Quote of the Week:
Today's market is "totally manipulated" by the major economic and political powers, "is blind to the poor, who have needs but do not represent demand, blind to the future generations who are not present, and blind to creation, to life" - Jos' Lutzenberger, former environment minister of Brazil
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1. Brazil: Jose Bove latest
2. Brazil: judge lifts deportation order on Jose Bove
3. Italy: Urges U.S. Segregate, Label Biotech Feed
4. Austria: demands labels for GM-feed
5. New Zealand: Royal Commission on GE Food Receives Evidence
6. US: Terminator folk and Pollen Transformation System
7. US/China: GM trees raise new crop of concerns
8. China: people exploited for genetic research
9. Denmark: targeted company going GM free - eventually
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1. Jose Bove latest
originated This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to bio-activists
Since no-one has posted it from any wire services yet, here's the latest: A federal judge in Porto Alegre today granted a habeas corpus to Jose Bové, so he can fly home from Brazil on schedule, Wednesday night. (The Ministry of Justice has issued a notice for him to leave today, Tuesday night). The judge, according to the GloboNews cable TV, understood that the executive's 24-hour expulsion order was simply a political "reprisal", since Bové already had a reservation to leave the country a day later.
As for the chance of being sued by Monsanto, both Bové and landless-peasant (MST) leaders have announced that they would welcome the chance to explain to the courts why they removed Monsanto's illegal soybean plants from the company's farm in southern Brazil.
- David Hathaway
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2. Brazil judge lifts deportation order on Jose Bove
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 30 (Reuters) - A Brazilian judge overruled a decision on Tuesday that would have forced Jose Bove, a French farmer who shot to fame when he trashed a local McDonald's (NYSE:MCD - news), to leave the country or face deportation for his part in a raid on a Monsanto biotech farm.
Bove, who was in Brazil attending a giant anti-capitalism forum, was detained by police late Monday night and warned that he had 24 hours to leave Brazil after trespassing, destroying private property and breaking laws governing foreigners.
On Tuesday, a Rio Grande do Sul state judge said in a statement that he suspended the order until Wednesday night, giving the pipe-smoking farmer and militant French nationalist time to leave Wednesday on a previously scheduled flight.
The judge said the order was ``abusive'' and represented ``mere reprisal'' by the authorities.
The French activist hailed the judge's decision and Bove's his acts, saying they had brought attention to the plight of Brazil's poor, rural workers.
``What happened to me is little compared to Brazil's thousands and thousands of rural poor who fight for land and are killed every day by the police and land owners,'' Bove told journalists after the judge's decision.
The vast majority of land in Brazil is controlled by a handful of its richest citizens, something the rural poor have long campaigned to change, often through illegal land occupations.
In the predawn hours on Friday, Bove, fellow activists from the World Social Forum in the state capital of Porto Alegre and more than 1,000 poor Brazilian farmers raided a plant owned by U.S.-based Monsanto (NYSE:MON - news).
Protesting against genetically modified (GM) food, the activists and farmers yanked out rows of GM soybean crops at the life science giant's experimental farm.
At the forum's closing ceremony on Tuesday, hundreds of activists gave Bove a standing ovation and chanted ``Bove is my friend, whoever messes with him, messes with me!''
Some 16,000 anti-globalization activists from around the globe met in Porto Alegre for the five-day rival meeting to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss alternative forms of development. Among other things, they condemned GM foods.
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3. Italy Urges U.S. Farmers, Processors to Segregate, Label Biotech Feed
www.CropChoiceNews.com 30 Jan 2001
With European concern over Mad Cow disease and genetically engineered foods running high, the Italian agriculture minister last week encouraged U.S. farmers and processors to segregate and label all genetically modified animal feed or else face the high probability that Europe won't buy it. "The Italian and European necessity to increase the use of vegetable proteins in animal feed for all farmed animals makes it urgent and essential that soy and corn (maize) exporting countries, including the USA, guarantee full segregation and isolation of genetically modified (GM) organisms from natural ones in order to allow full traceability and labelling," wrote Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio in a letter to his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman. The European Commission is drafting a Novel Feed regulation that includes mandatory segregation and labeling of genetically modified organisms. The Commission aims to enact the regulation by the end of the year. If it fails to do so, Italy might institute equally strict interim measures, according to the Italian Ministry of Agriculture. Germany also wants regulations as soon as possible. France, Germany, Italy and Hungary (not a member of the European Union), respectively, import the most animal feed in Europe. Europe increasingly has turned to Brazil, where the cultivation and sale of biotech crops are banned, to meet its need for animal feed.
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4. Austria demands labels for GM-feed
via "Comitato Scientifico Antivivisezionista"
Source: Genet 4/01/01 Austria's Agriculture Ministry confirmed the country is seeking a new European Union-wide rule compelling animal feed containing GM ingredients to be labeled as a GM product. The Austrian government's decision follows the likely rise in soya imports after the EU's ban on animal ingredients in feed, in turn imposed to combat the mad cow disease BSE. Austrian Agriculture Minister Wilhelm Molterer has told the Swedish government, currently holding the presidency of the EU, that Austria wants such a rule placed on the agenda of the EU Council of Agriculture Ministers in the first half of 2001.
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5. NewZealand Royal Commission on GE Food Receives Evidence
29 Jan. 2001 www.i-sis.org/NZwitnessbr.shtml
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Director of ISIS
Institute of Science in Society gave evidence against GM Crops to theNew Zealand Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering on Monday, 29 January 2001.
Dr. Ho explained why "genetic engineering has unleashed an uncontrollable, self-amplifying process of horizontal gene transfer and recombination that can sweep across the whole of the living world, with potentially explosive consequences in terms of creating viruses and bacteria more virulent than nature's worst." Ho made the case that the terms of the genetic engineering debate have changed. "It is no longer a moratorium that is needed. GM crops are unsafe and unsustainable as well as immoral. We must abandon GM crops right now, along with intensive corporate agriculture."... END excerpt.
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6. from the folk who brought you Terminator: Commercialization Agreement Reached On The Pollen Transformation System
Friday January 26 9:10am
Source: PR Newswire
SCOTT, Miss., Jan. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta and Pine Land Company (NYSE: DLP) announced today that it has finalized a commercialization agreement with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service covering ARS'pollen transformation system (PTS)... This agreement provides the company exclusive licensing rights to the technology on a wide range of crops...
"We are very pleased that we have now finalized an agreement with the USDA to open the door on initiating development of this technology to further genetic improvements in a broad range of species," said Murray Robinson, CEO and Vice Chairman. "By terms of our agreement with USDA, Delta and Pine Land will also spearhead efforts to broadly license this technology to a wide range of interested users."
This laboratory system may be used for inserting transgenic traits into varieties of many species, according to Dr. Harry Collins, DLP's Vice President of technology transfer. "PTS will enable more efficient transformation of varieties and species, allowing researchers to reduce costs and development time due to a less complicated transformation mechanism. Currently, gene insertion is most often done through methods requiring regeneration of whole plants from single cells, a relatively slow and complicated process not suitable for all crop species and varieties. PTS is very similar to conventional breeding. The transgene is inserted into pollen cultured on a solid medium and the transformed pollen is then used to pollinate the flower(s) on a target plant that will produce seed carrying the transgenic trait.
"Because this system is much more efficient, we believe it will encourage production of transgenic cultivars in all types of economically-important crops including cereals, legumes, forages, citrus trees, vegetables and staple food plants and fruits," Collins continues. "Many of those crops are not currently in transgenic development due to cost concerns and technological barriers."
Robinson explained that this technology holds promise worldwide. "Developing biotech crops has been so cost-intensive that companies have launched their products only in those countries best able to repay the research and development costs," Robinson said. "PTS will make gene insertion more economical, helping ensure all farmers a future opportunity to benefit from biotechnology. As a result, we believe that both developed and developing countries can benefit from this breakthrough."
Delta and Pine Land Company is a commercial breeder, producer and marketer of cotton planting seed. Headquartered in Scott, Mississippi, with multiple offices in eight states and facilities in several foreign countries, DLP also breeds, produces and markets soybean planting seed. Delta and Pine Land Company stock trades on the NYSE under the symbol "DLP."
Source: Delta and Pine Land Company
Contact: Investors - Tom Jagodinski of Delta and Pine Land Company, 662-742-4518; or Media - Stephanie Pillersdorf or Keil Decker, both of Citigate Sard Verbinnen, 212-687-8080, for Delta and Pine Land Company
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7. GM trees raise new crop of concerns.
via "Comitato Scientifico Antivivisezionista"
Source: ENN, by Danielle Nierenberg. 8/12/00
In the United States alone, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued more than 300 permits for trials of genetically engineered trees, and officials are expected to grant permission to grow the trees commercially by 2005. According to the WWF report, commercial-scale trials may already be taking place in China. Because little is known about the long-term consequences of genetically engineered trees on the environment, the American Lands Alliance, WWF, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have called for a global moratorium on their release.
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8. Chinese people exploited for the genetic research
via "Comitato Scientifico Antivivisezionista"
Source: Washington Post, by John Pomfret & Deborah Nelson 20/12/00
Fifteen hundred Chinese people who had been told they would have received free medical care, answered the call by Researchers at Harvard University and its corporate sponsor, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc, to donate their blood as part of the treatment. This was no ordinary blood drive. It was genetic research, a pamphlet explained to participants. But many couldn't read, and few could have guessed at the tangle of scientific and business dreams that lay behind the project. Indeed Harvard researchers believed the isolated population in the mountainous Anhui province held a treasure of unpolluted genetic material that could yield medical breakthroughs and perhaps millions in biotech profits. Some Chinese who took part complain the bargain proved one-sided. Indeed, they said promised medical treatment never materialized.
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9. Denmark: targeted company going GM free
from Marcus Williamson:
The Greenpeace campaign on GM in Denmark is having a very positive effect.
Now, let's keep pressing them for a date by which they will be 100% GM free in their animal feed.
regards Marcus http://www.gmfoodnews.com
To: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Subject: GM free animal feed From: BETTINA LUND =?iso-8859-1?q?S=D8RENSEN?= <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 15:49 +0100
--- Modtaget fra DKCROWN.R6HBLS 8919 1402 30.01.01 15.49
-> This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. -> DKCROWN.R6HGUA GUDRUN ANDREASEN SEKR.
Dear Marcus Williamson,
We plan to start a production based on GM free animal feed, but at present we are not able to inform you at which date the deliveries can take place.
Best regards, DANISH CROWN
Gudrun Andreasen Head of Information Dept.