Fake-food scandal revealed as tests show third of products are mislabelled!

Consumers are being sold food including mozzarella that is less than half real cheese, ham on pizzas that is either poultry or "meat emulsion", and frozen prawns that are 50% water, according to tests by a public laboratory.

The checks on hundreds of food samples, which were taken in West Yorkshire, revealed that more than a third were not what they claimed to be, or were mislabelled in some way. Their results have been shared with the Guardian.

Testers also discovered beef mince adulterated with pork or poultry, and even a herbal slimming tea that was neither herb nor tea but glucose powder laced with a withdrawn prescription drug for obesity at 13 times the normal dose.

A third of fruit juices sampled were not what they claimed or had labelling errors. Two contained additives that are not permitted in the EU, including brominated vegetable oil, which is designed for use in flame retardants and linked to behavioural problems in rats at high doses.

Experts said they fear the alarming findings from 38% of 900 sample tests by West Yorkshire councils were representative of the picture nationally, with the public at increasing risk as budgets to detect fake or mislabelled foods plummet.

Counterfeit vodka sold by small shops remains a major problem, with several samples not meeting the percentage of alcohol laid down for the spirit. In one case, tests revealed that the "vodka" had been made not from alcohol derived from agricultural produce, as required, but from isopropanol, used in antifreeze and as an industrial solvent.

Samples were collected both as part of general surveillance of all foods and as part of a programme targeted at categories of foodstuffs where cutting corners is considered more likely.

West Yorkshire's public analyst, Dr Duncan Campbell, said of the findings: "We are routinely finding problems with more than a third of samples, which is disturbing at a time when the budget for food standards inspection and analysis is being cut."

He said he thought the problems uncovered in his area were representative of the picture in the country as a whole.

The scale of cheating and misrepresentation revealed by the tests was described by Maria Eagle, the shadow environment secretary, as unacceptable. "Consumers deserve to know what they are buying and eating and cracking down on the mislabelling of food must become a greater priority for the government," she said.

Testing food is the responsibility of local authorities and their trading standards departments, but as their budgets have been cut many councils have reduced checks or stopped collecting samples altogether.

The number of samples taken to test whether food being sold matched what was claimed fell nationally by nearly 7% between 2012 and 2013, and had fallen by over 18% in the year before that. About 10% of local authorities did no compositional sampling at all last year, according to the consumer watchdog Which?

West Yorkshire is unusual in retaining a leading public laboratory and maintaining its testing regime. Samples are anonymised for testing by public analysts to prevent bias, so we are unable to see who had made or sold individual products. Many of the samples were collected from fast-food restaurants, independent retailers and wholesalers; some were from larger stores and manufacturers.

Substitution of cheaper ingredients for expensive materials was a recurring problem with meat and dairy products – both sectors that have seen steep price rises on commodity markets. While West Yorkshire found no horsemeat in its tests after the scandal had broken, mince and diced meats regularly contained meat of the wrong species.

In some cases, this was likely to be the result of mincing machines in butcher's shops not being properly cleaned between batches; in others there was clear substitution of cheaper species. Samples of beef contained pork or poultry, or both, and beef was being passed off as more expensive lamb, especially in takeaways, ready meals, and by wholesalers.

Ham, which should be made from the legs of pigs, was regularly made from poultry meat instead: the preservatives and brining process add a pink colour that makes it hard to detect except by laboratory analysis.

Meat emulsion – a mixture in which meat is finely ground along with additives so that fat can be dispersed through it – had also been used in some kinds of ham, as had mechanically separated meat, a slurry produced by removing scraps of meat from bones, which acts as a cheap filler although its use is not permitted in ham.

Levels of salt that breached target limits set by the Food Standards Agency were a recurring problem in sausages and some ethnic restaurant meals. The substitution of cheaper vegetable fat for the dairy fat with which cheese must legally be made was common. Samples of mozzarella turned out in one case to be only 40% dairy fat, and in another only 75%.

Several samples of cheese on pizzas were not in fact cheese as claimed but cheese analogue, made with vegetable oil and additives. It is not illegal to use cheese analogue but it should be properly identified as such.

Using water to adulterate and increase profits was a problem with frozen seafood. A kilo pack of frozen king prawns examined contained large quantities of ice glaze, and on defrosting the prawns themselves were found to be 18% added water. Only half the weight of the pack was seafood as opposed to water.

In some cases the results raised concerns over immediate food safety. The herbal slimming tea that was mostly sugar contained a prescription obesity drug that has been withdrawn because of its side-effects.

Making false promises was a dominant theme among vitamin and mineral supplements. Of 43 samples tested, 88% made health claims that are not allowed under legislation because there is no science to support them or were mislabelled as to their content in some way.

Even when fraud or mislabelling is found, it is not aways followed up. Once it has detected a problem with a product, a council is required to refer it to the home authority in which it was originally made, which may or may not take enforcement action.

Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which?, called for more effective use of resources and tougher penalties.

"No one wants to see another incident like the horsemeat scandal happen again and the rigorous enforcement of standards underpinned by effective levels of food testing is essential for restoring consumers' trust in this industry," he said.

British man takes African teen as second wife, first wife finds out on Facebook!

A bigamist was caught by his wife after she saw a photograph of him grinning with his new Gambian teenage bride on Facebook.

Nicolette Smith was further devastated when she noticed Stephen Smith, 52, had married Awa Jobarteh, 19, at the same African register office they tied the knot at seven years earlier.

Ms Smith then called the police, but incredibly her cheating former partner has avoided jail and claimed he was the victim.

The factory worker had been abandoned by his new young bride two days after arriving back in the UK, and she has never been traced.

Nicolette met her husband in 2001, after his first divorce, but has been left in financial ruin after their marriage breakdown.

She was declared bankrupt when Smith failed to pay the mortgage and is still waiting for her husband to sign divorce papers, Teesside Crown Court was told.

The 52-year-old was prosecuted for bigamy after he admitted ‘hastily’ rushing down the aisle with his third wife because he was in love.

The court heard that the day before the wedding Smith signed a petition for divorce from his second wife, which carried a signature purporting to be by Nicolette – but it was faked.

Nicolette admitted she was disappointed that he was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years with 150 hours’ unpaid work.

‘I feel as though he’s got away with this and has been portrayed as some kind of victim himself after all that he’s put me through. He knew if he responded to my divorce petition, he’d give away where he’d been hiding,’ she said.

Discussing the way he was dumped by his new bride she told The Sun: ‘She looked so young in the pictures and he looked a little pathetic. I don’t know what else he could have expected’.

Smith claimed he was a wronged victim, duped and abandoned by his latest spouse after he met her in Gambia, married her on November 7, 2012 and brought her to the UK.

Smith married his second wife in December 2005. The marriage broke down two years later.

He went missing and her solicitors received no reply in efforts to start divorce proceedings. She then reported him to the police when she found out that he’d remarried.

Smith admitted a charge of bigamy, his first crime but said he had thought he was divorced and that his divorce was ‘automatic’.

Central African Republic soldiers murder man in cold blood after presidential speech!

Soldiers lynched an innocent bystander in the Central African Republic yesterday, beating the man to death before scores of witnesses only moments after the new president had voiced “pride” in their professionalism.

The brazen murder, carried out with the utmost brutality, was another sign of the nightmarish disintegration of this remote country of 4.5 million people.

Hundreds of soldiers clad in red berets and new camouflage fatigues were on parade in the capital, Bangui, to greet the new interim president, Catherine Samba-Panza. She took office last month with the task of organising a general election.

Ms Samba-Panza promised the soldiers that her government would pay their wages for the first time in five months. “I would like to renew my pride in those elements of FACA [Armed Forces of the Central African Republic] who are here and to ask them to support my actions wherever they are,” she said.

As soon as she left, soldiers gathered around a bystander and accused him of being from the Seleka rebel movement. What followed was witnessed by a journalists from news agencies including Associated Press and Reuters. “I will kill him with my own hands,” shouted one army recruit. The soldiers set upon the man with knives and bricks, kicking him to the ground, stripping him to his underwear and stabbing him over and over.

As he lay on the ground, bleeding profusely but still alive, peacekeeping soldiers from Burundi tried to protect him. They surrounded the man’s prostrate form, holding back the crowd of soldiers and bystanders.

But as the mob grew more furious, the Burundians abandoned the man to his fate, retreating without firing a shot. One gendarme in a blue uniform who also tried to intervene was threatened and accused of being a traitor. The mob seemed willing to kill him too, but other officers managed to take him to safety.

Then the victim was stabbed and beaten to death where he lay. Afterwards, the mob stabbed his body and dragged it through the streets before setting his corpse alight.

A Western security expert in Bangui said this was the third public lynching in as many weeks. The CAR is trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of retaliatory violence. Last March, the Muslim leader of the Seleka rebels, Michel Djotodia, captured Bangui and declared himself president. The Seleka then began murdering Christians across the country.

After Mr Djotodia resigned last month, the boot was on the other foot. Christian militias, styling themselves Anti-Balaka, retaliated by killing Muslims at random.

Yesterday’s victim was believed to be a Muslim. “What’s happening in the city is that the Anti-Balaka are forcing out all of the Muslims by killing them outright – or by going into the neighbourhoods where they live and pillaging them then burning everything down,” said the security expert. ”Now you have a whole bunch of ex-Seleka running around with no leaders – and a whole bunch of Anti-Balaka who are just kids from the villages with machetes.”

France has deployed 1,600 troops in the CAR, but they lack the numbers to restore order. The African Union has sent another 5,000 peacekeeping soldiers, mainly from Chad and Burundi.

However, Chad’s largely Muslim contingent has been accused of helping Seleka to massacre Christians.

“If the African Union is truly going to protect civilians in the Central African Republic, it needs to rein in the rogue activities of the Chadian peacekeeping troops,” said Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.

Rivers crisis: Joseph Mbu Removed As Commissioner of Police!

The Police Service Commission has approved the recommendations of the Inspector-General of Police for the redeployment of Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu.

The Police Service Commission has transferred the Rivers State Police Commissioner, Mbu, to Abuja as the new Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police.

Also, the Commissioner in charge of the Special Fraud Unit, Johnson Ogunshakin, has been redeployed to Rivers State to replace Mbu as the new Commissioner of Police.

The redeployment affects thirteen (13) Commissioners of Police who have been moved to various Commands nationwide, as contained in a press release.

CP Mbu has been at the centre of the crisis rocking the political scene in Rivers State and has been at loggerheads with the state government, which had accused the police boss of being partisan with regards to State politics.

The All Progressives Congress, APC and the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, have consistently called for the removal of Mr Joseph Mbu, accusing him of being used to frustrate the Governor and the emergence of the APC in the Niger-Delta state.

The Rivers State Police Public Relations Officer, Ahmed Mohammed, has however denied knowledge of the redeployment, he said: “The Command for now is not in receipt of any official communication about the redeployment of CP Mbu.”

The Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Sir Mike Okiro, in the press release issued by Mr.Ferdinand Ekpe, admonished the newly redeployed officers to put in their best in their various Commands’ operations, so as to provide a secure environment for business and life to thrive.

SSS releases Asari Dokubo!

The President of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, NDPVF, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has been released by the Department of State Security Services, SSS.

He was invited to the SSS headquarters on Thursday morning for repeatedly making inciting comments.

His personal assistant (Media), Rex Asari, confirmed the release.

“Yes, he was released. We are heading home now,” Mr.  Rex Asari said.

Mr. Dokubo-Asari was quoted in several media reports on Tuesday as saying that he would make Nigeria ungovernable if President Goodluck Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015. He also asked the major political parties not to field non- South South candidates.

The All Progressives Congress, APC, and an Islamic group, Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, had asked the SSS to arrest and question Mr. Dokubo-Asari over the statements.

Tension rises as masquerades storm Baptist High School!

The ongoing crisis at the Baptist High School, Iwo, yesterday took a dramatic dimension when some students of the school mobilized some masquerades to the crisis-ridden school.

It was gathered that some angry students stormed the school premises clad in masquerade attires and thus paralyzed academic activities in the institution for several hours.

Findings revealed that the masquerades were mobilized to the school by some students who collaborated with some traditionalists in the town as various religious organizations have taken interest in the crisis rocking the school.

DailyPost reports that students of the school on Tuesday caused confusion in the school as they appeared in different clothes that correlate with their religious beliefs.

While the Christian students who wore white garments sown into choir gowns sang Christian songs, the Muslim students who appeared in veil on the other hand sang Islamic songs.

The state government last year introduced same uniform for all the secondary school students in the state and also legalised the use of veil (hijab) in public schools.

However, the school authorities have suspended 24 of the students indefinitely for alleged immoral, cult activities and disruption of academic programme in the school.

The suspension of the affected students followed an investigation conducted by the institution’s authority where it was discovered that the students actually belong to secret cult groups.

Eight dead in South African gold mine accident!

Rescuers recovered eight bodies and continued to search for another missing worker on Thursday after a fire and rock-fall at a Harmony Gold mine near Johannesburg, the worst accident in South Africa's mines in nearly five years.

Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu ordered an investigation into the incident at the Doornkop mine, 30 km west (20 miles) of the city, after initial reports that the fire was triggered by a small earthquake on Tuesday evening.

"The situation is deeply regrettable," Shabangu said in a statement. "We must ensure that we do all we can to get to the bottom of what caused this incident in order to prevent similar occurrences in future."

It is the most serious accident in South Africa's mines since nine workers died in a rock fall at a platinum mine in July 2009. Shares in Harmony, South Africa's third-largest bullion producer, fell 3 percent at the start of trade.

Rescue teams battled through smoke and debris nearly a mile underground on Wednesday to reach eight other miners who had managed to flee to a refuge bay equipped with a telephone and other survival gear. They were brought to the surface unharmed.

South Africa's gold mines are the deepest in the world and were ranked as some of the most dangerous during the apartheid era.

Since the end of white-minority rule in 1994, the government, unions and companies have worked to improve safety, but 112 people were still killed in 2012, the last year for which records are available.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Harmony said the fire broke out on Tuesday evening after an earthquake damaged ventilation and water pipes as well as power cables.

However, NUM questioned safety standards at the mine, saying the rescued miners reported that the ventilation system in one of the refuge chambers was letting in fumes.

"It does tell us that the rescue chambers were not according to safety standards," NUM Secretary General Frans Baleni told Reuters. "We cannot just say that it is regrettable. Heads most roll should the investigation find that there was negligence."

A Harmony spokeswoman said it was possible the refuge bays might have been compromised either in the earthquake or the fire that followed. An investigation by government, union, and the company's officials was already underway, she said.

Operations have been halted at the mine, which produces nearly 10 percent of Harmony's gold, and a prolonged safety shutdown could hit the company hard.

Harmony posted a quarterly loss last week due to a subdued bullion price and production problems at its key Khusalethu mine.

"Doornkop is a growth shaft for Harmony and any loss of production at the moment is not positive," SBG Securities mining analyst David Davis said.culled