Can't help thinking these items all connect -- specially 1 and 3 with Blair still dreaming of vast wealth creation via biotech:
1. Bomber Blair on morality, international co-operation and GMOs
2. Blair advisor SIR JONATHAN SPEAKS
3. British Biotech's wonder drug scrapped - UK press coverage
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1. Bomber Blair on morality, international co-operation and GMOs
"In a fresh display of impatience with internal Labour attacks the prime minister also takes a swipe at opponents of the new technologies, includuing genetically-modified (GM) crops, as extreme greens who are anti-science fundamentalists.
Instead he lists the challenge of harnessing the new technologies to create wealth and meet human need" as the first of six major issues which progressive governments must tackle. The other five are: transforming education to create a culture of high expectation" for all; tackling inequality; modernising government beyond the old one-size-fits-all model; overcoming democratic alienation; and engaging in international cooperation as a matter of morality and enlightened self- interest".
from Guardian, Blair accuses lazy' critics on the left of self-mutilation, Feb 20, 2001 ["j'accuse self-interested technocrats on the right of self-contradiction" - jean de bris]
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2. SIR JONATHAN SPEAKS
The Times (London) February 20, 2001, Tuesday
Greenpeace under fire
When Jonathon Porritt accepted Rowe & Maw's invitation to address the cream of the British chemicals industry last Monday, a bloodbath might have been expected. But, as the acceptable face of the eco-warrior, Porritt, now chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission, had a card up his kaftan and disarmed his sceptical audience by attacking Greenpeace for its fundamentalist position on experiments in genetic modification. Porritt's position is that, while caution is necessary in such a risky field, it is important to investigate what GM crops have to offer.
Greenpeace's outright rejection, he believes, is too extreme and negative. When it was over Rowe & Maw's Andrew Copley, head of its chemicals practice, was relieved. "I was a little nervous about how Jonathon would be received by high-profile chemicals companies, but he gave a stimulating and enlightening speech."
Porritt will now doubtless be regarded as a "Splitter" in radical green circles. February 20, 2001
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3. Biotechnology in the news
21 Feb, 2001
Feature article on the fate of the company British Biotech who yesterday announced that they would cease clinical trials on the drug Marimastat, which was once hailed as a new wonder drug to combat cancer but which failed to deliver positive results. The Guardian, p.28, 1/2p.
British Biotech have abandoned the drug Marimastat after it failed another clinical trial as a cure for cancer. The Daily Telegraph, p.37, 1/2 col. Financial Times Companies and Markets, p.27, 1 col.