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MONTHLY REVIEW No. 30 (11/3/2006)

from Claire Robinson, editor
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+ GM WATCH IN OTHER LANGUAGES
This monthly review is also available in Dutch:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6327

PLEASE TELL ALL YOUR DUTCH SPEAKING FRIENDS!

+ GM WATCH NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT
We need people with language skills to help us translate our bulletins so that we can reach the widest possible global readership.

We also need your financial support.
Please find out more about how you can help:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6043

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EUROPE
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+ U.S. WINS WTO BACKING IN WAR WITH EUROPE OVER GM FOOD
The World Trade Organisation has ruled that Europe had broken international trade rules by blocking the import of GM food, in a decision US trade officials hailed as a victory. The WTO found that Europe had imposed a de facto ban on GM food imports for six years from 1998 which violated trade agreements, and that Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg also had no legal grounds to impose their own unilateral import bans.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6218

+ PLEASE ACT
Email the Ministers for Trade & the Environment to ask them to stand up to the WTO and the right of European countries to ban GM food:
http://www.foe.co.uk/biteback/

+ FURTHER INFORMATION
Groups publish WTO conclusions:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/groups_publish_wto_conclus_09022006.html

New opinion poll shows consumers worried over GM foods:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/aternative_needed_to_secre_08022006.html

+ WTO'S DECISION DID NOT COVER SAFETY ISSUES
In its ruling, the WTO did not tackle the vexed issue of GMOs' safety. The (leaked) confidential WTO ruling noted that the organisation's dispute settlement panel had stuck purely to trade issues. Nor did it address "whether the biotech products at issue in this dispute are 'like' their conventional counterparts", even though this claim was made by Argentina, Canada and the US, which had asked for the WTO ruling.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6234

+ GREENPEACE DISMISSES WTO RULING ON GMOs
Greenpeace has dismissed the WTO ruling as irrelevant. "US agro-chemical giants will not sell a bushel more of their GM grain as a result of the WTO ruling. European consumers, farmers and a growing number of governments remain opposed to GMOs, and this will not change - in Europe or globally," said Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace International trade advisor. "The $300 million lost exports for US GM maize growers per year will continue, and remain a warning to exporting countries that GMOs are not wanted in Europe."

"This verdict only proves that the WTO puts trade interests above all others and is unqualified to deal with complex scientific and environmental issues."

Despite the ongoing WTO case, European governments voted with a clear majority in 2005 to retain existing national bans on GMOs and individual countries continue to reject GMOs. Greece has just announced an extension of its ban on seeds from a type of GM maize produced by Monsanto. Austria also recently announced its intention to ban the import of a GM oilseed rape. These bans, in addition to those imposed last year by Hungary and Poland, 172 regions in Europe which have declared themselves GMO-free zones, and a Swiss moratorium decided by public referendum, show that Europe is steadfast in rejecting GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6217

+ WTO RULING ON GM CROPS A "THREAT TO INDIA"
Civil society organisations and farmers' groups in India have expressed anguish over the WTO ruling, on the grounds that the US will become more aggressive in dumping GM food onto Third World countries.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6233

+ AMERICA'S MASTERPLAN IS TO FORCE GM ON THE WORLD
John Vidal in The (UK) Guardian says that the US intends to bypass European hostility to GMOs by using the WTO ruling to bully developing countries into growing them: "In fact, Washington and the US companies are not that bothered by Europe's predictable reaction ... It is now clear that the real reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was to make it easier for its companies to prise open regulatory doors in China, India, south-east Asia, Latin America and Africa, where most US exports now go."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6243

+ APRIL 8, JOINT INTERNATIONAL GM OPPOSITION DAY
In response to the WTO ruling, 100 international organizations from more than 40 countries are announcing April 8, 2006 as a Joint International GM Opposition Day.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6255

+ MONSANTO'S MEN AT WTO AND U.S. TRADE OFFICE
Before the US launched its WTO challenge to the EU over GMOs, the Financial Times applauded the shrewdness of the appointment of Rufus Yerxa as the US's deputy to the WTO's director general: "Yerxa has been international counsel to Monsanto... Just the man Supachai will need should the US ever bleat to the WTO about EU restrictions on genetically modified food." Previous to being Monsanto's international counsel, Yerxa was Monsanto's European general counsel.

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