from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all,

Great cause for celebration this week. In what has been described as a "massive blow to the GM lobby", gene giant Bayer has withdrawn its GM maize from commercialisation just weeks after the Blair government said it intended to give it the first go-ahead for a GM crop in the UK. (HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - UK).

And Australia has also chucked a whopping spanner in the works of the biotech industry: four key states have all ruled out any large-scale growing of GM food crops (HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - GLOBAL).

Another heartening event is that the mainstream British press has caught on to the dismal truth about GM zealot Sir John Krebs and the UK's Food Standards Agency, which Krebs chairs. A brilliant article by Richard Girling in the Sunday Times skewers Krebs and the FSA to the dissecting table and shows no mercy (ARTICLE OF THE WEEK).

Please look out for an important Action Alert to stop the Americans contaminating their rice crop (which they export to all of us) with pharma rice (see US: PANEL OKS BID TO RAISE MODIFIED RICE, IN HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - GLOBAL). The time scale for responses is tight.

Claire    [email protected]
www.ngin.org.uk / www.gmwatch.org

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CONTENTS
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - UK
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - GLOBAL
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
THE REST OF THE MONTH'S TOP STORIES
DONATIONS
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - UK
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+ BAYER BINS GM PLAN
In what The Independent described as a "huge blow" for the GM lobby, Bayer Cropscience is giving up attempts to commercialise GM maize - the only transgenic plant to have approval for widespread cultivation. Bayer announced that its maize variety Chardon LL had been left "economically non-viable" because of conditions environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, imposed when she gave it limited approval this month.

Bayer warned that the UK's tough GM regulatory regime could jeopardise the adoption of the technology. It said: "New regulations should enable GM crops to be grown in the UK - not disable future attempts to grow them".  The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: "We do not apologise for the fact there is a tough EU-wide regulatory regime on GMs."

Bayer's decision to withdraw the crop from the UK and other European markets means GM crops are unlikely to be grown in the UK until at least 2008.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3125
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3127

BAYER CAN'T BLAME GOVERNMENT FOR GM MAIZE WITHDRAWAL
The Soil Association accused Bayer of being deceitful when they put the whole blame for their withdrawal of GM maize on the UK government.  Peter Melchett, the Soil Association's policy director, said, "Bayer are blaming their withdrawal of GM maize from the UK on 'regulatory hurdles' imposed by the British Government. In fact they have been caught out by their own, inaccurate hype.

"GM companies have always claimed that GM crops need less chemical sprays. In the three-year farm scale trials Bayer's GM maize was grown with the use of one weed-killing spray. But Soil Association research in the USA and Canada had already shown that GM maize grown commercially needed at least two weedkillers. Indeed, GM companies in America are even selling branded mixtures of weed killing sprays to farmers growing their GM crops, so they can hardly deny that several sprays are often needed.

"Unfortunately for Bayer, the British Government took them at their word, and said that their GM maize could only be grown using one weedkiller. Based on experience in North America, Bayer know that won't work in practice. In these circumstances, its really not surprising that Bayer have withdrawn the GM maize, effectively ending the prospect of any GM crops being grown in the UK for the foreseeable future." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3133

COMMENT ON BAYER DECISION BY DR BRIAN JOHN OF GM FREE CYMRU
"We do not accept the Bayer line that the Government's lack of cooperation is the reason for this decision.  The Government has been pro-GM from the beginning, and it was public pressure which forced Margaret Beckett - in her statement on 9 March - to promise very tight controls. The real reason for the Bayer climb-down is that grass-roots campaigners have attacked the science, the liability issue, the herbicide issue, the practicalities of coexistence, and the corruption of the whole GM enterprise with persistence and sophistication.  No company can afford to operate in a climate of such unremitting hostility for too long.

"Make no mistake about it, this is a victory for democracy over an arrogant and insensitive biotechnology corporation and over a Government obsessed with a redundant and unwanted technology." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3127

+ BAYER SHARES DOWN
Bayer shares slipped 1.9 percent on news it planned to shelve plans to sell GM maize to British farmers because of tight government restrictions and on market rumours - denied by the company - of a convertible bond sale. Talk that insurer Allianz might cut its stake in Bayer further undermined confidence. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3134

+ COMMENT FROM JIM THOMAS OF THE ETC. GROUP, formerly a leading GM campaigner for Greenpeace:
No GM crops will be commercially grown in the UK for at least 5 years. Here's the magnitude of the victory:

At the end of 1996... we were reckoned to be barely a year away from widespread cultivation of GM crops (GM rape) all across the UK countryside. Monsanto was considering a merger with AHP to become the world's largest corporation. Some of the world's most powerful companies and one of the world's most powerful governments had remained steadfastly determined to get GM crops grown commercially in the UK throughout the intervening 8 years and it is raw, direct popular opposition that has nonetheless:
- removed GM from all human foods sold in the UK
- re