Money from thin air: British breezes sells for £80 a pop in China

There was a time when basic necessities of life were free for all, Then, healthy food became something to be purchased. Then, rather recently, clean drinking water became the next necessity of life to be sold & purchased, & now, bottled Air from UK & Canada going to cities that are suffering from pollution & smog.

Result of this: cheap food lacks proper nutrients & hence, increases the likelihood of illnesses like obesity, diabetes, heart problems, etc.; polluted & dirty water is available for free, but full of pollutants & harmful carcinogens in some cases, & now, poor people who lack enough money to buy bottled air, will be inhaling polluted air full of carcinogenic materials.

Next thing up for sale: life. If you want more life, buy more life.

Essentially, poor people will keep fighting for the mere scraps -- the necessary scraps to live -- while, the wealthy people will be able to buy everything to live; food, water, air, life ...

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https://www.rt.com/uk/331438-bottled-british-air-china/

A UK businessman is making a fortune selling British air to wealthy Chinese buyers for £80 ($115) a bottle.

Leo De Watts, 27, harvests fresh air from rural locations across the UK, including Dorset, Somerset, Wales, Wiltshire and Yorkshire.

His team use specially adapted fishing nets and run through fields to collect the breeze. The nets are left for 10 minutes to absorb the local aroma, before being bottled in 580 ml containers.

De Watts, who is from Dorset but now lives in Hong Kong, described his product as the “Louis Vuitton or Gucci” of fresh air.

Commenting on the difference between the areas where English air is harvested, he said: “I would say on the whole that Dorset air seems to pick up a few more scents of the ocean, as the breeze flows up the Jurassic Coast and over the lush pastures.

“Whereas air from the Yorkshire dales tends to filter its way through much more flora, so the scent captures the subtle tones of the surrounding fields, giving different qualities to the collection. We go up to a hilltop, for example, and collect all the products there which are all packaged and bottled up, sent to Dorset and then directly to China.”

De Watts said the Chinese demand for Great British gusts stems from the country’s terrible pollution problem, especially in urban areas.

“Our customers all have high disposal incomes and want to buy gifts for someone or someone wants to use it,” he said.

“There is a serious point to this though as Beijing, Zhuhai, and Shanghai are the major places where pollution is quite bad, whether it is the fault of the rest of the world or its China’s responsibility, we have a case of people living in smog.”

De Watts’ company Aethaer – the Greek word for pure fresh air – is one of at least two companies selling bottled air to China. A company from Canada is already selling bottled Rocky Mountain air to smog sufferers in Beijing and elsewhere.

De Watts admits he originally dismissed the idea as ridiculous.

“I saw a few reports of people importing bottles of air and thought it was a bit ridiculous myself, and then I thought about it,” he said.

“When someone bottled water everyone thought it was ridiculous, now you have Evian and Volvic – why not bottle air?”

The data on alleged police assaults makes the case for representative forces across Britain

A good opinion piece. A country / society can only be considered successful in integrating immigrants when all of its institutions, private & public, are as diverse as the general public.

However, we see that all the public institutions of the developed Western world are mostly native residents of those countries; judiciary, political, & law enforcement departments of the governments at all levels.

This piece is about British police force & British general public, but we all are well aware of what's going on in US right now with the country-wide protests & violence against this exact same thing what this piece is talking about. Just the other day, I blogged how Portuguese police force in Lisbon brutally controls immigrants from its former African colonies. So, this phenomenon of unnecessary police assaults are not confined to one country alone.

Now, why do these police assaults happen? I believe they happen because this gross discrepancy between the actual demographics of the general public & the demographics of the institutions breeds resentment on both sides against each other, i.e. the government makes laws that are incompatible with what's actually going on with the general public or the police, themselves of being mostly of one race, are usually heavily biased towards their own race.

When the public institutions work towards diversifying their rank & file, then the trust between general public & the public institutions increase on both sides, since both sides now understand each others "language".

If the public institutions don't diversify, then it starts to seem like the age of slavery when the "coloured" slaves were assaulted & ruled over with an iron fist. Only this time around, the "slaves" are seemingly free & not coming from one continent only, but the race of the "owner" has neither changed, & still, nor its mentality.

Is the so-called "modern" world regressing back to the era of slavery?

Yes. Be it international foreign affairs or municipal affairs in a small town in North America or Europe, one race is still trying to control the others, because that pesky "illness of superiority" is still lingering around. Besides, immigrants are never fully accepted by the native residents of the country, so the native residents will always find a way to control the immigrant masses.

No worries, that "illness of superiority" is not confined to one race only. For instance, Arabs, especially Saudis, feel superior than other Muslims (non-Arabs & non-Saudis), even though, Prophet Muhammad specifically forbade Arabs from feeling superior than other non-Arab Muslims. What did it do? It created resentment in non-Arab Muslims towards Arabs in general, & especially, Saudis.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/black-and-blue-the-data-on-alleged-police-assaults-makes-plain-the-urgent-case-for-much-more-representative-forces-across-britain-10220381.html

When confronted with the shocking news that more than 3,000 police officers are being investigated for alleged assault, it is hard not to be nostalgic for the gentler era of law enforcement symbolised by the 1950s TV series Dixon of Dock Green.

Constable George Dixon seemingly needed little more than common sense & a dose of human understanding to keep criminals in line in his patch of London. Fiction this may have been, but how rare & urgently needed both these traits seem in the real-life police forces of Britain today.

The police face great challenges, headed by a mix of budget cuts, fragmented community cohesion & the growth of gang culture. We also recognise the under-reported & under-appreciated fact that Britain is getting safer, the crime rate having largely fallen for 20 years.

But it is 10 years since the Macpherson report first raised the issue of “institutional racism”. Today – in the cases of the 3,000 police officers being investigated for alleged assault – black & Asian citizens are still three times more likely to have made the complaint than their white peers. Old habits, it seems, die hard.

Professor Lee Bridges at the University of Warwick’s School of Law recently analysed the figures disclosed by the Metropolitan Police for its Gangs Matrix, the intelligence database used to combat gang violence.

It showed 85% of the capital’s gang members are believed to be black or Asian. The figure for white Londoners was only 439. This includes anyone engaged on an organised basis in “violence, criminal offending & gang membership” & is meant to feature all those involved in such organised crimes as drug-dealing, fraud, vice & football hooliganism.

The Met’s figure, it must be said, does not capture the entire picture. This matters as it is investigative tools such as the Gangs Matrix which are behind the Met’s new much-hailed “intelligence-led” investigating approach. If, as Professor Bridges’ analysis implies, there remains a racial bias in the statistics being used, then a racial bias is inevitable in its results, & therefore also in the mindset of the officers out on patrol armed with such information.

Greater London & the West Midlands, the UK’s two largest police forces, accounted for almost half of the assault cases under investigation. But in London, black, Asian & minority ethnic officers make up only 11% of the force compared with 40% of the population, while West Midlands Police admitted last month it had recently selected only 1 black officer from 162 recruits.

This newspaper rarely supports positive discrimination, believing it risks blocking the promotion of the ablest & feeding the resentment of those who feel ignored. But a situation can sometimes be so severe & urgent that it turns a bad principle into a necessary practice. Our police force is one such instance.

Last year the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, raised the prospect of half of all new Met police recruits coming in future from a minority ethnic background. The time has come for his successor to take the steps required to implement a similar policy, & for other forces with a similar disconnect between those serving & those communities being served to act likewise.

It is the common-sense approach, one that also shows a human understanding of the reality of modern Britain.

US & UK spies hacked SIM card manufacturer to steal codes

Another example of North American & European hypocrisy. Spying is all good & necessary exercise, as long as, countries from North America & Europe (US' & UK's allies) are doing it but forbidden, when a country like, e.g. North Korea or Iran, does it.
 
Providing beautiful names to immoral, illegal, & unethical practices is the hobby of North American & European countries. Heck, they don't stop there, they just make the illegal activity legal through the judicial & parliamentary process & then claim, our activities are all legal. Hey, slavery was legal, too, at one time. Does it mean that slavery is an activity that all countries should actively engage in?
 
When a kid in the school yard punches another kid & he is also the one who threw the first punch, that kid is punished for unnecessarily punching the other kid & is labelled a "bully". So what then do you call the leaders of US, UK, & their allies, who engage in these activities?
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British & American spies reportedly stole confidential codes from Dutch SIM card manufacturer to eavesdrop on mobile phones around the world, an intelligence leak has revealed.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave leaked files to The Intercept detailing how the American agency & its British counterparts GCHQ stole encryption keys that keep mobile communications private.
 
The company targeted was Gemalto who produce billions of electronic chips for mobile phones & next generation credit cards.
 
It operates in 85 countries & its SIM cards cover more than 1.5 billion mobile users globally for clients such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon & Sprint.
 
The hacks are thought to have taken place in 2010 & 2011 & led to the theft of 300,000 keys from Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, India, Serbia, Iceland & Tajikistan.
With these encryption keys, the intelligence agencies would have the ability to collect both voice & data information - such as text messages - from a large portion of the world's communications.
 
The keys are used to decipher the communications between mobile phones & their network providers which would otherwise be received as a 'garbled mess'.
 
Stealing them also sidesteps the need to get permission from telecom companies or a warrant for a wire-tap - & it leaves no trace on the wireless provider's network that communications have been hacked into.
 
The Intercept claims GCHQ planted malicious software on several of Gemalto's computers to gain access to its internal network in order to obtain these keys.
 
It also received slides from GCHQ in which the author boasted: 'Successfully implanted several machines & believe we have their entire network.'
 
A document from the NSA revealed the US agency could process between 12 & 22 million keys by 2009, which could later be used to spy on targets. It predicted that more than 50 million keys could be accessed every second in the future.
 
The GCHQ's operation to target Gemalto was called 'Dapino Gamma' & in 2011, it launched an attempt to harvest the email accounts of Gemalto employees in France & Poland.
 
A top-secret document said one of the aims of the operation was 'getting into French HQ' of Gemalto - one of its global headquarters - 'to get into core data repositories'.
 
Another GCHQ document from May 2011 indicated it was in the process of 'targeting' more than a dozen Gemalto facilities across the globe including in Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Spain, Japan & Singapore.
 
The file also suggested GCHQ was preparing similar key theft operations against one of Gemalto's competitors - German SIM card giants Giesecke & Devrient.
 
It also penetrated 'authentication servers' which allow it to decrypt data & voice communications between a target's mobile phone & the connection it makes with its network provider.
 
An accompanying slide read: 'Very happy with the data so far & working through the vast quantity of product.'
Gemalto was unaware of the hack & the spying on its employees according to its executive vice president Paul Beverly.
 
A spokesperson from GCHQ said it does not comment on intelligence matters, but added: 'All of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal & policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary & proportionate, & that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception & Intelligence Services Commissioners & the parliamentary Intelligence & Security Committee.
 
'All our operational processes rigorously support this position. In addition, the UK's interception regime is entirely compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2961314/US-UK-hacked-SIM-card-manufacturer-steal-codes-allowed-eavesdrop-mobile-phones-worldwide-according-bombshell-documents-leaked-Ed-Snowden.html

The Palace of Shame that makes China angry

Good article. The West developed itself, in the past 500 or so years, primarily through the looting of treasures of inanimate objects & enslaving millions in the process. In many cases, they also occupied whole countries.

The West forced their way into several countries / kingdoms of yesteryear (South Asia, Latin America, North America, Africa, Australasia, Middle East) in the guise of "increasing trade & economy", then took over those lands through brutal means, kept it occupied for decades, & then after emptying the lands for whatever they were worth (all their treasures, financial & human capital), left the indigenous population fighting for scraps among themselves for decades to come. All this was going on, while, "civilized" society was ruling over "barbarians".

The Western countries still do the same thing by letting their companies force their way into their former occupied lands (developing countries) in the name of trade & taking advantage of weaker / corrupt governments of those countries (which are propped up by the West), then start plundering the mineral wealth of that country without ever properly compensating those countries, e.g. Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Uganda, Libya, Congo, Peru, Venezuela, Iraq etc.

When a good leader does come along in those former occupied lands, he/she asks for compensation, debt forgiveness, & reassesses all those contracts for mineral wealth being looted out of his/her country. Those leaders are scorned & the West tries to rile up a small minority of that country to create trouble for the that leader, e.g. Venezuela's late leader Chavez. Some other countries, like Greece, when asks for compensation for past wrongs, they are essentially told to go screw off, & "look to the future instead of past." When African countries, e.g. Congo asks for debt forgiveness, they are told that "a loan is a loan & has to be repaid", even though, that loan was essentially paid to a corrupt dictator, who was widely known that he was a corrupt dictator, but he kept getting the loans from international banks & monetary agencies.

How can the public & the honest governments of the developing countries ever trust the Western countries & their leaders, when the recent history of the world is replete with the West's dishonesty, lies, & exploitation of the developing countries with any means necessary?
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There is a deep, unhealed historical wound in the UK's relations with China - a wound that most British people know nothing about, but which causes China great pain. It stems from the destruction in 1860 of the country's most beautiful palace.

It's been described as China's ground zero - a place that tells a story of cultural destruction that everyone in China knows about, but hardly anyone outside.

The palace's fate is bitterly resented in Chinese minds & constantly resurfaces in Chinese popular films, angry social media debates, & furious rows about international art sales.

And it has left a controversial legacy in British art collections - royal, military, private - full of looted objects.

These days the site is just ruins - piles of scorched masonry, lakes with overgrown plants, lawns with a few stones scattered where many buildings once stood. The site swarms with Chinese visitors, taken there as part of a government-sponsored "patriotic education" programme.

As everyone in China is taught, it was once the most beautiful collection of architecture & art in the country. Its Chinese name was Yuanmingyuan - Garden of Perfect Brightness - where Chinese emperors had built a huge complex of palaces & other fine buildings, & filled them with cultural treasures.

A new digital reconstruction by a team at Tsinghua University gives a vivid idea of what this extraordinary place looked like when, 155 years ago, a joint British-French army approached Beijing.

The army was sent towards the end of the Opium Wars to force Chinese imperial rulers to open up their country further to Western trade & influence. In command on the British side was the 8th Earl of Elgin, from one of the most famous families in British imperial history.

French troops reached Beijing & the Summer Palace, where they began helping themselves to porcelain, silks & ancient books - or simply destroying what they found.

British troops joined in when they arrived shortly afterwards. "Officers and men seemed to have been seized with temporary insanity," said one witness. "In body & soul they were absorbed in one pursuit which was plunder, plunder."

Lord Elgin ordered the British troops to burn down the entire Summer Palace complex. The destruction, he wrote later, was intended "to mark, by a solemn act of retribution, the horror & indignation... with which we were inspired by the perpetration of a great crime".

I visited the current Lord Elgin, at his ancestral home in Scotland, to ask how he explained what had happened in 1860.

"There are things that perhaps you might have done differently," he says of his ancestor. "At the same time you've got to judge what was the feeling - intense feeling - at that particular moment."

China rejects such explanations.

"This is what they say to justify their actions," says Wang Daocheng, a leading Chinese scholar of these events. "That's the way they try to maintain the so-called moral high ground."

Soon after the Summer Palace's destruction in 1860, the 8th Earl of Elgin made a triumphant entry to the centre of Beijing, his procession symbolising British & Western domination - & Chinese humiliation.

China is also focusing increasingly on all the art that was looted by French & British forces - & taken to Europe. It was widely traded & still sits in all kinds of private & public collections.

"We're making a plan to start a series of actions to recover these antiques & get them back to China," says Niu Xianfeng, general director of the National Treasures Fund, affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Culture.

"China will never give up the right to bring these looted or stolen treasures back."

Liu Yang, a researcher who has spent 15 years tracking down the artworks, says "British museums never reply" when he writes to ask what they have. But he has collected hundreds of images of looted items on his computer.

The Royal collection has several other items thought to be connected with the Beijing Summer Palace, including Chinese imperial sceptres, brass plaques & a mahogany screen.

The Wallace Collection in London has magnificent imperial vases from the palace.

British military museums have many items too. At the Royal Engineers' museum in Kent deputy curator James Scott showed me a beautiful jade ornament brought back from the 1860 campaign. There are also parts of a Chinese imperial throne acquired by the officer Charles Gordon - used for many decades as part of the furniture in the officers' mess.

Labelling these items is a sensitive matter. "We don't actually mention the word loot at all. We try to keep the interpretation as neutral as possible," says Scott.

Similar sensitivities are needed by auctioneers, who can make huge profits when items originally taken from the Summer Palace are re-sold today. Proof of their origin as part of the Chinese imperial collection - such as inscriptions by made by the soldiers who looted them - hugely increases their potential value.

Some newly wealthy Chinese have bid for such items. But having to pay for art that was stolen - as many Chinese see it - causes increasing resentment.

And what of the Elgin family? Does today's Lord Elgin think art should be returned to China?

"It's a very good arguing point" he concedes. But "the beauty of something is inherent in it wherever it happens to be".

"These things happen," he says of the 1860 events. "It's important to go ahead, rather than look back all the time."

The French, who joined in the looting of the palace, have been more open about their regret. "We call ourselves civilised & them barbarians," wrote the outraged author, Victor Hugo, about the destruction of the Summer Palace. "Here is what Civilisation has done to Barbarity."

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30810596