*Sainsbury pulls out of GM food launch
*US state propaganda on GM
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Sainsbury pulls out of GM food launch
IC Scotland - Scottish News

Science Minister Lord Sainsbury pulled out of an engagement to open a research facility because of a potential conflict of interest.

Students and university chiefs, including rector and veteran Labour MP Tam Dalyell, were left disappointed when the minister decided not to turn up at the GBP6.5 million centre in Edinburgh because of its research into GM foods.

The supermarket billionaire has been strident in his support for the biotech industry, in which he retains substantial financial interests.
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US state propaganda on GM

Here's something to ponder for anyone in doubt that Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry have captured the voice of the Bush administration:

Economic Perspectives
An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State
Volume 8 Number 3 September 2003

"The Bureau of International Information Programs of the U.S. Department of State provides products and services that explain U.S. policies, society, and values to foreign audiences. The Bureau publishes five electronic journals that examine major issues facing the United States and the international community."

The September 2003 edition of one of these electronic journals 'Economic Perspectives' is entirely given over to statements of support for GM foods: http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/ites/0903/ijee/toc.htm

The articles include one by Tony Hall, the US ambassador to the FAO, who last year suggested the leaders of any African country that rejected the US's GM food aid should be charged "for the highest crimes against humanity in the highest courts of the world."

Although Hall's article is more moderately worded than his earlier inflammatory attack on African leaders like Zambian President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, note how the title implies Africans are the dupes of environmentalists.

A GREEN FAMINE IN AFRICA?
By Ambassador Tony P. Hall, U.S. Mission to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture Countries facing famine must consider the severe, immediate consequences of rejecting food aid that may contain biotechnology, writes Tony Hall, U.S. representative to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture. He says that there is no justification for countries to avoid food that people in the United States eat every day and that has undergone rigorous testing.
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"..there is no shortage of non-GMO foods which could be offered to Zambia by public and private donors. To a large extent, this 'crisis' has been manufactured (might I say, 'engineered') by those looking for a new source of traction in the evolving global debate over agricultural biotechnology. To use the needs of Zambians to score 'political points' on behalf of biotechnology strikes many as unethical and indeed shameless. "
Dr Chuck Benbrook, a leading US agronomist and former Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture for the US National Academy of Sciences
http://ngin.tripod.com/270902a.htm

"[UK Prime Minister] Blair's chief scientific adviser denounced the United States' attempts to force the technology into Africa as a 'massive human experiment'. In a scathing attack on President Bush's administration, Professor David King also questioned the morality of the US's desire to flood genetically modified foods into African countries, where people are already facing starvation in the coming months." The Observer, UK, Sep 1, 2002

"It's wicked, when there is such an excess of non-GM food aid available, for GM to be forced on countries for reasons of GM politics... if there is an area where anger needs to be harnessed it is here." Then UK Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, speaking at a briefing of British parliamentarians, November 27, 2002
http://ngin.tripod.com/271102d.htm

See 'Force-feeding the hungry: a primer on the food aid crisis'
http://ngin.tripod.com/forcefeed.htm