from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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The prize for the most spectacular U-turn of recent weeks goes to the Thai Prime Minister, who happily morphed from an enthusiastic passenger on the train to GMO-land, to denying any GM contamination of papayas from government GM trials, to admitting the contamination, and finally to recommending that Thai farmers embrace organic methods! The country's flirtation with GM is reported to have already cost it one billion baht and the story isn't over yet (THAILAND LATEST).

Don't miss EPA toxicologist Suzanne Wuerthele's rundown on why folic-acid-enriched GM tomatoes are a terminally stupid idea (GM MEDICINES) – and all the news from around the globe.

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

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CONTENTS
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LOBBYWATCH
FOOD SECURITY
FOOD SAFETY
GM MEDICINES
THAILAND LATEST
BAD-IDEA VIRUS GRIPS ASIA
OTHER NEWS FROM ASIA
EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
AFRICA
AUSTRALASIA
DONATIONS

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ CATHOLICS CONDEMN GM CONFERENCE
A Catholic group, the Australia-based Columban Centre for Peace, Ecology and Justice, is protesting the pro-GM bias of an upcoming conference in Rome. The conference, "The Moral Imperative of Biotechnology" to be held September 24, 2004 at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy, is organised by The Pontifical Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the US Embassy to the Holy See.

One of the speakers is GM lobbyist Prof C S Prakash. The group writes, "The presence at your Conference as a speaker of Dr C S Prakash, an avowed lobbyist for international GM corporations, gives a forum for a powerful Public Relations coup."

Another conference speaker, Peter Raven, has been described by geneticist Wes Jackson as, in a certain sense, "a paid traveling salesman for Monsanto."
More on Prakash: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=106
More on Raven: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=191

And as the group points out, "Your conference lacks representation by Bishops' Conferences and Catholic agencies working directly with the hungry and malnourished of the world but also opposed to GM food solutions, for example, from Southern Africa."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4323

+ QUOTE BY A CATHOLIC PRIEST CRITICAL OF THE CONFERENCE
"I worked with the T'boli people in Mindanao for over ten years during which I came to know and respect the bishop of the diocese of Marbel, Dinualdo Gutierrez. He has led a vigorous campaign against sowing Bt corn in his diocese because he sees what the impact will be on the people and the land. If the Vatican supports GE foods he and many others around the world will feel that the Catholic Church has abandoned them in favour of giant biotech corporations who are poised to make billions of dollars selling patented GE seeds.

"It will be a tragedy if the Vatican listens to the corporate voice rather than the voice of countless Christian communities and their leaders in Third World countries."
- Fr Sean McDonagh of the Columban Missionaries in Ireland

Read Fr McDonagh's excellent article on this subject.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4334

+ CONFERENCE SPEAKER TELLING LIES IN VIETNAM
Wherever in the world Vatican conference speaker Prof CS Prakash goes in his unstinting efforts to assist the biotechnology industry and the US economy, there follows a succession of media reports containing his latest remarkable claims.

In Tanzania, for instance, he told his audience GM 'doubles production' (The Express, Tanzania, Aug 21, 2002). In the Philipinnes he said GM crops can help reduce farmers' post-harvest losses because 'most genetically-modified crops have longer shelf life'!!

Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, provides another striking instance of Prakash's taste for advocacy over facts: 'Prakash has repeatedly cited [GM] sweet potatoes [in Kenya] as a positive example of the benefits of GM for African countries, but has confessed to having no knowledge of the results of scientific trials in Kenya.' When the results of those much hyped trials were finally reported at the beginning of this year, it emerged that the GM sweet potatoes had performed abysmally.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2481

This week Prof Prakash is bombarding yet another developing country with industry propaganda. This time it's the turn of Vietnam.

Adopting GM crops, Prakash has been telling the Vietnamese, will not only boost their country's exports, it'll create jobs for 60 percent of the labour force!!!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4351

The chracteristic most commonly engineered into GM crops is herbicide tolerance. This form of weed control enables farmers to dispense with labour - something many Third World countries have in abundance. GM crops are thus a recipe for exacerbating rural unemployment and increasing poverty, by forcing labourers off the land.

What can one say about a man who travels the globe as a VIP in order to tell poor and sometimes desperate countries a series of falsehoods? He’s certainly an expert on "The Moral Imperative of Biospinology".

For more on CS Prakash and his many enormities - see: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=106&page=P

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FOOD SECURITY
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+ GM CROPS ALONE WILL NOT END HUNGER - EXPERTS
Swiss experts have warned that GM crops are not the only nor the best way to combat global hunger. A government advisory committee said not enough research had been carried out into the impact of gene technology.

The Ethics Committee on Non-Human Technology called for closer coordination of state-funded research programmes in an effort to help improve the provision of food for people in developing countries. But the authors argue that state-funded research projects should not give preference to GM crops and called on the scientific community to consider other options, adding that alternative methods were often more promising and produced better results.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4318

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FOOD SAFETY
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+ NZ: DID MONSANTO BREACH GM RAT FEEDING DECLARATION?
New Zealand's Green Party is demanding to know why Monsanto still hasn't provided Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) with the adverse rat-feeding data on their GE corn MON 863, despite supposedly signing a declaration it would reveal all the facts relevant to its approval application.

"We have now established that Monsanto is required to sign a statutory declaration with each application it submits to FSANZ, declaring that it has not withheld any information that might prejudice its application," said Sue Kedgley, the Green Party's Safe Food Spokesperson.

"It now appears that Monsanto has breached the terms of such a declaration by withholding this 90-day study showing abnormalities in rats fed MON863. This is a serious matter that calls into question the integrity of the entire GE food assessment process.

"Just yesterday the media reported that 11 international medical journals have adopted a collective policy that adverse effects of pharmaceutical test