drudgereport--2019-01-14--Chicago to get wooden skyscraper

Chicago to get wooden skyscraper...

Building skyscrapers out of wood: It sounds bizarre, unsafe, maybe even a bit twee. But it could actually be the future of construction.  "Each material has its different pros and cons, and there's no reason that timber shouldn't be part of that larger discussion," Todd Snapp, an architect with the global firm Perkins + Will, told The Week. "I can't say it's better than steel or concrete. I can say it should be just as relevant in the discussion of what material to use."  Snapp is the design principal guiding the firm's River Beech Tower project, an 800-foot residential skyscraper that would be built almost entirely out of wood. The tower was designed in parallel with a master plan the firm was awarded to develop an area in Chicago's downtown, on the east shore of the river and just west of Grant Park. Cambridge University's Natural Material Innovation project then came to them with the notion of doing a wooden skyscraper. The idea was they would pick a real-world site and then develop the building from the ground up: As the architects fleshed out the project, that would give the Cambridge group specific structures, practices, and so forth to test out in the lab. "We wanted the research to be tied to some sense of what's immediately achievable," Snapp explained. "Ground it in reality. Let's have a real site."  Granted, River Beech Tower remains purely conceptual — a collection of designs and models, with no actual plans yet to build it. But the point of the project was to prove the idea could work.  Nor is it the only such effort. Similar plans are underway in London, Stockholm, and other cities. Eighteen-story buildings made of timber already exist in Vancouver and Minneapolis, while other structures have popped up in Norway and New Zealand.  Perkins + Will actually got its start in Chicago back in 1935. In fact, the city's great fire of 1871 was one of several disasters that helped push modern architecture away from wood and towards the steel and concrete that dominate construction today. Part of that legacy is Chicago's architecturally iconic Wrigley Building, which houses the offices where Snapp and his colleagues did much of their work on the River Beech Tower project. It's one of many efforts around the world to take history full circle and return timber to a place of prominence in architecture.  But why the effort in the first place? Well, several reasons.  For one thing, wood is lighter and more flexible than steel or concrete. A wooden skyscraper will have more give in an earthquake, for instance. The lighter weight also opens up opportunities for cost saving throughout the construction process. Wood is an excellent insulator, which would save the building's owners and residents on heating and cooling costs.  On the flip side, wood can sway too much, particularly in the wind — a major issue for taller buildings. For the River Beech Tower project, Snapp and his colleagues actually solved this problem by constructing the whole building out of triangle and diamond shapes. A triangle is a much more structurally sturdy form than a rectangle, so taking a more flexible material like wood and building triangles out of it created a structure that holds up well under forces coming at it from all sides. It also lent the project its interesting "honeycomb" aesthetic. Key connection points in the building would be reinforced with steel encased in concrete, and glass would be used in windows along with some other exterior materials. Beyond that, the skyscraper would be basically all wood.  Solving the flexibility vs. rigidity tradeoff lead to other interesting breakthroughs. The initial design of the project that Perkins + Will modeled in its computers was your standard skyscraper tower. The engineers determined the entire bottom third of the building would have to be a solid wood block to give the structure enough stability. So they redesigned the building as essentially two skyscrapers conjoined by a central atrium. That allowed them to spread the base of the building wide enough to get the necessary structural stability. It also gave them a big open space going up the core of the building, which opened up all sorts of aesthetic and interior design possibilities.  "We wanted the design to evolve out of the iterative process of what the material wants to be," as Snapp put it.  Another interesting aspect of wood is that it's easier to work with than steel or concrete. Concrete has to be poured into a preset form, then allowed the time — sometimes days or weeks — to dry. Steel has to be melted and molded into the necessary shapes. Wood, however, can simply be cut. Computers and modern technology now allow for factory processes that can cut timber into all sorts of desired shapes quickly and in large quantities.  That fact allowed the River Beech Tower team to get creative about the construction process as well as the design. They came up with a plan where the building would be constructed out of standardized modules, all prefabricated at a nearby factory, then shipped to the construction site. This modular approach is not unheard of in standard construction, but it's still relatively new, and the use of wood allowed the team to take full advantage of it. It's a strategy that can save you a lot of time. And building the modules under factory settings provides for more quality control than building the whole skyscraper on site from the ground up. How far this practice could spread depends on the circumstances of each building — having Lake Michigan right next to Chicago was a big help for shipping plans — but it certainly has possibilities.  Of course, any talk of building skyscrapers out of wood is immediately going to raise concerns about fires. (Remember the aforementioned Great Chicago Fire of 1871?) But wooden beams can be covered with fire-proof coatings, just as steel beams are. More importantly, the wooden beams created with modern processes are so big and solid that it actually takes enormously high temperatures to set them on fire — below those temperatures, the surface of the beam simply chars, while the beam itself maintains its structural integrity. "Steel is actually less fire resistant in its pure form," Snapp said. "When steel hits a certain temperature it starts melting, the connections break."  Finally, it's also worth mentioning that a world where we built a lot more skyscrapers out of wood would almost certainly be a more environmentally friendly place.  Obviously, there are aspects of construction that will emit CO2 no matter what material you use. But steel and concrete also have carbon emissions intrinsic to that material: Sixty percent of concrete's emissions, for instance, come from the chemical reaction to make the concrete. Replacing a lot of steel and concrete construction with wood could save us a lot of CO2 output.  On top of that, timber is a cash crop, just like corn or potatoes. If demand for it goes up, the economic incentive to plant more trees increases too. If wooden construction became common, you'd certainly need regulatory oversight to make sure the timber came from cash crop planting and not from cutting down pre-existing forests. But planting more trees is an excellent idea for fighting climate change.  So what's standing between us and our timber skyscraper future?  Mainly time, experience, and acceptance. Architects and engineers are only just beginning to realize the possibilities of bringing wood back into the equation, now that engineering technology has advanced. Governments and construction companies still need to get used to the idea. And building codes need to change: Right now the most widely used codes limit wooden construction to around 20 stories. But those codes are updated regularly, and projects like Perkins + Will's River Beech Tower feed into the process of reviewing and expanding what's allowed.  The field of wooden skyscrapers is young. But like the trees it relies upon, it may yet grow into something remarkable.


drudgereport--2019-01-17--SCIENTISTS GROW PERFECT HUMAN BLOOD VESSELS

SCIENTISTS GROW 'PERFECT' HUMAN BLOOD VESSELS...

Scientists have managed to grow perfect human blood vessels as organoids in a petri dish for the first time.  The breakthrough engineering technology, outlined in a new study published today in Nature, dramatically advances research of vascular diseases like diabetes, identifying a key pathway to potentially prevent changes to blood vessels -- a major cause of death and morbidity among those with diabetes.  An organoid is a three-dimensional structure grown from stem cells that mimics an organ and can be used to study aspects of that organ in a petri dish.  "Being able to build human blood vessels as organoids from stem cells is a game changer," said the study's senior author Josef Penninger, the Canada 150 Research Chair in Functional Genetics, director of the Life Sciences Institute at UBC and founding director of the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA).  "Every single organ in our body is linked with the circulatory system. This could potentially allow researchers to unravel the causes and treatments for a variety of vascular diseases, from Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular diseases, wound healing problems, stroke, cancer and, of course, diabetes."  Diabetes affects an estimated 420 million people worldwide. Many diabetic symptoms are the result of changes in blood vessels that result in impaired blood circulation and oxygen supply of tissues. Despite its prevalence, very little is known about the vascular changes arising from diabetes. This limitation has slowed the development of much-needed treatment.  To tackle this problem, Penninger and his colleagues developed a groundbreaking model: three-dimensional human blood vessel organoids grown in a petri dish. These so-called "vascular organoids" can be cultivated using stem cells in the lab, strikingly mimicking the structure and function of real human blood vessels.  When researchers transplanted the blood vessel organoids into mice, they found that they developed into perfectly functional human blood vessels including arteries and capillaries. The discovery illustrates that it is possible to not only engineer blood vessel organoids from human stem cells in a dish, but also to grow a functional human vascular system in another species.  "What is so exciting about our work is that we were successful in making real human blood vessels out of stem cells," said Reiner Wimmer, the study's first author and a postdoctoral research fellow at IMBA. "Our organoids resemble human capillaries to a great extent, even on a molecular level, and we can now use them to study blood vessel diseases directly on human tissue."  One feature of diabetes is that blood vessels show an abnormal thickening of the basement membrane. As a result, the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to cells and tissues is strongly impaired, causing a multitude of health problems, such as kidney failure, heart attacks, strokes, blindness and peripheral artery disease, leading to amputations.  The researchers then exposed the blood vessel organoids to a "diabetic" environment in a petri dish.  "Surprisingly, we could observe a massive expansion of the basement membrane in the vascular organoids," said Wimmer. "This typical thickening of the basement membrane is strikingly similar to the vascular damage seen in diabetic patients."  The researchers then searched for chemical compounds that could block thickening of the blood vessel walls. They found none of the current anti-diabetic medications had any positive effects on these blood vessel defects. However, they discovered that an inhibitor of ?-secretase, a type of enzyme in the body, prevented the thickening of the blood vessel walls, suggesting, at least in animal models, that blocking ?-secretase could be helpful in treating diabetes.  The researchers say the findings could allow them to identify underlying causes of vascular disease, and to potentially develop and test new treatments for patients with diabetes.


eveningstandard--2019-07-01--Nearly half of Londoners aposthink City should stop investing in fossil fuel companiesapos

Nearly half of Londoners 'think City should stop investing in fossil fuel companies'

Almost half of Londoners think the City should stop investing in companies that make their money from fossil fuels such as oil, gas or coal, according to a new survey.  Even more (54 per cent) think personal pension funds should give customers the option of investing their money in fossil fuel-free investments, it found.  Around half also want major companies that fail to comply with the greenhouse gas reduction targets agreed at the Paris Climate Agreement to be thrown out of the Stock Market.  The findings are the latest evidence that Londoners are taking a harder line with business and finance over their contribution to curbing disastrous climate change.  The research was commissioned by the Climate Change Collaboration, made up of three trusts - the Mark Leonard, Ashden and JJ Charitable Trusts - for London Climate Action Week.  It found that young Londoners are the most worried with 88 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds saying they are concerned about how damaging climate change will be for future generations.  Alice Garton, head of climate for environmental law organisation ClientEarth, said: “These results show Londoners are calling for big, bold ideas. People understand the climate crisis and want decisive leadership from Whitehall and their local boroughs to fix it.  “They also want corporations held to account, and their business models made to be in line with the Paris Agreement. Importantly, Londoners are demanding major investment in green jobs and industries to ensure that people enjoy prosperous and healthy lives in a city of the future, not the past.”  It follows separate research from the Institution of Engineering and Technology which found that half of children are so concerned about the harm being wreaked to the earth’s environment they think humankind will have to find new planets to live on.


eveningstandard--2019-10-10--Dyson scraps electric car project saying it is 'not commercially viable'

Sir James Dyson has announced a project to build electric cars has been scrapped.  The inventor, best known for his vacuum cleaners, said engineers had developed a "fantastic electric car" but it was not commercially viable.  In an email to workers, Sir James said the company had unsuccessfully tried to find a buyer for the project, launched in 2017.  Sir James said the achievements of the engineering team had been "immense", given the enormity and complexity of the project.  He added: "The Dyson Automotive team has developed a fantastic car; they have been ingenious in their approach while remaining faithful to our philosophies.  "However, though we have tried very hard throughout the development process, we simply can no longer see a way to make it commercially viable.  "We have been through a serious process to find a buyer for the project which has, unfortunately, been unsuccessful so far.  "I wanted you to hear directly from me that the Dyson Board has therefore taken the very difficult decision to propose the closure of our automotive project."  He said moves were under way to quickly find alternative roles within Dyson for as many of the hundreds of employees on the project as possible.  There were enough vacancies to absorb most of the employees into Dyson's business, he said.  "For those who cannot, or do not wish to, find alternative roles, we will support them fairly and with the respect deserved.  "This is a challenging time for our colleagues and I appreciate your understanding and sensitivity as we consult with those who are affected.  "Dyson will continue its £2.5 billion investment programme into new technology and grow the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology."  Sites including Malmesbury in Wiltshire, and Singapore will be expanded and the company will concentrate on the "formidable task" of manufacturing solid state batteries and other technologies.  He added: "In summary, our investment appetite is undiminished and we will continue to deepen our roots in both the UK and Singapore."  Around 520 people were in the Dyson Automotive team, mainly based in the UK.  Development was taking place at Dyson's Hullavington campus in Wiltshire although the company has not publicised a prototype.  New: Daily podcast from the Evening Standard  Listen and subscribe to The Leader on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or your chosen podcast provider. New episodes every weekday from 4pm.


eveningstandard--2019-11-08--Boris Johnson promises fast track 'NHS visa' for overseas doctors and nurses

Boris Johnson has unveiled plans for a fast track "NHS visa" to make it easier for overseas doctors and nurses to work.  Ministers said the scheme would enable the health service to continue to attract the finest medical staff after Britain has left the EU.  Labour accused the Tories of "tying themselves in knots" with the promise, which comes ahead of the general election on December 12.  The opposition said the Conservatives are using "dog whistle anti-immigrant rhetoric" while trying to bring in migrant workers to keep public services working.  Labour was focusing its campaign effort on measures to support women in the workplace, including raising statutory maternity pay and better entitlement to flexible working.  The Conservatives' new NHS visa will ultimately form part of the party's planned points-based immigration system to be introduced after Brexit.  The move reflects concern within the health service that it will struggle to attract the staff it needs when Britain is outside the EU.  Under the scheme, the cost of a visa for health professionals would be halved from £928 to £464, while applicants would be guaranteed a decision within two weeks.  Applicants coming to work in the NHS would receive preferential treatment with extra points under the points-based system, and no cap on numbers entering through the NHS route.  They would also be able to pay back the cost of the immigration health surcharge through their salary if the charge is not already covered by the NHS trust offering the job.  The Tories have already announced a fast-track visa route to attract specialists in science, engineering and technology.  Home Secretary Priti Patel said an Australian-style points-based system would allow Britain to control the numbers coming into the country while remaining open to essential professions such as nursing.  "That means the best of both worlds - attracting talent from around the world so our NHS continues to provide brilliant service while ensuring that it isn't put under strain by opening Britain's borders to the entire world," she said.  However shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said the Tories were "tying themselves in knots" over immigration.  "They use dog whistle anti-migrant rhetoric but are forced to accept we need migrant workers for key sectors, not just the NHS, but many more besides," she said.  Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Christine Jardine said the visa fees amounted to a "nurse tax" on staff from the EU who could currently come to Britain for free.  "The Conservatives have effectively created a new nurse tax. It is an insult to the thousands of people who dedicate their lives coming to work for our health service from the EU," she said.  Meanwhile Labour was focusing on its plans to bring about a "step change" in the way women are treated at work.  Shadow women and equalities minister Dawn Butler said a Labour government would increase statutory maternity pay from nine to 12 months, improve entitlement to flexible working and take further steps to tackle sexual harassment.  "Labour will deliver a workplace revolution to bring about a step-change in how women are treated at work," she said.  But the Tories warned that the measures would simply result in lost jobs.  After a tumultuous start to the campaign both the main parties saw further candidates forced to stand down over controversial past remarks.  Ex-BBC Radio Norfolk presenter Nick Conrad quit as Tory candidate for Broadland after heavy criticism of comments he made in 2014 during a discussion about a high-profile rape case, saying women should "keep your knickers on".  Labour's candidate for Aberdeen Kate Ramsden stood down over a social media post - highlighted by The Jewish Chronicle - likening Israel to "an abused child who becomes an abusive adult".  She apologised unreservedly saying she could see that "many Jewish people had been hurt by my words".  A Labour source said the party had taken "swift and robust action" after extra due diligence checks had uncovered material of concern.  Labour's candidate for Edinburgh South, Frances Hoole, was also dropped after the party refused to endorse her following a social media attack on her SNP opponent, Joanna Cherry.


globalresearch--2019-08-19--Offering Choice but Delivering Tyranny The Corporate Capture of Agriculture

Offering Choice but Delivering Tyranny: The Corporate Capture of Agriculture

Many lobbyists talk a lot about critics of genetic engineering technology denying choice to farmers. They say that farmers should have access to a range of tools and technologies to maximise choice and options. At the same time, somewhat ironically, they decry organic agriculture and proven agroecological approaches, presumably because these practices have no need for the proprietary inputs of the global agrochemical/agritech corporations they are in bed with. And presumably because agroecology represents liberation from the tyranny of these profiteering, environment-damaging global conglomerates.  It is fine to talk about ‘choice’ but we do not want to end up offering a false choice (rolling out technologies that have little value and only serve to benefit those who control the technology), to unleash an innovation that has an adverse impact on others or to manipulate a situation whereby only one option is available because other options have been deliberately removed. And we would certainly not wish to roll out a technology that traps farmers on a treadmill that they find difficult to get off.  Surely, a responsible approach for rolling out important (potentially transformative) technologies would have to consider associated risks, including social, economic and health impacts.  Take the impact of the Green Revolution in India, for instance. Sold on the promise that hybrid seeds and associated chemical inputs would enhance food security on the basis of higher productivity, agriculture was transformed, especially in Punjab. But to gain access to seeds and chemicals many farmers had to take out loans and debt became (and remains) a constant worry. Many became impoverished and social relations within rural communities were radically altered: previously, farmers would save and exchange seeds but now they became dependent on unscrupulous money lenders, banks and seed manufacturers and suppliers. Vandana Shiva in ‘The Violence of the Green Revolution‘ (1989) describes the social marginalisation and violence that accompanied the process.  On a macro level, the Green Revolution conveniently became tied to an international (neo-colonial) system of trade based on chemical-dependent agro-export mono-cropping linked to loans, sovereign debt repayment and World Bank/IMF structural adjustment (privatisation/deregulation) directives. Many countries in the Global South were deliberately turned into food deficit regions, dependent on (US) agricultural imports and strings-attached aid.  The process led to the massive displacement of the peasantry and, according to the academics Eric Holt-Giménez et al (Food rebellions: Crisis and the hunger for Justice, 2009), the consolidation of the global agri-food oligopolies and a shift in the global flow of food: developing countries produced a billion-dollar yearly surplus in the 1970s; they were importing $11 billion a year by 2004.  And it’s not as though the Green Revolution delivered on its promises. In India, it merely led to more wheat in the diet, while food productivity per capita showed no increased or even actually decreased (see ‘New Histories of the Green Revolution‘ by Glenn Stone). And, as described by Bhaskar Save in his open letter (2006) to officials, it had dire consequences for diets, the environment, farming, health and rural communities.  The ethics of the Green Revolution – at least it was rolled out with little consideration for these impacts – leave much to be desired.  As the push to drive GM crops into India’s fields continues (the second coming of the green revolution – the gene revolution), we should therefore take heed. To date, the track record of GMOs is unimpressive, but the adverse effects on many smallholder farmers are already apparent (see ‘Hybrid Bt cotton: a stranglehold on subsistence farmers in India’ by A P Gutierrez).  Aside from looking at the consequences of technology roll outs, we should, when discussing choice, also account for the procedures and decisions that were made which resulted in technologies coming to market in the first place.  Steven Druker, in his book ‘Altered Genes, Twisted Truth’, argues that the decision to commercialise GM seeds and food in the US amounted to a subversion of processes put in place to serve the public interest. The result has been a technology roll out which could result (is resulting) in fundamental changes to the genetic core of the world’s food. This decision ultimately benefited Monsanto’s bottom line and helped the US gain further leverage over global agriculture.  We must therefore put glib talk of the denial of technology by critics to one side if we are to engage in a proper discussion of choice. Any such discussion would account for the nature of the global food system and the dynamics and policies that shape it. This would include looking at how global corporations have captured the policy agenda for agriculture, including key national and international policy-making bodies, and the role of the WTO and World Bank.  Choice is also about the options that could be made available, but which have been closed off or are not even considered. In Ethiopia, for example, agroecology has been scaled up across the entire Tigray region, partly due to enlightened political leaders and the commitment of key institutions.  However, in places where global agribusiness/agritech corporations have leveraged themselves into strategic positions, their interests prevail. From the false narrative that industrial agriculture is necessary to feed the world to providing lavish research grants and the capture of important policy-making institutions, these firms have secured a thick legitimacy within policymakers’ mindsets and mainstream discourse. As a result, agroecological approaches are marginalised and receive scant attention and support.  Monsanto had a leading role in drafting the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights to create seed monopolies. The global food processing industry wrote the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Whether it involves Codex or the US-India Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture aimed at restructuring (destroying) Indian agriculture, the powerful agribusiness/food lobby has secured privileged access to policy makers and sets the policy agenda.  From the World Bank’s ‘enabling the business of agriculture’ to the Gates Foundation’s role in opening up African agriculture to global food and agribusiness oligopolies, democratic procedures at sovereign state levels are being bypassed to impose seed monopolies and proprietary inputs on farmers and to incorporate them into a global supply chain dominated by powerful corporations.  We have the destruction of indigenous farming in Africa as well as the ongoing dismantling of Indian agriculture and the deliberate impoverishment of Indian farmers at the behest of transnational agribusiness. Where is the democratic ‘choice’? It has been usurped by corporate-driven Word Bank bondage (India is its biggest debtor in the bank’s history) and by a trade deal with the US that sacrificed Indian farmers for the sake of developing its nuclear sector.  Similarly, ‘aid’ packages for Ukraine – on the back of a US-supported coup – are contingent on Western corporations taking over strategic aspects of the economy. And agribusiness interests are at the forefront. Something which neoliberal apologists are silent on as they propagandise about choice, and democracy.  Ukraine’s agriculture sector is being opened up to Monsanto/Bayer. Iraq’s seed laws were changed to facilitate the entry of Monsanto. India’s edible oils sector was undermined to facilitate the entry of Cargill. And Bayer’s hand is possibly behind the ongoing strategy to commercialise GM mustard in India. Whether on the back of militarism, secretive trade deals or strings-attached loans, global food and agribusiness conglomerates secure their interests and have scant regard for choice or democracy.  The ongoing aim is to displace localised, indigenous methods of food production and allow transnational companies to take over, tying farmers and regions to a system of globalised production and supply chains dominated by large agribusiness and retail interests. Global corporations with the backing of their host states, are taking over food and agriculture nation by nation.  Many government officials, the media and opinion leaders take this process as a given. They also accept that (corrupt) profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be owners and custodians of natural assets (the ‘commons’). There is the premise that water, seeds, food, soil and agriculture should be handed over to these conglomerates to milk for profit, under the pretence these entities are somehow serving the needs of humanity.  Ripping land from peasants and displacing highly diverse and productive smallholder agriculture, rolling out very profitable but damaging technologies, externalising the huge social, environmental and health costs of the prevailing neoliberal food system and entire nations being subjected to the policies outlined above: how is any of it serving the needs of humanity?  It is not. Food is becoming denutrified, unhealthy and poisoned with chemicals and diets are becoming less diverse. There is a loss of plant and insect diversity, which threatens food security, soils are being degraded, water tables polluted and depleted and millions of smallholder farmers, so vital to global food production, are being pushed into debt in places like India and squeezed off their land and out of farming.  It is time to place natural assets under local ownership and to develop them in the public interest according to agroecological principles. This involves looking beyond the industrial yield-output paradigm and adopting a systems approach to food and agriculture that accounts for local food security and sovereignty, cropping patterns to ensure diverse nutrition production per acre, water table stability and good soil structure. It also involves pushing back against the large corporations that hold sway over the global food system and more generally challenging the leverage that private capital has over all our lives.  That’s how you ensure liberation from tyranny and support genuine choice.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.


globalresearch--2019-10-05--The New Water Barons Wall Street Mega-Banks are Buying up the Worlds Water

The New “Water Barons”: Wall Street Mega-Banks are Buying up the World’s Water

This article was first published on December 21, 2012 by Market Oracle and Global Research  A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” — the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires — are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.  Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.  The second disturbing trend is that while the new water barons are buying up water all over the world, governments are moving fast to limit citizens’ ability to become water self-sufficient (as evidenced by the well-publicized Gary Harrington’s case in Oregon, in which the state criminalized the collection of rainwater in three ponds located on his private land, by convicting him on nine counts and sentencing him for 30 days in jail). Let’s put this criminalization in perspective:  Billionaire T. Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff on 170 acres of his private land.  It’s a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.  Now, in 2012, we are seeing this trend of global consolidation of water by elite banks and tycoons accelerating. In a JP Morgan equity research document, it states clearly that “Wall Street appears well aware of the investment opportunities in water supply infrastructure, wastewater treatment, and demand management technologies.” Indeed, Wall Street is preparing to cash in on the global water grab in the coming decades. For example, Goldman Sachs has amassed more than $10 billion since 2006 for infrastructure investments, which include water. A 2008 New York Times article mentioned Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and the Carlyle Group, to have “amassed an estimated an estimated $250 billion war chest — must of it raised in the last two years — to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas.”  By “water,” I mean that it includes water rights (i.e., the right to tap groundwater, aquifers, and rivers), land with bodies of water on it or under it (i.e., lakes, ponds, and natural springs on the surface, or groundwater underneath), desalination projects, water-purification and treatment technologies (e.g., desalination, treatment chemicals and equipment), irrigation and well-drilling technologies, water and sanitation services and utilities, water infrastructure maintenance and construction (from pipes and distribution to all scales of treatment plants for residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal uses), water engineering services (e.g., those involved in the design and construction of water-related facilities), and retail water sector (such as those involved in the production, operation, and sales of bottled water, water vending machines, bottled water subscription and delivery services, water trucks, and water tankers).  Update of My 2008 Article: Mega-Banks See Water as a Critical Commodity  Since 2008, many giant banks and super-investors are capturing more market share in the water sector and identifying water as a critical commodity, much hotter than petroleum.  Goldman Sachs: Water Is Still the Next Petroleum  In 2008, Goldman Sachs called water “the petroleum for the next century” and those investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom will reap huge rewards, during its annual “Top Five Risks” conference. Water is a U.S.$425 billion industry, and a calamitous water shortage could be a more serious threat to humanity in the 21st century than food and energy shortages, according to Goldman Sachs’s conference panel. Goldman Sachs has convened numerous conferences and also published lengthy, insightful analyses of water and other critical sectors (food, energy).  Goldman Sachs is positioning itself to gobble up water utilities, water engineering companies, and water resources worldwide. Since 2006, Goldman Sachs has become one of the largest infrastructure investment fund managers and has amassed a $10 billion capital for infrastructure, including water.  In March 2012, Goldman Sachs was eyeing Veolia’s UK water utility business, estimated at £1.2 billion, and in July it successfully bought Veolia Water, which serves 3.5 million people in southeastern England.  Previously, in September 2003, Goldman Sachs partnered with one of the world’s largest private-equity firm Blackstone Group and Apollo Management to acquire Ondeo Nalco (a leading company in providing water-treatment and process chemicals and services, with more than 10,000 employees and operations in 130 countries) from French water corporation Suez S.A. for U.S.$4.2 billion.  In October 2007, Goldman Sachs teamed up with Deutsche Bank and several partners to bid, unsuccessfully, for U.K.’s Southern Water. In November 2007, Goldman Sachs was also unsuccessful in bidding for U.K. water utility Kelda. But Goldman Sachs is still looking to buy other water utilities.  In January 2008, Goldman Sachs led a team of funds (including Liberty Harbor Master Fund and the Pinnacle Fund) to buy U.S.$50 million of convertible notes in China Water and Drinks Inc., which supplies purified water to name-brand vendors like Coca-Cola and Taiwan’s top beverage company Uni-President. China Water and Drinks is also a leading producer and distributor of bottled water in China and also makes private-labeled bottled water (e.g., for Sands Casino, Macau). Since China has one of the worse water problems in Asia and a large emerging middle class, its bottled-water sector is the fastest-growing in the world and it’s seeing enormous profits. Additionally, China’s acute water shortages and serious pollution could “buoy demand for clean water for years to come, with China’s $14.2 billion water industry a long-term investment destination” (Reuters, January 28, 2008).  The City of Reno, Nevada, was approached by Goldman Sachs for “a long-term asset leasing that could potentially generate significant cash for the three TMWA [Truckee Meadows Water Authority] entities. The program would allow TMWA to lease its assets for 50 years and receive an up-front cash payment” (Reno News & Review, August 28, 2008). Essentially, Goldman Sachs wants to privatize Reno’s water utility for 50 years. Given Reno’s revenue shortfall, this proposal was financially attractive. But the water board eventually rejected the proposal due to strong public opposition and outcry.  Citigroup: The Water Market Will Soon Eclipse Oil, Agriculture, and Precious Metals  Citigroup’s top economist Willem Buitler said in 2011 that the water market will soon be hotter the oil market (for example, see this and this):  In its recent 2012 Water Investment Conference, Citigroup has identified top 10 trends in the water sector, as follows:  1. Desalination systems   2. Water reuse technologies   3. Produced water / water utilities   4. Membranes for filtration   5. Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection   6. Ballast-water treatment technologies   7. Forward osmosis used in desalination   8. Water-efficiency technologies and products   9. Point-of-use treatment systems   10. Chinese competitors in water  Specifically, a lucrative opportunity in water is in hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), as it generates massive demand for water and water services. Each oil well developed requires 3 to 5 million gallons of water, and 80% of this water cannot be reused because it’s three to 10 times saltier than seawater. Citigroup recommends water-rights owners sell water to fracking companies instead of to farmers because water for fracking can be sold for as much as $3,000 per acre-foot instead of only $50 per acre/foot to farmers.  The ballast-water treatment sector, currently at $1.35 billion annually, is estimated to reach $30 to $50 billion soon. The water-filtration market is expected to outgrow the water-equipment market: Dow estimates it to be a $5 billion market annually instead of only $1 billion now.  Citigroup is aggressively raising funds for its war chest to participate in the coming tidal wave of infrastructure privatization: in 2007 it established a new unit called Citi Infrastructure Investors through its Citi Alternative Investments unit. According to Reuters, Citigroup “assembled some of the biggest names in the infrastructure business at the same time it is building a $3 billion fund, including $500 million of its own capital. The fund, according to a person familiar with the situation, will have only a handful of outside investors and will be focused on assets in developed markets” (May 16, 2007). Citigroup initially sought only U.S.$3 billion for its first infrastructure fund but was seeking U.S.$5 billion in April 2008 (Bloomberg, April 7, 2008).  Citigroup partnered with HSBC Bank, Prudential, and other minor partners to acquire U.K.’s water utility Kelda (Yorkshire Water) in November 2007. This week, Citigroup signed a 99-year lease with the City of Chicago for Chicago’s Midway Airport (it partnered with John Hancock Life Insurance Company and a Canadian private airport operator). Insiders said that Citigroup is among those bidding for the state-owned company Letiste Praha which operates the Prague Airport in the Czech Republic (Bloomberg, February 7, 2008).  As the five U.K. water utility deals illustrate, typically no one single investment bank or private-equity fund owns the entire infrastructure project — they partner with many others. The Citigroup is now entering India’s massive infrastructure market by partnering the Blackstone Group and two Indian private finance companies; they have launched a U.S.$5 billion fund in February 2007, with three entities (Citi, Blackstone, and IDFC) jointly investing U.S.$250 million. India requires about U.S.$320 billion in infrastructure investments in the next five years (The Financial Express, February 16, 2007).  UBS: Water Scarcity Is the Defining Crisis of the 21st Century  In 2006, UBS Investment Research, a division of Switzerland-based UBS AG, Europe’s largest bank by assets, entitled its 40-page research report, “Q-Series®:Water”—“Water scarcity: The defining crisis of the 21st century?” (October 10, 2006) In 2007, UBS, along with JP Morgan and Australia’s Challenger Fund, bought UK’s Southern Water for £4.2biillion.  Credit Suisse: Water Is the “Paramount Megatrend of Our Time”  Credit Suisse published its report about Credit Suisse Water Index (January 21, 2008) urged investors that “One way to take advantage of this trend is to invest in companies geared to water generation, preservation, infrastructure treatment and desalination. The Index enables investors to participate in the performance of the most attractive companies….” The trend in question, according to Credit Suisse, is the “depletion of freshwater reserves” attributable to “pollution, disappearance of glaciers (the main source of freshwater reserves), and population growth, water is likely to become a scarce resource.”  Credit Suisse recognizes water to be the “paramount megatrend of our time” because of a water-supply crisis might cause “severe societal risk” in the next 10 years and that two-thirds of the world’s population are likely to live under water-stressed conditions by 2025. To address water shortages, it has identified desalination and wastewater treatment as the two most important technologies. Three sectors for good investments include the following:  § Membranes for desalination and wastewater treatment   § Water infrastructure — corrosion resistance, pipes, valves, and pumps   § Chemicals for water treatment  It also created the Credit Suisse Water Index which has the equally weighed index of 30 stocks out of 128 global water stocks. For investors, it offered “Credit Suisse PL100 World Water Trust (PL100 World Water),” launched in June 2007, with $112.9 million.  Credit Suisse partnered with General Electric (GE Infrastructure) in May 2006 to establish a U.S.$1 billion joint venture to profit from privatization and investments in global infrastructure assets. Each partner will commit U.S.$500 million to target electricity generation and transmission, gas storage and pipelines, water facilities, airports, air traffic control, ports, railroads, and toll roads worldwide. This joint venture has estimated that the developed market’s infrastructure opportunities are at U.S.$500 billion, and emerging world’s infrastructure market is U.S.$1 trillion in the next five years (Credit Suisse’s press release, May 31, 2006).  In October 2007, Credit Suisse partnered with Cleantech Group (a Michigan-based market-research, consulting, media, and executive-search firm that operates cleantech forums) and Consensus Business Group (a London-based equity firm owned by U.K. billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz) to invest in clean technologies worldwide. The technologies will also clean water technologies.  During its Asian Investment Conference, it said that “Water is a focus for those in the know about global strategic commodities. As with oil, the supply is finite but demand is growing by leaps and unlike oil there is no alternative.” (Credit Suisse, February 4, 2008). Credit Suisse sees the global water market with U.S.$190 billion in revenue in 2005 and was expected to grow to U.S.$342 billion by 2010. It sees most significant growth opportunities in China.  One of the world’s largest banks, JPMorgan Chase has aggressively pursued water and infrastructure worldwide. In October 2007, it beat out rivals Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to buy U.K.’s water utility Southern Water with partners Swiss-based UBS and Australia’s Challenger Infrastructure Fund. This banking empire is controlled by the Rockefeller family; the family patriarch David Rockefeller is a member of the elite and secretive Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission.  JPMorgan sees infrastructure finance as a global phenomenon, and it is joined by its global peers in investment and banking institution in their rush to cash in on water and infrastructure. JPMorgan’s own analysts estimate that the emerging markets’ infrastructure is approximately U.S.$21.7 trillion over the next decade.  JPMorgan created a U.S.$2 billion infrastructure fund to go after India’s infrastructure projects in October 2007. The targeted projects are transportation (roads, bridges, railroads) and utilities (gas, electricity, water). India’s finance minister has been estimated that India requires about U.S.$500 billion in infrastructure investments by 2012. In this regard, JPMorgan is joined by Citigroup, the Blackstone Group, 3i Group (Europe’s second-largest private-equity firm), and ICICI Bank (India’s second-largest bank) (International Herald Tribune, October 31, 2007). Its JPMorgan Asset Management has also established an Asian Infrastructure & Related Resources Opportunity Fund which held a first close on U.S.$500 million (€333 million) and will focus on China, India, and other Southern Asian countries, with the first two investments in China and India (Private Equity Online, August 11, 2008). The fund’s target is U.S.$1.5 billion.  JPMorgan’s Global Equity Research division also published a 60-page report called “Watch water: A guide to evaluating corporate risks in a thirsty world” (April 1, 2008).  In 2010, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Water Asset Management led a $275 million buyout bid for SouthWest Water.  Founded in 1890, Germany’s Allianz Group is one of the leading global services providers in insurance, banking, and asset management in about 70 countries. In April 2008, Allianz SE launched the Allianz RCM Global Water Fund which invests in equity securities of water-related companies worldwide, emphasizing long-term capital appreciation. Alliance launched its Global EcoTrends Fund in February 2007 (Business Wire, February 7, 2007).  Allianz SE’s Dresdner Bank AG told its investors that “Investments in water offer opportunities: Rising oil prices obscure our view of an even more serious scarcity: water. The global water economy is faced with a multi-billion dollar need for capital expenditure and modernization. Dresdner Bank sees this as offering attractive opportunities for returns for investors with a long-term investment horizon.” (Frankfurt, August 14, 2008)  Like Goldman Sachs, Allianz has the philosophy that water is underpriced. A co-manager of the Water Fund in Frankfurt, said, “A key issue of water is that the true value of water is not recognized. …Water tends to be undervalued around the world. …Perhaps that is one of the reasons why there are so many places with a lack of supply due to a lack of investment. With that in mind, it makes sense to invest in companies that are engaged in improving water quality and infrastructure.” Allianz sees two key investment drivers in water: (1) upgrading the aging infrastructure in the developed world; and (2) new urbanization and industrialization in developing countries such as China and India.  Barclays PLC is a U.K.-based major global financial services provider operating in all over the world with roots in London since 1690; it operates through its subsidiary Barclays Bank PLC and its investment bank called Barclays Capital.  Barclays Bank’s unit Barclays Global Investors manages an exchange-traded fund (ETF) called iShares S&P Global Water, which is listed on the London Stock Exchanges and can be purchased like any ordinary share through a broker. Touting the iShares S&P Global Water as offering “a broad based exposure to shares of the world’s largest water companies, including water utilities and water equipment stocks” of water companies around the world, this fund as of March 31, 2007 was valued at U.S.$33.8 million.  Barclays also have a climate index fund: launched on January 16, 2008, SAM Indexes GmbH licensed its Dow Jones Sustainability Index to Barclays Capital for investors in Germany and Switzerland. Many other banks also have a climate index or sustainability index.  In October 2007, Barclays Capital also partnered with Protected Distribution Limited (PDL) to launch a new water investment fund (with expected annual returns of 9% to 11%) called Protected Water Fund. This new fund, listed in the Isle of Man, requires a minimum of £10,000 and is structured as a 10-year investment with Barclays Bank providing 100% of capital protection until maturity on October 11, 2017. The Protected Water Fund will be invested in some of the world’s largest water companies; its investment decisions will be made based on an index created by Barclays Capital, the Barclays World Water Strategy, which charts the performance of some of the world’s largest water-related stocks (Investment Week and Reuters, October 11, 2007; Business Week, October 15, 2007).  Deutsche Bank’s €2 Billion Investment in European Infrastructure: “Megatrend” in Water, Climate, Infrastructure, and Agribusiness Investments  Deutsche Bank is one of the major players in the water sector worldwide. Its Deutsche Bank Advisors have identified water as a part of the climate investment strategies. In its presentation, “Global Warming: Implications for Investors,” they have identified the four following major areas for water investment:  § Distribution and management: (1) Supply and recycling, (2) water distribution and sewage, (3) water management and engineering.   § Water purification: (1) Sewage purification, (2) disinfection, (3) desalination, (4) monitoring.   § Water efficiency (demand): (1) Home installation, (2) gray-water recycling, (3) water meters.   § Water and nutrition: (1) Irrigation, (2) bottled water.  In addition to water, the other two new resources identified were agribusiness (e.g., pesticides, genetically modified seeds, mineral fertilizers, agricultural machinery) and renewable energies (e.g., solar, wind, hydrothermal, biomass, hydroelectricity).  The Deutsche Bank has established an investment fund of up to €2 billion in European infrastructure assets using its Structured Capital Markets Group (SCM), part of the bank’s Global Markets division. The bank already has several “highly attractive infrastructure assets,” including East Surrey Holdings, the owner of U.K.’s water utility Sutton & East Surrey Water (Deutsche Bank press release, September 22, 2006).  Moreover, Deutsche Bank has channeled €6 billion (U.S.$8.55 billion) into climate change funds, which will target companies with products that cut greenhouse gases or help people adapt to a warmer world, in sectors from agriculture to power and construction (Reuters, October 18, 2007).  In addition to SCM, Deutsche Bank also has the RREEF Infrastructure, part of RREEF Alternative Investments, headquartered in New York with main hubs in Sydney, Singapore, and London. RREEF Infrastructure has more than €6.7 billion in assets under management. One of its main targets is utilities, including electricity networks, water-treatment or distribution operations, and natural-gas networks. In October 2007, RREEF partnered with Goldman Sachs, GE, Prudential, and Babcok & Brown Ltd. to bid unsuccessfully for U.K.’s water utility Southern Water.  § Crediting the boom in European infrastructure investment, the RREEF fund by August 2007 had raised €2 billion (U.S.$2.8 billion); Europe’s infrastructure market is valued at between U.S.$4 trillion to U.S.$6 trillion (DowJones Financial News Online, August 7, 2007).  § Bulgaria — Deutsche Bank Bulgaria is planning to participate in large infrastructure projects, including public-private partnership projects in water and sewage worth up to €1 billion (Sofia Echo Media, February 26, 2008).  § Middle East — Along with Ithmaar Bank B.S.C. (an private-equity investment bank in Bahrain), Deutsche Bank co-managed a U.S.$2 billion Shari’a-compliant Infrastructure and Growth Capital Fund and plans to target U.S.$630 billion in regional infrastructure.  Deutsche Bank AG is co-owner of Aqueduct Capital (UK) Limited which in 2006 offered to buy U.K.’s sixth-largest water utility Sutton and East Surrey Water plc from British tycoon Guy Hand. According to an OFWAT consultation paper (May 2007), Deutsche Bank formed this new entity, Aqueduct Capital (short for ACUK), in October 2005, with two public pension funds in Canada, Singapore’s life insurance giant, and a Canadian province’s investment fund, among others. This case, again, is an illustration of the complex nature of ownership of water utilities today, with various types of institutions crossing national boundaries to partner with each other to hold a stake in the water sector. With its impressive war chest dedicated to water, food, and infrastructure, Deutsche Bank is expected to become a major player in the global water sector.  Merrill Lynch (before being bought by Bank of America) issued a 24-page research report titled “Water scarcity; a bigger problem than assumed” (December 6, 2007). ML said that water scarcity is “not limited to arid climates.”  Morgan Stanley in its publication, “Emerging Markets Infrastructure: Just Getting Started” (April 2008) recommends three areas of investment opportunities in water: water utilities, global operators (such as Veolia Environment), and technology companies (such as those that manufacture membranes and chemicals used in water treatment to the water industry).  Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds Join the Action in Water  Water investment funds are on the rise, such as these four well-known water-focused mutual funds:  1. Calvert Global Water Fund (CFWAX) — $42 million in assets as of 2010, which holds 30% of its assets in water utilities, 40% in infrastructure companies, and 30% in water technologies. Also between 65% to 70% of the water stocks derived more than 50% of their revenue from water-related activities.   2. Allianz RCM Global Water Fund (AWTAX) — $54 million assets as of 2010, most of it invested in water utilities.   3. PFW Water Fund (PFWAX) — $17 million in assets as of 2010, with a minimum investment of $2,500, with 80% invested in water-related companies….   4. Kinetics Water Infrastructure Advantaged Fund (KWIAX) — $26 million in assets as of 2010, with a minimum investment of $2,500.  This is a brief list of water-centered hedge funds:  § Master Water Equity Fund — Summit Global AM (United States)   § Water Partners Fund — Aqua Terra AM (United States)   § The Water Fund — Terrapin AM (United States)   § The Reservoir Fund — Water AM (United States)   § The Oasis Fund — Perella Weinberg AM (United States)   § Signina Water Fund — Signina Capital AG (Switzerland)   § MFS Water Fund of Funds — MFS Aqua AM (Australia)   § Triton Water Fund of Funds — FourWinds CM (United States)   § Water Edge Fund of Funds — Parker Global Strategies LLC (United States)  Other banks have launched water-targeted investment funds. Several well-known specialized water funds include Pictet Water Fund, SAM Sustainable Water Fund, Sarasin Sustainable Water Fund, Swisscanto Equity Fund Water, and Tareno Waterfund. Several structured water products offered by major investment banks include ABN Amro Water Stocks Index Certificate, BKB Water Basket, ZKB Sustainable Basket Water, Wagelin Water Shares Certificate, UBS Water Strategy Certificate, and Certificate on Vontobel Water Index. There are also several water indexes and index funds, as follows:  The following is a small sample of other water funds and certificates (not exhaustive of the current range of diverse water products available):  Allianz RCM Global EcoTrends Fund   Allianz RCM Global Water Fund   UBS Water Strategy Certificate—it has a managed basket of 25 international stocks   Summit Water Equity Fund   Maxxwater Global Water Fund   Claymore S&P Global Water ETF (CGW)   Barclays Global Investors’ iShares S&P Global Water   Barclays and PDL’s Protected Water Fund based on Barclays World Water Strategy   Invesco’s PowerShares Water Resources Portfolio ETF (PHO)   Invesco’s PowerShares Global Water (PIO)   Pictet Asset Management’s Pictet Water Fund and Pictet Water Opportunities Fund   Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s Water Growth Deposit Notes   Criterion Investments Limited’s Criterion Water Infrastructure Fund  One often-heard reason for the investment banks’ rush to control of water is that “Utilities are viewed as relatively safe assets in an economic downturn so [they] are more isolated than most from the global credit crunch, initially sparked by concerns over U.S. subprime mortgages” (Reuters, October 9, 2007). A London-based analyst at HSBC Securities told Bloomberg News that water is a good investment because “You’re buying something that’s inflation proof and there’s no threat to earnings really. It’s very stable and you can sell it any time you want” (Bloomberg, October 8, 2007).  Many pension funds have entered the water sector as a relatively safe sector for investment. For example, BT Pension Scheme (of British Telecom plc) has bought stakes in Thames Water in 2012, while Canadian pension funds CDPQ (Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages public pension funds in Québec) and CPPIB (Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) have acquired England’s South East Water and Anglian Water, respectively, as reported by Reuters this year.  In January 2012, China Investment Corporation has bought 8.68% stakes in Thames Water, the largest water utility in England, which serves parts of the Greater London area, Thames Valley, and Surrey, among other areas.  In November 2012, One of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), also purchased 9.9% stake in Thames Water.  Billionaires Sucking up Water Globally: George H.W. Bush and Family, Li Ka-shing, the Filipino Billionaires, and Others  Not only are the mega-banks investing heavily in water, the multibillionaire tycoons are also buying water.  In summer 2011, the Hong Kong multibillionaire tycoon Li Ka-shing who owns Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI), bought Northumbrian Water, which serves 2.6 million people in northeastern England, for $3.9 billion (see this and this).  CKI also sold Cambridge Water for £74 million to HSBC in 2011. Not satisfied with controlling the water sector, in 2010, CKI with a consortium bought EDF’s power networks in UK for £5.8 billion.  Li is now also collaborating with Samsung on investing in water treatment.  Through his Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet is the largest institutional investor of Nalco Holding Co. (NLC), a subsidiary of Ecolab, with 9 million shares. Nalco was named 2012 Water Technology Company of the Year. Nalco manufactures treatment chemicals and water treatment process technologies.  But the company Nalco is not just a membrane manufacturer; it also produced the infamous toxic chemical dispersant Corexit which was used to disperse crude oil in the aftermath of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Before being sold to Ecolab, Nalco’s parent company was Blackstone……  Former President George H.W. Bush’s Family Bought 300,000 Acres on South America’s and World’s Largest Aquifer, Acuifero Guaraní  In my 2008 article, I overlooked the astonishingly large land purchases (298,840 acres, to be exact) by the Bush family in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, while on a trip to Paraguay for the United Nation’s children’s group UNICEF, Jenna Bush (daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush) reportedly bought 98,840 acres of land in Chaco, Paraguay, near the Triple Frontier (Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay). This land is said to be near the 200,000 acres purchased by her grandfather, George H.W. Bush, in 2005.  The lands purchased by the Bush family sit over not only South America’s largest aquifer — but the world’s as well — Acuifero Guaraní, which runs beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This aquifer is larger than Texas and California combined.  Online political magazine Counterpunch quoted Argentinean pacifist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the winner of 1981 Nobel Peace Prize, who “warned that the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaraní is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America….”  According to Wikipedia, this aquifer covers 1,200,000 km², with a volume of about 40,000 km³, a thickness of between 50 m and 800 m and a maximum depth of about 1,800 m. It is estimated to contain about 37,000 km³ of water (arguably the largest single body of groundwater in the world, although the overall volume of the constituent parts of the Great Artesian Basin is much larger), with a total recharge rate of about 166 km³/year from precipitation. It is said that this vast underground reservoir could supply fresh drinking water to the world for 200 years.  Filipino Tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan and Others Buy Water Services in Vietnam  In October 2012, Filipino businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan went to Vietnam to scout for investment opportunities, particularly on toll road and water services. Mr. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, such as the owners of the Ayala Corp. and subsidiary Manila Water Co. earlier announced a deal to buy a 10-per cent stake in Ho Chi Minh City Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Co. (CII) and a 49-per cent stake in Kenh Dong Water Supply Joint Stock Co. (Kenh Dong).  The Ayala group has also entered the Vietnamese market by buying significant minority interest in a leading infrastructure company and a bulk water supply company both based in Ho Chi Minh City.  Unfortunately, the global water and infrastructure-privatization fever is unstoppable: many local and state governments are suffering from revenue shortfalls and are under financial and budgetary strains. These local and state governments can longer shoulder the responsibilities of maintaining and upgrading their own utilities. Facing offers of millions of cash from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, and other elite banks for their utilities and other infrastructure and municipal services, cities and states will find it extremely difficult to refuse these privatization offers.  The elite multinational and Wall Street banks and investment banks have been preparing and waiting for this golden moment for years. Over the past few years, they have amassed war chests of infrastructure funds to privatize water, municipal services, and utilities all over the world. It will be extremely difficult to reverse this privatization trend in water.  “Goldman Sachs eyes bid for Veolia Water,” by Anousha Sakoui and Daniel Schäfer, Financial Times, March 13, 2012.  “Hong Kong tycoon to buy Northumbrian Water,” by Mark Wembridge, Financial Times, August 2, 2011.  “Why Big Banks May Be Buying up Your Public Water System: In uncertain economic and environmental times, big banks and financial groups are buying up public water systems as safe investments,” by Jo-Shing Yang, AlterNet, October 31, 2008.  “Paraguay in a spin about Bush’s alleged 100,000 acre hideaway,” by Tom Phillips, The Guardian, October 22, 2006.  “Cities Debate Privatizing Public Infrastructure,” by Jenny Anderson, August 26, 2008, The New York Times.  “Philippine tycoon eyes investments in Vietnam,” by Doris C. Dunlao in Manila, Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 18, 2012.


globalresearch--2019-11-11--Agrarian Crisis and Malnutrition: GM Agriculture Is Not the Answer

M S Swaminathan is often referred to as the ‘father’ of India’s Green Revolution. In 2009, he said that no scientific evidence had emerged to justify concerns about genetically modified (GM) crops, often regarded as stage two of the Green Revolution.  In a December 2018 paper in the journal Current Science, however, it was argued that Bt insecticidal cotton (India’s only officially approved commercial GM crop) is a failure and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers.  The paper attracted a good deal of attention because, along with scientist P C Kesavan, Swaminathan was the co-author.  They concluded that globally both Bt crops and herbicide-tolerant crops are unsustainable and have not decreased the need for toxic chemical pesticides, the reason for these GM crops in the first place. Attention was also drawn to evidence that indicates Bt toxins are toxic to all organisms.  Kesavan and Swaminathan mounted a general critique of the GM paradigm. They noted that glyphosate-based herbicides, used on most GM crops in the world, and their active ingredient glyphosate, are genotoxic, cause birth defects and are carcinogenic. They also asserted that GM crop yields are no better than that of non-GM crops.  The authors concluded that genetic engineering technology is supplementary and must be need based. In more than 99% of cases, they said that time-honoured conventional breeding is sufficient.  In fact, Kesavan and Swaminathan argued that a sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’ based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’ would guarantee equitable food security by ensuring access of rural communities to food.  Part of the pushback against Kevasan and Swaminathan has come from Dr Deepak Pental, developer and promoter of GM mustard at Delhi University. He responded to their piece with an article in September 2019, again in Current Science.  He argued that Kesavan and Swaminathan have unequivocally aligned themselves with overzealous environmentalists and ideologues, who have mindlessly attacked the use of GM technology to improve crops required for meeting the food and nutritional needs of a global population that is predicted to peak out at 11.2 billion. Pental added that the two authors’ analysis of modern breeding technologies is a reflection of their ideological proclivities.  By resorting to such statements, Pental was drawing on industry-inspired spin: criticisms of GM are driven by ideology not fact and GM is required to ‘feed the world’. Both assertions are baseless but are employed time and again across the globe by the pro-GM lobby in an attempt to discredit inconvenient scientific findings and campaigners who forward valid criticisms.  In response to Pental, Andrew Paul Gutierrez, Peter E. Kenmore and Aruna Rodrigues hit back with a piece in a November 2019 edition of the same journal, ‘When biotechnologists lack objectivity’. In it, they argue:  The authors indicate the adverse impacts on human health of GMOs and associated agrochemical inputs and the very real risk of gene flow and other ways by which non-GM crops and seeds can be contaminated by their GM counterparts:  As alluded to in the above extract, India has a wealth of plant species that have evolved and been adapted over millennia. The country has good-quality traditional seeds which are ideally suited for local soils, climates and pests. And these seeds are less resource intensive. We must therefore question why Pental’s GM mustard is being pushed so hard when it does not out-yield certain mustard species that India has already.  While touching on serious conflicts of interest within regulatory bodies, the authors also discuss Bt cotton and GM mustard, the commercialisation of which is currently held up due to a public litigation case with Aruna Rodrigues acting as lead petitioner.  They provide data to highlight the myth of Bt cotton success in India. However, GM promoters continue to peddle the story of Bt cotton success and aim to drive the full-scale introduction of GM crops into Indian agriculture on the back of this false narrative.  The authors explain that the current GM Bt cotton hybrids in India were indeed developed as a ‘value capture’ mechanism that enabled the seed industry to side-step intractable legal intellectual property rights: the interests of poor farmers were sacrificed for corporate commercial benefit.  In the article, data is also presented for GM mustard and the authors argue that it shows no yield advantage and its testing and evaluation have involved protocol violations.  In India, various high-level reports have advised against the adoption of GM crops. Appointed by the Supreme Court, the ‘Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report’ (2013) was scathing about the prevailing regulatory system and highlighted its inadequacies and serious inherent conflicts of interest. The TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops.  Kesavan and Swaminathan, in their piece. also criticised India’s GM regulating bodies due to a lack of competency and endemic conflicts of interest and a lack of expertise in GM risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts. They also questioned regulators’ failure to carry out a socio-economic assessment of GM impacts on resource-poor small and marginal farmers and called for “able economists who are familiar with and will prioritize rural livelihoods, and the interests of resource-poor small and marginal farmers rather than serve corporate interests and their profits.”  As we have seen with the push to get GM mustard commercialised, the problems described by the TEC persist. Through her numerous submissions to the Supreme Court, Rodrigues has asserted that GM mustard is being pushed for commercialisation based on flawed tests (or no tests) and a lack of public scrutiny. In effect, she argues, there has been unremitting scientific fraud and outright regulatory delinquency. It must also be noted that this crop is herbicide-tolerant (HT), which, as stated by the TEC, is wholly inappropriate for India with its small biodiverse, multi-cropping farms.  Rodrigues has for a long time contended that GM ‘regulation’ in India occurs in a system dogged by serious conflicts of interest: funders, promoters and regulators are basically one and the same. She argues that agricultural institutions and numerous public sector scientists working within these bodies along with a powerful lobbying force are joined at the hip in pushing for GM.  If the pro-GM lobby is genuinely concerned about ‘feeding the world’, it should really be questioning why the world already produces enough to feed 10 million people but over two billion are experiencing micronutrient deficiencies (of which over 800 million are classed as chronically undernourished); why we are seeing rising rates of obesity, diabetes and a range of other health-related conditions; and why, post-Green Revolution, the range of crops grown has narrowed and the nutrient content of food and diets has diminished.  The answers lie with the practices, processes and toxic inputs that are integral to the prevailing model of chemical-intensive, industrial agriculture and the dynamics of the globalised capitalist food system. Throughout the world, this model has become tied to agro-export mono-cropping (often with non-food commodities taking up prime agricultural land), sovereign debt repayment and World Bank/IMF ‘structural adjustment’ directives, the outcomes of which have included a displacement of a food-producing peasantry, the consolidation of rapacious global agri-food oligopolies and the transformation of many countries into food deficit areas.  Global food insecurity and malnutrition are therefore not the result of a lack of productivity.  As for India, although it fares poorly in world hunger assessments, the country has more than enough food to feed its 1.3 billion-plus population and with appropriate policy support measures could draw on its own indigenous agroecological know-how to do so.  Where farmers’ livelihoods are concerned, the pro-GM lobby says GM will boost productivity and help secure cultivators a better income. This too is misleading and again ignores crucial political and economic contexts. For instance, to gain brief insight into the nature of India’s agrarian crisis and why farmers are leaving the sector, let us turn to renowned journalist P Sainath who says:  Little surprise, therefore, that even with bumper harvests, Indian farmers still find themselves in financial distress.  India’s farmers are not experiencing financial hardship due to low productivity. They are reeling under the effects of neoliberal policies, years of neglect and a deliberate strategy to displace smallholder agriculture at the behest of the World Bank and global agri-food corporations. And people are not hungry in India because its farmers do not produce enough food. Hunger and malnutrition result from various factors, not least poor food distribution, lack of infrastructure, (gender) inequality and poverty.  However, aside from putting a positive spin on the questionable performance of GM agriculture, the pro-GM lobby, both outside of India and within, has wasted no time in wrenching these issues from their political contexts to use the notions of ‘helping farmers’ and ‘feeding the world’ as lynchpins of its promotional strategy.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.


globalresearch--2019-12-08--Power of Siberia: Putin and the ‘Biden Memorial Pipeline’ to China

In early 2014 Washington staged a blatant coup d’etat in Ukraine breaking the historic relationship with Russia and setting the stage for the subsequent NATO demonization of Russia. The one in charge for the Obama Administration of the Ukraine coup was then-Vice President Joe Biden. Today a bizarre Democrat impeachment attempt aimed at President Donald Trump has curiously enough put the spotlight on the dubious role that Joe Biden played in Ukraine affairs in 2014 and after. That Biden-steered coup had the unintended effect of causing a 180 degree geopolitical pivot of Moscow from West to East. The opening of a massive new gas pipeline now is only one of those unintended consequences.  On December 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in the official opening of the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline to Asia, servicing the growing China gas market. It met the planned deadline punctually, to the month. This marked the first Russian pipeline gas deliveries to China. In a videolink with China President Xi Jinping, Putin remarked,  The opening, a huge engineering feat, completes a pipeline through Russia’s Eastern Siberia north of Mongolia to the border with China, running more than 2,200 kilometers across Russia’s east territories. It is the largest gas pipeline project in the world to date.  The pipeline is designed to deal with temperatures as low as 62 C minus, and withstand earthquakes along its route. It begins in the Chayanda gas field in Yakutia and completes the Russian section at Blagoveshchensk on the Russia–China border. There, via two underwater pipelines under the Amur River, it connects with a Chinese gas line going south to Shanghai, the 3,371-kilometer-long Heihe–Shanghai pipeline in China. The world’s largest market demand increase for gas fuel in recent years has been China.  In May 2014, Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a $400 billion 30-year agreement for gas to be supplied via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline. The Russian gas deliveries to China will be 38 billion cubic meters per year when it reaches peak in 2025. In 2018 China natural gas consumption was 280 bcm, so the Siberian contribution is significant. It will eventually supply some 10% of China’s total gas needs for electricity and heating, to China’s underdeveloped northeast regions and south as far as Shanghai. But the project is about much more than gas to China.  Completion of the major Power of Siberia pipeline to China involves more than a pipeline running through 2,200 kilometers of remote Russia. It is also being used as a catalyst to develop major industry in the economically underdeveloped Russian Far East as well, a priority of the Russian government in recent years.  A little discussed parallel development tied to the construction of the Power of Siberia pipeline is Gazprom’s decision to build Russia’s largest gas-processing chemical facility, the Amur Gas Processing Plant, or the Amur GPP. The Amur GPP is the largest construction project in Russia’s Far East, a $14 billion complex near Svobodny on the Zeya River in Amur Oblast, some 170 kilometers from the gas pipeline’s China connection point. The Amur GPP scale is enormous, the size of 1,100 football fields.  The complex will use a portion of the huge gas reserves of the Power of Siberia fields in East Siberia to produce a mix of petrochemicals that will include ethane, propane, butane, pentane-hexane fraction and 60 million cubic meters of helium annually. These are all industrial chemical components in strong demand. Most important is the large production of helium, a byproduct of natural gas used in space industry, metallurgy, medicine and other areas. Amur GPP will be the largest helium production plant in the world. Ethane, propane, butane, pentane-hexane will be used to produce polymers, plastics, lubricants and other things including motor fuel.  The Amur GPP project when complete in 2025 will be the largest gas processing plant complex in Russia and second largest in the world, bringing major new economic activity to the underdeveloped Far East region, a priority of the Russian government. In August 2017 Russian President Putin was present for the first pouring of the concrete foundation for the complex. In his remarks he noted that,  The production from the Amur plant complex will be marketed for export to the Asian market as well as expanding the gas supply network for Yakutia and the Amur Region where until now commercial gas is almost non-existent.  The strategic partner of Gazprom responsible for the processing equipment and other engineering technology is the German company, Linde, a world leader in such specialized technology.  The Amur GPP complex will bring a major boost to Svobodny which like many towns in the remote Far East has been losing population following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The construction phase as noted is employing some 25,000 engineers and construction workers, most drawn from the region, adding a major economic boost. In addition Gazprom is building 42 new apartment buildings and 36 townhouses for some 5,000 people in Svobodny who will be permanently employed at the facility. There will also be a new school and kindergarten with a swimming pool, clinic, sports and cultural institutions. As well, Gazprom is cooperating with Amur State University and the Far Eastern Federal University, with new courses to train future specialists in chemical technology. The municipal government is already benefiting from tax payments from the presence of the project.  Ironically, we can title this the ‘Biden Memorial Pipeline.’ Had the Obama Administration not launched their coup d’etat in 2013 at Maidan Square in Kiev, with the subsequent ouster of the elected president in February 2014 in favor of literal neo-nazi parties and corrupt oligarchs under a US puppet regime, the completion of the Power of Siberia pipeline to China would likely not exist today. Negotiations with Beijing for the pipeline had been dragging on for more than ten years when the Ukraine coup took place. After that coup a final agreement was secured by Moscow with Beijing in a matter of weeks as Putin engineered a geopolitical pivot to the East away from NATO.  Vice President Joe Biden was named by Obama to oversee the Ukraine coup and its aftermath, which apparently included some corrupt sweetheart deals for Hunter Biden and possibly Joe Biden with Ukraine gas company Burisma.  The coup, carried out by then CIA head John Brennan, using sniper mercenaries from neighboring Georgia, together with neocon US State Department official Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, was one of the more foolish geopolitical blunders of Washington in recent decades. The pro-NATO coup was initiated when Viktor Yanukovich’s government had decided to accept generous Russian terms to join her Eurasian Economic Union rather than a vague promise of possible EU membership candidate status. Today Ukraine is treated with outcast status by the EU, and its economy is a shambles as a result of the break with Russia. In May, 2014, just weeks after the CIA toppled the duly elected government of Viktor Yanukovich in what Stratfor founder George Friedman called, “…the most blatant coup in (US) history,” Moscow signed the agreement with Beijing for the Gas Pipeline Deal of the Century, the Power of Siberia.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.  F. William Engdahl is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)


nationalinterest--2019-11-24--Iran Would Be Wasting Its Time Building an 'F-35'

It would be asking for more trouble than it's worth.  Key Point: Iran has reasons to want a stealth fighter, but it is a very expensive undertaking.  There can be such a thing as posturing too hard.  Iran’s aviation industry has accomplishments to boast about despite operating under heavy sanctions for nearly forty years. It has managed to keep once state-of-the-art U.S.-built F-4 Phantom and F-14 Tomcat fighters in operational condition for decades, including nine years of high-intensity aerial warfare with Iraq, despite being cut off from spare parts from the United States. It has refurbished the rusting hulks of old F-5 Freedom Fighters into twin-vertical stabilizer Saeqeh fighters, reverse-engineered their J85 turbojet engines, and created a variety of viable capable drones.  All of these scrappy-underdog accomplishments fall far short of developing a working stealth fighter. Russia, which possesses a mature military aviation industry, has basically thrown the towel on its Su-57 stealth fighter program (at least on the short term) because the expenses and technical challenges have proven so prohibitive. Much wealthier countries ranging from France, Germany, India, Japan and the UK are only in the early stages of developing their own.  But Tehran would have the world believe that it quietly developed its own stealth jet way back in February 2, 2013, when one was unveiled as part of the Ten-Day Dawn ceremonies attended by then-President Ahmadinejad.  IAIO Qaher (“Conqueror”) 313 stood out as a diminutive franken-plane that would look cool in an action flick. It retained significant design characteristics of the F-5 Freedom Fighter, but sported canted vertical stabilizers like an F-22 Raptor, flouncy wings reminiscent of a 1950s-era MiG-17, drooping wingtips resembling Boeing’s discarded Bird of Prey concept, and bat-like canards—a second set of wings next to the cockpit.  It didn’t, however, look like something that could actually fly—as pointed out by David Cenicotti of The Aviationist—in an epic takedown. Some of the key points:  The Cockpit Was Too Small to Fit an Average-Height Human Being  Unless that person was a dwarf. The pilot would have to tuck his knees up in front of him to fit. Likewise, the nose was too small to fit a radar.  One of the pictures depicts a relatively low-tech instrument panel likely taken from a civilian light plane. One of the tells? An airspeed indicator maxing out at 260 knots, which is little over half the speed of a subsonic civilian airliner.  Nozzles help a jet not melt itself when engaging afterburners. Furthermore, the jet intakes seem too small as well.  Stealth jets generally carry weapons in internal bays to maintain a low-radar cross section. But such internal bays, or even provisions for external weapons or sensors, were visibly absent. Iran claimed the little Qaher could somehow carry two two-thousand-pound bombs and six air-to-air missiles—but the airframe simply did not have enough space to carry them all.  It appeared to be made out of shiny plastic—without tell-tale rivets and screws.  And the canopy appeared to be smudgy plexiglass and had no latch.  Iranian state media released a video which supposedly depicted a Qaher in flight. But a glance at the footage made clear it was a less-than-full-scale remote-control replica.  After the outcry, Iranian media clarified that these were in fact two different reduced-sized test drones.  Another dramatic photo depicting a Qaher flying against a mountain backdrop appears to have been produced via the magic of Photoshop.  Basically, the Qaher was a highly unconvincing plastic mockup designed for crude propaganda purposes—and international media called it out for being just that.  The hypothetical stealth jet disappeared for several years only to resurface in a somewhat more convincing form in April 2017 when prototyped number “8” was paraded before President Rouhani and recorded taxiing on a runway. This time, Iranian media conceded that the jet had yet to undergo flight tests.  The new jet now has a cockpit that can fit a full-sized pilot, two turbojet engines with exhaust nozzles so as not to melt itself, and an infrared-sensor turret under the nose which could be handy but would likely mess up its radar cross section. The turbojets are believed to be J85s, an American-built type from the 1950s which Iran successfully reverse-engineered. The Qaher has a wingspan of only 11 meters and is 16 meters long.  However, the unconventional airframe still seems rife with aerodynamic flaws and radar reflective hot spots. Moreover, sharp-eyed analyst Galen Wright noticed that an Iranian mechanic had stenciled on the tire-pressure for the Qaher as 50 psi. For comparison, the tires on a lightweight F-16 ramp up to 300 psi. This suggests even the more realistic Qaher model is too light to be a real, functioning jet fighter.  For that matter, the notion that even the mockup Qaher has a stealthy radar cross section is dubious as Iran likely lacks the prerequisite radar-absorbent material and precision-engineering technology.  Notably, the Fars news agency described the new Qaher as a “logistic aircraft” (whatever that means—it’s clearly not a cargo plane) and a “light fighter jet for military and training purposes.” This hints that if Iran ever does build flying Qaher, it might not be intended for frontline service. Perhaps it could serve as a prototype, or a means to test detection of a quasi-low-observable airframe.  Iranian sources, including a deputy defense minister, have also offered the eyebrow-raising claim that the Qaher is intended to shoot down helicopters, based on a chain of dubious premises. Supposedly, the threat posed by swarms of Iranian motorboats armed with anti-ship missiles is so great that the U.S. Navy will rely on attack helicopters to destroy them. These, however, could in turn be easily shot down by fighters—so long as those fighters are stealthy enough to evade the surface-to-air missiles of ships, so the reasoning goes.  Iran may eventually design an actual flying jet plane resembling the mockups it passed off as the real thing—but even, such a plane would likely merely be a testbed and showpiece. By now, one can consult the experience of the United States, China and Russia to show what a real stealth fighter program would entail. By comparison, Iran’s effort does no seem credible. One should also bear in mind that back in 2003, Iran unveiled an earlier, more convincing fake subsonic stealth fighter called the Shafaq—revealed in 2014 to be a mock-up made of wood.  Certainly, Iran has reasons to want a stealth fighter—it fears an attack by Israel or the United States, some of the most capable air arms on the planet. Furthermore, Iran is competing for regional dominance with multiple Arab states lavishly equipped with fourth and 4.5-generation F-15, F-16, Typhoon and Rafale jet fighters.  However, attempting to develop a working stealth jet from scratch is probably the most expensive and least practical solution to address those challenges. Meanwhile, Tehran’s predilection for fabricating easily disproven evidence of its military capabilities testifies to the revolutionary state’s enduring sense of insecurity.  Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This was first published in 2018 and is being republished due to reader's interest.


naturalnews--2019-08-28--Barley flaxseed and rice bran Why theyre good sources of nutraceuticals

Barley, flaxseed and rice bran: Why they're good sources of nutraceuticals

(Natural News) Nutraceuticals have long been the focus of scientific studies and the subject of debate. They are often considered to be more food than medicine. On the other hand, these naturally occurring substances have nutritional and medicinal properties that can help in the prevention and treatment of various diseases. Researchers from Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology in India believe that the addition of nutraceuticals to food products could lead to the development of safe functional foods that can promote overall health; hence, they isolated substances known to be beneficial to human health from crops and tested their safety as potential food additives. In their study published in in the Journal of Food Processing and Preservation, they characterized nutraceuticals extracted from barley flour, flaxseed, and rice bran oil to show that these plant components are safe to use as nutraceutical ingredients.  For their study, the researchers used barley flour, flaxseed, and rice bran oil as sources. They isolated beta-glucan fibers from a six-rowed, hull-less barley variety, a lignan concentrate from flaxseed, and a gamma oryzanol concentrate from rice bran oil. These nutraceuticals can offer tremendous health and medicinal benefits. For instance, the soluble dietary fiber beta-glucan helps improve blood cholesterol levels and support heart health. Meanwhile, the lignans from flaxseed are converted by intestinal bacteria into chemicals that contribute to the prevention of hormone-related cancers, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. Gamma oryzanol from rice bran oil is a mixture of natural antioxidants and is known to reduce high cholesterol levels and alleviate symptoms of menopause and aging.  Using various analytical methods, the researchers reported that the variety of hull-less barley they chose contained high amounts of beta-glucan, while the lignan concentrate from flaxseed had a high secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG) content and the gamma oryzanol concentrate had four major components, namely, cycloartenyl ferulate (CAF), 24?methylenecycloartanyl ferulate (24-MCF), campesteryl ferulate, and B?sitosteryl ferulate.  According to studies, SDG metabolites can protect against heart disease and metabolic syndrome by decreasing blood cholesterol and glucose levels, lowering blood pressure, and reducing oxidative stress and inflammation. They can also reduce the risk of cancer by preventing angiogenesis and cancer metastasis. On the other hand, CAF has been shown to treat allergic inflammation; 24-MCF is known to have anti-cancer and cholesterol-lowering activities; campesteryl ferulate is toxic to cancer cells; B-sitosteryl ferulate has potent antioxidant activity.  The researchers also confirmed through chromatographic and spectrometric analyses that the raw materials were not contaminated by any pesticide and that, of the three isolates, the gamma oryzanol concentrate had the lowest total plate count, yeast and mold count, and coliform count.  Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that these nutraceuticals are safe to incorporate into food products in order to develop functional foods that can promote overall health.  Rice bran oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the germ and husk of rice kernels. In terms of composition, rice bran oil is similar to peanut oil, which contains safe and balanced levels of diverse fatty acids. Because of this, rice bran oil is considered healthier than other cooking oils. Rice bran oil helps lower cholesterol, improves skin health, promotes weight loss, prevents certain types of cancer, and protects heart health.  Flaxseeds are rich in micronutrients like healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals, and are good sources of dietary fiber which promote gut health. Flaxseeds come from flax, one of the oldest fiber crops on the planet, and are marketed today in the form of seeds, oil, capsules or tablets, and flour. Flaxseeds are known to prevent diabetes, high cholesterol, cancer, constipation, and other health problems.  Barley (whole grain) is another excellent source of dietary fiber — both soluble and insoluble. Dietary fiber keeps the gut healthy by maintaining a balance between good and bad intestinal bacteria. Barley has a low glycemic index, which makes it effective in managing blood glucose levels. Consuming barley also helps with constipation, hypertension, arthritis, skin problems, anemia, obesity, asthma, heart disease, kidney problems, and diabetes.