from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
In Brazil, Syngenta is threatening to use force to expel the family farmers who are occupying the site of the land where the company illegally planted GM crops. We explain how you can help the farmers and lobby Syngenta (BRAZIL).
More research on Roundup shows it may affect reproduction and foetal development at much weaker dilutions than the store-sold product (NEW RESEARCH). Unbelievably, Monsanto still claims in its British marketing of Roundup that it is "biodegradable and children and pets need not be excluded from treated areas". Even worse, hundreds of thousands of gardeners, farmers, and local authorities interpret this as meaning the stuff is safe and continue to use it with abandon.
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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UNITED STATES
AUSTRALASIA
AFRICA
CORPORATE TAKE OVER OF THE ACADEMY
BRAZIL
ASIA
SUPREME COURT ROW CONTINUES
NEW RESEARCH
FOOD SAFETY
EUROPE
BIOFUELS
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UNITED STATES
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+ RICE FUTURES PLUMMET OVER GM RICE CONCERNS
Chicago Board of Trade rice futures have plummeted amid stories of GM-contaminated rice building up in Arkansas elevators, according to a story for Dow Jones Newswires.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7892
+ FARMERS WORRY ABOUT GM RICE APPROVAL
The National Farmers Union expressed "great concern" over the approval by the US Department of Agriculture's decision to allow Ventria Bioscience to plant its GM pharma rice in Kansas. The decision "poses a potential risk to the American food supply," said the National Farmers Union, NFU, which represents 250,000 farm and ranch families in all US states.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7915
+ U.S. CORN GLUTEN EXPORTS TO EU DOWN NEARLY 40%
The ACGF and the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) are again warning US corn farmers that key US corn gluten export markets are being lost due to unapproved GM varieties. According to USDA data for the current corn marketing year, US corn gluten exports are 38.1% below the previous year to the EU. The EU has been by far the most important export market for US corn gluten feed and meal.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7912
+ GM EUCALYPTUS TO BE TRIALLED IN USA
Biotech firm ArborGen has applied to trial GM cold-tolerant hybrid eucalyptus trees in the US. This trial is thought to be the first in the US to allow the flowering of a GM forest tree and, as such, it raises serious gene flow issues. The trial is taking place in the context of the hyping of GM trees as an up-and-coming biofuel source. The comments to USDA of Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists are at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7922
+ BUSH'S 'FOOD BULLY' FAVOURITE TO TAKE OVER AT WORLD BANK
With Paul Wolfowitz on the way out, Robert Zoellick, the former US trade representative, has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed him as the World Bank's president. Zoellick was, of course, the man who drove the US's WTO case against the EU on GM food - a policy brilliantly picked apart in an article by political analyst Conn Hallinan at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7921
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ THE GM HARD SELL BEGINS
A good article in Australia's The Sunday Age tells how the GM lobby is pushing for the lifting of the GM moratorium in Victoria. It covers a pro-GM meeting sponsored by the Institute of Public Affairs, which numbers Monsanto amongst its funders.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7903
+ VICTORIA GM REVIEW PANEL: NEITHER EXPERT NOR INDEPENDENT
Premier Bracks has announced a panel to review the ban on GM canola in Victoria, Australia. But Gene Ethics Director Bob Phelps said the panel is "neither independent nor expert": "The panellists are keen supporters of GM crops and foods who have promoted it for many years. And none are expert in trade or marketing issues, the main focus of the review," he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7911
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AFRICA
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+ UGANDA: USAID TO FUND GM COTTON TRIALS
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is to inject $160,000 into pest resistant cotton trials in Uganda, reportedly to help improve the competitiveness of its cotton farmers. GM Watch comment: The US is now claiming to be helping the same cotton farmers it has impoverished through the massive trade distoring subsidies it gives to its own cotton sector which undermine cotton prices and African exports.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7907
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CORPORATE TAKE OVER OF THE ACADEMY
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+ CAL GRADUATES PROTEST WAMBUGU'S APPEARANCE
About 20 graduates from UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources wore green sashes or armbands to protest Florence Wambugu's appearance as their graduation ceremony's keynote speaker. The students said they disagreed with Wambugu's views on the use of biotechnology in combating hunger in Africa.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7916
+ LIES, DAMN LIES AND FLORENCE WAMBUGU
For anyone wanting to understand why UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources apparently regards Dr Wambugu (see above) as an inspirational individual, videos are available on the UC Berkeley website about Africa Harvest - her biotech industry-backed lobby group - and about her work with tissue-culture bananas.
That work typifies the problems with Dr Wambugu who claims "programs such as the tissue culture banana project... have demonstrated that biotechnology can have a positive impact on hunger, malnutrition and poverty." However, there are good reasons to doubt the claims made by Wambugu for this project, just as for her equally hyped GM sweet potato project. An important study by a University of Edinburgh African Studies specialist has showed how Wambugu has invented a "crisis narrative" to claim that banana yields in Kenya are declining due to pests and that only her "biotech" bananas can save the situation, when the available evidence points to a completely different reality.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7890
+ THE CLOSING OF THE UNIVERSITY COMMONS
Three interesting articles on the increasing alignment to industry of university knowledge and resources are at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7902
EXTRACT from article by Michael Perelman:
Areas of study that promise to bring in corporate money prosper, while other areas suffer neglect. You can see the effect of this emphasis on intellectual property by walking up a few blocks to the campus to compare the facilities of the BioScience Library with those of the Public Health Library.
+ CALL ON EUROPEAN COMMISSION TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT SCIENCE
Dozens of prominent scientists from all over the world are calling on the European Commission to support independent science in its next round of science funding, and to ensure maximum transparency and democratic input in deciding funding and research priorities.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7926
+ DID MONSANTO STEAL LOW-LINOLENIC SOYBEANS?
Monsanto - a company which has been found guilty of bribery, witholding information on the harm caused by its products, and "conduct so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency", now stands accused of patent theft! Two Iowa State University professors have filed a lawsuit claiming Monsanto infringed on their patent on a low-acid soybean. These soybeans were conventionally bred and only became GM when Monsanto added a transgene for resistance to its herbicide Roundup.
The lawsuit claims that Monsanto began its own soybean programme based on the low-acid bean invented at Iowa State without "license or authority from" the university and "now licenses Iowa State's technology to others." The lawsuit claims the university challenged Monsanto, which sent a letter to Iowa State saying the company "stands ready to perform under the agreement reached with the university at our meeting of Feb. 28." Iowa State claims there was no agreement. Monsanto is, of course, well known for its ruthless pursuit through the courts of farmers over supposed infringements of its licencing agreements.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7925
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ASIA
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+ CHINA THREATENED BY CONSUMER CONFIDENCE MELTDOWN
China faces a global challenge to maintain consumer confidence in its products following a series of health scares, a senior EU official said, adding that Beijing must be more cooperative. China should provide more samples of bird flu viruses found in the country as well as samples of GM produce to better help the bloc protect its own citizens, said Robert Madelin, the EU's Director General for Health and Consumer Protection.
In the most recent scandals, US consumers have been alarmed by a spate of pet deaths blamed on tainted wheat gluten while rice protein exported from China has been found to contain illegal GMO contamination. GM Watch comment: Like the US, China has never approved the commercial growing of GM rice, but GM contamination is damaging its exports and compounding a lack of confidence in Chinese products.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7913
+ CORPORATE LOCUSTS LAY WASTE TO INDIA'S PLANT RESOURCES
Suman Sahai of Gene Campaign has commented on the US-India agricultural deal, under which the US will sift India's biodiversity in search of patentable plants in return for US nuclear technology. Sahai says India will gain little and give away too much. "The agricultural deal is pay-off for the nuclear deal. I see it very much that way. It's easy to understand why Monsanto needs India. There is a huge amount of resistance to GMOs in Europe, Africa and Japan. Who are they going to sell this stuff to? An agricultural giant like India is hugely important for them," she said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7898
+ FARMERS RANSACK MONSANTO-MAHYCO OFFICE AFTER GM TRIAL FIASCO IN WEST BENGAL
The Calcutta office of Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco), a subsidiary of Monsanto, has been ransacked by farmers protesting GM trials in West Bengal. Media reports say that Mahyco is behind the experimental release of GM rice, tomato, okra, and brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) in Habra, West Bengal, where a controversy has broken out over how the trials were conducted.
According to newspaper reports, the responsibility for overseeing the experimentation in Habra was entrusted to the Kalyani University Agriculture Dept. However, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof Dipak Kumar Bagchi, has withdrawn his University department's involvement in the project. He reportedly sent an angry letter to the central government of India complaining that the decision to test GM seeds in Habra was not conveyed to his Department, nor was its opinion taken into consideration even though it was supposedly overseeing what was going on.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7909
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7917
+ JAPANESE TEAM SET UP TO PROMOTE GM CROPS FOR BIOFUEL
Japan's agriculture ministry has set up a study team to spur commercialization of GM crops for biofuel instead of food, which has been largely shunned by the public because of safety concerns. By promoting the commercialization of GM crops for fuel, the ministry hopes to eventually gain the public's trust in using GM crops for human consumption, says an article in a Japanese newspaper.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7924
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SUPREME COURT ROW CONTINUES
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+ INDIA: REGULATOR ACTS AS AGENT OF BIOTECH INDUSTRY
While its mandate is to protect the environment, GEAC (India's apex regulatory body) has acted as an agent of the biotech industry, writes PV Satheesh in an article for the Financial Express. GEAC even issued a mischievous and false press release claiming that the Supreme Court had vacated its earlier interim order banning GM trials.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7906
+ INDIA: WHAT THE SUPREME COURT DECISION ACTUALLY SAID
Here's the clearest account to date of the Supreme Court decision and its aftermath, from Kavitha Kuruganti: The Court did not grant the Government of India its prayer for a vacation on the ban on field trials. Instead, it clarified that if any trials are going on or are to go on pursuant to approvals granted between 2/5/2006 and 22/9/2006, these trials would be subject to additional conditionalities - that the GEAC should ensure that there is no contamination from these trials to other fields close-by. In all the trials which are being conducted, the name of the scientist who will be responsible and other details for all aspects of the trials should be reported to the GEAC and there should be a regular supervision by them.
The Court also ordered that prior to bringing out the GM material from the greenhouse for conduct of open field trials, the approved institution should submit a validated, event-specific test protocol at an LOD of at least 0.01% to detect and confirm that there has been no contamination. The Court also asked to see the toxicity and allergenicity data, if any, related to Bt cotton while allowing GEAC to permit commercial releases for four approved species of GM cotton. However, it ordered that no further GM cotton species be approved. By these historic orders, the Supreme Court has once again upheld the importance of biosafety issues related to GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7910
+ DR SHANTHARAM'S BIG TIRADE
Jonathan Matthews of GM Watch writes: An attack on the case brought by Aruna Rodrigues and her co-petitioners before the Supreme Court was posted onto a list for scientists and others in India by Dr Shanthu Shantharam. It's a masterpiece of misinformation. According to the former Syngenta man, "The Supreme Court case that delayed GM crops so long had no basis at all". Inded, says Shantharam, the activists behind it are not even concerned with GM crops but simply with promoting their "anti-science, anti-MNC, anti-capitalist and anti-American agenda."
As Shantharam sees it, the opposition to GM in general and the Supreme Court case, in particular, are all based upon "all sorts of nonsense that has been published by a lunatic called Dr. Mae Wan-Ho (sic)". Shantharam focuses particularly on concerns he attributes to Dr Ho about the viral CaMV promoter commonly used in GM crops. In fact, it is untrue that Dr Ho or her writings were at the heart of the Public Interest Litigation. Not one of the depositions placed before the Court was from Dr Ho. Nor, for that matter, did the CaMV promoter loom large in the case.
Where it gets really interesting, though, is when you take a look at who the Government of India was putting up to make its case. How, for instance, did it counter the concerns about the food and feed safety of GM crops of the nutritional expert Dr Arpad Pusztai? Answer: by submitting to the Court the criticism of Pusztai's research by Alan McHughen in his book, Pandora's Picnic Basket. In other words, the Government of India's critique came not from a peer reviewed source but from a book written for popular consumption by a GM plant scientist with no expertise whatsoever in nutritional science but with a considerable vested interest in GM crop acceptance. And McHughen wasn't the only dodgy "expert" the Government of India deployed - another was Dr Shantharam! READ ON AT
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7904
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BRAZIL
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+ BRAZIL: CTNBIO APPROVES GM CORN
On 16 May, Brazil's GM regulatory Commission - CNTBio - approved the commercial release of Bayer's GM corn. But, as an incisive Brazilian article - translated for GM Watch by Ralph Miller - makes clear, the approval came about in a highly questionable manner. In fact, the approval would not have even been possible without recent changes the government made to the law in order to reduce the majority needed for approval. And where the rules had not been changed, they were simply circumvented.
Although some members of the Commission questioned the lack of data regarding the corn's environmental impact, the absence of internal norms to evaluate the requests for commercial release, and the fact that CNTBio ignored the contributions made during the public consultation, all concerns were swept aside with the Commission's president making it clear there could be no delay. READ ON
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7914
+ BRAZIL: SYNGENTA THREATENS TO VIOLENTLY EXPEL FAMILY FARMERS
Syngenta is pressurising the Governor of the State of Parana to use the police to expel the family farmers of the Via Campesina currently residing on the Free Land encampment. The 120 families occupied the area over a year ago, in protest against Syngenta's illegal cultivation of GM soy and corn at the site, within the protected Iguacu National Park. The family farmers demanded that Syngenta pay the fine of US$ 465,000, imposed on the corporation by the IBAMA, the federal environmental agency. In November 2006, the Governor of Parana expropriated Syngenta's site, and planned to turn the area into an agroecological research centre.
Syngenta has still not paid the fine. It has used its legal resources to suspend the Governor's decree to expropriate the site and is now trying to have the family farmers expelled. Today the Free Land Encampment has communal gardens that produce rice, beans, sweet potatoes, corn, manioc, chicken, and milk. The families living at Free Land are entirely self-sufficient in food.
Support the family farmers and protest to Syngenta:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7918
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7897
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NEW RESEARCH
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+ ROUNDUP MAY AFFECT REPRODUCTION AND FOETAL DEVELOPMENT
Roundup has toxic effects on human embryonic cells, a new study shows. The study is by Prof Seralini's group, CRIIGEN, at the University of Caen, France. The group wanted to follow up effects already observed on placental cells, as published by Seralini's group in 2005.
Following comparison, it appears that embryonic cells are far more sensitive. The deleterious results of Roundup are noticed at very weak doses (for the experiment, the product sold in stores was diluted up to 10,000 times). Sensitivity is confirmed in particular for the disruption of sexual hormones at non toxic levels, especially on fresh placental extracts. Effects were observed at dilutions less than the residues in discussion to be authorized in GMO feed in the US.
The herbicide Roundup seems to be far more toxic than its active ingredient, glyphosate. The gaps in European legislation to study the effects of mixtures and hormonal disruptions are underlined. The authors comment that the research may contribute to a better understanding of the problems of miscarriages, premature births or sexual malformations of babies, in particular in agricultural workers' families.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7893
+ AERIAL SPRAYING OF ROUNDUP DAMAGES DNA
Aerial spraying of Roundup herbicide by the Colombian government on the border of Colombia and Ecuador has caused a high degree of DNA damage in local Ecuadorian people, according to a study. The research will be published in the next issue of Genetics and Molecular Biology. The Colombian government sprays illegal coca plantations - used to make cocaine - as part of the US-backed "war on drugs".
In addition to expected symptoms - vomiting and diarrhoea, blurred vision, and difficulty in breathing - the researchers found a significantly higher degree of DNA damage - 600 to 800 per cent higher - in the people living near the border compared with those 80 kilometres away. DNA damage may activate genes associated to the development of cancer, lead researcher Cesar Paz y Mino said, and may also lead to miscarriage or malformations in embryos.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7899
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FOOD SAFETY
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+ RISING FOOD ALLERGIES MAY BE LINKED TO GM FOODS
The huge jump in childhood food allergies in the US is in the news often, but most reports fail to consider a link to a recent radical change in America's diet, writes Jeffrey Smith in his Spilling the Beans newsletter: "Beginning in 1996, bacteria, virus and other genes have been artificially inserted to the DNA of soy, corn, cottonseed and canola plants. These unlabeled GM foods carry a risk of triggering life-threatening allergic reactions, and evidence collected over the past decade now suggests that they are contributing to higher allergy rates."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7901
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EUROPE
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+ TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT GM-FREE SEEDS
The European Commission has issued a so-called consultation on whether there should be thresholds for GM contamination in seeds, and if so at what levels. The consultation is open for an absurdly short time (until 5 June) and has not been publicized. It's mostly in the form of multiple-choice questions which are, according to Friends of the Earth, ambiguous and misleading. Friends of the Earth and GM Freeze have put together a short guide to help people respond at:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/action_guides/gm_seeds_action.pdf
+ EU TO APPROVE SUPPORT FOR FAILING GM CROPS SECTOR
The EU is poised to approve further financial and political support for GM crops, despite growing evidence that the sector is failing.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7908
+ GREECE: RICE RECALL DUE TO GM CONTAMINATION
Supermarket chain AB Vassilopoulos has announced that it is pulling off its shelves rice imported from Italy found to have been GM contaminated. The Risotto Tex-Mex AB rice failed to meet EU and local food standards, the company added.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7920
+ IRELAND'S GM FOOD SCANDAL_
Following an investigation by Greenpeace International and the GM-free Ireland Network, Ireland's Dept of Agriculture admitted that it failed to test a 12,313-tonne shipment of contaminated animal feed from the USA before it was unloaded from a ship in Dublin on 2 April and placed on the market. As a result of this fiasco, up to 5,313 tonnes of feed contaminated by illegal and toxic GM maize varieties have entered the food chain, causing potential liver and kidney damage to consumers.
The ship's captain told Greenpeace the cargo was "certified GM-free by the US authorities", and gave the Greenpeace team permission to come aboard and take samples of the cargo. Greenpeace then sent these samples to an accredited laboratory for scientific analysis. The lab results confirmed that the supposedly "GM-free" cargo tested positive for up to 33% contamination with the toxic MON863. But the lab test also proved the cargo contained 2.4% contamination by an illegal variety of GM maize - Herculex Rw - patented by Pioneer / Dow, which is not authorised in the EU. Subsequent test results showed the cargo was also contaminated by five other legal GM maize varieties, all above the mandatory labelling threshold of .09%.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7919
+ SCIENTISTS FOR A GM FREE EUROPE
An international coalition of independent scientists will present comprehensive scientific evidence for a Europe-wide and a worldwide ban on the release of GM crops. They will document how national and international regulators have been ignoring the precautionary principle, misusing science, sidestepping the law, and helping to promote GM technology in the face of massive public opposition and damning evidence piling up against the safety of GM food and feed. The briefing meeting will be held on 12 June 2007 at the European Parliament.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7926
+ EFSA IS ASKED TO BLOCK ALL NON-REPLICABLE SCIENCE
GM Free Cymru has written to EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) with a request that its traditional dependence upon non-replicable or advocacy science (conducted by the applicants for GMO approvals) should be abandoned, and should be replaced by a policy of only considering tests and experiments that are genuinely replicable.
EXCERPT from GM Free Cymru's letter: Our concerns were brought into sharp focus when we recently attended the 3rd European Conference of GMO-Free Regions in Brussels, when speaker after speaker demonstrated a deep mistrust of EFSA and called for reforms in its membership and in its operational methods. Your GMO Panel is widely viewed as being "in the pocket" of the biotechnology industry, and as a body which exists not for the protection of the public but for the facilitation of GMO consents.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7905
+ ROMANIAN MINISTRY OF AG INSISTS ON GROWING GM SOY
The Romanian ministry of agriculture and rural development has said it wants to re-introduce GM soy in Romania. Romania cultivated GM soy from 1998, but in February 2006, the Romanian government announced that GM soy cultivation would be banned starting with the date of its joining the EU (1 January 2007) as this GM plant is not approved at EU level. Now, the ministry has said it will support the approval for cultivation of GM soy at the European Union level.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7923
+ MEPs CALL ON THE COMMISSION TO BAN THE INTRODUCTION OF GMOs
With just three years to go until the 2010 target date for halting the decline in biodiversity set by European heads of state in 2001, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have voiced their "profound concern at the continuing loss of biodiversity", in an own-initiative Report adopted on 22 May. MEPs also call on the Commission to ban the introduction of genetically modified organisms, such as GM fish, and evaluate the potential threat to biodiversity posed by their introduction.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7920
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BIOFUELS
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+ STUDY QUESTIONS BENEFITS OF BIOFUELS
Biofuels may not be the panacea for the world's fossil-fuel woes, according to a study commissioned by the Swiss authorities. Such fuels, touted as an ecologically friendly source of energy, may be more harmful for the environment than their fossil counterparts. According to the authors, while it was true that biofuels might emit less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels when consumed, producing them was generally more stressful on the environment.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7920