Pension fund in China not for stock market bail-out: official

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-08-29

People walking past a pension fund management center in Fuzhou, Fujian
province, June 30. (File photo/CNS)

Allowing China's pension fund to invest in the stock market was not intended as a bail out, but to create long-term and stable returns, said the vice minister of human resources and social security on Friday.

The change will eventually have a positive effect on China's real economy and support a healthy capital market, but the core purpose is to gain long-term and stable yields for the fund, vice minister You Jun said at a press conference.

The fund's management must prioritize safety, and the timing of the fund's entry into the stock market will be decided by the market, You added.

The State Council finalized guidelines on Sunday allowing the pension fund to invest in new products, including the domestic stock market.

The guidelines allow the fund to invest in more than 20 financial products, including high-risk stocks and equities, as well as low-risk bank deposits and bonds, which diversify the investment risk, You said.

To minimize risks, the guideline restricts the maximum proportion of investment in stocks and equities to 30% of total net assets.

The fund will also participate in major projects and purchase shares in state-owned enterprises to gain long-term yields, he added.

Around 2 trillion yuan (US$330 billion) of the funds total assets can be invested, You said, adding that the amount will increase as the fund grows.

China's pension fund, which accounts for roughly 90% of the country's total social security fund pool, had net assets of 3.5 trillion yuan (US$547 billion) at the end of 2014.

The pension fund was previously parked in banks or invested in treasury bonds with low yields, provoking calls for change as China faces the challenge of caring for its growing elderly population.

The new policy came as China's stock markets continue to decline, beset by shrinking turnover and greater volatility. The key Shanghai index plunged more than 30% from its June peak, wiping out most of this year's gains.

"Market-oriented operation of the pension fund requires more market supervision by authorities," said You.

The National Council for Social Security Fund (SSF), a social security strategic reserve for China's future aging population, played an exemplary role in increasing the fund's investment returns. The SSF has had an average yearly return of 8.5% over the past 14 years as of 2014 and outpaces the consumer price index growth.

The SSF has a bigger investment scope than the pension fund and is allowed to invest in domestic and overseas stocks as well as fixed income assets.

In China, private urban employees pay for their pension before retirement and usually get a pension equal to about half of their final salary.

Related Article:

Dutch pension fund pulls out of Mylan over execution fears

Dutch pension fund pulls out of Mylan over execution fears

DutchNews, August 29, 2015

Dutch civil service pension fund APB has sold all its shares in pharmaceuticals company Mylan because of concerns that one of its products may be used in carrying out the death penalty in the US. 

According to news agency Reuters, European companies are banned from selling drugs for use in executions and the move by ABP is thought to have been followed by other Dutch pension funds. 

ABP spokesman Harmen Geers told Reuters the decision came after a nine-month dialogue with the company.

‘As the Dutch government and Dutch society as a whole renounced the death penalty a long time ago, we do not want Dutch pension money to be involved in that,’ he said.

The state prison in Virginia has confirmed it held stocks of a Mylan muscle relaxant  that can be used in executions. 

Mylan is a US company which moved its base to the Netherlands earlier this year to take advantage of tax breaks. According to news agency ANP, the Dutch government has already spoken to the company about its death penalty role.

Qatar Airways says it will stop sacking women who get pregnant

Women working with Qatar Airways will not be sacked anymore if they get pregnant or marry within the first five years of employment. The airline company relaxed its rules after pressure from international labor groups.

Deutsche Welle, 27 Aug 2015

A spokeswoman for the Doha-based airline said the company had phased out the restrictions "over the past six months."

The policies included air hostesses losing their jobs if they became pregnant or married within the first five years of employment.

"Our policies have evolved with the airline's growth," a Qatar Airways spokeswoman told news agency AFP. Under the new rules, female employees who were going to have babies would be offered temporary jobs. Staff could also get married after notifying the company.

More than 9,000 cabin crew operate Qatar Airways' planes around the world. Nearly 80 percent of these are women, who have to organize their lives around their company's strict laws.

One of these includes a rule according to which female employees can be picked up from work only by their father, brothers or husband. Qatar Airways is not easing this restriction for now.

Qatar Airways has a fleet of more than
150 jets, servicing almost 150 destinations

The airlines' discriminatory policies

The airline's discriminatory policies have met with severe criticism from employees and labor unions around the world. The International Labor 

Organization (ILO) looked into the organization's rules after a complaint by the International Transport Workers' Federation and the International Trade Union Confederation.

The ILO said Qatar was a signatory of the 57-year-old convention against discrimination at work, ratified by 170 countries and that its rules dismissing pregnant women breached the international agreement.

"Protective measures should include action taken to ensure that a woman worker does not lose her job during pregnancy and that maternity is not a source of discrimination," the ILO said in its statement in June this year.

However, the airways snubbed international pressure and its chief, Akbar Al Baker said at the time, "I don't give a damn about the ILO - I am there to run a successful airline." Al Baker also said the UN agency's attitude was "evidence of a vendetta they have against Qatar Airways and my country."

The Gulf kingdom has been repeatedly criticized for its treatment of workers, especially those working to build football stadiums and infrastructure ahead of the World Cup in 2022.

mg/kms (AFP, Reuters)

Monsanto drops Syngenta takeover bid

US agrochemicals giant Monsanto has dropped its unwelcome takeover bid for Swiss rival Syngenta. Antitrust concerns were among Syngenta's reasons for rejecting its American suitor, the company said.

Deutsche Welle, 26 Aug 2015

Monsanto farmer in the US

Monsanto, the giant US corporation that produces pesticides and genetically engineered pesticide-resistant seeds, announced Wednesday in New York that it would discontinue its attempt to take over its Swiss rival Syngenta.

"Without a basis for constructive engagement from Syngenta, Monsanto will continue to focus on its growth opportunities built on its existing core business to deliver the next wave of transformational solutions for agriculture," Monsanto said in a statement. It also said it would resume a share buyback program.

Syngenta confirmed it had rejected Monsanto's latest and last offer, which "significantly undervalued [Syngenta] and was fraught with execution risk."

Monsanto's most recent bid, proposed August 18, was worth about $46 billion (40 billion euros). Over the past weeks, Syngenta had repeatedly said it was worried a merger deal between the two giants would be blocked on antitrust grounds.

Share turmoil

Monsanto shared have droped 13 percent between August 18 and 25 amid global market turmoil. With nearly half Monsanto's takeover offer based on a share swap, the merger would have entailed significant exposure to market volatility.

Syngenta said in its statement Wednesday that "recent market volatility" had "highlighted the significant risk" to Syngenta's shareholders associated with the proposed merger.

After the two companies announced merger talks were over, Syngenta shares dropped 18 percent and Monsanto shares jumped by over 8 percent.

Location, location

Monsanto had envisioned shifting the merged company's headquarters from Monsanto's current home base of St Louis, in the midwestern US state of Missouri, to Britain.

The idea, according to Monsanto chief executive Hugh Grant in an April 18 letter to Syngenta executives, was that "our merger will create a new global enterprise focused on future growth across all geographies... The combination of our companies would redefine the future of agriculture."

Syngenta said Monsanto had failed to provide "sufficient clarity" on a number of concerns, including regulatory risk, the tax consequences of shifting the company's registered headquarters from the US to Britain, and the estimated financial benefits of the proposed merger.

"We engaged with Monsanto in good faith and highlighted those key issues which required more concrete information in order to continue a dialogue. We take note of Monsanto's decision," Syngenta chairman Michel Demare said, adding that "our Board is confident Syngenta's long-term prospects remain very attractive."

Mergers and emerging monopolies

Syngenta was itself formed in 2000 as a result of the merger of Swiss-based Novartis Agribusiness and UK-based Zeneca Agrochemicals, which were the agrochemical, seeds and biotech businesses of pharmaceuticals and agrochemical giants Novartis and Zeneca.

Mergers in the agrochemicals industry have led to a situation where only six companies dominate the bulk of global agrochemicals sales, including Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, BASF, Dow Agrosciences, Monsanto and DuPont.

nz/hg (Reuters, AFP)

Related Articles:

Scotland to ban genetically modified crops


"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“..  Health

Normal good health is turning to simple physics for some of the simplest things. New kinds of foods are being grown with new physics, not chemistry. These will be physic-foods [Kryon name] that are not genetically altered or chemically altered, but benevolently enhanced by physics! This causes a new kind of super growth that can feed the planet in a way it's never been fed before. It will create food that is resistant to absolutely everything - insects, bacteria and disease - all through physics. Who thought of that? What you're expecting in the future regarding health is based upon the past. The big filter of past knowledge keeps you from thinking out of the box. You don't know what you don't know.  ….”

First Dutch donor egg baby born

DutchNews, August 25, 2015

The first woman in the Netherlands to undergo egg donation locally has given birth to a healthy daughter, the Leiderdorp fertility clinic MCK said on Monday.

The clinic started allocating eggs last year and was the first in the country to offer the service to infertile women. A number of other woman are also pregnant, the clinic said, but did not give further details. 

The Amsterdam and Utrecht teaching hospitals are also now offering egg donation services. Previously, Dutch women who wanted a donor egg had to go abroad for treatment. 

According to news agency ANP, the treatment at the MCK costs €2,400 for four eggs.

Beijing smoking fines bring in RMB250,000 in first two months

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-08-24

No-smoking signs outside the Beijing National Stadium, June 1. (Photo/Xinhua)

Beijing health authorities collected 250,000 yuan (US$39,000) in fines in June and July as agencies and individuals continue to ignore the city-wide smoking ban.

Over two months, 102 enterprises and institutions, and 230 individuals were fined by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning, it said on Monday.

Of the 5,144 telephone complaints, 70% concerned smoking in offices, restaurants or entertainment venues.

Since June 1, smoking has been prohibited in all indoor public places, workplaces, and on public transportation.

Individuals caught smoking may be fined up to 200 yuan (US$33), while businesses face fines of up to 10,000 yuan (US$160).

There are about 4.19 million smokers in the capital, yet only 1,000 law enforcement personnel have been assigned to the campaign.

More than 10,000 volunteers have been recruited to support the core team. They have been tasked with discouraging smoking and explaining the hazards of tobacco, said Liu Zejun, head of the general office of the Beijing patriotic health campaign committee.

As the world's largest tobacco maker and consumer, there are more than 300 million smokers in China, almost the population of the US. Another 740 million people are exposed to second-hand smoke each year.

Jiangsu surgeon uses 3D printing to map child's heart surgery

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-08-20

A 3D printer on display at the 3rd China-South Asia Expo in Kunming,
Yunnan province, June 13. (File photo/CNS)

Doctors in east China's Jiangsu province recently used a 3D-printed heart to plan a surgery for a nine-month old baby with congenital heart disease.

The baby boy, from Anhui province, was found with five holes in his heart chambers after birth. The child underwent surgery at Nanjing Children's Hospital on July 3 and had three holes closed. The other two were left open due to difficulty locating them accurately using a b-scan.

Planning the second procedure, surgeon Sun Jian and his team created a 3D printed model of the child's heart in order to better locate the holes. The second operation was carried out on July 21 and went smoothly, Sun said.

Currently the child is in stable condition and recovering.

This is likely the first time 3D technology was used in curing a child's congenital heart disease in China, Sun said.

"The technology is a blessing for children with complicated heart deformities. The printed heart model can help doctors better understand the anatomical structure of the heart before operation," he said.

"With the development of 3D technology and material, the technology will be more widely used in medicine in the future," he said.

"However, there are still obstacles. Professionals of 3D technology are strangers to medicine while doctors usually know nothing about 3D technology. The two areas need to have more exchanges."

Related Articles:

3D printing helps separate conjoined twins in Shanghai

3D printers get Ugandan amputees back on their feet

Nearly complete human brain grown in US lab: scientist

Yahoo – AFP, August 19, 2015

This annotated image obtained August 19, 2015 courtesy of Ohio State 

University shows an organoid with labels pointing to the identifiable

structures (AFP Photo)

Washington (AFP) - An almost complete version of a tiny human brain has been grown in a US lab in a move that could bring major strides to the treatment of neurological diseases, a scientist says.

Rene Anand, a professor at Ohio State University, has grown in a dish a brain equal in maturity to that of a five-week-old fetus, his university reported.

"It not only looks like the developing brain, its diverse cell types express nearly all genes like a brain," Anand said.

Around the size of a pea, the brain in a lab dish includes multiple cell types, all major regions of the brain and a spinal cord, but lacks a vascular system, the university said.

It was grown from human skin cells and is claimed to be the most complete brain of its type grown yet.

Anand presented his research at a military health event in Florida on Tuesday.

Major scientific advances are usually published in peer-reviewed journals, where the claims are assessed independently before they are made public.

Anand and a colleague have co-founded an Ohio start-up company to commercialize the brain growth system, according to the university.

Anand expects the grown brain will allow easier and more ethical testing of drugs' effects on the mind, as scientists seek cures for brain disease and nervous system disorders, the school said.

"The power of this brain model bodes very well for human health because it gives us better and more relevant options to test and develop therapeutics other than rodents," Anand said in a university report on his research.

It could also be a boon for general neuroscience research as the brain allows a hands-on approach to genome studies rather than computer models currently used.

"Mathematical correlations and statistical methods are insufficient to in themselves identify causation. You need an experimental system –- you need a human brain," he said.

Related Article:

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version) - New

“..  The Biggest Filter that Hinders Truth is Your Biased Knowledge

The biggest filter of humanity, the one that keeps Humans from actual truth, believe it or not, is called knowledge. We speak of that which humanity perceives currently as knowledge. That which you do not know is, therefore, future knowledge. Now, every single scientist understands the difference - every single one - for they know what is coming is going to teach them what they don't know yet. This is part of the scientific process. Even so, they take what they know, or think they know, and completely let it temper the experiments for what they don't know. They base the future on what they know or believe, even though they know better!

A medical doctor will look in the past and he'll remember being taught about a time when humans would report to the barbershop for healing. That's when they would actually bleed people for healing. By the way, that's the reason for the barber pole having the red stripe on it - it's the tradition of barbers doing the bleeding. So back then, you went to get healed in the barbershop by being bled! This, of course, led to many deaths because there was no understanding of germs, sterilization or today's common sense. Doctors know this, and they laugh at how far you all have come from this. So doctors absolutely know that what is coming will someday be actually laughable, yet they are also absolutely and completely closed to what it might be. They just think it will be an advancement of what they currently know.  ….”

“..  Medicine - Where It's Going

I want to show you some other areas to consider. There are several categories that we'd like to talk about, but they're not in a specific order except for the last one. So let's talk about medicine. What is future medicine going to look like?

The most elegant predictions of medicine fall short of what's really coming. What you have today is a high-tech approach to designer chemistry. Now, since the body is made up of chemistry, it makes sense to look at this chemistry and work with it. It makes total sense to discover how it reacts to disease and then design cures with more chemistry. It's absolutely normal what you have done, but it's going to reach an end very soon. Because the future of medicine is physics, dear ones, not chemistry.

You're going to start understanding and developing new medical physics. You will discover that medi-physics is going to literally speak to cellular structure and give it instructions, without one chemical involved. There's always a reaction to chemistry, isn't there? There's always a side effect. When you push one thing, something else reacts, doesn't it? How do you like it so far? Your most elegant chemical designs, the ones that are helping with the worst diseases on the planet, all have side effects - and some of those side effects are death! I say to you, how do you like it so far?

Does it really seem elegant to you? Or perhaps it's just a more sophisticated way of bleeding in the barbershop? Dear ones, that's how you're going to look at it someday! You're going to slap your heads and say, "Remember the day when we did everything with chemistry and drugs?"

Right now, these kinds of changes have already started in several areas. There are discoveries being made that are healing some of the most heart-breaking diseases you have. I reveal one, because it's not a secret. I will always give you information that is either being worked on or has been postulated through free choice on this planet. That is the guideline of channelling. We can't give it to you. You've got to develop it yourself. However, we can put you in an energy that has a faster discovery potential - that is to say, discoveries become more obvious.

Alzheimer's is heart breaking. There are millions on this planet who develop this condition, more all the time. You're living longer and a plaque-like material that literally obfuscates your memory within the brain is becoming more common. It clings to certain parts of your brain, encrusting and restricting it, imprisoning the Human's ability to remember and eventually process information at all. The result is death, slow death. It's caused by your environment, a fact which will be discovered eventually. Your long-lived Ancients didn't have it.

It's going to be cured with physics. Your science is starting to find out that the plaque-like substance has a resonance that allows it to be weakened with sound. High-frequency sound, tuned to a certain frequency and amplitude, will cause the sheaths to weaken, dissolve, and come off. There's a lot of research to do yet, but it's a Eureka! moment - realizing that physics alone, without chemistry, can change the structure of biology. This is with no side effects whatsoever. It's coming, it's coming.

There are those working with fresh umbilical cord stem cells right now who are using pure physics to guide the stem cells to a specific destination in the body in order to repair failing systems. Dear ones, the future of health and healing is not through better chemistry, yet medicine is still waiting for better pills! Did you connect the dots and realize that all biology is physics based? There is magnetics, leverage, the energy of consciousness, electricity and much more within cellular structure. With physics alone, you can "tune in" to disease and destroy it! You can fine-tune your system with cooperative resonances and extend life with benevolent, physical assistance. Sixteen years ago, I told you this when I spoke of the Temple of Rejuvenation. I described the super-cooling needed to do it and the temperatures needed to work with it (-55C). This is physics!

Now, the false expectation of greater chemistry for the future is totally caused from the filter of knowledge. What you have and know then gives you your expectation of what is going to take place. It literally blocks you from seeing some of the potentials that you may have.  ….”

Food Rescue Program Redistributes Luxury Hotels' Leftovers to the Needyi

Jakarta Globe 

Hotel buffets can be a huge waste of food. Under standard operating procedures, the leftover food from hotel buffets, as well as other restaurants, must be thrown out at the end of the day.

The Bogor-based Emmanuel Foundation, which aims to provide support, education and health care to less fortunate communities in Indonesia, sees this as a chance to make a difference.

In 2003, it established a food rescue program, which collects the leftover food from some of Jakarta’s ritziest hotels and redistributes it to those in need.

Twelve years on, the program is still going strong, helping around 265,000 less fortunate families. It even receives regular food contributions from an airline catering company and three top restaurants in Jakarta.

Monique Thenu, the chief executive of the Emmanuel Foundation, says the program was initiated by a then-new director at a five-star hotel in Jakarta, who contacted founder Emmanuel Laumonier about a food rescue program. The French-Indonesian humanitarian immediately considered it a good idea, and soon after sent over a minivan to pick up hotel food each day.

At the start, the program only redistributed the food to trash-picking communities across Jakarta. The program has grown much bigger now, operating two large trucks and connecting with 16 hotels, including the J.W. Marriott.

“Each month, we pick up around two tons of food from these hotels,” Monique says.

To collect the food, the trucks leave the Emmanuel Foundation’s headquarters in Bogor very early in the morning, arriving in Jakarta at 9 a.m. They then start their rounds of the hotel, picking up leftovers from the breakfast buffets, including breads, fruits, meats, chicken, sausages and cakes.

“The hotel chefs screen the food carefully,” Monique says. “We then package it by category and place it in the trucks’ chillers.”

The trucks then head from the hotels to impoverished communities in Kampung Pisang, Tangerang; Bukit Sentul, Bogor; and Galuga, Bogor, all of which the Emmanuel Foundation has surveyed beforehand.

“Most of the people in these areas work as trash pickers or day laborers,” Monique says. “They’re very poor and live in squalid conditions.”

The Emmanuel Foundation works with the community leaders in these neighborhoods to register and provide daily coupons for residents to get their daily food portions from the program.

“The trucks usually arrive in our neighborhood around midday,” says Bibit, a resident of Kampung Pisang.

By then, the local women and children have gathered at the appointed meeting point, usually an open field, bringing their own food containers.

The staff of the Emmanuel Foundation then distribute the food to them.

“We feel so fortunate,” says Santi, another resident of Kampung Pisang. “With the FRP program, our family can have meat almost every day. Before, we could only afford meat once a year, on Idul Adha [an Islamic holiday].”

Santi says her family would otherwise subsist only on rice, vegetables and crackers. Even eggs were a luxury for them before.

“Now, my children can have bread, milk and cereal for breakfast,” says Santi, who also works at a vegetable farm in Tangerang.  “And we can have eggs, chicken and meat for lunch and dinner.”

Does such a program make the people dependent on handouts?

“Well, this program is intended to improve the recipients’ daily nutrition,” Monique says. “And when the people achieve self-sufficiency, we usually move to another location.”

Together with the program, the Emmanuel Foundation also organizes workshops on food processing in the neighborhoods.

“A couple of months ago, we had a chef who taught them how to make meatballs from bread, without meat,” Monique says. “The bakso actually tastes good, just like dumplings.”

Participating hotels also organize visits for the kids. Recently, the foundation and the Marriott invited 55 children and their caretakers to a buffet dinner at the hotel.

Bagaskara, a third-grader from Kampung Pisang who went on the trip, says he was astounded at the sight of the buffet.

“There’s so much food and everything is so delicious,” he says. “But I especially love the soup and the bread.”

“We hope many more hotels, restaurants and caterers will join us in salvaging food and helping those in need,” Monique says.

The Peak

For more information, check out yayasan-emmanuel.org.

Denied abortion, 11-year-old Paraguay rape victim gives birth

Yahoo – AFP,  Hugo Olazar, 13 Aug 2015

The entrance of the Red Cross Hospital where a young girl who was raped and 

became pregnant stayed, in Asuncion on May 8, 2015 (AFP Photo/Norberto Duarte)

Asuncion (AFP) - An 11-year-old Paraguayan girl who was raped by her mother's boyfriend gave birth Thursday, rekindling the uproar over authorities' refusal to let her have an abortion.

The child, who was 10 when she was raped, gave birth by C-section to a girl that weighed 3.5 kilos (eight pounds), said Dolores Castellanos, the doctor that monitored the pregnancy.

The girl has named the baby Milagros, which is Spanish for miracles.

The pregnancy came to light when the girl went to the doctor with stomach pains in April. Doctors initially believed she had parasites, but discovered on examining her that she was five months pregnant.

The authorities' handling of the case sparked outrage in this predominantly Catholic country, where abortion is illegal except when the mother's life is deemed to be at risk.

Officials ruled the pregnancy could proceed.

The girl, who turned 11 in May, was 37 weeks pregnant when she gave birth.

She stands just 1.39 meters (four feet six inches) tall and weighed just 34 kilos before her pregnancy.

She will remain under observation for 72 hours, said Castellanos, head of child and adolescent medicine at the Asuncion hospital where the baby was born.

Mario Villalba, director of the Red Cross hospital, said the delivery "was like any other Cesarean, without complications, the difference being the age."

Asked if the child will be able to nurse the baby, Villalba said, "we'll see how she does as a mother."

The baby's father, Gilberto Martinez Zarate, age 42, was taken into custody in May and is awaiting trial on rape charges. He could get between 12 and 15 years if convicted.

The girl's mother was also arrested for neglect but allowed to visit her daughter during the pregnancy.

The lead prosecutor on the case, Monalisa Munoz, said the girl was systematically abused by her mother's boyfriend.

"She was always at his mercy because the mother worked. The rapist even went to the girl's parent-teacher conferences," she told AFP.

'Extremely risky'

The case reverberated far outside Paraguay, with UN experts criticizing the Paraguayan government for refusing to consider an abortion.

Amnesty International called on Paraguay's government to repeal its strict anti-abortion law, saying the girl was lucky to be alive.

Erika Guevara, the rights group's director for the Americas, said the fact that the child survived "does not excuse the human rights violations she suffered at the hands of the Paraguayan authorities."

Officials in the South American country "decided to gamble with her health, life and integrity despite overwhelming evidence that this pregnancy was extremely risky and despite the fact that she was a rape victim and a child," she said.

Castellanos, the attending physician, insisted the girl's life was never at risk.

UNICEF has accused Paraguay of failing to protect girls from sexual predators.

Every day, two girls aged between 10 and 14 give birth here, it says.

At the hospital where the 11-year-old girl gave birth Thursday, three other girls, all aged 12, are due to give birth in the coming weeks.

Consumer group slams misleading food claims, wants government action

DutchNews, August 11, 2015

The Dutch consumers’ association Consumentenbond has urged the food safety authority NVWA to get tough on misleading claims made by food manufacturers. 

Claims on packaging such as ‘rich in fibre’, ‘low fat’ and ‘rich in vitamin C’ mislead shoppers into thinking products are more healthy than other similar ones, the association says in Tuesday’s Trouw.

‘The law is clear. Information on labels may not mislead, so they should not suggest that one product is more healthy than another similar one,’ Consumentenbond director Bart Combée said in a statement. 

In particular, the association is angered by claims which lead consumers to believe that unhealthy products are good for you. These include adding ‘with vitamin B’ to a label on sweets or describing potato-based snacks as ‘a source of fibre’, Trouw says. 

Among the products singled out for Consumentenbond derision are Sourcy Vitamin water. ‘Water is good for you but “vitamin water” is not water at all,’ the association says. ‘It is a soft drink with water, sugar, colouring, flavouring and yes, a few vitamins for fun.’

Related Article:

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version) - New

“..  Health

Normal good health is turning to simple physics for some of the simplest things. New kinds of foods are being grown with new physics, not chemistry. These will be physic-foods [Kryon name] that are not genetically altered or chemically altered, but benevolently enhanced by physics! This causes a new kind of super growth that can feed the planet in a way it's never been fed before. It will create food that is resistant to absolutely everything - insects, bacteria and disease - all through physics. Who thought of that? What you're expecting in the future regarding health is based upon the past. The big filter of past knowledge keeps you from thinking out of the box. You don't know what you don't know.  ….”

Charities want a share in profits of drugs they help develop

DutchNews, August 10, 2015

Some Dutch health charities which raise money for research are demanding a share of the proceeds from the sale of new drugs, the Financieele Dagblad says on Monday. 

The KWF Kankerfonds cancer foundation and the heart disease charity Hartstichting are among those who say they should earn money on medical advances which they have helped finance. 

The charities say this will boost their earnings if research leads to patents, and that money in turn can be used for further research. In addition, as joint owners of patents, they will be able to exert influence on drugs companies to ensure medicines reach the market quickly, the FD says. 

The KWF spent €106m on research last year while the Hartstichting budget was €21m. Most of the money goes to universities.

‘We have a social responsibility to ensure drugs reach the patient more quickly by stimulating researchers to develop their business,’ KWF spokesman Michel Rudolphie told the paper. The foundation is developing this new strategy which will come into effect next year. 

Responsibility

The heart foundation is already working on new research contracts which state one-sixth of any net earnings should flow back to the foundation. ‘We used to assume the universities re-invested any earnings in research but now we want to take responsibility,’ spokeswoman Marina Senten told the FD. 

However, universities and some other charities told the paper that the policy will be counter-productive and will interfere with negotiations between researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

‘The more owners of intellectual property, the less room there is for negotiations with industry and venture capitalists,’ Maastricht University spokesman Henri Theuissen told the paper.

Related Article:

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version) - New

“..  The Biggest Filter that Hinders Truth is Your Biased Knowledge

The biggest filter of humanity, the one that keeps Humans from actual truth, believe it or not, is called knowledge. We speak of that which humanity perceives currently as knowledge. That which you do not know is, therefore, future knowledge. Now, every single scientist understands the difference - every single one - for they know what is coming is going to teach them what they don't know yet. This is part of the scientific process. Even so, they take what they know, or think they know, and completely let it temper the experiments for what they don't know. They base the future on what they know or believe, even though they know better!

A medical doctor will look in the past and he'll remember being taught about a time when humans would report to the barbershop for healing. That's when they would actually bleed people for healing. By the way, that's the reason for the barber pole having the red stripe on it - it's the tradition of barbers doing the bleeding. So back then, you went to get healed in the barbershop by being bled! This, of course, led to many deaths because there was no understanding of germs, sterilization or today's common sense. Doctors know this, and they laugh at how far you all have come from this. So doctors absolutely know that what is coming will someday be actually laughable, yet they are also absolutely and completely closed to what it might be. They just think it will be an advancement of what they currently know.  ….”


“..  Medicine - Where It's Going

I want to show you some other areas to consider. There are several categories that we'd like to talk about, but they're not in a specific order except for the last one. So let's talk about medicine. What is future medicine going to look like?

The most elegant predictions of medicine fall short of what's really coming. What you have today is a high-tech approach to designer chemistry. Now, since the body is made up of chemistry, it makes sense to look at this chemistry and work with it. It makes total sense to discover how it reacts to disease and then design cures with more chemistry. It's absolutely normal what you have done, but it's going to reach an end very soon. Because the future of medicine is physics, dear ones, not chemistry.

You're going to start understanding and developing new medical physics. You will discover that medi-physics is going to literally speak to cellular structure and give it instructions, without one chemical involved. There's always a reaction to chemistry, isn't there? There's always a side effect. When you push one thing, something else reacts, doesn't it? How do you like it so far? Your most elegant chemical designs, the ones that are helping with the worst diseases on the planet, all have side effects - and some of those side effects are death! I say to you, how do you like it so far?

Does it really seem elegant to you? Or perhaps it's just a more sophisticated way of bleeding in the barbershop? Dear ones, that's how you're going to look at it someday! You're going to slap your heads and say, "Remember the day when we did everything with chemistry and drugs?"

Right now, these kinds of changes have already started in several areas. There are discoveries being made that are healing some of the most heart-breaking diseases you have. I reveal one, because it's not a secret. I will always give you information that is either being worked on or has been postulated through free choice on this planet. That is the guideline of channelling. We can't give it to you. You've got to develop it yourself. However, we can put you in an energy that has a faster discovery potential - that is to say, discoveries become more obvious.

Alzheimer's is heart breaking. There are millions on this planet who develop this condition, more all the time. You're living longer and a plaque-like material that literally obfuscates your memory within the brain is becoming more common. It clings to certain parts of your brain, encrusting and restricting it, imprisoning the Human's ability to remember and eventually process information at all. The result is death, slow death. It's caused by your environment, a fact which will be discovered eventually. Your long-lived Ancients didn't have it.

It's going to be cured with physics. Your science is starting to find out that the plaque-like substance has a resonance that allows it to be weakened with sound. High-frequency sound, tuned to a certain frequency and amplitude, will cause the sheaths to weaken, dissolve, and come off. There's a lot of research to do yet, but it's a Eureka! moment - realizing that physics alone, without chemistry, can change the structure of biology. This is with no side effects whatsoever. It's coming, it's coming.

There are those working with fresh umbilical cord stem cells right now who are using pure physics to guide the stem cells to a specific destination in the body in order to repair failing systems. Dear ones, the future of health and healing is not through better chemistry, yet medicine is still waiting for better pills! Did you connect the dots and realize that all biology is physics based? There is magnetics, leverage, the energy of consciousness, electricity and much more within cellular structure. With physics alone, you can "tune in" to disease and destroy it! You can fine-tune your system with cooperative resonances and extend life with benevolent, physical assistance. Sixteen years ago, I told you this when I spoke of the Temple of Rejuvenation. I described the super-cooling needed to do it and the temperatures needed to work with it (-55C). This is physics!

Now, the false expectation of greater chemistry for the future is totally caused from the filter of knowledge. What you have and know then gives you your expectation of what is going to take place. It literally blocks you from seeing some of the potentials that you may have.  ….”

Liver sausage firm moves into vegetarian burgers

DutchNews, August 10, 2015

Photo: Zwanenburg.nl

One of the Netherlands’ biggest meat processing companies has moved into vegetarian food, Trouw reports on Monday. 

Zwanenberg Food, which makes liver sausage and other meat products, has launched a corn burger, beetroot burger and a pea and bean burger on the Dutch market, the paper says. 

The company, which books annual sales of some €350m, says it has noted that meat consumption is declining in the Netherlands and that it does not expect further growth ‘given attitudes in society’. 

Rather than opt for meat replacements, Zwanenberg has chosen to process vegetables because ‘the Dutch don’t eat enough greens’. ‘Less than 5% of Dutch adults eat enough vegetables,’ spokesman Tjeerd van der Laan told Trouw. ‘That got us thinking. Could this be something for us?’ 

The company’s veggie burgers are sold via Jumbo supermarkets, contract caterers and Ikea, Trouw says. Zwanenberg is now developing burgers made of celeriac, cauliflower, carrot and tomato.