------------------------------------------------------------
from Andy Rees, the WEEKLY WATCH editor
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear all
Welcome to WW35 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue. It may be of particular interest to any friends or contacts finding it hard to keep up with all the breaking news, so please circulate widely!
Andy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
www.ngin.org.uk
------------------------------------------------------------
WEEKLY WATCH number 35 - CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------
SETBACKS TO THE GM INDUSTRY
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
TOPIC OF THE WEEK 1 - Who's got at the Pope?
REPORT OF THE WEEK 1 - World hunger needs simple solutions not GM
ARTICLES OF THE WEEK - Meacher: GM fix in the UK/Lessons from Canada
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
FACTS OF THE WEEK
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
CAMPAIGNS OF THE WEEK - Green Gloves Campaign/WTO unmasked
SUBSCRIPTIONS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INVESTORS WARNED OF 2.3 BILLION DOLLAR THREAT TO MONSANTO:
A $2.3 billion hit could be looming over Monsanto, in the form of litigation liabilities, according to analysts, driving the company's shares down almost 6%. Anticipated adverse court decisions would likely force Solutia, the chemical company that was once part of Monsanto, into bankruptcy and leave Monsanto on the hook for damages.
http://reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?storyID=3216573&type=hotStocksNe
ws
ANOTHER STUDY SHOWS GM COTTON A DISASTER
Results of a field study in in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, two of the six Indian states granted permission to commercially cultivate Monsanto's (GM) Bt cotton - the first genetically-modified crop to be cultivated in India - shows the net profit from Bt cotton was lower per acre compared to non-Bt cotton in all types of fields (low to high yielding). In fact, 60 per cent of the farmers cultivating Bt cotton were not even able to recover their investment and incurred losses averaging 79 Rupees per acre. Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of the farming families surveyed (98 per cent) said they were not interested in growing Bt cotton again.
http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2003&leaf=07&filename=6073&filet
ype=html
The failure of GM cotton crops, including some illicit non-Monsanto Bt cotton variants, has contributed to some Indian farmers opting for growing groundnuts rather than cotton. "During the last two years, I had tried various brands of Bt cotton. But all varieties had failed," reports a Saurashtra farmer.
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=59789
NZ GREENS KEEP PROMISE ON GM:
The Green Party in New Zealand, formerly in a ruling coalition with Labour, this week voted against the Labour Government's Budget over its refusal to continue the GM moratorium. NZ Green Party Co-Leader, Jeanette Fitzsimons, made a powerful parliamentary speech explaining their position. See QUOTES OF THE WEEK.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1250
MEACHER WARNS NZ SELECT COMMITTEE AND GOVT MINISTERS OF GM RISKS:
Michael Meacher, the UK's Environment Minister from 1997 till earlier this year, this week gave evidence to the New Zealand Education and Science Select committee, warning that co-existence of GM and conventional crops is impossible. The news was not well received. The Select Committee were carefully towing the government's line that they were 'preserving opportunities' and that GM food was safe, despite the absence of scientific peer reviewed studies. Michael Meacher remarked that he was surprised that NZ was willing to throw away its market advantages of GM Free production, particularly as it is the world's largest dairy producer, with 1/3 of the global production and exporting 95% of its goods, particularly to the EU and Japan which are not accepting of GM food. His appearance came to an abrupt end when committee chairman Brian Donnelly labelled it a political stunt although he apologised as Mr Meacher left. Later Meacher said he had been too long in politics to mind his treatment although he "was very surprised at being told it was a political gimmick. We're talking about food ... nothing is more substantial or fundamental to human beings, we're talking about our bodies, our lives, our children." Meacher earlier had meetings with two Government ministers.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2603936a6160,00.html
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1247
SEE ARTICLES OF THE WEEK FOR MICHAEL MEACHER ON GM IN THE UK AND CANADA
A MICHIGAN FARMER TELLS MONSANTO WHERE TO GET OFF:
Excerpt from Don Dunklee's letter to Monsanto et al: "Your intentional genetic manipulation of natural living organisms results in a change not intended in the "original product". Your claim to this "product" also gives you all potential liabilities now, and in the future."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1248
GM CROPS DO HARM WILDLIFE, FARM TRIALS LIKELY TO REVEAL:
According to an article in The Independent on Sunday, the Government's farm trials have shown GM crops can be more damaging to neighbouring flora and fauna than ordinary strains of sugar beet, maize and oilseed rape. In particular, the impact on insects, weeds and hedgerow plants has proved radically different, the trial results have revealed. One senior source close to the trials said: "The null hypothesis is wrong, that's what's come out of the trials clearly. What is consistent is there are differences in the impact of GM crops and conventional crops." GMWATCH comment: Given the way that the farm scale evaluations have been manipulated to enhance the performance of GM crops (see ARTICLES OF THE WEEK below), we remain sceptical about aspects of this article.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=429820
------------------------------------------------------------
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
Blair's new PR chief is Monsanto's PR flak
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tony Blair has, according to the Mail on Sunday, chosen David Hill to replace Alastair Campbell as his new chief spin doctor. Hill was at one time chief media spokesman for Blair's party but he has spent the past five years as boss of a PR firm which advises Monsanto on public relations. Hill's firm, Good Relations - part of Bell Potinger, is known to have organised meetings between Monsanto and government ministers. A former special adviser to one of those ministers was also recruited by Bell Pottinger. Hill's successor as Labour's chief media spokesman, Mike Craven, went on to found Lexington Communications which represents Monsanto and the other biotech corporations who run the industry group, the ABC.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1243
-----------------------------------------------------------
New ACNFP chair - from bad to worse
-----------------------------------------------------------
The UK's Food Standards Agency this week announced the appointment of a new Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) which is the UK's key regulatory committee for GM foods. Professor Mike Gasson will take up the position on 1 September 2003, succeeding Professor Janet Bainbridge.
http://www.food.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/acnfpchair
The new ACNFP chairman is a close associate of Derek Burke, the first head of the ACNFP and someone who has openly campaigned for GM foods even offering advice to other scientists on how to run such a campaign.
(for more on Burke: http://ngin.tripod.com/articleBurke.htm)
Gasson and Burke co-authored a much quoted article which claimed that Pusztai's research had been replicated and no problems found. However, Gasson and Burke based this claim on two highly dubious studies. the first was not a published piece of research but merely a draft submitted by Chinese scientists to an unspecified journal. The other paper had been published in an obscure Japanese journal and according to the expert nutritionist Dr Arpad Pusztai, "if this study had been done in the UK, the researchers would have lost their animal licence and the research would have been forcefully terminated. In this totally unphysiological study it was quite scandalous that in 105 days the young rats were made to suffer as they grew only just over 20 grams in body weight and the mice none at all. Accordingly, from this Japanese study of starving rats one cannot draw any scientifically valid conclusions".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1246
-----------------------------------------------------------
USDA's new rules on biopharm GM crops grossly inadequate
-----------------------------------------------------------
According to a News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods: "The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued "interim rules" on Wednesday requiring companies growing GM crops that contain industrial chemicals to get a permit. To say this latest action by the USDA is inadequate is a gross understatement. We are shocked that the USDA is allowing biotech crops containing industrial chemicals to be grown in the open environment - permit or no permit. These "interim rules" go into effect immediately, an action that makes us suspect that the USDA realizes there may already be a problem with these industrial chemical crops contaminating the food supply. Under current USDA rules, crops containing industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs only have to be planted at least one mile away from food crops. The primary crop being used is corn. Since corn pollen has been shown to travel much further than one mile, the USDA's rules will inevitably lead to industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs contaminating the food supply.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1250
------------------------------------------------------------
REPORT OF THE WEEK - World hunger needs simple solutions not GM
------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts from a very good article:
One member of the government's review panel resigned because of the its "naive" and unbalanced approach. Another formally complained that he was threatened with the loss of research funding if he was critical of GM technology. In the most staggering example of a conflict of interest in recent times, a Monsanto employee was reportedly commissioned to write the first draft of the panel's report concerning GM safety issues.
Icing on this less than rational cake was added by David King, chairman of the panel and chief government scientific adviser, who used the experience of the US to reassure the public. GM food has been eaten there since around 1996 with no obvious adverse effects. But absence of evidence of harm is not evidence of the absence of harm.
What emerges is an automatic cultural bias in the scientific community towards invasive, hi-tech solutions to complex social, environmental and economic problems. Regardless of whether or not they are best - or even appropriate.
Because why, after all, do we need GM crops?
Almost everything scientists are trying to achieve by genetically modifying crops can be achieved in other less risky ways. Whether the problem is pest or weed control, drought tolerance, yield or nutrition, there are countless, though poorly supported, farming methods that can be used before needing to open pandora's box of genetic tricks. GM advocates seem only to have discovered the cause of poverty eradication now that they have something to sell."
Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation and author of the forthcoming Limits to Property: How Restrictive Property Rights Fail the Modern World
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1011888,00.html
------------------------------------------------------------
TOPIC OF THE WEEK - Who's got the Pope?
------------------------------------------------------------
Here are some of this week's headlines:
Vatican hails GM food as a saviour
The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-766369,00.html
Vatican says GM food is a blessing
The Times article recycled
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6866967%255E27
03,00.html
Vatican believes GM food could solve world hunger
Catholic News
http://www.cathnews.com/news/308/18.php
This may all have come as quite a surprise to Catholics who'd become accustomed to such previous headlines as:
Pope Expresses Opposition to GMOs
Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference Wants Moratorium On GM
Canada's Catholic Church Concerned About GMOs
Pope warns scientists about genetic manipulation
Philippines: Catholic Church fights GM crop
The Vatican Asks UN to Monitor Biotechnology
Church Leader Urges Use of Safe Alternatives to GMO
Church joins anti-Bt corn drive
Zambian Jesuit Centre - Zambia shouldn't be pushed into accepting GMOs
So what's changed? Why all the favourable headlines? The answer lies with the source of this week's ones - Archbishop Renato Martino.
He gave an interview to an Italian newspaper, the Turin-based daily La Stampa, telling them the Vatican would soon endorse the use of GM food. This isn't the first time Martino's views on GM foods have hit the headlines. Here are some headlines from December 2002:
Top Vatican Official: GM Foods Can Feed the World
http://transplant.sinica.edu.tw/chinese/clink/1/20021219-1.htm
Vatican backs GM foods
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_729472.html?menu=
Vatican Transubstantiates GM Foods
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/000311.shtml
Vatican official says GM food "no big deal"
http://www.cathnews.com/news/212/101.php
These were all generated by Archbishop Martino speaking out during the food aid crisis in favour of GMOs. Martino's defence of GMOs is the usual simplistic non-scientific nonsense. He says he used to live in the US and in his 16 years there GMOs never did him any harm. This suggests Martino might not even know there were no GM crops commercially grown in the US before 1996!
Earlier this summer, Martino turned up at the US government's big "feed the world" GM promotional in Sacramento - an event quietly boycotted by all the EU countries:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/agriculture/story/6907586p-7857123c.h
tml
One of the official speakers at the Sacramento event was CS Prakash, the biotech activist who has been linked to Monsanto's PR operations and acts as a kind of roving GM ambassador for the US State Dept.
In 2001 Prakash is known to have met a leading Vatican expert on bioethics Bishop Elio Sgreccia in an effort to head off concerns over safeguards on GM foods. He's also known to have had detailed discussion with Bishop Jesse Varela in the Philippines. And last year it emerged that Prakash had put together a lobby group of pro-GM Catholics, including one who even called for Zambia to be bombed with GM grain. They were active during the food aid crisis in southern Africa, attacking Zambian Catholics who opposed GM food aid.
According to some reports the day after the La Stampa article, "Vatican representative Archbishop Renato Martino has contradicted reports that Vatican authorities were working on a policy paper that would support the use of genetically modified (GM) crops. He stated that the Vatican is simply planning to convene a round-table discussion in the fall to study the ethical and scientific implications of using GM crops. His statements come a day after an Italian newspaper that interviewed him announced, "the Vatican in November will say 'yes' to genetically modified foods." "
However there are reasons for continuing suspicion. The report in La Stampa says, "In November, a study congress is to take place a few days ahead of releasing an historic document that is to lift the ban on transgenic foods." the article says, "the draft of this document, which awaits papal approval, was drawn up by experts of the pontifical Justice and Peace Council". The chairman of the Council is none other than Archbishop Martino. La Stampa claims that the draft document makes a sharp distinction between applying genetics to man via genetic technologies like human cloning which contradict human dignity, and biotechnolgies applied to plants and animals which are "licit and dutiful" if they solve world problems such as hunger.
Reacting to the La Stampa report, Jose Bove wondered what St. Francis would have made of it. Bove said any Vatican endorsement of genetic engineering in agriculture would be "scandalous."
Alfonso Scanio Pecoraro, head of the Italian Greens and a former agriculture minister, said he was horrified by the Vatican's apparent intervention. "The church is using its authority to support a scam by the US multinationals," he said. He suspected the administration of US President George W. Bush had put pressure on the Holy See.
There's certainly a potential political dividend for the Vatican in all this, given that the Pope's opposition to the invasion of Iraq won't have done it any favours with the Bush administration. They're keen to see Bush continue supporting their agenda on human cloning, including embryo cloning, and would like to see his continued insistence on a pro-Life element in US aid contributions. A suitable quid pro quo may be greater support for the Bush agenda on GM foods, which those like Archbishop Martino may think will also help the Vatican's outlook appear modern and not anti-science and technology.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1241
To understand the many Catholic voices that the US/Monsanto lobby of the Vatican, and its good friend Archbishop Renato Martino, are seeking to silence, see: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1245
For a great graphic:
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/Vatican-GM-Saviour4aug03.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------
ARTICLES OF THE WEEK - flaws and omissions/lessons from Canada
-----------------------------------------------------------
A Michael Meacher article in New Scientist analyses the process for evaluating whether to commercialise GM in the UK and consludes it's riddled with flaws and omissions, and is more about spinning a line than uncovering the truth. His analysis of the character of the decision making process discloses a terrain where overwhelming public opposition meets substantial corporate influence, insubstantial evidence, regulatory collusion, and a total lack of caution. These are the conclusions of a man who was at the heart of government dealing with this very issue for the last 6 years.
FLAWS AND OMISSIONS
With all the reports and consultations, there ought to be plenty of evidence on which to base a decision. Don't be fooled: it's not that simple.
GM NATION? WHO'S LISTENING?
The government insists GM Nation is a "listen and learn" exercise. But how will it listen? If it hears overwhelming opposition to GM, will it still give GM the green light on the grounds that it knows better?
GM CROP TRIALS? A FIX.
The government appears to set great store by the outcome of the farm-scale evaluation trials, also due to be published in September. The trials have been presented as the authoritative test of the impact of GM crops on the environment. They are nothing of the kind. They were carefully designed to test the environmental impacts of GM crops under optimal conditions. As a result, they do not reflect how farmers actually behave under the commercial pressures of the marketplace, where the focus is on maximising yields rather than protecting the environment.
SCIENCE REVIEW? WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE?
Last week, the government published its review of current scientific knowledge about GM. This recognised that there are substantial gaps in this knowledge. For example, it is not at all clear how GM products could affect human health, because systematic clinical evidence of the health and biochemical impacts of eating GM food has never been collected.
COSTS AND BENEFITS? NO BENEFITS AT PRESENT.
The government has also been looking at the economic costs and benefits of GM. Significantly, the report by the prime minister's Strategy Unit, published last month, concluded that there was no economic case for GM in the UK at present.
ADVISORY BODIES? LINKS TO INDUSTRY.
Once all the reports have been finalised, they will be filtered through the government's advisory bodies and presented to ministers. Alarmingly, corporate interests could have a substantial influence here: it is known, for example, that more than three-quarters of the members of the committee that advises ministers on food safety have direct links to major food and drug companies.
MINISTERIAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON BIOTECH? NOT A HINT OF CAUTION.
The process concludes with behind-the-scenes discussions in Downing Street, which are then played out at the ministerial subcommittee on biotechnology -- where the government formally makes its decision. Significantly, not a single member of this committee is a GM sceptic, and several are GM enthusiasts.
IRAQ MARK 2?
It would be a tragedy if GM were to become Iraq mark 2, with the government ploughing ahead regardless despite insubstantial evidence and the overwhelming opposition of the population.
Based on 'On stony ground', New Scientist August 2, 2003
......
LESSONS FROM CANADA
What would happen, asks Michael Meacher in an article in The Independent, if early next year the [UK] Government decided to allow GM crops to be grown commercially in this country? To find out, he says, go to Canada, where GM crops were introduced into the prairies in 1997. Initially, the farmers were enthusiastic. Monsanto and the other big biotech companies promised there would be higher yields, less herbicide usage, little or no cross-contamination and ready containment of "volunteers" (plants that survive the harvest as seeds and give rise to weeds when different crops are later planted). It has not turned out like that at all.
Yields were found to be lower because contamination was wider than predicted, herbicide use was not reduced, and often had to be increased, and volunteers were much more difficult to deal with than expected. There were no gains to consumers that might have balanced the losses to the farming producers. And the environmental impacts, assumed to be benign on the specious principle that GM crops were "substantially equivalent" to non-GM varieties, turned out to be seriously adverse. There was damage to wildlife, new superweeds were generated and ecosystems that support insects and birds were destroyed.
The lesson of their experience is that co-existence between conventional and GM farming is a mirage. In Saskatchewan, organic oilseed rape (which the Canadians call canola) has been wiped out by cross-contamination from Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" GM canola.
Then there's the issue of dirty tricks. Meacher writes, 'One other highly relevant piece of evidence shown to me by the Canadian NFU about the current battleground in Canada concerns the tactics adopted by Monsanto to get the unpopular idea of GM wheat accepted. A draft letter, to be signed by prominent farmers in key positions, details the "mutual understanding and agreement" between each of them and Monsanto about how they will assist, secretly, in "ensuring the positive introduction of Roundup Ready Wheat in Canada". We have to ask: is the same happening here...'
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=430971
------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------------------------------
We're talking about food ... nothing is more substantial or fundamental to human beings - we're talking about our bodies, our lives, our children." - Michael Meacher on why the GM issue is so critical
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1247
"The period of constraint, as the [New Zealand] Govt likes to call the moratorium is supposed to allow research to be done on a key concern the Royal Commission expressed - the "significant gaps in our knowledge" about the effects on soils, on native species and on horizontal gene transfer. A contract has been let to examine these things. When does it report? A few years from now! What does the Govt plan to do if it comes back with a list of dos and don'ts to prevent horizontal gene transfer of dangerous genetic material and GE corn pollen is already blowing all over our farms; GE viruses and bacteria from veterinary medicines are living in our soil after being excreted by animals; escaped GE salmon are swimming in our rivers and farmers are unable to sell their farms where they have grown GE ryegrass because our markets don't want meat or milk which has been fed GE feed? Mr Speaker, there is still time to turn back." - Jeanette Fitzsimons, Co-Leader of the the Green Party, addressing New Zealand's Parliament,
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1250
"Biological complexity and diversity sound like abstractions, until you see a patch of prairie beside the monotony of a soybean field, a whole county of soybean fields" - Verlyn Klinkenborg in the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/opinion/07THU4.html?th
-----------------------------------------------------------
FACTS OF THE WEEK
-----------------------------------------------------------
New Zealand is the world's largest dairy producer, with 1/3 of the global production and exporting 95% of goods, particularly to GM sensitive markets in the EU and Japan.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1247
The most recent GM poll in NZ asked about preserving GM free food production, at least until markets will accept it, and an overwhelming 80% supported that policy.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1247
Several recent polls have shown that 92-97% of Canadians believe that their government should require companies to label GM products.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=430971
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: from the GM WATCH archive
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2/8/2003 GM crops do harm surrounding flora and fauna
2/8/2003 GMWATCH number 12 - monthly review
2/8/2003 Judge frees Bove
2/8/2003 Seed battle heads to supreme court
2/8/2003 Starlink corn still shows up
4/8/2003 World hunger needs a simple solution rather than hi-tech GM food
5/8/2003 Blair's new PR chief is Monsanto's PR flak
5/8/2003 Monsanto investors warned of Solutia-related threat
5/8/2003 New ACNFP Chair - from bad to worse!
5/8/2003 Who's got at the Pope?
6/8/2003 Green Gloves campaign
6/8/2003 A Michigan farmer tells Monsanto where to get off
6/8/2003 Meacher warns select committee and ministers of GM risks
6/8/2003 Re: New ACNFP Chair - from bad to worse!
6/8/2003 Re: Who's got at the Pope?
7/8/2003 Michael Meacher: To know the truth about GM, ask the Canadians
7/8/2003 NZ Greens keep their promise on GE
7/8/2003 USDA's new rules on industrial biotech crops grossly inadequate
FOR THE COMPLETE GM WATCH ARCHIVE: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive.asp
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOIN THE GREEN GLOVES PLEDGE:
If Tony Blair gives the green light for GM, then a nation of gardeners will put on their gardening gloves, take GM crops out of the ground and make sure that the people have the last word on protecting our future.
"You are invited to join with others who have signed the Green Gloves Pledge. This is a pledge to take, or support others who take, non-violent action to prevent genetic pollution and its damage to life and livelihoods. You will be acting in the public interest with the support of many others.
The number of people signing the pledge will indicate to the government how many people are willing to actively defend nature and democracy. It will remind Tony Blair where real power finally lies: with the will of the people. Perhaps, just perhaps, he might even listen. You can join the Green Gloves Pledge in these ways:
1. online at: www.greengloves.org
2. email your name, address and postcode to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
3. by text/sms: send the following text message: EMAIL This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. I will join the green gloves pledge <your name> <your address> <your postcode> <your email> to: 00 3933 3477 4753 (text message only)
...
THE WTO UNMASKED (via Greenpeace)
With the next World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun coming up during 11-14 September, here are a few things you can do to protest the WTO's prioritisation of corporate profits over the health of our planet and its people.
Genetically engineered food by Bush & Co.
The US and corporations behind genetically engineered (GE) food are using the World Trade Organisation to tell the world what to eat and where to buy it from.
Supported by Canada and Argentina, the US is trying to use the WTO to challenge the European Union's policy on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) - a policy that is the strictest in the world. The US challenge amounts to a scare tactic to "encourage" countries to open their markets to GE food. Many countries fear that if they reject GMOs, they will be met with huge trade sanctions potentially worth hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars.
Introducing "Genetically engineered food by Bush & Co.". Political cartoonist Mark Fiore has designed this great e-card for us to protest corporate attempts to take over our food chain. Support the global movement for the right to say no to GMOs and spread the word by sending it to your friends and colleagues:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ecs/s2?i=863&sk=std
While you're sending those e-cards, don't forget to take part in the cyberaction to tell Argentina and Canada to stop supporting the US war on consumers, farmers and the environment:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=859&s=gen
(This action link will also be sent along with the e-card.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBSCRIPTIONS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to the 'GMW daily' list
send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the message:
'subscribe GMW daily'
You'll receive up to 30 mails a week
To subscribe to the 'WEEKLY WATCH'
send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the message:
'subscribe WEEKLY WATCH'
You'll receive 1 mail a week with a news roundup
Those subscribed to the daily list will receive the WEEKLY WATCH
automatically
To subscribe to 'GMWATCH' (monthly)
send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the message:
'subscribe GMWATCH'
You'll receive 1 mail a month with a news roundup
Those subscribed to the daily bulletins and WEEKLY WATCH will receive
GMWATCH automatically
To unsubscribe to any of the these lists:
just mail us saying 'unsubscribe' and specifying which list
archived at:
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive.asp
GMWATCH website:
http://www.ngin.org.uk
Donations made out to 'NGIN':
NGIN, 26 Pottergate, Norwich, NR2 1DX, United Kingdom
or e-mail for details: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.