Global News

Homeland Security Buys 7000 Full-Auto Assault Rifles, Calls Them ‘PERSONAL DEFENSE WEAPONS’

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– DHS buys 7000 full-auto assault rifles, calls them ‘personal defense weapons’ (Natural News, Jan 28, 2013):

In yet another huge blow to the rhetoric and narrative of the Obama administration and its desire to disarm the American public, a DHS bid has been uncovered (see documents below) showing that the Department of Homeland Security recently put out an offer to purchase 7,000 full-auto “assault weapons” to be used domestically, inside the USA.

Keep in mind that President Obama is on the record saying, “AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals; that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities.”

But it seems he really means they don’t belong on the streets of our cities unless they are in the hands of homeland security enforcers, in which case they can be FULL-AUTO assault weapons.

The DHS bid for 7,000 full-auto assault weapons is found by clicking here. The original credit for discovering this goes, to my best knowledge, to Awr Hawkins at Breitbart.com.

In the hands of the government, they’re called “Personal Defense Weapons”

The juiciest part of this bid is the use of the phrase “Personal Defense Weapons” to describe the full-auto AR-15s being purchased by DHS.

Apparently, when YOU hold an AR-15, it’s an “assault rifle.” But magically, if you hand that same rifle to an armed government homeland security enforcer, it instantly transforms itself into a “personal defense weapon.”

The request for bid actually says:

Read moreHomeland Security Buys 7000 Full-Auto Assault Rifles, Calls Them ‘PERSONAL DEFENSE WEAPONS’

$600 Billion In Trades In Four Years: How Apple Puts Even The Most Aggressive Hedge Funds To Shame

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– $600 Billion In Trades In Four Years: How Apple Puts Even The Most Aggressive Hedge Funds To Shame (ZeroHedge, Jan 27, 2013):

Everyone knows that for the better part of the past year Apple, Inc. (“AAPL”, or “The Company”) was the world’s biggest company by market cap, with Exxon finally regaining that title on Friday, following AAPL’s latest price drop in the aftermath of its disappointing earnings. Most know that AAPL aggressively uses all legal tax loopholes to pay as little State and Federal tax as possible, despite being one of the world’s most profitable companies.Many also know, courtesy of our exclusive from September, that Apple also is the holding company for Braeburn Capital: a firm which with a few exceptions (Bridgewater; JPM’s CIO prop trading desk) also happens to be one of the world’s largest hedge funds, whose function is to manage Apple’s massive cash hoard, with virtually zero requirements, and whose obligation is to make sure that AAPL’s cash gets laundered legally and efficiently in a way that complies with prerogative #1: avoid paying taxes.

What few if any know, is that as part of its cash management obligations, Braeburn, and AAPL by extension, has conducted a mindboggling $600 billion worth of gross notional trades in just the past four years, consisting of buying and selling assorted unknown securities, or some $250 billion in 2012 alone: a grand total which represents some $1 billion per working day on average, and which puts the net turnover of some 99% of all hedge funds to shame!

Finally, what nobody knows, except for the recipients of course, is just how much in trade commissions AAPL has paid over the past four years on these hundreds of billions in trades to the brokering banks, many (or maybe all) of which may have found this commission revenue facilitating AAPL having a “Buy” recommendation: a rating shared by 52, or 83% of the raters, despite the company’s wiping out of one year in capital gains in a few short months.

The Perfectly Legal Tax Evasion Scheme

Read more$600 Billion In Trades In Four Years: How Apple Puts Even The Most Aggressive Hedge Funds To Shame

Netanyahu Deploys ‘Syrian’ Iron-Dome As Israeli Minister Claims US Preparing ‘Surgical’ Strikes Against Iran

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Any ‘surgical’ strike against Iran = WW3!

– Netanyahu Deploys ‘Syrian’ Iron-Dome As Israeli Minister Claims US Preparing ‘Surgical’ Strikes Against Iran (ZeroHedge, Jan 27, 2013):

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says his nation must prepare for the threat of a chemical attack from Syria, amid concern at enemy efforts to test a post-election coalition Israel, and, as Bloomberg reports, has deployed its new Iron Dome anti-missile system near the border with its northern neighbor. Along with this concern, as many have perhaps suspected, the Israeli Defense Minister confirmed yesterday that the US has prepared plans for a ‘surgical’ military operation to delay Iran’s nuclear program.

As The Jerusalem Post reports, Ehud Barak, speaking in Davos, does not believe any military operation against Iran would devolve into a “full fledged war the size of the Iraqi war” but rather “there should be a readiness and an ability to launch a surgical operation that will delay them by a significant time frame and probably convince them that it won’t work because the world is determined to block them.”

Barak added that in the past the US has been heavy-handed but that under Barack Obama, the United States has “prepared quite sophisticated, fine, extremely fine, scalpels,” if the worse comes to the worst – even though the Israeli preference would be to end the nuclear threat diplomatically , calling for tougher sanctions (though he expressed doubt that diplomacy would lead to success).

Just another geopolitical hotspot that the world’s markets choose to ignore in deference to the one true leader – central bankers.

Read moreNetanyahu Deploys ‘Syrian’ Iron-Dome As Israeli Minister Claims US Preparing ‘Surgical’ Strikes Against Iran

U.S. Military Sexual Assault Crisis

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Related info:

– US Female Troops: Almost 50% Sexually Harassed & Almost 25% Sexually Assaulted In Combat Zones

– Sexual assault crisis tempers euphoria over end of combat ban (Guardian, Jan 25, 2013):

The day before defense secretary Leon Panetta announced the lifting of the ban on women in combat, Jennifer Norris, an air force veteran and rape survivor, testified before a congressional panel into one of the worst sexual scandals in military history.

Norris, who was abused by her recruiter and technical school inspector at Keesler Air Force Base, kept quiet about it, she said, after learning “very quickly” that reporting sexual harassment, assault or even lewd remarks could get her turned out of the Air Force. When she did find the courage to report her abusers, they were charged with sexual assault and pleaded guilty. But they were permitted to resign honourably, with full military benefits. One was allowed to stay for another two years. That was 15 years ago.

Norris told lawmakers: “It breaks my heart to see this same kind of behavior in 2013 that existed when I joined the service. I know how painful it is to be violated by another and then disregarded and thrown away, as if you are the troublemaker.”

As many as one in three servicewomen report having been sexually assaulted, according to the defense department. In 2010, the latest year for which data is available, the Pentagon estimated that some 19,000 assaults occurred.

Read moreU.S. Military Sexual Assault Crisis

Court Rules Obama’s Appointments Unconstitutional

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– Court Rules Obama’s Appointments Unconstitutional (Reuters, Jan 25, 2013):

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that President Barack Obama violated the U.S. Constitution when he used recess appointments to fill a labor board, in a sweeping decision that could limit presidential power to push through federal nominees.

The court found that the Senate was not truly in recess, for the purpose of a recess appointment, when Obama in January 2012 installed three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board.

Read moreCourt Rules Obama’s Appointments Unconstitutional

Deployment Of Drones Across The US Will Turn American Soil Into Warfront

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David Swanson is an American activist, blogger and author. He served for a year as media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association. In May 2005, Swanson helped make the Downing Street memo known in the United States and discussed in Congress. He co-founded After Downing Street and led an ongoing campaign to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Swanson continues to work closely with the peace movement and often leads campaigns to end the Iraq War and punish those involved in launching that war. His Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works as Campaign Coordinator for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio.

– Deployment of drones across the US will turn American soil into warfront (PressTV, Jan 26, 2013):

In the absence of state or federal laws, localities around the United States are proceeding to put unmanned aerial vehicles in our skies as they see fit. The federal government has authorized the flight of 30,000 drones, and the use of drones up to 400 feet by police departments, at least 300 of which already have surveillance drones in operation.

Concerns include the following: drones can crash into airplanes, buildings, and each other; drones can fall out of the sky; drones can produce noise pollution; drones can produce visual pollution if put to the same use that everything from brick walls to urinals has been put to, viz. advertising; drones can be used to spy on us whether by private or public entities; police surveillance with drones will violate our Fourth Amendment rights as all existing technologies are currently used to do; police forces that view the public as their enemy will deploy drones armed with rubber bullets, tear gas, or other weapons; and ultimately a program run by the U.S. military and the CIA that has targeted and murdered three U.S. citizens that we know of, along with thousands of other men, women, and children, may eventually find it acceptable to include U.S. soil in its otherwise unlimited field of operations.

Read moreDeployment Of Drones Across The US Will Turn American Soil Into Warfront

How Iceland Overthrew The Banks: The Only 3 Minutes Of Any Worth From Davos (Video)

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– How Iceland Overthrew The Banks: The Only 3 Minutes Of Any Worth From Davos (ZeroHedge, Jan 26, 2013):

“Why do we consider banks to be like holy churches?” is the rhetorical question that Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimson asks (and answers) in this truly epic three minutes of truthiness from the farce that is the World Economic Forum in Davos. Amid a week of back-slapping and self-congratulatory party-outdoing, as John Aziz notes, the Icelandic President explains why his nation is growing strongly, why unemployment is negligible, and how they moved from the world’s poster-child for banking crisis 5 years ago to a thriving nation once again. Simply put, he says, “we didn’t follow the prevailing orthodoxies of the last 30 years in the Western world.” There are lessons here for everyone – as Grimson explains the process of creative destruction that remains much needed in Western economies – though we suspect his holographic pass for next year’s Swiss fun will be reneged…

Daniel Hannan Destroys The 3 Unquestionable Myths Of Our Crisis (Video)

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– Daniel Hannan Destroys The 3 Unquestionable Myths Of Our Crisis (ZeroHedge, Jan 26, 2013):

The past and present bailouts of each and every bank (and ‘important’ industry) will, one day, be seen as a generational offense is how MEP Daniel Hannan begins this thoroughly British demolition of the three critical myths surrounding the crisis, that despite market optics, we are still living through. From the idea that capitalism has failed (it has not in his view, it has been ravaged by political pandering), to the crisis being caused by lack of regulation, and that greed is the single-driver of the mess that we remain in; Hannan suggests in a brief but extremely eloquent debate that there is a world of difference between being pro business and pro market as he destroys any semblance of credibility that the political (and elite) class has echoing a young Ron Paul in his thoroughly libertarian free-market sensibilities.


YouTube

Geithner’s Legacy: The ‘0.2%’ Hold $7.8 Trillion, Or 69% Of All Assets; And $212 Trillion Of Derivative Liabilities

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– Geithner’s Legacy: The “0.2%” Hold $7.8 Trillion, Or 69% Of All Assets; And $212 Trillion Of Derivative Liabilities (ZeroHedge, Jan 26, 2013):

As of this morning Tim Geithner is no longer Treasury Secretary. And while Tim Geithner’s reign of clueless pandering to the banks has left the US will absolutely disastrous consequences, an outcome that will become clear in time, the most ruinous of his policies is making the banks which were too big to fail to begin with, so big they can neither fail nor be sued, as the recent fiasco surrounding the exit of Assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer showed. Just how big are these banks? Dallas Fed’s Disk Fisher explains.

It is important to have an accurate view of the landscape of banking today in order to understand the impact of this proposal.

As of third quarter 2012, there were approximately 5,600 commercial banking organizations in the U.S. The bulk of these—roughly 5,500—were community banks with assets of less than $10 billion. These community-focused organizations accounted for 98.6 percent of all banks but only 12 percent of total industry assets. Another group numbering nearly 70 banking organizations—with assets of between $10 billion and $250 billion—accounted for 1.2 percent of banks, while controlling 19 percent of industry assets. The remaining group, the megabanks—with assets of between $250 billion and $2.3 trillion—was made up of a mere 12 institutions. These dozen behemoths accounted for roughly 0.2 percent of all banks, but they held 69 percent of industry assets.

What does this mean numerically?

Read moreGeithner’s Legacy: The ‘0.2%’ Hold $7.8 Trillion, Or 69% Of All Assets; And $212 Trillion Of Derivative Liabilities

‘Complete Panic’ As 232 Killed In Brazil Nightclub Fire

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– ‘Complete panic’ as 232 killed in Brazil nightclub fire (USA Today, Jan 27, 2013):

A blaze at a Brazilian nightclub left 232 dead early Sunday morning, in what appears to be the world’s deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

More than 100 were injured when the fire broke out at 2 a.m. in Santa Maria, Brazil, at a nightclub called Kiss, which was hosting an event for a local university. Most of the attendees were students of that school, the Federal University of Santa Maria.

Read more‘Complete Panic’ As 232 Killed In Brazil Nightclub Fire

CIA Torture Whistleblower Sentenced To Prison By US Judge

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Related info:

– Ex-CIA Officer: Torture Great Way To Get False Confessions (Video)


CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou

– CIA torture whistleblower sentenced to prison by US judge (PressTV, Jan 26, 2013):

A CIA whistleblower who was among the first to expose details of the spy agency’s use of waterboarding and other torture methods against Muslim suspects accused of terrorism was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison by a US judge.

The 48-year-old former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who worked for the spy agency between 1990 and 2004 and was involved in the capture of a ‘terror suspect,’ received the jail term on Friday by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who proclaimed that the sentence she issued was “way too light.”

The judge harshly rejected the notion that Kiriakou was a whistleblower concerned about the illegal use of harsh torture tactics by American spies and intelligence officers and said, “This is a case of a man who betrayed a solemn trust.”

In a 2007 televised interview with the US-based ABC News, Kiriakou offered a dramatic description of the use of waterboarding in torturing a suspect that he had helped capture, Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, also identified as Abu Zubaida.

Read moreCIA Torture Whistleblower Sentenced To Prison By US Judge

Ex-CIA Officer: Torture Great Way To Get False Confessions (Video)

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See also:

– CIA Torture Whistleblower Sentenced To Prison By US judge

– Ex-CIA officer: Torture great way to get false confessions (RT, Jan 26, 2013):

Torture brings forth unreliable information and false confessions, apart from the fact that it is a serious violation of all manner of international agreements, former CIA officer Ray McGovern told RT.

“You can’t get reliable information from torture. But torture works beautifully if you want unreliable information” says McGovern.

His comments come amid the trial of John Kiriakou, a CIA veteran sentenced to two years in prison, after leaking sensitive information about Washington’s torture program.

Kiriakou, the man who oversaw the capture of Al-Qaeda’s third-in-command, blew the lid on America’s torture program, revealing the name of an alleged torturer at Guantanamo Bay.

Kiriakou came out against Washington’s torture program supporting the notion that torture is illegal, says McGovern adding that the accusations against Kiriakou are political andhe is being punished out due to rank-hypocrisy.

RT: John Kiriakou says he is not punished for what he did but for what he is. What are your thoughts on this?

Read moreEx-CIA Officer: Torture Great Way To Get False Confessions (Video)

Constant Surveillance Of Entire Cities Now Possible With Latest Drone Technology ‘ARGUS’ (Video)

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– Constant Surveillance of Entire Cities Now Possible with Latest Drone Tech (Activist Post, Jan 26, 2013):

Apparently many of the civilian deaths by drones in Afghanistan are not attributed to the U.S. military being there on false pretenses, but rather to limitations in surveillance technology. The video below opens with this assertion in its coverage of DARPA’s latest mega-surveillance package known as ARGUS – Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System.

The new sensor system can instantly see an area roughly the “size of a small city” with an “all-seeing” eye according to retired Lieutenant, David A. Deptula. The next generation of surveillance tech sees the landscape through a 1.8 billion pixels camera, the highest resolution yet created.

Read moreConstant Surveillance Of Entire Cities Now Possible With Latest Drone Technology ‘ARGUS’ (Video)

Tina Turner ‘To become Swiss, Give Up US passport’

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US singer Tina Turner arrives for the Emporio Armani fashion show in Milan, on February 26, 2011. Turner — who has been living in Switzerland since 1995 — will soon receive Swiss citizenship and will give up her US passport, according to Swiss media reports.

– Tina Turner ‘to become Swiss, give up US passport’ (France 24/AFP, Jan 25, 2013):

US pop legend Tina Turner, who has been living in Switzerland since 1995, will soon receive Swiss citizenship and will give up her US passport, Swiss media reported Friday.”I’m very happy in Switzerland and I feel at home here. … I cannot imagine a better place to live,” Turner told German language daily Blick.

Read moreTina Turner ‘To become Swiss, Give Up US passport’

‘Obamacare’ To Hit Smokers With HUGE Penalties

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– ‘Obamacare’ to hit smokers with huge penalties (RT, Jan 26, 2013):

Smokers, beware: tobacco penalties under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act could subject millions of smokers to fees costing thousands of dollars, making healthcare more expensive for them than Americans with other unhealthy habits.

The Affordable Care Act, which critics have also called “Obamacare”, could subject smokers to premiums that are 50 percent higher than usual, starting next Jan 1. Health insurers will be allowed to charge smokers penalties that overweight Americans or those with other health conditions would not be subjected to.

A 60-year-old smoker could pay penalties as high as $5,100, in addition to the premiums, the Associated Press reports. A 55-year-old smoker’s penalty could reach $4,250. The older a smoker is, the higher the penalty will be.

Read more‘Obamacare’ To Hit Smokers With HUGE Penalties

The President of Perpetual War

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– The President of Perpetual War (Truthdig, Jan 25, 2013):

Four years into his presidency, Barack Obama’s political formula should be obvious. He gives fabulous speeches teeming with popular liberal ideas, often refuses to take the actions necessary to realize those ideas and then banks on most voters, activists, reporters and pundits never bothering to notice—or care about—his sleight of hand.

Whether railing on financial crime and then refusing to prosecute Wall Street executives or berating health insurance companies and then passing a health care bill bailing out those same companies, Obama embodies a cynical ploy—one that relies on a celebrity-entranced electorate focusing more on TV-packaged rhetoric than on legislative reality.

Never was this formula more apparent than when the president discussed military conflicts during his second inaugural address. Declaring that “a decade of war is now ending,” he insisted that he “still believe(s) that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.”

The lines generated uncritical applause, much of it from anti-war liberals who protested against the Bush administration. Living up to Obama’s calculation, few seemed to notice that the words came from the same president who is manufacturing a state of “perpetual war.”

Read moreThe President of Perpetual War

Millions Of Chinese Graduates Say No Thanks To Factory Jobs, But Cannot Even Find Low Paid Office Jobs

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– Chinese Graduates Say No Thanks to Factory Jobs (New York Times, Jan 24, 2013):

GUANGZHOU, China — This city of 15 million on the Pearl River is the hub of a manufacturing region where factories make everything from T-shirts and shoes to auto parts, tablet computers and solar panels. Many factories are desperate for workers, despite offering double-digit annual pay increases and improved benefits.

Wang Zengsong is desperate for a steady job. He has been unemployed for most of the three years since he graduated from a community college here after growing up on a rice farm. Mr. Wang, 25, has worked only several months at a time in low-paying jobs, once as a shopping mall guard, another time as a restaurant waiter and most recently as an office building security guard.But he will not consider applying for a full-time factory job because Mr. Wang, as a college graduate, thinks that is beneath him. Instead, he searches every day for an office job, which would initially pay as little as a third of factory wages.

“I have never and will never consider a factory job — what’s the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?” he asked.

Millions of recent college graduates in China like Mr. Wang are asking the same question. A result is an anomaly: Jobs go begging in factories while many educated young workers are unemployed or underemployed. A national survey of urban residents, released this winter by a Chinese university, showed that among people in their early 20s, those with a college degree were four times as likely to be unemployed as those with only an elementary school education.

Read moreMillions Of Chinese Graduates Say No Thanks To Factory Jobs, But Cannot Even Find Low Paid Office Jobs

Japan May Shutter World’s Largest Nuclear Plant Over Earthquake Threat

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– Japan may shutter world’s largest nuclear plant over earthquake threat (RT, Jan 26, 2013):

The world’s largest nuclear power plant may be forced to shut down under stricter rules proposed by Japan’s new nuclear watchdog. The measures are intended to safeguard against future natural disasters following the 2011 tsunami.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in the heart of Japan is now facing permanent closure following a move by the country’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) to expand the definition of an active fault – a crack in the earth’s crust.  The operators of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power are the same company which powered the stricken Fukishima plant.

Read moreJapan May Shutter World’s Largest Nuclear Plant Over Earthquake Threat

Obama Dumps General James Mattis

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FYI.

Related info:

– Examiner: ‘Obama Only Wants Military Leaders Who Will Fire On U.S. Citizens’

Flashback:

– General James Mattis who said it was ‘fun to shoot people’ takes over US Central Command

– Obama Dumps a Smart, Independently Minded General (The Weekly Standard, Jan 22, 2013):

It seems clear that American civil-military relations have been healthiest when there is a high level of trust between civilian and military leaders, i.e. when there is mutual respect and understanding between them that leads to the exchange of candid views and perspectives between the two parties as part of the decision-making process.

On the one hand, the military must have a voice in strategy making, while realizing that politics permeates the conduct of war and that civilians have the final say, not only concerning the goals of the war but also how it is conducted. On the other, civilians must understand that to implement effective policy and strategy requires the proper military instrument and therefore must insist that soldiers present their views frankly and forcefully throughout the strategy-making and implementation process. This is the key to healthy civil-military relations.

Read moreObama Dumps General James Mattis

BPA Substitute Could Spell Trouble: Experiments Show Bisphenol S Also Disrupts Hormone Activity

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– BPA Substitute Could Spell Trouble: Experiments Show Bisphenol S Also Disrupts Hormone Activity (Science Daily, Jan 22, 2013):

A few years ago, manufacturers of water bottles, food containers, and baby products had a big problem. A key ingredient of the plastics they used to make their merchandise, an organic compound called bisphenol A, had been linked by scientists to diabetes, asthma and cancer and altered prostate and neurological development. The FDA and state legislatures were considering action to restrict BPA’s use, and the public was pressuring retailers to remove BPA-containing items from their shelves.

The industry responded by creating “BPA-free” products, which were made from plastic containing a compound called bisphenol S. In addition to having similar names, BPA and BPS share a similar structure and versatility: BPS is now known to be used in everything from currency to thermal receipt paper, and widespread human exposure to BPS was confirmed in a 2012 analysis of urine samples taken in the U.S., Japan, China and five other Asian countries.

Read moreBPA Substitute Could Spell Trouble: Experiments Show Bisphenol S Also Disrupts Hormone Activity