GMWatch News Review archive

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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all

Welcome to WW48 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue.

This week saw a dangerous development in a move by the US Justice Dept to ban Greenpeace from consulting with the UN on grounds of "unsafe seamanship" (OTHER HIGHLIGHTS). What it's really about, of course, is an attempt to shut down Greenpeace's protests against the shipment of GMOs, substandard tankers transporting polluting substances, and nuclear shipments - truly examples of unsafe seamanship. If the bid to exclude Greenpeace is successful, the group may lose its tax-exempt status, which could be fatal. The remedy lies in keeping this case high-profile and embarrassing the Americans into backing off.

On the lighter side, we have a pro-biotech scientist waxing incredulous on the "dismal" GM protein-enhanced potato (SETBACKS), which, he points out, is not only 10 years away from commercialisation but contains about a third of the protein of the (non-GM) spuds used in Britain to make crisps.

Finally, for anyone who missed the old NGIN website - http://www.ngin.org.uk - while it was down, it's back! Wonder if Prof Trewavas and those others who claim it's mentally intimidating (1) enjoyed the break? You can read about why Prof Trewavas needs a health warning here:
http://ngin.tripod.com/trewavas.htm

Claire    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

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CONTENTS
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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS

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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
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+ "DISMAL" GM POTATO A DECADE AWAY, SAYS SCIENTIST
The BBC's science correspondent Pallab Ghosh waxed lyrical not so long ago about India's GM "protato" which he said would soon be in all Indian school children's lunch boxes in order to enhance the protein content of their diet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2980338.stm

His much publicised report for the BBC claimed this GM protein-enriched potato was "expected to be approved in India within six months".  However, Ghosh's story, hanging as it does purely on the claims of the Indian bureaucrat Manju Sharma, has caused irritation even to pro-GM scientists in India. Here a fervent GM supporter, Prof. C Kameswara Rao, points out that far from being approved within months the protato is 'unlikely to see the light of the day in this decade'!

Excerpt from Rao's comments: "While the idea of a protein enriched potato is welcome, trying to sell it in the name of improving school children's nutritional intake through the mid-day meal project is not entirely honest or convincing. The amaranth grain has about 16 per cent of protein (much more than in any cereal or millet, though far lower than in pulses), but only a very small portion of this is realized in the GE potato.   No explanation is available on this insignificant expression of the transgene(s).

"I noticed that the potato used to make wafer chips in England has 6.0 to 6.5 per cent of protein, while that of the GE potato is only about 2.5 per cent. I do not understand how this dismal product could generate so much euphoria in the product developer and its sole promoter.

"Where is the need to hurry this inadequate product? On every count, the repeated announcement of the release of the GE potato is premature.  In fact, this effort is worsening the already vitiated climate for genetically engineered crops in the country."
<http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1709>

+ SOIL ASSOCIATION GIVES EVIDENCE ON CROP TRIALS
The Soil Association has given its evidence on the GM crops trials (FSEs) to the Environmental Audit Committee of the UK Parliament. The summary of their report includes the following points:
* The FSEs do not reflect the impacts of GM crops in commercial conditions and over time; they underestimate the negative impacts on biodiversity.
* The one-year time period means that the effects of herbicide resistant volunteers and weeds were excluded, under-representing herbicide use on GM crops.
* The lack of yield measurements and the fact that the herbicide regimes on the GM crops were those advised by the companies instead of those used commercially, allowed the trials to be managed in favour of the GM crops.
* Clear negative effects were identified for GM oilseed rape and beet in only one year despite the bias in favour of the GM crops.  This should be used as new scientific evidence for a UK ban on these crops.
* The positive maize results must not be used as a pretext for commercialising GM maize: the maize trials were flawed, with inappropriate herbicide regimes used on both the GM and non-GM crops. Full report at
<http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1710>

+ CALIFORNIA: MENDOCINO VOTERS MAY DECIDE ON LOCAL BAN OF GM CROPS
Voters in Mendocino County will have a chance to be the first in the nation to ban the raising of GM crops. Mendocino elections officials said that backers of a biotech crop ban have submitted enough signatures to earn a spot on the March ballot.

The Mendocino Organic Network proposed the ban as a way to protect the purity of the county's large and growing organic wine-grape industry from genetic contamination.

It's not clear whether the biotech industry will try to defeat the measure, as it did last fall when Oregon citizens unsuccessfully tried to force labelling of biotech foods.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1712

+ GERMAN CHURCHS ARGUE AGAINST GM
A working group of German church officials have come up with a position paper arguing against the use of GM in food and agriculture. The paper concludes with the following recommendations for action by churches:
. To provide information about GM plants and food, and opportunities for public discussion about the questions they raise.
. To exclude the growth of GM plants on church farmland by modifying the rental contracts.
. To buy food produced without genetic engineering.
The paper is signed by:
Commissioners for Environmental Questions in the Protestant Regional Churches in Germany, Commissioners for Environmental Questions in the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Germany, Protestant Services for Rural Mission, and Catholic Rural Peoples' Movement.
<http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1714>

+ NEW YORK, USA: COMPANY EUTHANIZES GM GOATS
The chief executive of a biotech company said the company has euthanized 214 GM goats. CEO Dr. Jeffrey Turner says the goats were involved in one of the company's "less successful" programs to develop high-strength fibres. Plattsburgh-based Nexia Biotechnologies uses the milk produced by the spider-gene modified goats to spin lightweight, high-strength fibers. The fibers were developed for use in body armor and as sutures.
http://www.wokr13.tv/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=9C5E2503-222B-40B2-AD61-44C0C9AEBDF9

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OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
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+ BRAZIL APPROVES GM BUT PARANA STATE RESISTS
The government of President Lula of Brazil has authorised the commercialisation of GMOs in 2004. The move is widely seen as a betrayal by Lula, who has traditionally opposed cultivation of GMOs. "I always defended a Green-Red coalition in Brazil, supposing that the Red component would act like European Social Democrats," said one of Lula's previous supporters. "But I have found that they act more like Eastern European Communist leaders." ...they concentrated power in a small elite that "breaks with party policies without talking to its partners" and "leaves environmental devastation behind."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/americas/21BRAZ.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5062&en=2dba49a32534665a&ex=1069995600&partner=GOOGLE
However, Paraná State, national largest soya exporter and second largest producer, passed last month a state law that forbids the cultivation, storage and commercialization of GMOs. The law has the support of a broad coalition of national groups from the fields of environment defense, consumer´s rights and agroecology as well as the local section of the Workers Party to which Lula belongs, and that used to oppose GMOs firmly in the previous administration.

Paraná holds a key position in the national geopolitical chess game of transgenics. The state government controls the port of Paranaguá, the largest soya export port of the country, and is close to an agreement with China´s government to export 100% of its soya production for a period of at least 10 years on the basis that it is GM-free. Paranaguá also is the door for exportation of other Brazil´s big soya exporters, such as Mato Grosso (the largest), Rio Grande do Sul (heavily contaminated by GMOs, now forbidden to use Paranaguá) and even the neighbouring country Paraguay.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1713
INCLUDES DETAILS OF HOW TO CONTACT MEMBERS OF BRAZIL'S CONGRESS

+ GREENPEACE UNDER ATTACK AT UN BY US & ITS NEO-CONSERVATIVES
Greenpeace is coming under attack at both the United Nations and by the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is moving to lift Greenpeace's "consultative status," which permits the environmental group to submit briefs to and address the UN agency--responsible for ensuring "safer ships" and "cleaner seas"--on the grounds that the group practices unsafe seamanship.

The action comes as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is pressing a criminal case against Greenpeace for allegedly violating an obscure 1872 law against individuals who lured sailors to their establishments with offers of liquor or prostitutes, and encouraging local authorities to deny Greenpeace docking rights at its ports.

Both actions come amid efforts by groups close to the Bush administration to more closely monitor progressive international NGOs, such as Greenpeace, that they accuse of pursuing a "globalist agenda" that threatens U.S. interests abroad.

Greenpeace has had consultative status with the IMO since 1991, and has worked for stricter regulations against dozens of environmentally unsound practices, from the transport of high-level radioactive waste at sea to a ban on single-hulled oil tankers.

The IMO initiated action to expel Greenpeace in June 2002, when several states formally charged that the group practice unsafe seamanship. A number of the complaining countries are "Flag of Convenience" states, which have been targets of Greenpeace protests for operating unsafe oil tankers or carrying unsafe cargoes in the past.

Greenpeace argues that the only grounds on which an observer can be expelled under IMO rules is for certain procedural reasons, such as failing to attend meetings.

The group says the IMO decision is ironic given that consultative status has never been withdrawn from any other observer, including corporate lobby groups such as Intertanko, the industry association of supertanker owners, despite the "unsafe seamanship" of its members that resulted in catastrophic oil spills such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez in Alaska and the Prestige spill off Spain one year ago, whose costs were estimated last week in a new study by the World Wildlife Fund at well over US$5 billion.

If convicted, Greenpeace could lose its tax-exempt status, an action that would likely close it down permanently. "This prosecution is unprecedented in American history," Greenpeace USA director John Passacantando told Inter Press Service recently. "Never before has our government criminally prosecuted an entire organization for the free speech activities of its supporters."

Spokespersons defending the attack on Greenpeace are affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute. AEI is an extreme right-wing neoconservative think tank that BBC's Panorama accused of exerting disproportionate influence over President George Bush. AEI is committed to "Pax Americana", or US global domination, by military means if necessary. AEI shares this goal with with Project for the New American Century (PNAC), another major neo-conservative think-tank which is housed in the same Washington, DC building as AEI. They share far more than an address: PNAC participants like Richard Perle, Thomas Donnelly, Jeane Kirkpatrick, William Schneider, Lynne Cheney (Dick Cheney's wife), and Irving Kristol (William Kristol's father) are all AEI scholars and fellows.

Another of AEI's preoccupations is prevention of the extinction of the white race in the face of the growth of brown populations. One of AEI's most active affiliates has been Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, a book which argues that black people are genetically determined to have a lower IQ than whites. AEI gave Murray a platform for his views and ensured massive media coverage for his ideas.
<http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1711>
<http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin13.html>
<http://fair.org>

+ HOW THINK TANKS RULE AMERICA
For more about the influence of think tanks on US policy, see an excellent article, "Thought Control", by Steven C. Clemons:
<http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1717>
<http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9454>
Clemons says the crux of the problem is that that think tanks are increasingly acting like lobby groups -trying to influence policy. But while there are laws regulating lobby groups - ensuring that their operations are transparent - there are no such laws regulating lobby groups.

+ MONSANTO PROMOTES BANNED CROPS TO POOR THAI FARMERS
Despite the government ban on the production of GM crops for commercial purposes, Monsanto (Thailand) has begun promoting pest-resistant GM corn to farmers in the Northeast. Farmers who participate in Monsanto's 'education programme' on GM crops, part of the company's marketing roadshow for its seed and agro-chemical products, are given free umbrellas, T-shirts and plastic buckets.
<http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1707>

+ SENSE ABOUT SCIENCE LYING AGAIN
Sense About Science chair Lord Dick Taverne has taken up the current biotech brigade line that anti-GM = terrorism. In the Times, he writes, "Several scientists have received threatening letters, including a bomb threat, for taking a public stand in the GM debate."

Few readers will realise that none of these claims has ever been independently verified or that Prof Mike Wilson who claims he called the bomb squad to his house in response to a hoax call, says he did so in 1998. So why has this suddenly surfaced 5 years later in support of a claim that "protests over genetic modification are moving in the same direction" as violent animal rights protests?

Despite the implication, in this and other articles, of some sort of "attack" on GM scientists or farmers, no evidence has ever been produced. And for a good reason, it has never happened.

On the other hand, intimidation of scientists critical of this technology is an issue - an issue that the likes of Taverne are desperately trying to cover up.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1708

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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"Is it not telling that Donald Rumsfeld, amongst others in the Bush inner circle, was head of a Monsanto subsidiary? The relationship between the US government and industry has become a continuum under the Bush regime and then, to add insult to injury, the South African government continues to undemocratically force GMOs on us as consumers while we simultaneously subsidise their introduction through our taxes at the cost of urgently needed rural infrastructural reform." - Glenn Ashton, co-ordinator of the South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering, SAFeAGE, a network of individuals, families and over 130 organisations representing over 250, 000 South Africans opposed to the import, export and growing of GM crops and food until their safety and desirability has been proven. www.safeage.org
<http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1706>

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HEADLINES OF THE WEEK:  from the GMWATCH archive
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14/11/2003 THE WEEKLY WATCH number 47
16/11/2003 Genetically Modified Crops in Africa; hope, hype and hubris
17/11/2003 "Dismal" GM potato a decade away
17/11/2003 Monsanto promotes banned crops to poor Thai farmers
18/11/2003 Soil Association on the GM crops trials (FSEs) - Evidence
18/11/2003 When crops burn, the truth goes up in smoke
19/11/2003 Lula betrays but in Paraná, led by a supporter of Lula, resistance thrives/how to contact Brazil's congress
19/11/2003 Northern Californian ballot on banning GMOs/Company Euthanizes GM goats
19/11/2003 US and UN target Greenpeace
20/11/2003 Africa & GM crops: A continent divided
20/11/2003 America's Thought Control from Corporate Funded 'Think Tanks'
20/11/2003 German churches argue against the use of GM plants in food and agriculture
20/11/2003 Government face GM debate criticism
FOR THE COMPLETE GMWATCH ARCHIVE: <http://www.gmwatch.org/archive.asp>

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