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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all

Welcome to WW50 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue, plus a round up of last month's hottest stories.

Fantastic news from Japan where people power is reported to have brought a halt to all GM rice research there. Now campaigners are gearing up to stop Monsanto's GM wheat - Japan's one of the biggest markets for U.S. wheat.

The bad news this week is confirmation that UC Berkeley are denying tenure to Dr Ignacio Chapela - the scientist who has faced a witch-hunt since he exposed the Mexican maize contamination scandal.

But Dr Chapela has retorted in magnificent style by putting together an "extraordinary conversation" with other academics who've been victims of similar corporate terrorizing of academic institutions: Dr Arpad Pusztai, Dr John Losey (of Monarch butterfly fame), Dr Tyrone Hayes (hounded by Syngenta and co. over his Atrazine findngs) as well as Ignacio Chapela.

Better still, the Berkeley event, "The pulse of Scientific Freedom In the Age of the Biotech Industry", can be watched worldwide via the Internet. (see EVENT OF THE MONTH)

Finally, don't miss our review of an exciting and wonderfully written book, Seeds of Deception, by Jeffrey Smith (BOOK OF THE MONTH). Also worth looking at is the item, ARGENTINA: THE CATASTROPHE OF GM SOYA (OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK), a telling account of the ruin of a once-prosperous country by GM soya.

Claire    [email protected]
www.ngin.org.uk

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CONTENTS
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*QUOTE OF THE MONTH
*SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
*OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
*BOOK OF THE MONTH: SEEDS OF DECEPTION
*EVENT OF THE MONTH
*THE MONTH'S TOP STORIES
*HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
*SUBSCRIPTIONS

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH
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"GM technology is not a silver bullet to solve the problems of hunger and malnutrition worldwide. The US which has adopted this technology has 14 million hungry people." Dr Shanthu Shantharam, Syngenta, formerly with the US Department of Agriculture.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1736

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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
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+ TANZANIAN PARLIAMENT BLOCKS GOVERNMENT ON GM SEEDS
The Tanzanian parliament has blocked plans by the government to allow GM seeds and crops to be imported, saying that they are not needed in the country and could damage its environment.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1735

+ INDIA: BIODIVERSITY WARNING / GM NOT FEEDING THE HUNGRY EVEN IN AMERICA
The chairman of the Indian government's expert panel on biotechnology, Dr MS Swaminathan, while inaugurating Gene Campaign's national symposium on the relevance of GM technology to Indian agriculture, said that trials and commercialisation of GM crops should be avoided in the centres of biodiversity as a precaution. At the symposium a former US Department of Agriculture regulator now with Syngenta, Dr Shanthu Shantharam, admitted, "GM technology is not a silver bullet to solve the problems of hunger and malnutrition worldwide. The US which has adopted this technology has 14 million hungry people."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1736

+ UK BISHOP URGES GM PROBE AND PLEADS WITH CHRISTIANS TO SAVE THE EARTH
The Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Rev James Jones, has called on Christians to save the environment. His new book, Jesus and the Earth, says that GM crops serve the rich rather than the poor and argues that the Earth and, in turn the human race, are in grave danger because of the violence that has been done to the planet.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1733

+ JAPAN: CITIZENS STOP GM RICE!
On November 28, more than 450 people from all over Japan gathered in Morioka city, Iwate, to participate in a gathering "No to GMO National Assembly in Iwate". At the Assembly more than 407,000 signatures were collated as part of a petition by people from all over Japan, demanding a stop to the GM rice research taking place in Iwate - the last place in Japan still conducting such experiments, following earlier opposition to GM rice.

After receiving the signatures, the Director of the Agriculture Department in Iwate, publicly stated Iwate would abandon research into GM rice. He also said Iwate will not conduct any further outdoor experiments involving GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1794

+ CANADA: SCHMEISER CANOLA CASE TESTS GM PATENT
The future of GM crops in North America is in the hands of 73-year-old Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser. Schmeiser already has lost two court cases dealing with his use of seed designed by Monsanto, but he and his supporters have made it to the Supreme Court of Canada with a new argument: Monsanto's patent is invalid.

The case, to be heard in January, will be binding only in Canada. But the outcome will have a ripple effect throughout North America, where Monsanto has sued more than 500 farmers for infringing on its GM seed patents. "Monsanto does not have a patent for the canola seed," said Nadege Adam of the Council of Canadians, a group with intervener status in the Schmeiser case. "It was given a patent for a gene trait.... In Canada, no one has ever been given a patent for either a plant or a seed, only genes."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1841

+ STARLINK STILL SHOWING UP IN CORN SUPPLY
Three years after a GM corn banned from human consumption turned up in taco shells and was pulled from the market, contaminated grain is still showing up in the nation's corn supply. A federal testing program found traces of the banished grain, StarLink, in more than 1 percent of samples submitted by growers and grain handlers in the past 12 months, government records show.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1796

+ STARLINK IN MEXICAN NATIVE MAIZE VARIETIES
Starlink GM maize is contaminating native Mexican maize varieties and some native varieties are contaminated with up to three different transgenes. This is particularly worrying because Mexico is the ancient source of genetic diversity for maize varieties. At least 302 organisations from 56 countries have signed an open letter of protest against GM contamination of Mexican maize, which can be read and signed at
http://www.etcgroup.org/action3.asp
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1796

+ THAILAND: MONSANTO'S PLANS MUST GO, NOT COMMON SENSE
An article in The Nation (Thailand) criticises plans by Monsanto to make Thailand a regional base for its GM Round-Up Ready corn and Bt corn by 2006. For this plan to be realized, the company insists that Thailand's ban on GMO crop field trials must be lifted by the end of the year.

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