from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

As well as having catastrophic consequences for the appallingly neglected people of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina has implications for the GM seeds trade, the US economy and the US media (AMERICA).

Don't miss an important CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK.
Claire [email protected]
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALASIA
ASIA
EUROPE
AFRICA
FOOD SAFETY
COMPANY NEWS
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
LOBBYWATCH
CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

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THE AMERICAS
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+ POVERTY AND HUNGER IN NEW ORLEANS AND AFRICA
EXCERPT from excellent article by Robert Vint.
US-style development does not only destroy the livelihoods of African farmers; since 1945 nearly 90% of US farmers have lost their jobs. Now that we can all see the poor and hungry in New Orleans we can see that the problem is not the absence of GM crops - it's the economy, stupid!

All the leading development charities in the UK agree that hunger is a problem caused by inequality, lack of food sovereignty and the maldistribution of food and that GM crops are therefore not relevant to preventing hunger. They wrote jointly to Tony Blair to tell him not to use this fraudulent argument to promote GM crops.

Food experts around the world share this view as do the food and farming organisations representing small and family farmers in the Third World. America likes to believe that it is the breadbasket of the world; in fact since the introduction of GM crops it has become a net importer of food. As it is becoming increasingly clear that it is unable to feed its own poor adequately, it is time the rest of the world started rejecting its misguided strategy for feeding the world and the dishonest economic ideology upon which it is based.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5681

+ TAKE ACTION TO HELP THOSE AFFECTED BY HURRICANE KATRINA
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5695
Online action: Congress: Hold Bush Accountable on Failed Katrina Response
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=19560
Floor statement of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH): "Indifference Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction"
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0902-10.htm

+ HURRICANE KATRINA'S SILVER LINING?
'Eco Sounding' by John Vidal in The Guardian, Sept 7:
Whatever Hurricane Katrina's long-term effect on the way America thinks about global warming and oil dependency, it is probably going to make GM animal feed more expensive in Europe. Almost all US maize and soya goes through New Orleans and the port of Destrehan, and nothing is expected out for some time because of silting in the Mississippi. This should cheer up anti-GM activists in Britain who have been trying to persuade supermarkets to stick with non-GM supplies and not to accept produce that has been given GM feed.

Comment by GM WATCH's Jonathan Matthews:
Seems nature's shoved a bung up America's point of discharge for its tainted feed supply. Mind you, Bush & co'll doubtless give sorting this out a bit more priority than rescuing poor blacks off roof tops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5691

+ HURRICANE KATRINA'S IMPACT ON U.S. AG ECONOMY
Comment by Scott Kilman in the Wall Street Journal:

"While the hurricane's wind and rain caused relatively little damage to the nation's biggest crops, it has shut down grain-exporting ports around New Orleans for an indefinite period, depressing prices that Midwest farmers are fetching for corn, wheat and soybeans."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5691

+ WHY HURRICANE KATRINA MAY HAVE SAVED THE U.S. MEDIA
American broadcast journalism might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina, says a BBC report that perfectly captures the US media approach to a range of issues, including GM:

EXCERPT FROM THE BBC PIECE:
Giant corporations own the networks, and Washington politicians rely on them and their executives to fund their re-election campaigns across the 50 states. It is a perfect recipe for a timid and self-censoring journalistic culture that is no match for the masterfully aggressive spin-surgeons of the Bush administration.

But last week the complacency stopped, and the moral indignation against inadequate government began to flow, from slick anchors who spend most of their time glued to desks in New York and Washington.

The most spectacular example came last Friday night on Fox News, the cable network that has become the darling of the Republican heartland. This highly successful Murdoch-owned station sets itself up in opposition to the "mainstream liberal media elite".

But with the sick and the dying forced to sit in their own excrement behind him in New Orleans, its early-evening anchor Shepard Smith declared civil war against the studio-driven notion that the biggest problem was still stopping the looters.

On other networks like NBC, CNN and ABC it was the authority figures, who are so used to an easy ride at press conferences, that felt the full force of reporters finally determined to ditch the deference.

As the heads of the Homeland Security department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) appeared for network interviews, their defensive remarks about where aid was arriving to, and when, were exposed immediately as either downright lies or breath-taking ignorance.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5684

+ GM SOYA DISASTER IN LATIN AMERICA
A superb detailed report by Prof. Miguel A. Altieri, University of California, Berkeley and Prof. Walter A. Pengue, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5690

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