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will unveil a health-care reform bill on Thursday that includes a government insurance option and a historic expansion of Medicaid, although sticking points in the legislation involving abortion and immigration remain unresolved (The Washington Post).

House Health Compromise Has ‘Public Option’ With A Catch
Paving the way for a crucial vote on healthcare legislation in the next two weeks, House Democratic leaders plan to unveil a compromise bill today that would create a nationwide government-run insurance plan but omit what many liberals consider the key to cost control (Los Angeles Times).

Pelosi Hopes New Plan Is Poised To Pass
After months of contentious negotiating, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepared to unveil a retooled health care overhaul plan intended to bridge differences among Democrats and open a history-making floor debate on extending health insurance to nearly all Americans (The Associated Press/The Washington Post).

Pelosi Backs Off Having Set Rates For Public Option
Under pressure from moderate-to-conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to propose a government-run insurance plan that would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, rather than using prices set by the government, aides said Wednesday (The New York Times).

Pelosi Chooses Healthcare Bill With Public Option Favored By Centrists
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to unveil a health overhaul bill Thursday that includes the public health insurance option favored by her party’s centrists (The Hill).

House Health Debate Hits Crunch Time
During a recent closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting, the speaker interrupted Rep. Earl Pomeroy, one of three Democrats to vote against the bill on the Ways and Means Committee, as he stood to lodge a complaint about a potentially costly long-term care provision in the Senate package (Politico).

Most Liberals Can Live With Compromises
Speaker Nancy Pelosi will unveil a bill Thursday that falls short of the liberal vision of a public option — and the liberals, so far and somewhat surprisingly, are going along with that (Politico).

Reid’s Math: Liberal Fans Exceed Public-Plan Foes
Some of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s colleagues were surprised by his decision this week to include a government-run health-care plan in the Democrats’ bill. But the mathematics of the Senate suggest the motives for the Nevada Democrat’s gamble: While a handful of Democratic moderates don’t like the so-called public option, the liberals who support it easily outnumber them — and at least some of them warned Mr. Reid they would oppose a bill that didn’t include the option (The Wall Street Journal).

GOP Tells Businesses To Speak Up
Senate Republicans have grown frustrated with large and small business trade associations for not helping enough to oppose the Democratic healthcare overhaul (The Hill).

In China, Too, A Health-Care System In Disarray
Shen Baohou, 72, who once worked for a hydropower station in Sichuan province, has a serious heart problem, and he — and his children — are paying for it dearly (The Washington Post).

Shortage Of Vaccine Poses Political Test For Obama
The moment a novel strain of swine flu emerged in Mexico last spring, President Obama instructed his top advisers that his administration would not be caught flat-footed in the event of a deadly pandemic. Now, despite months of planning and preparation, a vaccine shortage is threatening to undermine public confidence in government, creating a very public test of Mr. Obama’s competence (The New York Times).

Sign up to receive this list of First Edition headlines via email. Check out all of Kaiser Health News’ email options including First Edition and Breaking News alerts on our Subscriptions page. 

Here is the original story I posted on AlArabiya.net about Emirates Airlines that I was forced to take down. Now that I am safely out of the country I wanted people to see what the story was all about. I removed the name of the first reporter upon her request since she still works at Al Arabiya and lives in Dubai.

Now, you’ll notice that we specifically did not point out the major conflict of interest in the last section and I didn’t use any of the quotes pointing out that because Maktoum is the head of the Aviation Authority that his airline therefore has carte blanche to do whatever it wants. I knew this would be crossing a “red line,” to highlight how incredibly ridiculous such a setup is. But the public should know if an airline is unsafe, if the authority charged with regulating airlines is unable to do so fairly and impartially. So, here you go, here’s the story that I was “made redundant” over. What do you think?

Pilots say airline puts commercial considerations before safety
Emirates airlines under fire for neglecting safety
DUBAI (Courtney C. Radsch)

Emirates Airlines came under fire Sunday after pilots complained it put commercial considerations ahead of safety and said that was the reason behind a near-fatal crash in Melbourne earlier this year, a charge the airline “strongly refuted.”

The unnamed pilots said they warned authorities three months before the incident about the problem of pilot fatigue and concern of inadequate crew rest facilities, Australia’s Sunday Herald Sun reported, citing documents obtained under United States Freedom of Information laws.

” Crews cannot get proper in-flight rest and suffer from fatigue and micro-sleep during the approach and landing phases on the Airbus A380 and on the A340-300 “ Australian paper quotes a pilot The pilots were also concerned about scheduling, working hours and their belief management was putting commercial considerations ahead of safety, the paper said. “Crews cannot get proper in-flight rest and suffer from fatigue and micro-sleep during the approach and landing phases on the Airbus A380 and on the A340-300,” the paper quoted the official complaint as saying. “There has been continuous pressure from the commercial department … flight safety is becoming increasingly impaired,” the complaint added. Emirates was hit hard by the financial crisis and recorded a loss of nearly a billion dollars last year. The airline ranks amongst the top ten in the world and has won several awards, including the largest airline in the Middle East.

Near-fatal crash ” The crew of EK 407 (Melbourne-Dubai, 20 March) were allocated a 24-hour layover in Melbourne – a sufficient time period to use the rest facilities provided “ Richard Vaughan Emirates airlines “strongly refuted” the report and questioned why none of the data it provided about the incident was reported in the article, which the airline blasted as “one-sided” and “based on statements from anonymous persons.” “The crew of EK 407 (Melbourne-Dubai, 20 March) were allocated a 24-hour layover in Melbourne – a sufficient time period to use the rest facilities provided,” Richard Vaughan, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President and Commercial Operations Worldwide, said in a statement released to Al Arabiya. “When it released its preliminary report on the event, the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau indicated it had not found any evidence to suggest fatigue was a causal factor,” Vaughan said, adding “Emirates reiterates its absolute commitment to safety.”

” Of course it’s a problem with safety “ Emirates Airline employee The incident in question happened in March when an Emirates jet narrowly escaped a fatal crash at Melbourne Airport after the captain, who had reportedly only slept for three-and-a-half hours over the past 24 hours, entered the wrong take-off weight into the plane’s computer. None of the crew or staff noticed the error and the plane, which was programmed to take off with 100 tons less than the actual weight on board, dragged its tail along the runway and almost failed to get airborne with 275 people on board. Upon returning to Dubai both pilots were handed letters of resignation and the airline said it had implemented new safety measures to stop something like that from happening again.

Pilots, crew fatigued ” The sad thing is that in the event of the worst happening it will be the fatigued pilots who will be in the dock, dead or alive, and not the people in management who dreamt up, approved and enforced the misguided policy “ Pilot According to the Australian paper, several complaints were lodged with the American regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), three months before EK407 nearly crashed into a suburb. The FAA documents show that pilots complained to an Emirates’ senior vice president, Captain Ed Davidson, about fatigue. “I am very concerned that the commercial versus safety balance in this airline is tipping in the wrong direction,” a pilot was quoted as saying in the FAA document. “The sad thing is that in the event of the worst happening it will be the fatigued pilots who will be in the dock, dead or alive, and not the people in management who dreamt up, approved and enforced the misguided policy,” the pilot said. An Emirates Airline employee who requested anonymity because of concerns over job security told Al Arabiya that fatigue is problem with pilots and cabin crew, and that flight shifts are scheduled too close together. “We should take longer rests between such sectors, especially to Australia and New York and long shifts,” the employee told Al Arabiya, noting that crews often fly 14 continuous hours, such as on the Dubai-Sydney route, and the continue on another few hours to New Zealand. The employee added that the cabin crew also suffered from fatigue and are having more trouble than the flight decks. “Of course it’s a problem with safety,” the employee said.

Investigating No safety regulator, including Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), is authorized to investigate the complaints as international rules prevent broad-ranging audits of foreign airlines. But a spokesman for CASA, Peter Gibson, told the paper Australia’s aviation authority had no concerns over Emirates safety and was satisfied with the airline’s response to pilot fatigue. The only organizations authorized to investigate the claims against the Dubai-based airline is the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA). The chairman of the government-owned airline, Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, is also president of the CAA and on the board of the GCAA.

Earlier this year, the RIAA dumped its longterm anti-piracy partner MediaSentry and hired DtecNet instead. MediaSentry had lots of problems in terms of credibility, but it appears that DtecNet may be even worse. It recently came out with a report claiming that file sharing decreased massively after The Pirate Bay went down temporarily. Not surprisingly, this report is getting some press attention. The problem? The report appears to be based on a nearly comical misunderstanding of how BitTorrent works. TorrentFreak details numerous basic mistakes in the report, nearly all of which suggest the claims made by DtecNet have little, if anything, to do with reality. Considering that DtecNet is going to be leading the charge for the RIAA in any future lawsuits and various “three strikes” plans, the fact that it doesn’t seem to understand how BitTorrent works suggests problems ahead.

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Continuing the theme of financial types talking to each other about predictions and predictability, this ‘Tea with the Economist’ interview of Stephen Roach, Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia by Economist New York Bureau Chief Mathew Birk, carries interesting lessons about the limits of prediction.

Birk commends Roach for being one of the few to have predicted the Credit Crunch problems, to which Roach demurs in saying he was “too early”. He then furthers his modesty in saying that the “breakage” in the financial system was “in excess of anything I envisioned.”

Self-deprecation in assessing one’s predictive abilities will endear anyone to me. Even Roach, who later in the interview burns this hard-won credibility by laying the blame for the credit crunch at the door of regulators, forgetting how hard financial institutions lobbied regulators for greater freedoms in the 1990s.

But I digress. The predictive issues the interview raises are as follows. Issue one: it’s not enough (as any stock short-seller will confirm) to get the direction of a future change right. One must get the timing right too. Issue two: it’s not enough to anticipate a change. One must be able to judge it’s impact. Getting either timing or impact wrong is effectively to have missed the future.

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Probability

On the latter topic — the problem of impact — Nassim Taleb is unrelenting, and he is right. Analysts routinely mix up probability and impact. They think that because an event has a low probability (‘it would be a 10-sigma event!’) it can be marginalized in the predictive number crunching. Of course, it can’t. The low-probability of a wildcard or black swan event is irrelevant because when it happens it will change the game, and that’s why, in every predictive situation of reasonable complexity and uncertainty, using statistical extrapolations (regressions and so on) to predict, is to dangerously paper over the cracks. It is precisely the cracks that businesses and policy makers need to worry about.

Determining the direction of change is hard enough. Assessing timing or extent of impact — a ‘total future impact index’ — is wickedly difficult. It’s a task not to be underestimated, and to simply extrapolate current trends (= assuming the trend’s timeline and impact stay the same as in the past) is the royal road to underestimating it.

This is the reason foresight for complex, uncertain, changing situations can only be grasped by NOT predicting (quantitatively or otherwise) but by exploring the limit-conditions of the plausible (What would happen if the timing of the change accelerated, or was significantly delayed? What if  the impact was 10x or one tenth of what we expect? And so on.)

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So the rumors about Nintendo releasing a new DSi with a bigger screen (we reported Monday and Tuesday) were true. Big N officially announced a new DSi in Tokyo today, the so-called DSi LL [JP]. It has a 4.2-inch screen, will be released on November 21 in Japan and is priced at $220. Buyers will initially be able to choose between brown, red and white versions.

You’ll get two pens with the handheld. One is thicker and 129.33mm long, the thinner model is 96mm long. There’ll also be three DSiWare games pre-installed (two brain-training games and a dictionary).

The DSi that’s currently on the market has a 3.25-inch screen (the DS Lite only had a 3-inch screen). Nintendo says the DSi LL is especially designed for a better Internet surfing experience. It’s 21.2mm thin, but it’s thicker than the current DSi (18.9mm) and way heavier (314g vs. 214g).

Nintendo Japan’s web site is in Japanese (obviously), but this page visualizes the difference in screen size between the “old” DSi and the LL (just hover your mouse across the screen).

Nintendo has yet to announce international sales plans.

Update:

Kotaku reports Europe gets the new DSi model in the first quarter of 2010. It’s going to be called DSi XL there. No word on a US release yet.

Update 2 (more pictures):

The Prime Minister hosted a reception at Downing Street last night in honour of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) Forces Help charity.

• Visit the SSAFA website
• Read the PM’s speech

During a speech at the reception Gordon Brown said that SSAFA could be more relevant today than it has been at any time in its 125 year history.

Mr Brown and his wife Sarah thanked SSAFA trustees and volunteers from around the UK for the help and support they provide for people who serve in the Armed Forces, or used to serve in the Armed forces, and their families.

The PM said:

“I know also the great work it’s doing in supporting mothers and their children in times of stress and difficulty and I know the great advice that is given to people and the friendship that is part of that.”

The Prime Minister also highlighted how SSAFA helps people in every part of the community:

“What you do, how you help the veterans, how you help the families, how you help everybody who’s involved is something that, as I said at the beginning, you should be incredibly proud of.”

The SSAFA has been operating since 1885 and has supported the families of UK servicemen and women on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.

Via Michael Scott, we learn about how the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) tried to shut down a blog critical of the group using a trademark claim. While the AFT eventually backed down, after pretty much everyone made it clear that it had no chance to win a trademark claim against a site that was clearly criticizing it, Ron Coleman makes the point that trademark is the “tort of choice for censors.” I’d suggest that copyright isn’t far behind, but it’s really amazing how often trademark holders try to use trademark claims to censor any kind of speech they dislike about their mark. And even if the trademark claim has no chance of winning, it often doesn’t matter to those who simply can’t afford the time or the money to fight such claims.

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Square Enix just might be ready to reveal the North American release date for Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360, PS3) anytime in the near future now. A scr…

Having a map is essential for any new journey. But mapping the mind? What could this possibly be? The ones interested in taking full control over their thoughts and actions have surely found out about this revolutionary concept by now, because it is truly a concept that stands in the center of the latest brain structure and function discoveries. But let’s face the truth: the human brain has been slow to give up its secrets. Until recently the mechanisms that stand behind our thoughts, feelings and perceptions were impossible to examine directly, their true nature being possible to be observed only through their effects.

Luckily, at present, the latest imaging technique reveals the internal world of the mind in the same way X-rays reveal our bones. The information technology does not lose any time either, as the developers have already brought to light software applications that enable you to organize your learning habits and brainstorming sessions in accordance with the latest mind mapping concepts. FreeMind is an example of such an application. So, if you are passionate about this subject and you want to learn more about the FreeMind’s features and options, please read further.

The Looks

FreeMind has a user-friendly interface with a classical and rich-in-options menu. As expected, the File menu lets you open an exi… (read more)

Unboxing: The Verizon Droid by Motorola
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(NaturalNews) Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung isn’t winning any friends in the pharmaceutical industry these days. His breakthrough documentary “House of Numbers” features jaw-dropping interviews with doctors, researchers and even the co-discoverer of HIV himself (Luc Montagnier), all of whom reveal startling information calling into question the “official” explanation of HIV and AIDS.

An exclusive trailer from House of Numbers is now available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOlVF_7bRc

More information about the film is available at www.HouseOfNumbers.com

The film isn’t publicly available yet, as it’s been screened in film festivals around the world. Check the available screening events at the film’s website: www.HouseOfNumbers.com

Because of the game-changing statements heard from numerous health authorities in this film, it threatens the very foundations of the HIV / AIDS industry. Pharmaceutical companies are fronting a specific mythology about AIDS that maximizes their profits from AIDS drugs and (failed) vaccines, but that mythology is about to be dismantled when House of Numbers is released in theaters nationwide over the next few months.

This could be the documentary that shatters Big Pharma’s false paradigms about HIV and AIDS.

The AIDS testing hoax
In the film, Brent Leung subjects himself to an HIV test and discovers that a “diagnosis” of being HIV positive has more to do with the answers you provide to lifestyle questions than any specific microbe appearing in your blood. The diagnosis of AIDS — as well as the very definition — is also apparently so wishy-washy that increasing numbers of well-trained scientists are now questioning whether AIDS exists at all.

“The presently available data does not prove the existence of HIV,” says one health expert interviewed for the film. Another expert says, “The more diseases they could lump into these AIDS categories, the more patients they could catch.”

“I think HIV totally has turned out not to be the cause of AIDS. HIV has turned out not to be!” says another interviewee.

“We can be exposed to HIV many times without being … infected,” says Dr Luc Montagnier, the Nobel prize-winning virologist credited with the co-discovery of HIV. “Our immune system creates [antibodies] within a few weeks, if you have a good immune system.”

The documentary film exposes the sharp contradictions in current scientific opinion about HIV / AIDS. “As I started questioning scientists and delving further into testing protocols and statistical modeling and science, I began to see a lot of the contradictions that they had amongst themselves,” said filmmaker Brent Leung. “One of the things that became apparent to me is how important it is to question everything that we’re told and not automatically accept any fact as truth.”

One bizarre thing the film exposes is the ever-shifting definition of “AIDS.” In the United States, the official definition has been rewritten three times, and definitions vary widely around the world. AIDS isn’t simply the presence of the HIV virus; it’s a fictitious disease label that’s attached to a list of symptoms that continues to expand as the drug companies attempt to ensnare yet more victims into the AIDS label trap.

The experts sound off
House of Numbers is not a “fringe” film featuring dissenting opinions from conspiracy theorists. Rather, it is a lucid, intelligent collection of conversations with some of the world’s top virologists and Nobel prize-winning scientists, including former experts from the CDC, the WHO and UNAIDS. Many are speaking out against the conventional AIDS mythology for the first time on camera.

Those interviewed for the film include Dr. Robert Gallo, Dr. Luc Montagnier, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, Dr. Joe Sonnabend, Dr. Kary Mullis, James Curran, Dr. Peter Piot, Dr. James Chin, Dr. Peter Duesberg and many others.

The film has already received “Best Documentary” and other awards from the many film festivals where it has been featured. Momentum is building for the film, and mainstream distribution looks like a healthy possibility for 2010.

“My main hope is that it educates people about the fact that this isn’t a clear cut issue,” says Leung. “I also hope it empowers people – that it causes them to question not just HIV and AIDS, but all facets of issues which impact our lives. I think we should further explore what we don’t know, and to welcome further discussion, because that will help us to know more and become more informed.”

Learn more at www.HouseOfNumbers.com

My take on the film
I’ve served as the editor of NaturalNews for six years, and in that time, I’ve watched the pharmaceutical industry engage in rampant disease mongering in order to push their high-profit pills. They’ve done it with psychiatric disorders, high cholesterol and many other conditions. I’ve also watched how the cancer industry is based entirely on lies about some search for a “cure” even while most of the industry continues to push mammograms that actually cause cancer.

The AIDS industry has a lot in common with the cancer industry, in fact. They’re both based on scientific quackery. They both demand the dogmatic worship of a particular set of completely non-scientific “truths” that cannot be challenged, and they both focus on generating pharmaceutical profits at the expense of human health.

Also, both industries depend entirely upon the continuation of the disease they claim to treat. Where would Big Pharma be without cancer, AIDS and vaccines? Profits would fall sharply. So diagnosing as many people as possible with AIDS (and cancer) is an important strategy for boosting Big Pharma’s annual revenues.

After reading books on AIDS by Dr. Gary Null and others, I’m convinced that the official mythology about AIDS is a cruel hoax perpetrated by the drug companies. That doesn’t mean there aren’t people suffering from very real immune suppression disorders, but I believe it is far too simplistic to explain the root causes as being solely due to HIV. The entire HIV explanation is just a clever way to shift control over AIDS patients into the hands of drug companies where highly toxic chemicals are sold at ridiculous profits to people who are rarely helped by them.

The collection of immune suppression symptoms typically labeled “AIDS” could be far more effectively treated with naturopathic health strategies, including aggressive detoxification strategies, the removal of heavy metals, the avoidance of environmental synthetic chemicals (in foods, drugs, personal care products, homes and offices) and the addition of powerful immune-boosting herbs, foods and superfoods.

Essentially, AIDS can be cured in much the same way cancer can be cured: By radically altering food intake and lifestyle decisions to support a vibrant, healthy immune system.

Remember what Dr Luc Montagnier said in the film: “We can be exposed to HIV many times without being … infected. Our immune system creates [antibodies] within a few weeks, if you have a good immune system.”

In other words, AIDS exposure is not a death sentence (as Big Pharma would have you believe). It’s like many other viruses: A weakened, suppressed immune system gives it the opportunity to wreak havoc throughout your body, but a strong immune system allows you to overcome AIDS and build up your own immunity in a few weeks.

Essentially, being labeled “HIV-positive” is a tactic being used around the world to scare people into buying more high-profit AIDS drugs. But HIV-positive isn’t a death sentence, either. With the right immune-supporting solutions in place, even people who carry the HIV virus can live out a full life without any symptoms of AIDS.

What’s fantastic about House of Numbers is that it has the courage to challenge the status quo with much-needed critical thinking about HIV and AIDS. As such, House of Numbers is a daring yet brilliant foray into the realms of contradictory medicine where myth trumps science… and profits win out against human compassion. For such a powerful film to have been created by such a young filmmaker is remarkable in itself; and for any film to so courageously challenge the broken mythology of the AIDS industry is an accomplishment for which any filmmaker — at any age — should be widely recognized.

House of Numbers will rock the AIDS establishment and cause a whole new generation of thinkers to start critically questioning HIV / AIDS mythology (and the for-profit corporations that push it).

The AIDS myth – what the experts say
To provide more information on this topic, we’ve pulled together a collection of statements about HIV and AIDS from our library of top health books. We’re including a few quotes here, and you can read the full collection (7 pages of quotes) at: http://www.naturalnews.com/027354_AIDS_HIV_immune_system.html

The renaming of old diseases as AIDS further supports the hypothesis that the AIDS syndrome is never found in anyone without presence of HIV. By definition, there is no AIDS without HIV, regardless how many non-HIV people may die from the very same symptoms. Accordingly, anything that even remotely resembles immune deficiency plus HIV now counts as an AIDS disease, despite the fact that AIDS patients with Kaposi’s sarcoma have been reported to have normal immune systems. It has been argued that wherever there is HIV, AIDS will be the consequence. However, this argument is heavily flawed.
– Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You by Andreas Moritz

He sees AIDS as a sort of catch-all term that “spuriously links 29 (at last count) old and extremely heterogeneous AIDS indicator diseases together with a presumption of HIV infection.” Those who believe in AIDS as a new syndrome, he says, would have a case if, indeed, it were “a serious disease of acquired immune deficiency without preexisting or induced immune deficiency.” The problem is that “in all verifiable cases, demonstrable immune-suppressive disease and/or treatment have always preceded” the onset of AIDS.
– AIDS: A Second Opinion by Gary Null, James Feast

In fact, he showed that HIV alone could not cause AIDS. Increasing evidence indicates that AIDS may be a toxicity syndrome or metabolic disorder that is caused by immunity risk factors, including heroin, sex-enhancement drugs, antibiotics, commonly prescribed AIDS drugs, rectal intercourse, starvation, malnutrition, and dehydration. Dozens of prominent scientists working at the forefront of AIDS research now openly question the virus hypothesis of AIDS.
– Cancer Is Not A Disease – It’s A Survival Mechanism by Andreas Moritz

Another report also noted low serum zinc levels in those with AIDS but not other stages of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection. A child with AIDS was found to have all the signs and symptoms of a zinc-deficiency disorder. It is still unclear why these AIDS patients have low serum zinc levels. What is clear is that this aspect of the AIDS problem should be vigorously pursued. These exciting findings justify further clinical trials to determine the effects of supplementary zinc on the immune system and in the treatment of immune disorders such as AIDS.
– The Doctor’s Vitamin and Mineral Encyclopedia by Sheldon Saul Hendler

Read the rest of these quotes about the AIDS mythology at: http://www.naturalnews.com/027354_AIDS_HIV_immune_system.html

Watch the trailer for House of Numbers here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOlVF_7bRc

Here’s another fascinating trailer from the movie, which I call the “There’s no profit in nutrition” trailer:

(NaturalNews) Conventional medicine’s explanations of HIV and AIDS are a medical myth at best; and outright quackery at worst. There is no such thing as a virus that “causes” AIDS, since the very definition of AIDS is widely disputed by scientists around the world. (And patients are often diagnosed with AIDS who have no HIV whatsoever.)

In conjunction with the release of the myth-busting documentary House of Numbers (www.HouseOfNumbers.com), NaturalNews has pulled together a collection of fascinating quotes from top health authors and researchers who challenge conventional thinking about HIV and AIDS. If you’ve been suckered into Big Pharma’s lies about HIV and AIDS, you will find the information here absolutely shocking. What’s said here calls into question the entire basis of the “AIDS industry” with all their (failed) vaccines and patented prescription drugs.

It seems that the AIDS hoax is about to be publicly exposed. As the House of Numbers documentary explains, “a world without AIDS may be closer than you think.”

In fact, it may exist already.

This doesn’t mean that people aren’t suffering from very real immune suppression disorders; it just means the conventional mythology that attempts to explain the causes of this immune suppression is factually wrong. Read more below to learn the details…

The AIDS myth exposed
The renaming of old diseases as AIDS further supports the hypothesis that the AIDS syndrome is never found in anyone without presence of HIV. By definition, there is no AIDS without HIV, regardless how many non-HIV people may die from the very same symptoms. Accordingly, anything that even remotely resembles immune deficiency plus HIV now counts as an AIDS disease, despite the fact that AIDS patients with Kaposi’s sarcoma have been reported to have normal immune systems. It has been argued that wherever there is HIV, AIDS will be the consequence. However, this argument is heavily flawed.
– Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You by Andreas Moritz

Two of the 16 patients in the control group developed AIDS. In another study, 10 HIV positive patients without AIDS took 150-225 mg glycyrrhizin daily. After 1-2 years, none developed symptoms associated with AIDS or AIDS-related complex (ARC), while one of 10 patients of a matched control group developed ARC and two progressed to AIDS and subsequently died. The result of glycyrrhizin in HIV-positive and AIDS patients is almost immediate improvement in immune function. In one study, nine symptom-free HIV-positive patients received 200-800 mg glycyrrhizin in vitro daily. After 8 weeks.
– Textbook of Natural Medicine 2nd Edition Volume 1 by Michael T. Murray, ND

It was obvious that the FTC was not interested in whether Immune Plus helped in the treatment of AIDS; they were only interested in curtailing its marketing. The FTC alleged that Immune Plus was being advertised as a “cure” for AIDS. At no time did True Health or International White Cross claim to have a cure. Test results in the Immune Plus ad were taken directly from the nutritional AIDS test, and True Health sold the exact same formula that was used in their AIDS test to International White Cross.
– Innocent Casualties : The FDA’s War Against Humanity by Elaine Feuer

He sees AIDS as a sort of catch-all term that “spuriously links 29 (at last count) old and extremely heterogeneous AIDS indicator diseases together with a presumption of HIV infection.” Those who believe in AIDS as a new syndrome, he says, would have a case if, indeed, it were “a serious disease of acquired immune deficiency without preexisting or induced immune deficiency.” The problem is that “in all verifiable cases, demonstrable immune-suppressive disease and/or treatment have always preceded” the onset of AIDS.
– AIDS: A Second Opinion by Gary Null, James Feast

In fact, he showed that HIV alone could not cause AIDS. Increasing evidence indicates that AIDS may be a toxicity syndrome or metabolic disorder that is caused by immunity risk factors, including heroin, sex-enhancement drugs, antibiotics, commonly prescribed AIDS drugs, rectal intercourse, starvation, malnutrition, and dehydration. Dozens of prominent scientists working at the forefront of AIDS research now openly question the virus hypothesis of AIDS.
– Cancer Is Not A Disease – It’s A Survival Mechanism by Andreas Moritz

When this happens disease runs rampant, as we see with the immune destroyer known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. People don’t die from AIDS; they die from diseases that their shot immune systems can’t deal with. Ironically, vaccinations are supposed to boost the immune system when, in truth, they undermine it. All the crap they put into vaccines is another attack that the immune defence has to cope with and this reduces its ability to meet other challenges effectively by making the DNA/RNA misfire.
– Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion by David Icke, Icke David

In this study, the immune systems of mice were blocked by infecting them with a retrovirus that causes mouse AIDS and/or feeding them ethanol. They measured certain immune system functions, then gave them Pycnogenol and measured them again. Researchers found out that immune stimulators were increased, immune suppressors decreased, and natural killer cells were stronger. In other words, even when the immune system was barely working, Pycnogenol brought it back. Research in this direction may be very significant for those interested in the AIDS virus.
– The Super Anti-Oxidants: Why They Will Change the Face of Healthcare in the 21st Century by James F. Balch, M.D.

Another report also noted low serum zinc levels in those with AIDS but not other stages of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection. A child with AIDS was found to have all the signs and symptoms of a zinc-deficiency disorder. It is still unclear why these AIDS patients have low serum zinc levels. What is clear is that this aspect of the AIDS problem should be vigorously pursued. These exciting findings justify further clinical trials to determine the effects of supplementary zinc on the immune system and in the treatment of immune disorders such as AIDS.
– The Doctor’s Vitamin and Mineral Encyclopedia by Sheldon Saul Hendler

Formula for Chronic Viral Syndromes (HIV Infection, ARC, AIDS, Herpes, CMV, EBV) Note: By now, virtually everyone has heard of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). What many do not know is that AIDS does not have to be fatal. There are those with AIDS who have survived in relatively good health for several years now. An ever increasing number are surviving longer and longer. The secret is to pay attention to details. These include diet, exercise, stress reduction, use of supplements, immune enhancers, anti-viral agents and taking steps to prevent the diseases associated with AIDS.
– The Doctor’s Vitamin and Mineral Encyclopedia by Sheldon Saul Hendler

It is important to note that while all people with AIDS are HIV-positive, not all people with HIV develop AIDS. Most HIV-positive people develop AIDS within eight to twelve years after first contracting the virus, but some develop it much faster, and many others still remain healthy decades after contracting HIV It appears that people who are able to ward off full-blown AIDS are those whose immune systems are the strongest. Therefore, complementary therapies for HIV and AIDS work to bolster the ability of the immune system to fight infection.
– Prescription for Natural Cures: A Self-Care Guide for Treating Health Problems with Natural Remedies Including Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Bodywork, and More by James F. Balch, M.D. and Mark Stengler, N.D.

The AIDS hypothesis is more fundamental: the hypothesis that “AIDS” exists in any rationally definable way. “AIDS” was from the very beginning a phoney construct, the product of muddled thinking and hidden agendas. Under the obfuscatory rubric of “AIDS” lies the reality of people who are sick in diverse ways and for diverse reasons. The first cases were identified among gay men. (It was then called “GRID”, which stood for “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency”.) The CDC trumpeted forth the message that the gay men with “AIDS” had been incredibly promiscuous.
– The AIDS War: Propaganda, Profiteering and Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex by John Lauritsen

Duesberg also questions the proposition that the cause of AIDS is the retrovirus HIV. He has referred to the AIDS virus as a harmless “passenger” virus, just another virus among many living parasitically in the human body, and he claims that a positive HIV test is merely a viral marker (and not indicative of the cause) indicating immune system damage. In his opinion, based upon exhaustive research, AIDS is an immune deficiency disorder caused by overuse of recreational drugs and a lifestyle that burns the candle at both ends, including promiscuous sex. Eventually, the immune system collapses.
– Viral Immunity by J. E. Williams, O.M.D.

These statements may seem bold to the point of being outrageous to anyone who keeps up with the AIDS story by following it in the mass media. However, there is one thing that escalating predictions of the ravages of AIDS conveniently tend to leave out of their reports. That, in many cases, when a report of a sudden increase of AIDS patients is made, it is accompanied by a redefinition of what the disease is. Recall that people only die indirectly of AIDS. AIDS weakens the immune system and then they die of another disease, such as tuberculosis.
– Get Healthy Now with Gary Null: A Complete Guide to Prevention, Treatment and Healthy living by Gary Null

Abdullah says the discovery has implications for not only infections and cancer, but also for AIDS, in which immune functioning fails. Garlic, he says, might rev up immune defenses in AIDS patients; it also may directly combat the many fungal-type infections AIDS patients fall prey to. Dr. Abdullah is convinced lower doses of garlic boost immunity, too, but he deliberately used a big dose to make sure he got an effect. He is planning tests using garlic on AIDS patients.
– The Food Pharmacy: Dramatic New Evidence That Food Is Your Best Medicine by Jean Carper

To overpower AIDS, you might have to destroy the entire AIDS-infiltrated immune system; after all, antibiotics, in their attempt to destroy a single specific microbe, indiscriminately kill everything, including resident friendly bacteria. But if you destroy the immune system, you’ve killed the patient faster, even more efficiently than AIDS. If you go after the secondary, opportunistic infections (KS, CMV, Pneumocystis carinii) with strong antibiotics and chemother-apeutics, you may destroy a radically underachieving immune system and the patient as well.
– Physician: Medicine and the Unsuspected Battle for Human Freedom by Richard Leviton

Numerous studies have also demonstrated that people who suffer from immune-suppressed conditions, such as AIDS, are often deficient in selenium. Exactly how selenium boosts the immune system is unclear. Researchers speculate that the immune stimulation may be due to selenium’s antioxidant activity and its ability to protect important immune-related tissues in the lymph system and the thymus against free-radical damage. Like vitamin E, selenium may also play an important immune-related role by protecting the integrity of cell membranes, thus improving their overall function.
– Off-the-Shelf Natural Health by Mark Mayell

We might say AIDS in Africa is being overcounted at both ends. To calculate the number of infected people, a fallible AIDS test is used; while to calculate how many people are dying of the immune deficiency disease, a large number of deaths that seem to have been due to other causes are attributed to the illness. Remember this fundamental point: People do not die from AIDS but from associated diseases that take over once AIDS has weakened the immune system.
– AIDS: A Second Opinion by Gary Null, James Feast

The evidence clearly suggested that AIDS and other immune-related diseases manifested after the immune system had been compromised by a period of insults and debilitation, especially from daily diet. It also gave support to Michio’s larger perspective: that appropriate diet could do much to improve the strength of the body’s immune response. Since 1980, an explosion of information had occurred in scientific understanding of the immune system. Cottrell followed the developing medical literature closely; she also studied the existing research for links between nutrition and immune response.
– The Way of Hope: Michio Kushi’s Anti-Aids program by Tom Monte

A growing number of medical professionals are pointing toward the rebuilding of the immune power through nutrition and related natural therapies as the key to winning the battle against AIDS. In his book Healing AIDS Naturally, Laurence Badgley, M.D., recounts the stories of eight men who cured themselves of AIDS through a combination of natural therapies to rebuild immune power, focused heavily upon nutrition.
– Reclaim Your Health: Nutritional Strategies for Conquering Chronic Ailments by Anne Frahm, David Frahm

If HIV were the cause of AIDS, it would have to do this during the two phases of HIV infection where blood levels of HIV are significant: 1. Soon after infection when the immune system produces antibodies. 2. At the very end stage of AIDS when the levels of all viral activity increase because the immune system has collapsed (due other reasons than HIV infection). There is enough scientific data to show that HIV, being and remaining inactive even in AIDS patients, does not kill T-cells and, therefore, cannot cause AIDS!
– Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You by Andreas Moritz

Because of these and other discrepancies, there is much confusion and dissent about what AIDS really is and even if it is accurate to classify it as a disease entity. The common factor that all these disconnected symptoms and diseases revolve around is HIV. If HIV antibodies are detected, these diseases converge as AIDS; if not, then they are diagnosed simply for what they are. In other words, any degree of immune suppression in the presence of HIV is classified as AIDS. But the same degree of immune suppression in the absence of HIV is by definition not AIDS.
– Alternative Medicine the Definitive Guide, Second Edition by Larry Trivieri, Jr.

The early medical articles about AIDS cited 1970s articles that associated venereal disease and homosexuality. They came to see male homosexuality as a “medically problematic” situation (Epstein, 1988: 4). In the early 1980s, AIDS was understood by the medical community through two frames, both of which promoted a view of AIDS as a “gay disease.” The first frame, immune overload, saw AIDS as caused by immune deficiencies resulting from gay men’s perceived excessive lifestyle (especially anal sex, multiple partners, and drug use). This perspective had huge public health implications.
– The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders by Peter Conrad

At the international AIDS conference in Montreal, according to a Newsday article, “several researchers expressed bewilderment about how HTV virus causes the chain of events that results in AIDS.” Luc Montagnier, the discoverer of the so-called “AIDS ‘David Zinman and B.D. Colen, “New AIDS Study Shows 1.2M to 1.5M Victims”, Newsday, 6 June 1989. vims” (aka HIV-1) urged shifting the focus of research away from the virus to the human body’s defense mechanisms. “We need to understand much more basic things about the immune system before we can move forward any further”, he said.
– The AIDS War: Propaganda, Profiteering and Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex by John Lauritsen

And the mathematician Weyer demonstrated that AIDS epidemiology refutes the hypothesis that HIV is the sole cause of “AIDS”. Press coverage of the panel reflected the type of censorship that obtains whenever AIDS orthodoxy is threatened. Stories in the New York Times (22 June 1990) and the Washington Post (22 June 1990) discussed Montagnier’s talk at length, but didn’t even mention Lo or Weyer. Peter Duesberg spoke on “Dissociation of the Epidemiologies of HIV and AIDS” at the Advanced Immune Discoveries Symposium (about which more later) at Le Meridien Hotel.
– The AIDS War: Propaganda, Profiteering and Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex by John Lauritsen

(NaturalNews) Matthew Millington, 31, was an Iraq war veteran who served in the British army. Suffering from an unspecified “serious long condition”, doctors told him he would be dead in two years unless he underwent a lung transplant. With tens of thousands of people world-wide awaiting organ transplants, the young man was one of the “lucky” patients who soon received his lungs from a donor. The problem was he was given lungs riddled with a fast growing cancer — and Millington died less than 10 months after his operation.

This is just a horrible, rare, mistake right? Not necessarily, according to a warning just issued by the UK health service. It specifically lists other examples of diseased and damaged organs being inappropriatedly donated for transplantion — in addition to cancer, these include “fatty” organs, which can be caused by a donor’s obesity or alcoholism and result in cirrhosis in a transplant patient, and organs containing cuts and other damage resulting from the organ retrieval process. Most horrific was a report of a donor patient found to be infected with vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease, as well as hepatitis B. In addition, the report notes problems with patient identification errors and incorrectly matched tissue types.

The British report does not include any information about diseased transplanted organs in the U.S. or other countries. However, it does point out that the quality of transplant organs isn’t always the best, in large part because there is a huge, critical need for transplanted organs. And this organ shortage has hit the U.S., too. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, around 17,000 Americans have received organ transplants this year but another 104,335 are waiting for organs.

In the UK, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph, information has emerged revealing that donated organs are being accepted from drug addicts because of the critical organ shortage in that country. In fact, an investigative report in that publication found a reluctance by patients and transplant surgeons alike to reject any organs offered unless there are extremely compelling reasons.

A spokesman for Papworth Hospital, Huntingdon, where Matthew Millington received his deadly transplant, told The Telegraph: “Using lungs from donors who have smoked in the past is not unusual. During 2008/09 there were 146 lung transplants carried out in the UK. During the same period 84 people died on the waiting list. If we had a policy that said we did not use the lungs of those who had smoked, then the number of lung transplants carried out would have been significantly lower.”

Because of the critical shortage of organs for transplants and the fact more people are needing transplants every year, there is a push world-wide to encourage organ donation. Unfortunately, the same amount of resources and energy doesn’t seem to be directed into preventing the need for transplants in the first place. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists the major reasons for organ failure as being conditions that are almost always preventable or treatable with healthy diets, exercise and other natural measures: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and lifestyle choices ( including drug and alcohol abuse).

For more information:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6282248/Alert-over-donor-organs-riddled-with-cancer-mad-cow-disease-and-hepatitis.html
http://organdonor.gov/reduce_risk/index.htm
http://www.organdonor.gov/
http://www.ustransplant.org/national_stats.aspx

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Designed to work without a dedicated PC, the new Astak Mole was announced today. The Mole is a wireless webcam that can upload video directly to such sites as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. It can also record directly to an SD card in the camera.

I’m curious however, exactly who will be using this product, and for what. It can be controlled remotely (even pan and tilt) via a web interface, has 15 LEDs for night time recording, and a two way microphone so the person being filmed can have a conversation with the viewer. The internet feed to the camera comes via either an ethernet port, or an internal wifi card. Recording quality is pretty standard, with the high quality mode set at 640×480. The camera can also be set to a motion sensitivity mode, and capture movement as it happens, and record it for later.

The obvious usage is for home or small business security, this sounds like something that Biggs would be into given his quest for a home monitoring solution. The website suggests that it would also make a good baby monitor, which certainly sounds reasonable.

The Mole cam will ship early this November for $299.

[via Electronista]

Amazing car crash recorded on highway