TEHRAN – The director of the country's Department of Environment (DoE) Fatemeh Javadi on Friday announced that an official go-ahead for cultivation of genetically modified rice would not be issued due to lack of compelling documents that could support the move.

Speaking to the reporters, she added that DoE has yet to receive any report from a group of experts in charge of providing sufficient documentation to prove that transgenic rice would be healthy and the project would be economical altogether.

However, he admitted that the scientific basis for the move is convincing. "A sample of the DNA of the main rice pest, called stem borer, is used in the process which makes the plant resistant against the pest during its growth period."
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2.Brazil biotech commission: No approval on corn, cotton GMO 
By Kenneth Rapoza
Dow Jones, October 25 2006
http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=news&doc_id=13737&start=1&control=178&page_start=1&page_nr=101&pg=1

SAO PAULO - Brazil's biosafety commission, CTNBio, was unable to reach a consensus Wednesday regarding technical studies on transgenic cotton and corn seeds from Bayer CropScience, Monsanto and Syngenta Seeds, a CTNBio spokeswoman said Thursday.

CTNBio meets monthly and is responsible for accepting field tests on genetically modified crops. The group's scientists conduct independent studies and analysis on whether the biotech product is harmful to the environment or human consumption. Final commercial approval depends on political and economic decisions made by a consensus of various government departments.

CTNBio said the commission's scientists responsible for the review of Monsanto and Bayer's transgenic corn and cotton seeds did not appear at the meeting Wednesday and did not submit a final report to the committee. CTNBio said another study was required for Syngenta's BT-11 corn, which is resistant to certain insects. Bayer is asking for permission to sell LibertyLink cotton and Monsanto is asking for permission to sell Roundup Ready cotton in the local market.

Farmers and seed companies regularly complain that CTNBio takes too long to pass transgenic field studies and even longer to commercialize seeds currently in the field test phase.

Since 1998, Brazil has permitted only two genetically modified products in the national market, Monsanto's Bollgard cotton and Roundup Ready soybeans. Roundup Ready was permitted in 1998 but quickly suspended following political protests. Roundup Ready soy was allowed by executive order in 2005 and is expected to constitute roughly 50% of the soy planted in the 2006-07 crop.