from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
This week the focus is on AFRICA AND THE G8. The affluent countries are about to launch the second great plundering of Africa, all in the name of charity and "development". Naturally, GM crops form an important part of the plan to make African nations dependent upon Western corporations.
Fortunately, some commentators' eyes are open to what's really going on, and we're giving you snippets of their wisdom along with links to more.
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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AFRICA AND THE G8
ASIA
THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALASIA
LOBBYWATCH
FOOD SAFETY
IMPORTANT CONFERENCE
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AFRICA AND THE G8 (Edinburgh, 6-8 July)
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+ AFRICANS NEED SAFE FOOD AND CLEAN WATER - NOT GMOs
Amadou Kanoute, Director of Consumers International Regional Office for Africa, spoke in Edinburgh on 6 July about debt relief and foreign aid, and attended the G8 in Gleneagles (7-8 July). He says: 'Some companies and governments are trying to promote GM as a miracle solution to world hunger. But the long-term effects of GMOs on human health and the environment are unknown. African consumers need basics like access to clean water and safe food - not GMOs.'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5462
+ GM CROPS HAVE "MAJOR ROLE" TO PLAY IN AFRICA - WAMBUGU
An article in Nature calls on G8 leaders to listen to Kenya's Dr Florence Wambugu, among other African scientists, so that the G8 can learn the strategies that should shape the future of Africa. So what does this Monsanto-trained scientist whose lobby group is sponsored by CropLife International want to tell the G8? "We cannot develop Africa without biotechnology," says Wambugu, and,"genetically modified crops have a major role to play in Africa".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5443
But the woman who has become known as "Monsanto's apostle in Africa" has an extraordinary history of false and misleading claims - see: "How to Wambuzle the world"
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5444
+ WAMBUGU'S 'AFRICA HARVEST' GETS $16.9 MILLION
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to pour $16.9 million into a consortium headed by Africa Harvest, of which Florence Wambugu is the CEO. The consortium includes Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont.
One African activist commented, "These guys really know how to waste money!" Wambugu previously headed the disastrous Monsanto GM virus-resistant sweet potato project. Three years of field trials showed the project, which has cost over $6 million, to be a total failure, delivering lower yields than conventional crops and no virus resistance!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5443
But that didn't stop Wambugu and Monsanto from extracting enormous PR value from the project before the balloon went up - see: "How to Wambuzle the world"
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5444
+ AFRICA NEEDS NON-GM AGRICULTURE
In a typically incisive article, Dr Colin Tudge, Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, spells out why Africa can only flourish by building on traditional agriculture.
EXCERPTS: Biotech companies such as Syngenta are lauded for providing modern crops in the form of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) - perceived in high places to be both profitable and necessary. Governments such as Zambia's that have turned them down are seen as backward, if not downright wicked. But, in truth, the ignorance is all on the reformers' side.
The notion that [African countries] actually need GMOs to provide sufficient yields is simply a misunderstanding, or a straightforward lie... their introduction suppresses local production and increases the dependency of poor countries on those who supply the new technologies. The argument in favour of GMOs, supported not least by Tony Blair, rests on the assumption that they are necessary. If they are not needed, there is no point in taking any risk at all.
...egged on by governments (beginning in Britain and the US), science is increasingly financed by corporates, for corporates. Hence the illusion grows that without industrialisation and corporatisation there can be no science or modern tech at all: that small farms of traditional structure are bound to be backward. Again, this is just not true.
The task is not to twiddle with World Trade Organisation rules or even to ease up on debt, but to rethink. In the short term, the prime task for the world as a whole, and in Africa in particular, must be to build on traditional agriculture, which alone can maintain landscapes and provide good jobs for the billions who need them: with appropriate-tech, small-scale financial support, and the general ambition not to trash small farms, but to make agrarian life tolerable, and indeed positively agreeable and desirable. Yet most of what seems to be on the agendas even of the best-intentioned seems to be going in different directions altogether.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5466
+ WILL THE G8 PLEASE LEAVE US ALONE?
Another of those speaking in Edinburgh at the protests and events in the run-up to the G8 summit was Indian journalist Devinder Sharma. Devinder's message for the G8 is uncompromising: "LEAVE US ALONE!"
At first sight it might seem extraordinary that anyone from the developing world might extend less than a warm welcome to the prospect of debt relief and increased aid. But like George Monbiot, Devinder sees the G8's plans as little better than an extortion racket.
The G8's help comes on the G8's terms. These include the requirement that recipients of debt relief "boost private sector development" and eliminate "impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign." What this means, as Monbiot points out, is new opportunities for western money via commercialisation, privatisation and the liberalisation of trade and capital flows.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5449
+ G8: BEHIND THIS NEW INTEREST IN AFRICA
"There is talk of the need for action by way of aid, debt cancellation and trade," Devinder Sharma, long-time campaigner for the rights of farmers in the developing world told IPS. "An impression is given by (US President) George Bush and others that of the three, trade is the real answer to Africa's problems. But actually trade is the problem."
In four African countries - Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Benin - whose economies are based on cotton production, US cotton is being dumped into the market and livelihoods are being lost, all in the name of trade, said Sharma.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5459
+ TARIQ ALI ON THE G8
Why then the glycerine tears over Africa? Why is that continent such a poignant sight? Why is Africa the last resort of scoundrel politicians and their hangers-on?
It was the same over a decade ago. A big fuss, a big spectacle but nothing changed. Why? Because there are structural causes and the structures at fault were created by the G8 and its forebears. The venal elites that rule most of Africa do so in alliance with giant corporations which milk the wealth of the country. The continent is rich in oil, gold and diamonds. It could fund its own recovery, but it has not been left alone and leaders who tried to change things were assassinated or removed. Regime-change is an old Western habit.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5459
+ ANTI-G8 SUMMIT IN AFRICA
Hundreds of activists gathered in the cotton-producing Malian town of Fana on 6 July for an anti-G8 summit to remind the world's leading industrialised nations of Africans' own solutions for their social and economic travails.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5459
+ AFRICA'S NEW BEST FRIENDS
From brilliant article by George Monbiot:
"The G8 leaders have seized this opportunity with both hands. Multinational corporations, they argue, are not the cause of Africa's problems but the solution. From now on they will be responsible for the relief of poverty."
"The history of corporate involvement in Africa is one of forced labour, evictions, murder, wars, the under-costing of resources, tax evasion and collusion with dictators."
"Just as Gordon Brown's 'moral crusade' encourages us to forget the armed crusade he financed, the state-sponsored rebranding of the companies working in Africa prompts us to forget what Shell has been doing in Nigeria, what Barclays and Anglo American and De Beers have done in South Africa, and what British American Tobacco has done just about everywhere. From now on, the G8 would like us to believe, these companies will be Africa's best friends. In the name of making poverty history, the G8 has given a new, multi-headed East India Company a mandate to govern the continent."
"At the Make Poverty History march, the speakers insisted that we are dragging the G8 leaders kicking and screaming towards our demands. It seems to me that the G8 leaders are dragging us dancing and cheering towards theirs."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5454
+ CRANE PROTEST AGAINST "BROWNWASH"
At 8.30 am on 5 June, three protesters hung a banner off a construction site crane near Edinburgh's North Bridge demanding "No More Brownwash" in response to the successful co-opting of the aims and message of Make Poverty History by UK Chancellor Gordon Brown and the UK government. The development campaigners from the World Development Movement (WDM) wanted to point out that New Labour is not a defender of the poor and has no intention of delivering the Make Poverty History agenda. The activists came down at 6.15pm and were immediately arrested.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5459
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5456
+ JUNKMAN OVER AFRICA
Junkman Steve Milloy blames Greenpeace's policies on DDT and GM crops for Africa's misery!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5447
For more on the Junkman
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=85
+ "TECHNOLOGY" SHORTAGE MAKES CHILDREN STARVE
Emotive but unsupported claims promoting corporate interests as the saviour of Africa have been made on the Truth about Trade website, e.g. "Did you know that thousands of children starve every day? ...it isn't because of a worldwide shortage of food. It is because of a worldwide shortage of trade and technology." Needless to say, according to these traders in truth, opening up Africa to American products, and in particular GMOs, will pretty much solve the problem.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5447
For the truth about Truth about Trade
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=267
+ BLAIR'S COMMISSIONERS
When Tony Blair launched his Commission for Africa, it was Bob Geldof's inclusion that took the spotlight. But who were the nine Africans Blair picked to deliver his vision for the continent? A web of bankers, industrialists and political leaders with connections to the IMF and the World Bank, all committed to spreading the gospel of free market capitalism.
- Red Pepper magazine
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5459
+ ALTERNATIVES COMMISSION FOR AFRICA REPORT
On 5 July in Edinburgh, campaigners and activists from across Africa explained why they want to have their voices heard in opposition to Tony Blair's commission on Africa.
For most of the contributors to the Alternatives Commission, the problem is that Africa needs less control by the IMF and the World Bank, not more. The international financial institutions have failed Africa with flawed policies and enforced privatisation and user charges over decades. While Blair's commission argues for an increased role for the private sector, and is focused on more input from Western transnational corporations, there are real concerns about how this will impact on poverty on the ground.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5459
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ASIA
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+ JAPAN FINDS 4TH U.S. CORN CARGO TAINTED WITH BT10
Japan has discovered a fourth US feed grain cargo tainted with Syngenta's illegal Bt10 biotech corn, and the importer must either destroy it or ship it back to the US, the agriculture ministry said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5468
+ INDIAN FARMERS ATTACK SEED SHOPS OVER LOW YIELD BT COTTON
Five seed shops came under attack from cotton farmers who went on a rampage in the town of Khammam, Andhra Pradesh, demanding compensation for their loss owing to the low germination of Bt Cotton seed - Bunny - supplied by the Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd.
Hundreds of them gathered near the shops along with the receipts in proof of the purchases they made, to claim compensation. As neither the shopkeepers nor the company representatives turned up, they broke open the locks and attempted to storm in. The protestors were quelled by police.
The protestors complained that the seed they procured at a high price was of little use as the germination was hardly 20 percent. The company officials, they said, had agreed to pay compensation. But they had backed out on their assurance at the last minute after finding too big a crowd in front of the seed shops.
NB: this report shows it isn't just Monsanto's Bt cotton varieties that is performing poorly.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5455
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5460
+ US GROWERS SUBSIDISE BT COTTON IN INDIA: STUDY
The Ottawa-based Polaris Institute in a study concluded that US cotton growers are subsidising Monsanto's market expansion in India. The study says that many US cotton farmers are paying a high price for Monsanto's Bt cotton technology, while the biotech giant fails to collect revenues for pirated Bt cotton varieties in India.
According to the United States Dept of Agriculture (USDA), illegal Bt cotton is planted on an estimated 600,000 hectare in India. Approved Bt cotton varieties are planted on 525,000 hectare.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5451
+ INDIA: SPURIOUS BT COTTON SEEDS FLOOD MARKETS
Already reeling under political oppositions and cheap alternatives from local companies, Monsanto is now being plagued by the sale of unlicensed and spurious Bt cotton seeds. Spurious seeds have flooded the markets of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and other cotton growing areas of the country.
Many believe Monsanto, in its desperation to push GM adoption in the South, turned a blind eye to, or even encouraged, the clandestine distribution of GM seeds in India and South America.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5446
+ INDIA: AG DEPT SEIZES BT COTTON SEEDS IN E. GODAVARI
Officials from the Agriculture department seized Bt cotton seeds in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh on June 26. Bt cotton has not yielded the desired results in Andhra Pradesh, according to studies conducted by experts.
Earlier this year, the genetic engineering approval committee of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests issued orders banning cultivation of Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh, but allowing it in northern India.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5451
+ THAILAND'S GM PAPAYAS FOUND UNSAFE
GM papaya seeds used in in experimental field trials by the agricultural research station in Khon Kaen contain the tetracycline antibiotic-resistant gene, recognised as an unsafe GM marker gene by various international food safety organisations, said Greenpeace South East Asia.
Antibiotic resistance is a major health issue as it can result in high morbidity and mortality, and the failure of the treatment of life threatening bacterial infections in humans and animals.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5461
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THE AMERICAS
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+ GM CROPS INVOLVED IN STEEP DECLINES OF BUTTERFLIES
For five years, butterfly watchers have reported steep declines in the population of all butterflies. Counts of monarch butterflies, which migrate north from Mexico in the spring, have been especially low - about 75 percent of historic averages.
One threat to butterflies involves GM crops. A type of corn grown throughout the Midwest contains a gene poisonous to moths and butterflies, which spreads via pollen to the monarchs' food plants. A GM soybean plant, sometimes grown in Florida, contains a gene that resists herbicide - allowing farmers to spray tons of it without risk. This kills the plants that butterflies and caterpillars feed on.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5467
+ ACT NOW - DEFEND LOCAL RIGHTS TO OPPOSE GM CROPS!
The Biotech Bullies and the Farm Bureau are attempting a pass a "stealth" law in the California State Legislature that would take away city and counties' rights to ban genetically engineered crops. This latest attack is part of a larger assault on community control and Biodemocracy. ACT NOW!
http://OrganicConsumers.org/Politics/BioDem070305.cfm
+ BIOTECH COMPANY MISLEADS OVER GM FLAX, SAYS FLAX INDUSTRY
In an article which reveals the anger the mainstream food industry holds towards pharm companies, the chief of the US flax industry lets biotech company Agragen Inc. have both barrels over its misleading statements about GM pharma flax.
EXCERPTS:
... some of their assertions are total fabrications or distortions...
Agragen ... claims that this opposition [to GM pharma flax] is being promoted by a "small but profitable sector." This... is false. Ameriflax has hosted two meetings on this subject, with the first in September 2004, where Agragen was given the whole day to sell this concept. Virtually all of the flax industry leaders - from the big industrial users to organic interests to North Dakota State University scientists - were there, including both major flax organizations from Canada.
And yet between the two meetings, not one - I repeat, not one - word of support for Agragen or their concept was voiced. In fact, the comments ranged from being very concerned to outright opposition. I think this is a little more than a "small, but profitable sector."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5439
+ BRAZIL'S BIOSAFETY LAW FACES LEGAL CHALLENGE
Brazil's attorney general, Claudio Fonteles, has challenged a law that gives the Brazilian National Biosafety Committee (CTNBio), rather than federal and local governments, the power to decide whether a GMO is environmentally safe.
The journal Nature noted that the legal challenge puts "Brazil's rosy future as a biotechnology haven" in doubt.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5468
+ BOLIVIAN GOVT AUTHORIZES GM SOYBEAN
Turning the recent Bolivian political crisis into a convenient distraction, the former president Carlos Mesa's administration authorized the use of GM soybeans. This comes at a time when indigenous and peasant organizations, the most threatened by this decree, had focused all their attention on the struggle for sovereignty over their resources.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5458
+ ARGENTINA TO FIGHT MONSANTO IN COURT
Argentina, a leading soybean exporter, is suspending talks with Monsanto over a payment system that would allow the company to collect royalties on the use of its soybean seeds, agriculture secretary Miguel Campos said.
Campos met with journalists at a press conference to discuss lawsuits recently filed by Monsanto in Denmark over the shipment of Argentine soybean products to the country. Monsanto has a patent on Roundup Ready in Denmark and in most other EU countries, but it has never been able to patent the seeds in Argentina.
"Monsanto has shown that it continues to be a national embarrassment," Campos said, adding that the lawsuits have already harmed Argentina's farmers and exporters. "We will fight this, and we'll use the best lawyers we can get to defend ourselves," Campos said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5446
+ ART WORLD RALLIES TO CAUSE OF ARRESTED ARTIST
Artists are raising funds to help the legal battle of fellow artist and University of Buffalo professor Steven Kurtz, whose persecution by the FBI began the morning in 2004 when his wife died of a heart attack. As a member of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), Kurtz had petri dishes in his house containing harmless bacteria which were to form part of an art project criticising genetic engineering. The Feds confiscated his art equipment and computer and held his wife's body.
Now, Kurtz and Robert Ferrell, a former head of the department of genetics at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health, who supplied the harmless bacteria, face charges of mail fraud and possible other charges. If convicted, Kurtz faces a jail sentence of up to 20 years.
"Apparently," writes the CAE in a recent essay, "the US Justice Department is now trying to make CAE into an example of what can happen to citizens whose only 'crime' is having thoughts of dissent enacted within the sphere of legality and the alleged protection of constitutional rights."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5450
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ FARMERS ASK WHY GM CROPS PERFORM WORSE IN DROUGHT
The Network of Concerned Farmers, an Australia-based alliance of farmers with concerns regarding GM crops, is calling for research to determine why GM crops perform worse during droughts.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5440
+ CALL TO ARMS ON GM BANS
A prominent plant scientist has slammed farm leaders for not sticking up for GM foods and crops. CSIRO's Dr Jim Peacock told the National Farmers' Federation that it had let itself be "bullied" by a few anti-GM activists into accepting state government bans on GM crops. One farming paper ran a cartoon of him making this claim with two giant biotech bullies - Monsanto and Bayer - standing behind him.
Peacock claims "there's not been a single negative report about human health or environmental effects [of GM crops]". He has also been running the line that 30 billion GM meals have been eaten in the US with no evidence of ill effect - a line that is now being repeated as fact in Australia. This is doubly ludicrous as firstly, unless one was including cows (fed on GM animal feed) the number claimed would be preposterous, and secondly there has been no attempt to monitor for ill-effects. Remember it took 30 years of active research to begin to establish the link between smoking and lung cancer. Peacock has been nominated for a Professor Bullsh*t award.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5457
+ WESTERN AUSTRALIA GM CROPS MORATORIUM TO REMAIN
Western Australian Agriculture Minister Kim Chance says the government has no intention of changing its stance on GM crops.
Federal agriculture minister Warren Truss has called on the states to end the ban on the cultivation of GM crops, saying it is discouraging investment in biotech. Mr Chance says there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered about GM crops and WA's moratorium will remain.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5440
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ UK SEEKS VIEWS ON "SCIENCE FOR DEVELOPMENT"
The British government's Department for International Development (DFID) has launched an online consultation to seek guidance on how it should support science and innovation as part of its international aid programme.
Revealingly, an article from SciDev.Net reports, "Earlier this year, DFID was criticised by a UK parliamentary committee for not making a greater contribution to the initial design of this ten-year framework, which lays out a plan for significantly increasing government support for science and technology in Britain - but has relatively little to say about how much of this should be aimed at helping developing countries."
This seems somewhat reminiscent of the notorious statement on USAID's website that, "The principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States."
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=165
In DFID's case, it has been subjected to intensive lobbying, led by the Royal Society, to make "science and innovation" the cornerstone of its aid programmes. Likely to have been high among the lobbyists' concerns will have been the withdrawal of the agbiotech industry from the UK and Europe, and the related drop in commercial sponsorship.
The Royal Society's campaign led DFID to appoint Gordon Conway, the former president of the Rockefeller Foundation, as its "chief scientist", overseeing its "science and innovation" strategy. Under Conway the Rockefeller Foundation consistently promoted the "constructive" adoption of GM crops.
Contributions to DFID's online consultation should be submitted no later than 19 September 2005. To contribute, visit:
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/consultations/
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5453
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FOOD SAFETY
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+ MON863 HEALTH DAMAGE SCANDAL - SUMMARY
Excellent summary by Jeffrey Smith of the MON863 rat-feeding study and subsequent cover-up by Monsanto and government agencies is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5448
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IMPORTANT CONFERENCE
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+ SUSTAINABLE WORLD CONFERENCE
London 14-15 July
Feeling paralysed by politicians spreading gloom and doom over global warming, oil and water depletion, and poverty in Africa? There's plenty we can do to dispel despair and galvanise governments and people into effective action. At last, a conference of new ideas and approaches to provide food security and health for all, eradicate poverty and mitigate global warming. Not to be missed!
Independent Science Panel http://www.indsp.org
Enquiries This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Website/Mailing List This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
More details at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5449