from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
Extraordinary revelations have emerged from the European Commission, which has been approving GM crops ***in full knowledge*** that their health and environmental safety is in doubt (EUROPE). So it seems that the people at the Commission are not so stupid that they cannot understand the risks, but merely corrupt in putting the interests of trade above those of EU citizens.
The Pope has finally come out with a statement on genetic engineering, and it's unlikely to please the biotech lobby (CHURCHES).
Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
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CONTENTS
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CHURCHES
EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AFRICA
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CHURCHES
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+ POPE CONDEMNS GENETIC MANIPULATION
The Pope delivered a blistering attack on the "satanic" mores of modern society on 14 April (Good Friday), warning against an "inane apologia of evil" that is in danger of destroying humanity.
In a series of Good Friday meditations that he led in Rome, the Pope said that society is in the grip of a kind of "anti-Genesis". Particular condemnation was reserved for scientific advances in the field of genetic manipulation. Warning against the move to "modify the very grammar of life as planned and willed by God", the Pope lead prayers against "insane, risky and dangerous" ventures in attempting "to take God's place without being God".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6454
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EUROPE
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+ EU APPROVES GM FOODS DESPITE SERIOUS CONCERNS
New documents released to Friends of the Earth reveal that the European Commission has been approving GM foods and crops despite having serious doubts over their health and environmental impacts. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have called for a suspension in the use and sale of all GM foods and crops until the safety issues have been addressed.
The documents reveal the scientific arguments put forward behind closed doors in the recent GM trade dispute at the World Trade Organisation. In them, the Commission argues that there are "large areas of uncertainty" and that "some issues have not yet been studied at all". They also reveal that:
* On human safety: "there simply is no way of ascertaining whether the introduction of GM products has had any other effect on human health... there is no unique, absolute, scientific cut off threshold available to decide whether a GM product is safe or not."
* On growing GM crops: "It is a reasonable and lawful position" that insect-resistant crops (the only GM crops being grown in the EU) should not be planted until all the effects on the soil are known.
* On the environment: a key scientific study that was used to support the environmental safety of a GM crop is "scientifically flawed".
* There are huge disagreements between the Commission and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), an EU agency. In one example, the Commission criticises the EFSA for not requiring further investigations after dismissing scientific evidence that showed that a certain GMO had negative effects on earthworms.
At the same time as the Commission was writing and submitting these documents to the WTO highlighting safety concerns, it:
* pushed through the approval of seven GM foods over the past 2 years, despite a lack of support from member states;
* required member states to vote twice on proposals to lift national bans on GM products in five countries. It was defeated in both votes. Ironically, in the submissions to the WTO, the Commission gave scientific arguments to justify the bans.
* Commercialised 31 varieties of Monsanto's GM maize for cultivation in the EU.
Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth Europe said, "This is a political scandal. When the EU Commission broke the moratorium and forced new genetically modified foods into Europe, it told the public they were safe. Now we know that behind closed doors the Commission was arguing the complete opposite.
"These double standards of the EU Commission clearly show that public health and environmental protection are being compromised by an institution intent on promoting trade and business interests at any costs."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6457
Reports by the Daily Telegraph and the BBC on this story:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6456
+ AUSTRIA COULD BE TARGET OF EU WRATH OVER GM BAN
Austria, current president of the European Union, looks like the only country that might face an order to lift its bans on certain GM products, senior European Commission officials said.
Between 1997 and 2000, five EU countries banned specific GMOs on their territory, focusing on three maize and two rapeseed types that were approved shortly before the start of the EU's six-year moratorium on new biotech authorisations.
Last June, the Commission, the EU's executive arm, tried to get all the bans scrapped. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has also attacked these "national safeguards", as they are called in EU jargon, for breaking international trade rules.
But it got a stinging rebuff from EU environment ministers, which rejected proposals for the five states - Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg - to lift their restrictions.
The Commission's environment department is now expected to resubmit draft decisions for lifting the national GM bans to the EU-25, following a reassessment of each ban's scientific justification by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
In the meantime, the companies manufacturing the particular GM products that were the subject of the original bans have withdrawn several of them from the market. Only two of the products remain - both relating to bans in force in Austria.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6458
+ UK: SIGN PETITION TO CLEAN UP BLAIR'S SLEAZE
Sign a petition demanding that no more appointments to the House of Lords be made until a full investigation is completed into the 'peerages for cash' scandal involving donors to Blair's Labour Party being elevated to the House:
http://www.cleanupwestminster.com/
On 19 April questions were asked in Parliament about biotech peer and major donor to Labour, Lord Sainsbury, and the latest sleaze row. The questions were put both to the Prime Minister and to one of his law officers.
Blair's only response was that Sainsbury was doing a good job - that "good job" involves prostituting our universities and scientific institutes to commercial interests.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6465
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THE AMERICAS
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+ HERBICIDE RESISTANT WEEDS CAUSE PROBLEMS TO COTTON FARMERS
Pesticide resistant weeds are introducing a new problem to cotton farmers. Traditionally, herbicide resistance is dealt with by simply changing the herbicide. But according to North Carolina State weed scientist Alan York, farmers are running out of options: there are no more effective pesticides to switch to. The majority of farmers in the Cotton Belt are now growing Monsanto's GM Roundup Ready cotton, which is resistant to glyphosate pesticides. As a result of the heavy use of glyphosate in the area, varieties of pigweed have developed immunity to it.
Tests at the University of Georgia showed that the pigweed Palmer Amaranth has developed amazing resistance to glyphosate. Scientists doused the weeds three times with a quadruple concentrated dose of glyphosate, but the pigweed continued to grow and multiply. "If you grow cotton in the Southeast, and you have Palmer amaranth in your fields, looking at side-by-side comparisons of resistant and non-resistant pigweed should scare you to death," York says.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6463
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ASIA
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+ MURDERED BY MONSANTO?
On 13 April, five more cotton farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra's cotton growing region of Vidarbha, taking the total to 443 farmers in the growing season since June 2005. The majority grew Bt cotton, which was promoted to poor farmers in India using false and misleading claims as well as unethical practices.
Just how disastrous Bt cotton proved for Vidarbha's desperate farmers was revealed by a recent study in Maharashtra which showed the incomes of Bt cotton farmers were 68% lower than the incomes of non-Bt cotton growers.
Meanwhile, a statutory body investigating charges of monopoly practices filed against Mahyco-Monsanto has found the company guilty of illegal practices and found that the monopolistic and exorbitant rates charged by the company for their Bt cotton varieties was a significant factor in farmer distress.
The names of the more than 200 farmers in Vidarbha who have taken their lives since the beginning of January 2006 are at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6455
As many again suffered a similar fate in the period from June 2005. As already noted, the vast majority of the victims cultivated Bt cotton.
How Monsanto pulled every trick in the book to hype Bt cotton to these farmers:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5741
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6455
+ DESTITUTE AND DYING ON INDIA'S FARMS
The International Herald Tribune has published a hard-hitting article on Bt cotton and Vidarbha farmer suicides.
EXCERPT:
In his office in Pandnarkawada, the agrarian activist Kishor Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan Aandolan Samiti compiles a daily suicide update, which he illustrates by sticking a large skull and crossbones on a map of the region.
"The government should not be allowing the farmers to do such aggressive and expensive farming," he said. "There is no longer any state protection for the farmers, and suddenly this crop has become hugely loss-making. People are selling their cotton at throwaway prices.
"There will be more deaths. May God save the farmers who are next in line."
Todase, the physician, has become skilled at pumping the stomachs of the local farmers, but their survival depends largely on how close they live to the hospital.
Farmers in remote areas usually succumb to the poison before treatment can begin.
"Pesticides act on the nervous system - first they have convulsions, then the chemicals start eroding the stomach, and bleeding in the stomach begins, then there is aspiration pneumonia - they have difficulty in breathing - then they suffer from cardiac arrest," he said. "I don't feel angry but when one sees someone with such symptoms, it is a sad moment for a doctor as a person."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6460
+ FAMISHED ROAD PAVED WITH MONSANTO'S HYPE
Read the sorry progress of Bt cotton in Maharashtra, India, from hype to tragedy in the short space of a year:
*Monsanto to launch new cottonseed in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra (May 2005)
*Bollywood star Monsanto's ambassador in Vidarbha
*Death Along the Famished Road - cataclysmic tales of deprivation and despair wreaked by Bt cotton
*Most farmers who commit suicide grew Bt cotton
*Murdered by Monsanto
*Destitute and dying on India's farms
*68% lower incomes for Bt cotton farmers in Maharashtra
*Bollywood star backs away from Monsanto (April 2006)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6462
+ EVIDENCE OF HARM FROM GMOs GROWING: SUPREME COURT INVOKED
A Rejoinder Affidavit was filed on 18 April 2006 in the Supreme Court in India. This is a follow-up of the Public Interest Writ Petition, filed last year for a moratorium on GM crops, pending a comprehensive and transparent biosafety testing protocol.
The 'Rejoinder' contains damning evidence from independent world scientists about serious hazards of GM crops to health and biosafety. It effectively destroys the government's stance that GM crops, including those used for animal feed, e.g. Bt cotton, are safe.
EXCERPT from the Rejoinder:
This is the same company [Monsanto] that in February 22, 2002, was found guilty by a US court in Anniston, of poisoning the water supply of the local residents, on all six counts of "negligence, wantonness and suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage". Outrage, according to Alabama law, usually requires conduct "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society."
Monsanto hasn't changed. If Monsanto hid what it knew about its toxic pollution for decades, what is it hiding now? And what does it mean, what are we called upon to believe, when the Indian government forms an alliance with such a company, with such a track record?
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6461
+ ANDHRA PRADESH COTTON FARMERS SEEK ACTION AGAINST MONSANTO
The Indian government has been urged by the cotton growers from Andhra Pradesh to take action against US biotech giant Monsanto, Kolli Nageshwara Rao of farmers' organisation All India Kisan Sabha Sangh (AIKSS) said.
Rao said that the action was urged in the wake of investigation done by Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) which finds the company guilty for charging higher prices for Bt cotton seeds.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6466
+ FRAIL REGIME, EASY ENTRY FOR GMOs
India has planned to introduce mandatory labelling of GM foods. The health ministry is in the process of finalising its draft proposals for amending relevant provisions of the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Rules, 1955.
However, the health ministry's draft proposal is related only to GM foods and does not cover GMOs meant for other purposes. Hence it does not fully address the concerns stated in the Cartagena Protocol about the transboundary movement of GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6466
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AFRICA
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+ "WE DO NOT WANT GMOs" - AFRICAN FARMERS
African governments should not accept GMOs to be imported to their countries without thorough assessment done on the safety of such products to human beings and the environment, the newly launched Eastern and Southern Africa Farmers Forum (ESAFF) has said.
"We do not want GMOs," said a statement from participants from nine African countries gathered to form the forum, which is expected to air the voices and concerns of small-scale farmers in the region.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6459
+ "FARMERS ARE AGAINST BT COTTON" - AFRICAN CENTRE FOR BIOSAFETY
Cotton farmers are opposed to the use of Bt cotton seeds in India and South Africa, director of African Centre for Bio-safety (ACB) Mariam Mayet has said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6459
+ PERCY SCHMEISER WARNS AFRICAN FARMERS ON PROBLEMS OF GM
An article in Nigeria's Sunday Independent, "Why is Africa hungry?", mentions the visit to Africa of Percy Schmeiser, the Canadian farmer successfully sued by Monsanto for having its GM genes on his land:
"Schmeiser warned that the continent [Africa] must be careful in falling for the rosy pictures of the benefits of GMO as painted by Monsanto. He said the whole truth of the issue was never disclosed to countries or farmers before the introduction...
"He spoke with the conviction of a witness to the massive harm that GMO had done to his country and demonstrated a concern to see that other countries do not fall into the same pit."
The article also asks the question, "Does Africa need GMO foods?" and comes up with the following conclusion:
EXCERPT:
The answer is No. What Africa needs is to improve on the way we practise agriculture. We have enough natural seeds to last us another lifetime. We don't need genetically modified seeds that would rather than lead to food boom kick-start a revolution of dependence on a giant corporation to supply us seeds and chemicals. This is nothing but slavery. And as Schmeiser said, whoever controls seeds supply controls food supply. Africa cannot afford to surrender its food security to some faceless giant corporation.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6459
+ AFRICA NEEDS SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS
Paul Desmarais, Director of the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre in Lusaka, Zambia, answers the question "Why is Africa hungry?" (see above item) by making the point that Africa needs more organic and sustainable farming.
EXCERPT:
After 35 years experience in Zambia I am convinced that the way to increase agricultural production and improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers is to promote organic agriculture and small or appropriate technologies.
Open pollinated varieties should be emphasized rather than hybrids. Low external input agriculture will double to quadruple production and leave more profit in the farmers pocket.
Organic agriculture does not mean not using any inputs. There is a need to improve the soil fertility. That is done with green manures, manuring, etc. ... Indigenous Knowledge is another tool that is often ignored. The older people know a lot about trees, plants, etc. that are helpful medicines for humans and animals. Let us encourage the use of this knowledge by doing more research and promote this knowledge amongst our agricultural students.
More sustainable solutions at: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6464
+ SOUTH AFRICA TO SAFETY TEST GM FOODS
South Africa is to conduct new trials using both animals and human cells to test the safety of GM foods.
The project by the GMO testing facility at the University of the Free State has been described as the first "generational study", and will see scientists feeding a diet of GM maize and soya beans to families of rats, mice and lambs over several years. The head of the facility, Professor Chris Viljoen, said this would be the first study of its kind in the world, but results would not be forthcoming for at least three years.
It is estimated that about 50% of South Africa's soya crop is GM, as well as about 10% of its white maize crop, 24% of its yellow maize and about 85% of its cotton.
However, tests conducted by Viljoen's team at the beginning of this year on randomly selected soya and maize products on supermarket shelves showed that 90% of soya products and 61% of maize products tested contained traces of GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6459