from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Last week the news that Thailand's Prime Minister was giving the green light to GMOs was said to be sending out signals right across Asia. By the end of this week it all looked very different thanks to Thailand's brilliant campaigners and to all those who lobbied the Thai PM and his ministerial colleagues.

Spurred by the powerful campaign of opposition, ministers failed to endorse the Prime Minister's proposal to take his country down the GM route. Following a Cabinet meeting, it was announced that the Government is now convening a group to report on the issue. The battle is far from over, however, as Thailand's campaign groups now have to focus on ensuring that the proposed committee of "academics" isn't stacked with the usual pro-GM lobbyists (See THAILAND LATEST).

There's also more work for us all to do in stopping the unelected outgoing EU Commission forcing through GM contamination tolerances for seeds (EUROPE). Please send a letter, fax or email to the Commissioners listed to let them know that this is completely unacceptable.

Claire [email protected]
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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LOBBYWATCH
THAILAND LATEST
OTHER NEWS FROM ASIA
FOCUS ON AFRICA
EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
FOOD SECURITY
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
DONATIONS

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LOBBYWATCH
http://www.lobbywatch.org
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+ MONSANTO'S ATTACK DOG LECTURES NATIONAL CATTLEMEN
America's National Cattlemen's Beef Association has been warned by "advocacy group watchdog" Jay Byrne that, "The number of advocacy groups targeting beef, animal agriculture and agriculture in general are growing daily. Many of these groups are portrayed as having grassroots agendas, when in fact they are fronts for a much larger hidden agenda".

The attack on "fronts" by the President of v-Fluence Interactive Public Relations is interesting as GM WATCH's research pinpoints Byrne as the chief architect of a covert Monsanto PR campaign involving poison-pen attacks on the company's critics via front e-mails, such as those of fake "citizens" such as Andura Smetacek and Mary Murphy, and via a fake agricultural institute, the Center For Food and Agricultural Research (CFFAR). The Berkeley scientist Dr Ignacio Chapela was among the principal targets of this malicious campaign.

In fact, Smetacek, Murphy and CFFAR targeted many of the same individuals and organisations criticised by Byrne in his talk to the cattlemen, and in very similar terms. For instance, Michael Hansen of the Consumer Policy Institute, who is one of two people Byrne singles out in his beef industry presentation, was one of two people who had a poison-pen 'biography' faxed to the press from the non-existent agricultural institute, CFFAR, ahead of a press conference they were giving on GM.

Similarly, a number of the claims posted via the Monsanto PR fronts recurr in Byrne's advice to the cattlemen to beware of front groups. Byrne attacks environmental, organic and consumer groups who criticize aspects of the beef industry, accusing them of scaremongering and "black" marketing in the service of a hidden agenda. He claims these groups are not grassroots but are massively funded by philanthropic foundations and corporate and individual donors who should know better.

Byrne also directs the cattlemen to the website ActivistCash. Both ActivistCash and the group behind it - Consumer Freedom - are fronts of the PR firm, Berman & Co. Consumer Freedom is also known to have received a $200,000 "donation" from Monsanto. Byrne is Monsanto's former Director of Public Affairs and the company's former Internet Outreach Programs Director.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4273
For links to profiles of all the individuals and organisations involved in the Monsanto dirty tricks campaign here:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=28&page=1
For articles from the press on the campaign:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=25&page=1

+ SPIN AND CORPORATE POWER
A two day research seminar at Strathclyde University in Scotland on November 18 & 19, 2004, will discuss how spin works and how it might be countered. Among the speakers is the investigative journalist Andy Rowell, author of Don't Worry, It's Safe to Eat and The Green Backlash. Further details from http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/Geography/html/news%20items/Nov_confefence.htm Or email [email protected]

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THAILAND LATEST
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+ THAI CABINET OVERTURNS GM APPROVAL
Thailand's cabinet decided on 31 August to keep a three-year ban on planting GM crops, overturning a decision by a panel chaired by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Instead, it decided to set up a panel to hear the arguments for and against GMO crops from state agencies and biotech lecturers at all Thai universities, Science Minister Korn Dabbaransi told reporters.

"We will have academics from all universities to hear their view on three options - 1) to promote GMOs freely in Thailand, 2) to allow the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops, or 3) to ban GMOs completely," Korn said after the weekly cabinet meeting.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4268

+ DECISION DUE TO STRONG OPPOSITION
While the Cabinet met representatives from consumer groups, organic farmers, organic farm-product exporters and environmental groups, demonstrated outside Government House in a show of force against the policy.

Government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair admitted the decision was partly due to strong opposition from various Thai groups. "Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra decided not to consider putting the resolution on the Cabinet's agenda due to it being a debatable issue academically, with controversy among various groups," he said. "More information needs to be gathered before a decision can be made."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4278

+ GM WATCH "WADES INTO GM ROW"
At the suggestion of the Thai environmental group BioThai, the campaign to get the Thai government to change course included an open letter of concern to the Thai Prime Minister from GM WATCH. Over four hundred people also sent their own letters of concern to the Prime Minister via our website.
http://www.gmwatch.org/proemail1.asp?id=4

Biothai translated the GM WATCH letter into Thai and it made the front page of 4 Thai newspapers. The English language Bangkok Post also carried the letter in full while another leading English language paper The Nation ran an article around GM Watch's concerns - "Watchdog wades into GMO row".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4265

GM WATCH editor Jonathan Matthews also did an intervew with the BBC's Thai service on how the biotech industry with unprecedented backing from the US were targeting Asian countries like Thailand.

+ THE BATTLE GOES ON
While activists welcomed the Thai prime minister's reversal of a recent decision to allow the commercial growing of GM crops, and hailed it as a people's victory, they warned that a national committee set up by the government to study the issue could run the risk of being hijacked by scientists having links to biotechnology companies.

Activists said they would only accept the committee if members of civil society and environmentalists were on it. "We will push the government to accept independent members," said Witoon Lianchamroon, the dire