| THE WEEKLY WATCH number 63 (13/3/2004) | |
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------------------------------------------------------- Dear all This was a week that should have been an excellent one for the biotech industry, thanks to a smoke-and-mirrors PR exercise in the UK which generated headlines around the world declaring that Britain had given the green light to GM crops and that British scientists said they were safe. This was based on a shedload of lies, spin and subterfuge, much of which is already starting to be exposed. Read below our exposes of the chief players. Fortunately, even after seven years of a ferociously pro-GM government in the UK, there are still a number of significant obstacles to GM crops ever being grown here commercially (HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - UK). As prize-winning journalist Geoffrey Lean commented, the "announcement changes little, and will do nothing to abate public hostility or slow the flow of damning evidence. It does not even ensure that a single GM crop will be grown in Britain. It is little more than spin designed to show that Tony Blair is never wrong and to appease the ferociously pro-GM President Bush. But it does present a danger by allowing the GM industry to tell the world, however falsely, that European resistance to the technology is cracking." Be in no doubt, this will only serve to fire UK and European resistance to new heights. Meanwhile, in America, things are starting to fall apart for the industry. Following on from Mendocino County, California's vote to ban the growing of all GMOs, senators in Vermont have now passed a Farmer Protection Bill that places the liability for contamination firmly with the industry (see GRASSROOTS VICTORY OF THE WEEK). And at the end of the week the GM story generating headlines is one the industry has been trying to kill for the last 3 years - the threat to Mexico's vast storehouse of native corn (maize) from GM contamination. Mexico made it illegal to grow GM corn as long ago as 1998 but contamination is widespread and a new report emphasises the threat to the survival of native varieties. (HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - GLOBAL). The new report follows on from a recent study showing more than two-thirds of conventional crops in the United States are now GM contaminated - dooming organic agriculture and threatening a severe future risk to health. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=498693 Finally, watch out for SICK JOKE OF THE WEEK. The US corporate establishment is so desperate to prop up its ailing biotech industry that it's just given Monsanto a prize. A prize for what, you may ask. For being the best multinational corporation in the world!!! Claire [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------ SICK JOKE OF THE WEEK ------------------------------------------------------------ + MONSANTO IS BEST IN THE WORLD Monsanto has been named "Best Multinational Company" in the International Business Awards competition. The company will receive a 2004 "Stevie" Award at a ceremony on March 22 in New York City. Specific reference is made by the award-givers to the company's Pledge to integrity, transparency and respect. Yet throughout the period of the Pledge the company's corporate communicators have been engaged in a relentless campaign of covert dirty tricks. Find out more about Monsanto's vicious PR tactics against its scientific and environmental critics: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=153 Forbes Magazine and forbes.com were both prominently represented on the panel that made this award so watch out for some Forbes white wash in the coming weeks. Forbes, it may be remembered, previously named the Monsanto-connected scientist, Florence Wambugu, as one of the world's key figures who were "reinventing the future". And it showcased her claims for the Wambugu/Monsanto GM sweet potato project in Kenya. This project has subsequently been exposed as a total dud, with Wambugu's claims proven both contrived and false. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2801 By a happy coincidence, the St Louis Business Journal (yes, Monsanto's home town business rag) has just reported that the U.S. govt. has launched a website promoting GM crops "such as those developed by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co., as part of a taxpayer-funded project to promote the crops worldwide". However, if anyone still doesn't fancy the products of the world's most wonderful multinational, then they'll probably get the treatment of Sudan where the US has cut off all humanitarian food supplies. They are doing this even though they have been warned by the United Nations that food stocks for relief operations will be exhausted by April/May. USAID states, "the potential humanitarian consequences of this pipeline break for the needy in Sudan cannot be over emphasized". ------------------------------------------------------- + VERMONT PASSES LAW TO MAKE GM FIRMS LIABLE FOR CONTAMINATION The vote came after 79 Vermont towns passed |
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