4+ Reasons Why Onions may be the Next Big Superfood

The term superfood is thrown around loosely, but it always points to the same thing: an incredibly healthful, natural food that can boost your health in numerous ways. Green tea, berries, and turmeric are just a few that could be considered superfoods, but rarely do we think of onions when we are talking about these dietary golden-children. Still, the health benefits of onions are what make this savory delight a potent health-booster.
Most of the benefits of onions come from something called quercetin. Quercetin is a powerful flavonoid, or type of antioxidant, that provides numerous benefits throughout the body by protecting cells from free radical damage. Onions are one of the top dietary sources of this powerful compound.
Onions are also rich in sulfur, vitamin C, manganese, fiber, vitamin B6, folate, and potassium. All of these together add up to a wealth of benefits. Over the past several years, scientists have begun to unlock all of the health secrets of these layered veggies. Some of the benefits they’ve found include:

• 1. Reduced Cancer Risk - Several studies have connected quercetin with reduced cancer risk. One study in particular found that onions combined with turmeric create a synergistic effect that reduced both the size and number of precancerous legions in the intestine, reducing colon cancer risk. Another study, this one from France, found that women who ate more garlic and onions had a lesser chance of developing breast cancer.

• 2. Improved Oral Health - Contrary to common sense, which tells us onions make your breath stink so can’t be all that great for your teeth, chewing raw onion is known to improve the strength of teeth and kill problem-causing bacteria that can lead to tooth decay.

• 3. Cardiovascular Benefits - There are many cardiovascular benefits to eating onions. Researchers with the University of Utah found that quercetin is able to significantly reduce high blood pressure in hypertensive adults. The sulfur in onions may also be able to improve cholesterol levels and red blood cell health.

• 4. Anti-Inflammatory Powers - Quercetin, the star of onions, is known to have powerful anti-inflammatory benefits. According to Arthritis Today, this is why it can aid in the treatment of arthritis. But anti-inflammatory benefits may also help fight off inflammatory diseases like diabetes and more.

Onions are also good for relieving clogged sinuses, soothing an earache, relieving the pain of a bee sting, and detoxifying the body. As an added bonus, they are very versatile in the kitchen and can be cooked with just about any dish or eaten raw on a salad.

Other Popular Stories:

1. Amazingly Healthful Antioxidant in Onions Offers a Wealth of Health Benefits
2. Health Benefits of Onions – Over 10 Reasons to Love Onions
3. Onions: Harnessing Powerful Anti-Inflammatory Properties
4. Onions, Quercetin Found to Reduce Blood Pressure
5. Apples: Yet Another “Perfect” Food?
6. Top 5 Health Benefits of Cherries

Source: http://naturalsociety.com/4-reasons-onions-called-superfood/#ixzz2huOXecNZ

5 Actions To Take During Non-GMO Month

Did you know that October is Non-GMO Month?  The GMO Project created this event to raise awareness about the issue, and to use it as an opportunity to coordinate and speak up about “our right to know what’s in our food and to choose non-GMO.” That is the purpose of the organization’s web site: to spread the word and to create and help us participate in events in our communities.

As I wrote last year at this time, this is a great time to get involved and to take a stand and support products, businesses, and organizations that take the Non- GMO pledge.

Here are some specific ways that you can take action.

1. Make your own personal pledge to support products that do not use GMO‘s, buy organic products, choose only Non-GMO Verified foods, and boycott companies that use GMOs in any of their products. You can make sure products are Non-GMO Verified by using the Non-GMO Project’s product search page. It lists over 3000 products.

2. Use your “real“ voice and share your opinion with your local, state and federal legislators, and companies that support GMOs, like Monsanto. Let them know that you want further scientific research on the health effects of GMOs and that you want labeling of GMOs so that we as consumers can make informed decisions. Support current campaigns in support of GMO labeling, like the one in Washington State set for the November 5 ballot. And, find out if there’s a ballot initiative in your local community or state, and spread the word, volunteer with the campaign, or donate to the cause.

3. Get educated and educate your friends, family, and local community. The Institute for Responsible Technology offers all you need to know about GMO’s with simple explanations so that you can educate others.

4. Attend an organized Non-GMO event in your area or volunteer at an event. While there were global marches held on October 12, there are still plenty of other events throughout the month.

5. Support only non-GMO seeds by saving seeds, joining a seed library, having a seed swap, or simply by purchasing non-GMO seed.

Related
4 Potential Risks of Eating GMO Foods
17 Essential Reasons to Eat Organic Food
5 Non-GMO Halloween Treats to Share

Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-actions-to-take-during-non-gmo-month.html#ixzz2hnMzZCo2

8 Food Risks Going Unmonitored During the Shutdown

Furloughed FDA inspectors can't look out for bacteria, metals and other contaminants.

Among the  ostensibly “non-essential” services on hold during the government shutdown is the Food and Drug Administration’s food inspection program.

Within the country, as the Huffington Post points out, that means as many as 80 food production facilities each day may be going uninspected (although an FDA spokesman clarified that an unclear portion of those will be carried out by state agriculture and public health departments).

Food coming from outside the U.S. is also going unmonitored. As  Food Safety News first reported, meat inspectors at the USDA are still on duty, but food-safety workers at the FDA are not allowed to use their cellphones, check their emails or, most important, inspect imported food.  Normally, according to  Quartz, the FDA blocks imports from tens of thousands of facilities with records of violations.

Although the agency says it will continue to act on “ high-risk recalls,” Caroline Smith DeWaal, the food safety director for the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, doubts that will be enough. “They’re underfunded in that area generally, but no imports are being inspected for safety right now,” DeWaal told the Christian Science Monitor. “People could certainly target the US for products that night [sic] not be accepted elsewhere.”

Quartz calls out shrimp as a particularly dangerous import, but estimates that 90 percent of the foreign seafood, half of the fruit and one-fifth of the vegetables consumed by Americans is currently entering the country unchecked. Below, some foods on “red alert” that, were the government operating as intended, the furloughed inspectors would be watching out for:

1. Lead in candy: The FDA has had imported  candy on red alert since 1994, when a contaminated treat entered the country via Mexico. While lead in packaging hasn't occurred recently, they still see cases of lead coming from unwashed chili peppers used as an ingredient.

2. Unapproved drugs in seafood: A number of international aquaculture operations on are alert for using unapproved drugs in that could make  seafoodunsafe for consumers.

3. Mad cow disease risk in supplements: The USDA's prohibition on imports of meat from countries with a history of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease, doesn't apply to  dietary supplements, prompting the FDA to closely monitor shipments for the disease which, as it notes, is "extremely resistant to activation by normal disinfection or sterilization procedure."

4. Cocaine in tea:  The FDA's been on alert ever since 1986, when the DEA cracked down on  herbal tea made from "decocainized coca leaves" sent to Hawaii, Georgia, Chicago and various East Coast locations.

5. Melamine in milk:  Milk products from China have been flagged since the 2008 infant formula scandal, in which thousands of babies were sickened, and several died, after consuming contaminated formula. The problem of melamine, according to the FDA, is a recurring one -- inspection officials are also on the lookout for anything containing milk as an ingredient, including yogurt, frozen desserts, biscuits, cakes and cookies, taffy-like soft candy products, chocolates and beverages.

6. Metals in fruit juice: Heavy lead and arsenic contamination has been found in fruit juice concentrates from Argentina and China. A single 8 ounce serving of grape juice found in a shipment from 2002 contained three times the amount of lead judged to be tolerable for children.

7. Bacteria in cheese: A laundry list of contaminants, from salmonella to E. coli, have been found in imported  cheese from around the world. The FDA also looks out for the use of  nitrates in cheese and other dairy products.

8. Pathogens in produce: Because  fresh produce is likely to be consumed raw and follows complex distribution patterns, disease outbreaks from contaminated imports is likely to be widespread and difficult to contain. As such, fruits and vegetables from a number of countries are on red alert.

Source;  http://www.alternet.org/8-food-risks-going-unmonitored-during-shutdown

How Far Are We From a Super-Pandemic?

All it takes is a few biological tricks for a virus to cause widespread infection.

 

 

Fall is flu season and this year, as usual, federal health officials are asking the public to get their annual flu vaccine shot.

But scientists say there are much more deadly bugs lurking out there that could someday make the jump from local outbreak to a worldwide super pandemic that could wipe out people across the globe. All it takes is a few biological tricks for a microscopic virus to turn into a raging killer like the 1918 Spanish flu virus that killed 50 to 100 million people, or the SARS virus that started in China in 2003 and spread to 37 countries in just a few weeks. It eventually killed fewer than 800 people.

This year, two contagions that are scaring epidemiologists the most are another Asian virus called H7N9, and MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome. Both appeared in 2012.

Going Viral: Pandemics in Fiction and Fact

 What does it take to make the jump? Medical researchers say nightmare bugs are quick to evolve, resistant to treatment, have lethal power and the ability to spread from person to person, usually through the air.

To fight these viruses, scientists are deploying new tools of genetic screening to identify the evil-doers, as well as old-fashioned public health measures to quickly isolate patients and stop an epidemic’s spread."The two most critical things are virulence and transmissibility," said Scott Dowell, director of global disease detection and emergency response for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Dowell was part of the CDC team in Bankok, Thailand, that responded to early reports of the SARS outbreak in 2003. Even though that epidemic eventually did not kill as many people as expected, he said the outbreak scared medical experts because of its incredibly fast spread.

New Sars-Like Bug: Pandemic Potential?

"In the thick of it, it wasn't clear what direction things were going to go," Dowell told Discovery News. "It was an impressive and frightening time."

SARS -- severe acute respiratory syndrome -- is a member of the corona-virus family of microbes (same as the common cold). It originated in the farms of China's southern Guangdong Province where it made the leap from farm animals to humans in November 2002. It did that by reassembling its genetic material to take over host cells and replicate.

By April 2003, it had spread throughout Asia and was killing one out of every 10 infected patients. Dowell said the only things that stopped its spread were international cooperation and the ability to quarantine people who got infected.

By summer of 2003, the outbreak was contained after infecting more than 9,000 people.

Today, fears are rising about a new virus, H7N9, that started in poultry in China and infected 130 people in April 2013, killing 44. Luckily, there hasn't been any evidence of human-to-human spread, but researchers at the National Institutes of Health have just begun the first vaccine clinical trial for H7N9 at nine hospitals across the United States.

The CDC plans to "build" the latest version of the bird flu virus to use it in its vaccine.

In Saudi Arabia, doctors are watching the spread of MERS, another corona-virus that has been linked to four Middle Eastern nations but also has spread to Europe. So far, nearly half of the 114 people who contracted the virus have died.

Dowell says that researchers are slowly making progress in developing drugs to treat some of these respiratory viruses, which are normally immune to anti-biotics. That's due to advancements in treating another virus, HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.

While the CDC and NIH are engaging in basic research and epidemiology to understand these killer diseases, some experts say there's a big gap when it comes to drug development.

Diseases That Just Won't Quit

"There isn't a lot of incentive on the part of industry to make the major investment, $700 million to $1 billion for each drug," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases.

 "There's a big market for Lipitor, or for a Viagra-like drug because the pharmaceutical companies know when they will make the drug there will be hundreds of millions of people taking it."

Fauci says he's been working to develop partnerships between NIH and drugmakers to get ready for the next outbreak or drug-resistant superbug.

Source; http://news.discovery.com/human/health/virual-super-pandemic-how-far-1309181.htm

 

Russian, German Warships to Train Jointly in Baltic Sea

MOSCOW, October 7 (RIA Novosti) – Russian-German naval exercises, codenamed PASSEX, will be held on Monday in the Gulf of Finland, the press service of Russia’s Western Military District said.
The exercises will involve Russia’s newest Baltic Fleet warship, the Project 20380 Boiky corvette and Germany’s Karlsruhe frigate.

«During the joint exercise in the Gulf of Finland the ships will test communication and train joint maneuvers,” the press service said in a statement.

The naval maneuvers will be the final part of the German frigate’s visit to St. Petersburg, which began on October 2.

Source; http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20131007/183979456/Russian-German-Warships-to-Train-Jointly-in-Baltic-Sea.html

Russia urges UN climate report to include geoengineering

The Russian government is asking for 'planet hacking' to be included in the climate science report, leaked documents show

 Russia is pushing for next week's landmark UN climate science report to include support for controversial technologies to geoengineer the planet's climate, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

As climate scientists prepare to gather for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Stockholm to present the most authoritative state of climate science to date, it has emerged the Russian government is asking for "planet hacking" to be included in the report. The IPCC has not included geoengineering in its major assessments before.

The documents seen by the Guardian show Russia is asking for a conclusion of the report to say that a "possible solution of this [climate change] problem can be found in using of [sic] geoengineering methods to stabilise current climate." Russia also highlighted that its scientists are developing geoengineering technologies.

 Geoengineering aims to cool the Earth by methods including spraying sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, or fertilising the oceans with iron to create carbon-capturing algal blooms.

Such ideas are increasingly being discussed by western scientists and governments as a plan B for addressing climate change, with the new astronomer royal, Professor Sir Martin Rees, calling last week for such methods to buy time to develop sources of clean energy. But the techniques have been criticised as a way for powerful, industrialised nations to dodge their commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

Some modelling has shown geoengineering could be effective at reducing the Earth's temperature, but manipulation of sensitive planetary systems in one area of the world could also result in drastic unintended consequences globally, such as radically disrupted rainfall.

Responding to efforts to discredit the climate science with a spoiler campaign in advance of the report, the chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra K Pachauri, said he was confident the high standards of the science in the report would make the case for climate action. He said: "There will be enough information provided so that rational people across the globe will see that action is needed on climate change."

The Russian scientist Yuri Izrael, who has participated in IPCC geoengineering expert groups and was an adviser to the former Russian president Vladimir Putin, conducted an experiment in 2009 that sprayed particles from a helicopter to assess how much sunlight was blocked by the aerosol plume. A planned test in Britain that would have used a balloon attached to a 1km hose to develop equipment for spraying was prevented after a public outcry.

Observers have suggested that Russia's admission that it is developing geoengineering may put it in violation of the UN moratorium on geoengineering projects established at the Biodiversity Convention in 2010 and should be discussed on an emergency basis when the convention's scientific subcommittee meets in Montreal in October.

Civil society organisations have previously raised concerns that expert groups writing geoengineering sections of the IPCC report were dominated by US, UK and Canadian geoengineering advocates who have called for public funding of large-scale experiments or who have taken out commercial patents on geoenginering technologies. One scientist who served as a group co-chair, David Keith of Harvard University, runs a private geoengineering company, has planned tests in New Mexico, and is publicising a new book called The Case for Climate Engineering.

Nearly 160 civil society, indigenous and environmental organisations signed a letter in 2011 urging caution and calling on the IPCC not to legitimise geoengineering.

Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America director of the technology watchdog ETC Group, said: "We have been warning that a few geoengineering advocates have been trying to hijack the IPCC for their agenda. We are now seeing a deliberate attempt to exploit the high profile and credibility of this body in order to create more mainstream support for extreme climate engineering. The public and policymakers need to be on guard against being steamrollered into accepting dangerous and immoral interventions with our planet, which are a false solution to climate change. Geoengineering should be banned by the UN general assembly."

Matthew Watson, a senior lecturer at the University of Bristol's Earth sciences department and one of the team behind the cancelled balloon project, said: "In general ought the IPCC to be thinking about geoengineering? Yes. But do I want to see unilateralism or regionalism affect the debate? Certainly not. The people who don't like geoengineering will suggest the IPCC is a method for normalising it."

He added: "The IPCC has to be very careful about how it handles this [geoengineering] because it is clearly a very significant output that people are very mindful of."

While the IPCC is intended to be a scientific advisory panel, government delegates have been reviewing the summary report and make final decisions about it in Stockholm at the end of the month.
Sweden, Norway and Germany expressed more scepticism about geoengineering and asked that the report underline its potential dangers.

"The information on geoengineering options is too optimistic as it does not appropriately reflect the current lack of knowledge or the high risks associated with such methods," noted the German government.
Geoengineering is expected to play a much larger role in the next IPCC reports coming out in 2014. Observers were surprised that it had turned up in this first major report – meant to assess physical science rather than mitigation strategies.

Source;  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/19/russia-un-climate-report-geoengineering

CIA ramping up covert training program for moderate Syrian rebels

The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, U.S.-backed militias are rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war, U.S. officials said.
But the CIA program is so minuscule that it is expected to produce only a few hundred trained fighters each month even after it is enlarged, a level that officials said will do little to bolster rebel forces that are being eclipsed by radical Islamists in the fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The CIA’s mission, officials said, has been defined by the White House’s desire to seek a political settlement, a scenario that relies on an eventual stalemate among the warring factions rather than a clear victor. As a result, officials said, limits on the agency’s authorities enable it to provide enough support to help ensure that politically moderate, U.S.-supported militias don’t lose but not enough for them to win.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the agency has sent additional paramilitary teams to secret bases in Jordan in recent weeks in a push to double the number of rebel fighters getting CIA instruction and weapons before being sent back to Syria.

The agency has trained fewer than 1,000 rebel fighters this year, current and former U.S. officials said. By contrast, U.S. intelligence analysts estimate that more than 20,000 have been trained to fight for government-backed militias by Assad’s ally Iran and the Hezbollah militant network it sponsors.
The CIA effort was described as an urgent bid to bolster moderate Syrian militias, which have been unable to mount a serious challenge to Assad or match the growing strength of rival rebel factions that have hard-line Islamist agendas and, in some cases, ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The CIA is “ramping up and expanding its effort,” said a U.S. official familiar with operations in Syria, because “it was clear that the opposition was losing, and not only losing tactically but on a more strategic level.”
The CIA declined to comment.
The latest setback came last month, when 11 of the largest armed factions in Syria, including some backed by the United States, announced the formation of an alliance with a goal of creating an Islamic state. The alliance is led by Jabhat al-Nusra, a group that has sworn allegiance to the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.

Operating under constraints
The descriptions of the CIA training program provide the most detailed account to date of the limited dimensions and daunting objectives of a CIA operation that President Obama secretly authorized in a covert action finding he signed this year.
U.S. officials said the classified program has been constrained by limits on CIA resources, the reluctance of rebel fighters to leave Syria for U.S. instruction and Jordan’s restrictions on the CIA’s paramilitary presence there.
But the limited scope also reflects a deeper tension in the Obama administration’s strategy on Syria, one that has sought to advance U.S. interests but avoid being drawn more deeply into a conflict that the United Nations estimates has killed more than 100,000 people since it began in 2011.

 The constraints have become a source of frustration within the CIA and drawn criticism from senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee meets regularly with senior officials from the CIA and other agencies, said there is a “high degree of frustration in the executive branch” with the Syria strategy.

“The situation in Syria is changing faster than the administration can keep up,” Rogers said. He declined to discuss CIA operations, which are classified, but said that U.S. support for moderate opposition groups is “less than robust” and has been hobbled by “inconsistent resource allocation with stated goals.”
CIA veterans expressed skepticism that the training and weapons deliveries will have any meaningful effect. In Jordan, operatives involved in training and arming rebels lament that “we’re being asked to do something with nothing,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. The former official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of agency operations overseas.
Some have also questioned the wisdom of expanding the CIA’s mission at a time when many think the agency has become too paramilitary in focus and should return to its traditional intelligence-­gathering role.
‘Basic infantry training’
The agency’s training effort is centered in Jordan, where the CIA has long-standing connections to the domestic intelligence service and access to bases guarded by the Jordanian military.
The program is aimed at shoring up the fighting power of units aligned with the Supreme Military Council, an umbrella organization led by a former Syrian general that is the main recipient of U.S. support.

The training is led by small teams of operatives from the CIA’s Special Activities Division, a paramilitary branch that relies heavily on contractors and former members of U.S. Special Operations forces. Officials said the instruction is rudimentary and typically spans four to six weeks.
“It’s basic infantry training,” the former U.S. intelligence official said. “How to have some discipline hitting a target, how to reload a magazine, how to clear a room. They’re not marching. They’re learning basic infantry procedures.”

Officials said the main CIA training effort does not involve instruction on using high-
powered weapons such as rockets and antitank munitions, which are being supplied by countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, although the agency is involved in tracking those arms flows and vetting recipients.

Islamists ‘good at fighting’
The pace of the CIA program amounts to a trickle into the ranks of opposition fighters, who total about 100,000. U.S. intelligence officials said that as many as 20,000 of those are considered “extremists” with militant Islamist agendas.

Those hard-line factions have drained momentum and support from moderate rebel groups. The most prominent Islamist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra, include fighters who have extensive experience from the war in Iraq, have ties to al-Qaeda and have carried out high-profile strikes against Assad’s government.

 Former deputy CIA director Michael J. Morell said in a recent CBS interview that the most effective organizations on the battlefield in Syria are the Islamist factions. “And because they’re so good at fighting the Syrians, some of the moderate members of the opposition joined forces with them,” he said.

Those defections have been compounded by mounting skepticism of U.S. commitment and intentions, officials said. Rebels’ requests for weapons were rebuffed until earlier this year, when Obama allowed the CIA to begin providing arms. But even then, officials said, the deliveries were delayed for months and restricted to light arms, which are already abundant in the conflict.

Rebels were also angered by the U.S. decision not to launch missile strikes against Assad after he was accused of using chemical weapons to kill more than 1,000 people in August in an attack on the outskirts of Damascus. After initially threatening strikes, the Obama administration set those plans aside last month to pursue a potential deal with Russia in which Assad would surrender control of his chemical weapons stockpiles — and probably extend his hold on power.

Islamist factions have taken advantage, luring fighters away with offers of better pay, equipment and results. A spokesman for the ISIS said the group had added 2,000 Syrian recruits and 1,500 foreign fighters over the past two months.

“More and more Muslims in Syria and outside are realizing that we are the only true force able and willing to defend the Syrian people against this monstrous regime without any Western agenda,” said the spokesman, Mohammed al-Libi.

Pessimism among refugees
Recruiting efforts by militias working with the CIA have sagged, officials said.
At the largest refu­gee camp in Jordan, where more than 100,000 Syrians take shelter, aid officials said dozens of military-age males leave every day by bus to return to Syria, presumably to fight. But the flows have diminished, and the mood among refugees has grown more pessimistic.

“Support to the rebellion is reducing,” said an official who has worked at the Zaatari camp. “We’re seeing fewer people leaving and less [recruiting] activity.” Among those who depart, officials said they have seen no evidence that any go elsewhere in Jordan for training before returning to Syria.

The Obama administration has explored the idea of using the U.S. military to expand the training program to what some officials have described as “industrial strength.” But Defense Department officials said there has been no decision to do so and cited significant obstacles.

It is unclear whether Jordan would welcome such a large U.S. military footprint, which would mean converting a covert program into one officially acknowledged by the United States. There are also legal impediments, including a measure known as the Leahy Law that would require a determination that no recipients of U.S. military assistance had committed human rights abuses.

For the CIA, the constraints in Syria mark a significant departure from the wide latitude the agency was accustomed to over the past decade in the conflict zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in other countries patrolled by armed drones, including Pakistan and Yemen.

Mindful of the criticism and investigations that accompanied many of those operations, senior CIA officials have raised the concern that the limits imposed in Syria will do little to shield the agency from criticism if something goes wrong.

“What happens when some of the people we trained torture a prisoner?” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with agency operations in the Middle East. Even if the CIA can produce records to defend its training program, “we’re going to face congressional hearings,” the former official said. “There is no win here.”


Ernesto Londoño in Washington and Taylor Luck in Irbid and Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

Source;  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-ramping-up-covert-training-program-for-moderate-syrian-rebels/2013/10/02/a0bba084-2af6-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html