Protesters wreck GM crops
BBC, Sunday, 29 June, 2003
GM protestors have broken into a research centre and destroyed part of a plot of genetically modified wheat. The group said 60 of its members got into the Jealott's Hill Research Centre, near Bracknell, Berkshire, at 0430 BST on Sunday. The demonstrators say they cut through two wire fences, but were not challenged by either security or the police. The facility is owned by Syngenta - one of the world's largest agro-chemical companies, and one of three UK-based companies trialling GM crops.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/3029948.stm
Radical farmer says won't bow to Chirac for pardon
Reuters AlertNet, UK
PARIS, June 29 (Reuters) - Radical French farmer-protester Jose Bove, arrested last Sunday for destroying genetically modified crops, said over the weekend he would not kneel down before French President Jacques Chirac to win his freedom. France's justice minister hinted last week that Bove could win a presidential pardon. But in an interview with French daily Le Monde, Bove said if he was freed it would be due to public outrage at his detention.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29675277.htm
Doubts on pig organ transplants ignored
The Observer, UK, 29 June 2003
A damning report revealing profound misgivings over the harvesting of animal organs for human transplants has been secretly buried by government officials. The conclusions of the independent advisers are so damning they warn that the animal organ technique might even have to be abandoned. At stake for companies hoping to produce genetically altered pigs that will not be rejected by the human immune system is a global market worth billions of pounds.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,11032,987376,00.html
Zac Goldsmith: Science? The public is right to smell a rat
Independent on Sunday, 29 June 2003
GM cotton farmers in India are reporting record losses. And in the US, the situation is such that even its agriculture department has questioned why farmers are growing GM crops, given their "mixed or even negative" financial impacts. Canada's and the US's mightiest farm organisations are demanding a moratorium on GM wheat.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=419917
Robert May: Think of the benefits, Mr Meacher. An apple, say, that helps people slim. Like so many applications of science, GM technology is a double-edged sword. It offers us, on the one hand, the chance of a "Doubly Green Revolution", in which we grow our food efficiently but in ways that work with the grain of nature. On the other hand, it could offer us the opportunity to ramp up the intensification of agriculture, wrenching the environment into a form that suits our needs and in doing so clearing our countryside of its rich diversity of wild animal and plant species, creating an ever more silent spring.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=419915
The villagers who drove GM out of town
'There are huge risks with these crops that are just not worth taking'
Independent on Sunday, 29 June 2003
Today the village of Forest Row will be going one stage further, with a naked protest in a rapeseed field. More than 40 people are expected to take part. They will strip off, lie down, and form the words "no GM rape". The organiser, Forest Row resident Mike Grenville, is an old hand at this sort of thing. "There aren't many people who can say they've appeared naked on page three of The Financial Times."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=419967
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PINNING DOWN THE PR LIES - COMPREHENSIVE, READABLE, REVELATORY
Aaron deGrassis's "Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence" Download the full report:
http://www.twnafrica.org/docs/GMCropsAfrica.pdf
Read the press release:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200306240443.html
For the section on the biotech industry's PR use of Africa:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1006