After The Pink Goat

Liberté, égalité, fraternité - not this time!

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:22:13 +0300

The vacation is over, even though for some of us, it never really started. Today, I want to write about the recent French madness, to deport Roma people (gypsies) from France back to their native Bulgaria and Romania.
This campaign is wrong on so many fronts, it is hard to believe it is actually happening. And yet it did!

But let's start with the news.

Commission closely following France's Roma expulsions

19 August 2010
The European Commission is following very closely France's dealings with its Roma, who the authorities are planning to expel in groups, Commission representatives said yesterday (18 August), after being asked by the Brussels press whether the expulsions were in line with EU legislation.

Journalists wanted to know the basis on which the expulsions of 700 people were being made, as EU legislation requires each case to be examined individually. A Commission spokesperson replied by saying that he would give such details later, as for the time being the EU executive was monitoring the situation.
Teodor Basconschi, Romania's foreign minister, voiced fears of mounting xenophobia in France over the Roma expulsions. source

Roma controversy rocks French cabinet

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, formerly a high-profile humanitarian activist, said he had considered resigning over the controversy sparked by the expulsions of Roma from France to their home countries, Bulgaria and Romania. Even Prime Minister François Fillon admitted he had "differences" with President Nicolas Sarkozy over his immigration policy. source

As I said, this is so outrageous, it's hard to believe it's happening. So, France decides to send home few thousands of European citizens, because they don't like their presence and everybody keeps quite? Isn't it amazing how Barroso didn't criticize France during his speech in the EP? I find it most worrying. Because I can understand why one country will make something so stupid, I cannot understand why the President of the EC will just try to ignore the problem and pretend this never happened.
Well, it did happen, Mr. Barroso! And we're all victims of your incompetence to be a good President of the EC. Because the President doesn't avoid problems, s/he looks for them and try to fix them before they got out of control. Because we're all losing from what happened in France.
Why? Oh, it's very simple, because the freedom of movement is one of the most fundamental aspects of the EU. Without it, we don't have the EU, we're back to the paranoia of wartime. We hear that all European citizens should obey the law. Ok, I have no problems with that. Were those people arrested, did they have charges against them, did they get a fair trail and did they receive justice? No, not at all. They were PAID to leave France and go back to their countries. And not only this, but France is considering closing the borders for Bulgaria and Romania because they cannot handle their citizens. I'm sorry, I got the impressions that now we're free to live anywhere we like, as long as we obey the laws of that country. The laws, not its xenophobic and racists moods. Because you cannot convince me this is not a racist move. You cannot convince me that if 1000 spanish people decided to camp in France or in Germany, the problem would be handled the same manner - by bribing the people to leave and involving the media and other countries in a propaganda against their own country . No mister, not at all!
The problem is not that those people are criminals - if they are, they must face justice, not to be sent home with a nice gift of 300 euros! I think any French person (or any nationality) will require their country to provide the justice they pay for with their taxes. So this is not the case, we're not talking about justice. We're talking about comfort. About xenophobic comfort, mixed with some even more xenophobic attitude towards the Eastern European neighbors.
I'm not Roma, I'm not a human right activist. I'm just a normal person. A decent European citizen. Yes, I'm Bulgarian and that makes me partial. So what? Someone has to be partial. Someone has to have opinion based on more than xenophobia. Someone has to face the real issue. And the real issue is very simple. Sarkozy is making his "peuple" happy, he's showing them he's the man and the poorest EU member states are supposed to keep quite and be ashamed. Well, I'm not ashamed. We have the right to be the poorest, just as some countries have the privilege to be the richest. I don't envy them, I'm not angry on them, although I'll sure like to be richer. But those people are the way they are. It's hard to integrate someone without education, with different tradition and understanding of life. It's even harder when the richest, mostly criminal gypsies are so well integrated with the local police bosses, that they invite them to the weddings of their under-age daughters, that they make gifts to each other and no one ever questions the fact that gypsy girls give birth on 12 or 13 - ages when having sex is criminal offense that requires investigation and arrests. No such things. Oddly enough, France didn't question the actions of Bulgarian politicians when the whole world heard about the 12 years old girl that got pregnant and gave birth without even knowing why and how she got pregnant! Not only this, but in the moment when someone tries to sue a Roma person, for something considered as tradition, all the human rights organisations will jump and say that's bad, that's discrimination against the minorities and so on. Yet, no one cares about those little girls that get to become women before they get in their puberty. No one cares! Gypsies are cheap votes, expensive cases against the often foreign government and of course, interesting news for the sympathetic European viewer. How nice. But when they are in your home country, you get very very angry and try to make them go away. Well, they are not going away, really. They will be back to France in no time. This problem cannot be solved like this. It requires politics, not force. You can't say you do it for the good of all the children in those camps - if you cared about their well-being, you'll send your social workers, you'll offer them a good life, a life that they cannot obtain in the ghettos back home! You'll offer them the chance to integrate, to be a decent European citizen, you won't send them home and make that problem someone else's problem. Bulgaria and Romania have so many immediate problems, it's hard to believe they'll just stop everything else and "integrate" all the gypsies. Why? Well, because they first have to integrate the majority of their population and then to try with the minorities. Because life right now is hard here. Small companies are going bankrupt, the government has no money to pay for almost anything, the situation goes worst and worst. I personally have no idea where all those money we had last year went, but this is not so important. The important thing is that all the Bulgarians have hard time right now, there are no money for anyone, it's very silly to believe that the least educated and willing to work will suddenly feel very happy here. Of course they will leave. They have nothing to make them stay here. Soon, there will be nothing to make any of us stay here.

So, obviously this expulsion stunt won't work, not in the long term anyway. The question is why France did that at all?
Especially if we remember how nationalist parties took so many votes in last European elections. Is it that hard to connect the dots? This could be the beginning of the end, is this what the EC wants? Is this why Barroso is so quite about this horrible act of discrimination? I sometimes wonder how stupid very smart people can actually be...I don't doubt the qualities of Barroso. But I doubt his dedication to Europe and his vision of the EU. I think that in the background of growing nationalism, it is very important to show sever response to such nationalist acts. It's not about the gypsies - they are not so much, they get money, they get free ticket home, they are fine. What they get is actually a free vacation for everyone. It's us who are not fine. Us who allow such acts, such attitude towards a minority. Do you notice how Western Europe doesn't have so many gypsies. Most of them are in Central and Eastern Europe. Do you ask yourself why? Well, I can tell you why, because of the Second World War. Because a lot of people went into those camps, and that weren't only Jews, contrary to the Hollywood versions. Bulgaria never sent those trains to the camps. And right now we're punished for saving lives? Right now the whole Europe abdicated from the obligation to try to make the life of those people better? True, they are Bulgarian and Romanian citizens. But also they are European citizens. And most of the strategies I hear of, those that our expensive MPs in the EP vote on and those that our Commissioners create, they require decreasing poverty in the Union. Well, what poverty do they intend to handle? Because those gypsies are not particularly rich, you know. It's so hypocritical to talk about reducing poverty and in the mean time to send home poor people who don't fit your landscape. Because they will continue to be poor here! And your 300 euro are not going to make them very rich and happy, even in poor Bulgaria. Not for more than few months.
So, dear European citizens, why don't you see where the problem is? The problem is that your problems are now our problem and vice versa. That's the idea of the EU - solidarity. Where's the solidarity in sending hundreds or thousands of gypsies home, without a court, without a verdict, just like that, because you don't want our poor people in your country. Thanks a lot, that's very nice of you. Next time you happen to want help, maybe your neighbors should tell you to go back to your country and stay there? This is never going to work!
What we can do is to show Europe and the world, that we think this is wrong and to find a better way to deal with the problem. Otherwise, we risk destabilizing our EU and losing it. Do you want to have to cross borders again? Do you want to have visas? To have to prove where you're going and WHY! Because that was the case in Bulgaria until 3 years ago. You may have forgotten, but I haven't. The EU is the best thing we have created, we have to keep it, we have to make it better. Otherwise, we're all going to suffer. And I think in that case, it's not that hard to do the right thing. France already showed us they can protest against their own government's stupidity. So can we! Let's show the world we don't simply put our problems in our dirty closets, but that we actively try and do solve them! This can be done. All it takes is a clear vision of what the European Union should be. The power is in our hands. Let's use it.

Blood cell phones, blood economy

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:16:28 +0300

Welcome to the 21st century. We used to fight for so many things, we abused so many places and people, that blood is no longer scary or sacred. We almost take it for granted that for our comfort, someone has to suffer. Like our pleasure wouldn't be complete, without someone's pain to give it substance. To make it real.
I might over-dramatize a little, but I'm not far from the truth. I wrote so many times about the outsourcing evil. The worst is that it never looks so evil when you listen to people talking about it. The idea is simple - you pay someone to do your work, you profit, the guy in Eastern Europe or Asia profits. Everyone is happy, the economy is flowing. Well, not exactly. Because in order for such economy to sustain its existence, it needs constant difference between the standards. Just like electric current, it cannot function in equal standards. Which in non-philosophical terms means someone has to suffer in order for someone else to be happy. It would be ok, if the very foundation of our economy didn't deny the possibility of freedom, fraternity and equality. Yes, that is supposed to be the slogan of French republic. But although I'm so damn mad on them, I'll leave that for my other blog. For this one, I'm more interested in the capitalism itself.
I'm not some mad socialists, it's not about that at all. It's not about what system is better and how to enforce it over the whole world. It's about what is bad on the long run and how we can change it.
And what we have now, even if it is the best we know, it's not the best we can figure. Because the system as it is, requires pain, it requires misery, it requires exploitation. What's bad in paying kids to do what you don't want to do? Even if you profit from them? Absolutely nothing. As long as the work they do is not harming their physical or mental health and they do it according to their own will, it's fine. But this is when we talk about the kids in the neighborhood. When it comes to international companies buying labor or resources from third world countries, it's never a question of health or mutual benefit. It's always question of abuse. Abuse by the company over the locals or the environment, abuse by the government that sells to that company, abuse by the people over themselves, because they have no other choice. Always abuse. But nobody questions that, as long as the prices are low and we can buy and buy. Like buying will satisfy our existence. Yes, this also is for another post.
This post is about the economy. About the world. About how it's going in a very wrong direction.
First, you can read the article I pasted here. It will give you a partial clue of my indignation (go to the source site and see the picture - it's so upsetting). But it's not only that. The main problem is that people are so obsessed by the free markets, that they forget that the markets are the secondary thing. The first thing is human will. It's human will that should be free. And the manifestation of that free will is free choice. It's free choice that the free market is trying to guarantee. Along with fighting trade wars, which hypothetically can decrease our freedom of choice.
But what we have now is not freedom of choice! Nobody actually cares about our choice - free or not. People are so obsessed in earning as much as they can using the tools that the free market and the capitalist economy gives them - namely exploiting the difference in standards, that nobody cares about consumer's choice anymore (and the consumers are kept happy by low prices).
And nobody sees that what we have now essentially is legalized version of slavery! Yes, now we pay those third world countries to work for us, we don't own them like we did with slaves, but then, don't we? When you need the difference in standards, you're automatically very interested in keeping that difference big. The natural desire of every person is to improve the quality of his/her life. It's hard imagine how this goes with the constant need of difference. True, the Earth is big, there is always someone that is going to be poorer than us. But we don't just use poverty, we also create it! Just like the blood diamonds, just like blood cell phones, just like Arabian world failing to get into the society of 21st century. Just like the whole world going secular and Turkey going more and more religious. Just like Wold Bank and IMF giving loans to everyone, just after those economy crashed with the JOLY HELP OF the American economy. For those of you who have forgotten, the last big crisis of the euro was after some very articles in US and UK papers of economist who were VERY pessimistic of the future of the euro. Even if the euro was just as fine as before and even if the debts of EU countries were hardly more than those in the last years. So, we do create poverty and that's clear.
The irony of the situation is that our crazy understanding of capitalism and free markets led to the rise of the biggest non-capitalist country ever - China. People somehow like to close their eyes to the rise of China, seeing in it more an economical miracle than a threat, but hey, that won't change the facts. The facts that USA never argues with China when they do something wrong, the fact that Europe also hardly argue with China - the latest rows about leaking patents of European companies that want to produce in China or on the ban of rare materials, were all more likely pleas than fights. China is big and very strong. And what's worst is that I don't see any strategy in Western world how to counter that power with something useful. I'm not speaking of military actions, what I mean is some kind of way to contain the Chinese expansion. I'm not a racist or something, but I believe in diversity. If China simply flood us all with their money and cheap labor, we're on our way to oblivion. And nobody wins from that - not even them in the long run. Nature needs diversity - it is simply the best strategy for survival of the species.
So where the hell is the response of Europe (or USA)? When they speak of China, they always refer to carbon leakage or how to free the heaviest emitters from CO2 limitations, so that they can stay here and pollute even more. And even though the WTO said it's ok to impose carbon tax on countries that do not join the carbon market (like China), we still don't hear about such taxes. Why? Well, I can tell you why - because they are afraid. Because the free markets work lovely in the direction of companies profiting the most, but they work very badly in the direction of protecting people's free choice (or health or life). Which happens to be their original purpose actually.
So back to the beginning - are we that used to buying stuff covered in blood? Because that still happens. When exactly are we going to find the strength and motivation to question the production lines of those companies? To question their outsourcing? To question our very economy? How far could an economy go if it's not interested in improving the life of each person in its chain? Because the Earth is dynamical system and very soon, we may be the one on the bottom of the chain. China gets richer, it's the second economy right now (behind USA), we're the one that gets poorer. How would you feel to work in a dirty factory, getting sick because nobody cares about your health, because the company bought the local authorities and they will never allow you to sue the factory for the bad conditions. How would you feel if your children mine rare and dangerous elements? How would you feel to be transported in ships and to be closed in some warehouse and to work 20 hours a day? So that some fat ladies on the other side of the ocean may buy your product just to throw it away next day?
Sounds like over-dramatizing? Not really! This is our economy, remember? Precisely that economy is always on the side of the happy consumer who should buy as much as possible. And when that consumer is too poor to buy, the economy starts using it like outsourcing material.
Think people, think! We're heading in a so wrong way. I'm not saying we should change everything. Some things are good, others - bad. Freedom is good, but freedom should be for everyone. Liberty, egality, fraternity - remember?! The economy must create best conditions for everyone, not just for some. It must be a win-win deal, otherwise it's always lose-lose!
We really have to take the good and to move on! Because if we don't move on intentionally, we cannot control the direction in which we're heading, we'll be just moving with the flow. And that flow is a dangerous place. It made many empires to perish, it made whole civilizations to perish. Do you really want to follow it?

'Blood Cell Phones' Fuel War, Crime and Human Rights Abuses

Analysis by Clark Boyd Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:20 PM ET

This month, my colleagues have been giving you a glimpse of what the end of the life cycle often looks like for electronic equipment like cell phones, mp3 players, and old hard drives and monitors. It can make for grim reading. There are e-waste recyclers who don't actually recycle, and there's the fact that much of this stuff ends up in the developing world, where people often risk their health (and their lives) in pursuit of a few pennies' worth of material to sell.Well, I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell you about the beginning of the electronics life cycle, which, quite frankly, can be just as grim. The picture above was taken at the Bisle mine in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. This man is mining cassiterite, an ore that's used to make tin. Tin is used to solder circuit boards. You can imagine how many circuit boards get soldered each year.
Watchdog groups such as Global Witness say that the demand for cassiterite and other so-called "conflict minerals," is fueling war, crime, and human rights abuses in this part of the world. Just like we have "blood diamonds," people are now talking about "blood cell phones."
So, who you gonna call in to address the problem? Why, the U.S. Congress of course. A provision in the recently passed (and signed) legislation on financial reform calls on tech companies to disclose when the minerals used to create their products come from Congo or neighboring countries.
For activist groups and concerned consumers, it's a start. Mike Davis of Global Witness recently did an interview with The World, that scrutiny and transparency "can go a long way to address the problem" of conflict minerals, but that scrutiny and transparency "need to be backed up by enforcement." source

GMO and pesticides, 08.2010

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:36:56 +0300

A log delayed post, but I think you'll appreciate it. I gathered quite a collection of articles about GMO crops. Even if I might have some problems with Google, still I preferred to paste them here, before they disappeared. I hope you find them just as enlightening as I do.
links:
Naked Capitalism-India Defies Monsanto, Says No to GMO Crops - amazing post
Urgent: USDA to rule on mutant alfalfa - a petition against approving of GMO alfalfa
Common weedkiller turns male frogs into females - imagine what it does on humans
E.U. Clears Biotech Potato for Cultivation -
GM potato to be grown in Europe - comments
Articles:

Debate over GM eggplant consumes India

Dairy producers lose productivity going organic, but can save on feed

Monsanto Pulls GM Corn Amid Serious Food Safety Concerns

Is Genetically Modified Corn Toxic?

'Genetically modified crops benefit farmers'

Research links pesticides with ADHD in children

Evidence of First Virus That Infects Both Plants and Humans

Scientists uncover transfer of genetic material between blood-sucking insect and mammals

EU governments seen opposing GM crop proposals

Debate over GM eggplant consumes India

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The purple eggplant that Indian shopper Tanuja Krishnan picks out at a Mumbai market stall every week is an unlikely protagonist in a raging debate about whether genetically modified foods should be introduced into India.

A genetically modified version of eggplant, a staple in fiery curries, was slated to be the first GM food introduced into India in a bid to stabilize food prices and mitigate some of the effects of climate change on Indian food crop yields.
Yet, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh blocked the release of the vegetable until further notice following an outcry by environmentalists and some farmers. The opposition to GM foods was so heated that some protesters burned effigies.
Ramesh said there was not enough public trust to support the introduction of such crops into India's food supply until more research was done to remove all doubts that GM foods were safe for consumption.
But while those from the camp that opposed GM foods are celebrating, there are concerns that rising food prices will be a major problem for Indian policymakers in the future unless the country starts embracing genetically-modified food crops.
India's farm sector has changed very little since the advent of the Green Revolution with crop yields failing to keep up with soaring population growth and rising incomes.At the same time, damage to crops from pests and disease have worsened due to rising temperatures from climate change.
Known as Bt brinjal, the Indian word for aubergine, the GM vegetable is able to resist some pests responsible for devastating crops across India thanks to a gene from soil bacteria called 'bacillus thuringniensis' (Bt).
The moratorium against the release of the GM eggplant followed harsh criticism by environmentalists and farmers who demanded rigorous testing and labeling standards before Bt brinjal was cultivated.India's Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) opened the way for the commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal last October, seven years after approving Bt cotton, which is now grown on more than 80 percent of total cotton area.Thanks to genetically modified cotton, India has become the world's second largest cotton producer and exporter after China, with about 5 million farmers growing Bt cotton.
India is the world's second largest producer of eggplant after China and the vegetable is also used in traditional medicine to treat diabetes and hypertension.About 1.4 million farmers grow eggplant, which is very susceptible to pest attacks. Farmers tend to spray the crop with pesticides 30-50 times during a crop cycle.
Even though the GM seeds for the vegetable would likely cost three times the price and farmers would need to purchase seeds for every sowing rather than reusing crop seeds, proponents say the extra expenses would be compensated by lower pesticide costs and less devastating crop loses."You have a large population that's growing in affluence, but our resources -- land, water, cheap labor -- are all shrinking, so we have to increase output quickly and efficiently," said Gyanendra Shukla, director of Monsanto India Ltd.
"I don't see any other option but GM crops."
Since Monsanto launched the world's first GM crop in 1996, more than 25 countries have taken to biotech crops including soybean, corn, tomato, squash, papaya and sugarbeet.
Bt brinjal was developed by Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co (Mahyco) under license from Monsanto, and estimates show economic benefits from higher yields could top $400 million a year.
GEAC has also approved studies of GM okra, tomato and rice, but opponents say GM should be a last resort.
Aside from health and safety concerns, critics worry that the widespread use of GM crops will put India's food supply largely in the hands of a few giant corporations that make the seeds.There is also the possibility of genetic contamination if the Bt genes cross pollinate with other varieties.
A recent report by U.S. health and environment protection groups said that rather than reduce the use of pesticides, genetically engineered crops had actually prompted increased use of these chemicals, caused an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and resulted in more chemical residues in foods.
sourceMy comment: ( More) Amazing article. Especially if you combine it with the recent articles about GM canola in USA which escaped in the wild and two different strands started to breed together and exchange genes. Also, it gives new perspective to the idea of Roundup resistant weeds - people started actually plowing their fields! So I find it hard to buy Monsanto's version about this eggplant. The yields fall not so much because of the lack of pesticides, but because of changing climate conditions and probably bad technology. Even if the GM version can handle the new conditions better, it's still very questionable if it will increase the net profit of farmers, because they'll have to buy seeds and special pesticides. Not to mention the safety side (they are among the largest producer so if you compromise the safety of the plants, it can become very ugly!) and also the environment risk - the more GM plants around, the bigger chance of interbreeding and gene-exchanges leading to super-resistant weeds! And also the comparison with cotton has no place - people don't eat cotton as far as I know!

Dairy producers lose productivity going organic, but can save on feed

February 2, 2010 by Brian Wallheimer

(PhysOrg.com) -- While dairy producers can expect less milk when switching from conventional to organic production, they may be able to cut some costs on expensive feed, according to Purdue University studies.
Using U.S. Department of Agriculture data that includes information specific to organic dairy producers, a team led by Joseph Balagtas, an assistant professor of agricultural economics, found that organic dairy producers produce about 13 percent less milk compared to peers using conventional production methods. He said that knowledge is critical for dairy producers who might be interested in going organic.

Dairy producers must meet stringent protocols to be certified organic. Cows cannot receive antibiotics or hormones, feed must be certified organic and herds must have access to certified organic pastures.
In another study published in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, Balagtas' team found that those organic producers could cut as much as 22 percent of production costs if they grow their own feed, though the same isn't true for conventional producers.
Organic dairy producers cannot use feedstock that has been grown with pesticides and other chemicals, making it more expensive. And since there are fewer organic growers than conventional, sourcing organic feed typically means increased transportation costs for dairy producers.
"If you're located in a climate that permits it, you can reduce costs by growing your own organic feed," Balagtas said. "Establishing organic crop production is costly, but this research says that over time you would pay off that investment."
Balagtas said comparisons were based on producers of a similar size in the same region using similar technology and management practices. source
My comment: I find this article quite interesting mostly because it shows that going organic is not as dramatic as people suggest. And also, just not what kind of stuff are usually found in your milk - antibiotics, growth hormones and so on. Nasty, huh?

Monsanto Pulls GM Corn Amid Serious Food Safety Concerns

by Dr. Brian John February 10, 2010

For the first time, a GM multinational has pulled two GM corn varieties from the regulatory and assessment process at the eleventh hour (1), after planning for a future income of several billion dollars per year from global sales (2).
Monsanto has abandoned its ambitious plans for a so-called “second generation GM crop” rather than accede to a request from European regulators for additional research and safety data (3).
Under conditions of great secrecy, Monsanto has informed EFSA that it no longer wishes to pursue its application for approval of GM maize LY038 and the stacked variety LY038 x MON810. Both of these varieties were designed to accelerate the growth rate of animals. Two letters were sent to EFSA from the Monsanto subsidiary company Renessen at the end of April this year confirming the withdrawal of its applications originally submitted in 2005 and 2006. The letters cite “decreased commercial value worldwide” and state that the high-lysene varieties “will no longer be a part of the Renessen business strategy in the near future.” (4) There has been no announcement of these decisions on the Monsanto web site, and there are no mentions on EFSA or European Commission web sites either. In other words, there is a conspiracy of silence involving both the applicants and the regulators.
The two letters sent to EFSA in April requested the return of all dossier material (varietal characterization, experimental protocols, and test results) which was submitted with the applications for cultivation, animal feed and human food (4). EFSA acceded to this request, making it impossible for any future independent researchers to analyse the Monsanto / Renessen data. That in itself is profoundly disturbing.
Scientists who have followed these two applications are quite convinced that the “decisions to withdraw” have nothing to do with commercial considerations and everything to do with food safety. In other words, the varieties are too dangerous to be allowed onto the open market — although they would certainly have been approved by EFSA and most other European regulatory authorities had it not been for the diligence of independent scientists in New Zealand who subjected the application dossiers to very close scrutiny (5). In the absence of such scrutiny in the United States, the varieties were approved in 2005 for cultivation, animal feed and human food use on the other side of the Atlantic (6). Consents for food and feed use were also given in Japan, Canada, the Philippines, and South Korea. In 2007 Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) approved LY038 for food and feed use in spite of strenuous objections from the Green Party and scientists at Canterbury University’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI) who warned that the new corn was not safe for humans when cooked (7). They also expressed concerns about unpredictable health effects, increased levels of toxins in high-lysene corn, and possible allergies and links to cancer.
It does not appear that the varieties have been grown or “commercialized” anywhere in the world (8), although test plantings probably occurred in the United States.
While INBI’s detailed and devastating analysis of the applicant’s supporting dossiers was dismissed out of hand by FSANZ, EFSA was forced to take it seriously because of concerns from a large number of European countries including Finland and Malta. The scientific bases of those concerns were highlighted by Jeffrey Smith in his book “Genetic Roulette” and by Prof Jack Heinemann in his book “Hope not Hype” (9). The Monsanto dossiers included rigged research and false assumptions in the reported experiments; a failure to offer any test results based on cooked or processed corn; a failure to test the whole GM plant in feeding trials; confusing and contradictory characterizations of the GM varieties and proteins; a fraudulent mixing of GM strains during trials; a pooling of crop data so as to mask undesirable effects in experiments; feeding trials too short to reveal true physiological changes in animal tissues; and the choice of an irrelevant, unrelated corn variety as the control group for comparison with the GM lines, with the clear intention of hiding potentially serious differences in composition or side effects on animals(10). The Codex guidelines for the testing of GM crops were thus comprehensively broken by Monsanto’s subsidiary Renessen, and were not enforced by the regulators in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (11). All in all, this amounted to blatant scientific fraud by the applicants, and a cynical failure to enforce the rules, and to protect the public, by the regulators.
During the assessments of these two varieties in Europe, many countries used the INBI peer review of the applicant’s dossiers to underpin their concerns, and these widely-expressed concerns forced EFSA to ask the applicants for additional studies and for a clarification of their experimental data (12). EFSA also asked — for the first time — for adherence to the Codex rules relating to GM and comparator studies. In the knowledge that their dossiers were now being subjected to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, Monsanto / Renessen simply decided that they would not cooperate in this process for fear of what might emerge. So they wrote to EFSA in April (4) to indicate that they were abandoning all plans for the cultivation and commercialization of the two GM crops.
Commenting for GM-Free Cymru, Dr Brian John said: ”This is the first time, to our knowledge, that EFSA has sought to enforce the Codex rules relating to the use of isolines in the testing of GM crops, and the first time that it has expressed profound dissatisfaction about the content of an applicant’s dossiers. It is also the first time that a GM multinational has withdrawn a GM product (or two products) at the eleventh hour. It was insane in the first place to seek to pass GM maize crops containing Bt toxins and “growth enhancers” straight into the human food chain (13). In addition, EFSA and the other regulators have been quite irresponsible in the past in assuming that “stacked” events, hybridized from two GM lines, are harmless if the applicant says so, and if the separate lines have been independently approved. That is simply bad science, since it fails to address the likelihood of synergistic effects and even accumulating toxins in the food chain (14).
“Nonetheless, we applaud the fact that EFSA has asked Monsanto some hard questions in this case, having in the past demonstrated, over and again, that its GMO Panel is simply unfit for purpose (15). This represents progress.
Dr Brian JohnGM-Free Cymru
Tel: 01239-820470
source
My comment: Reprinted here, just in case it manages to disappear from the original page. But simply stunning! What I want to know is why if there is a Codex regarding GM crops, EFSA never applied it?! That's more than suspicious. I do agree we're looking at conspiracy, the question is why this was not on the news, why nobody cared, there was no press release. And most of all, why EFSA agreed to return back all the documents, when most European institutions inform you in advance that your documents will be held after the submission for all sort of purposes. Obviously that doesn't apply to the big guys. I can only be happy that at least this two GM misunderstanding of a plants were spared to European consumer. But then how would we know if we eat them in imported food? Who knows.

Is Genetically Modified Corn Toxic?

A new analysis of data released by Monsanto pried from Monsanto's lawyers' cold dead hands by a tag-team of legal experts at Greenpeace and other groups suggests there may be something to the idea that we shouldn't be eating maize that's had its DNA messed with.

The study found that three strains of modded crops -- MON 810 and MON 863, which are resistant to pests, and NK 603, which is foritified to withstand weed killer -- significantly disrupted the blood chemistry of rats who ate them. According to an article in New Scientist:

With each of the three strains of maize, researchers say they found unusual concentrations of hormones and other compounds in the blood and urine of the tested rats, suggesting each strain impaired kidney and liver function. By the end of the trials, the female rats that were fed MON 863 had elevated blood-sugar levels and raised concentrations of fatty substances called triglycerides. Both are potential precursors of diabetes, according to [lead author Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen in France].

"What we've shown is clearly not proof of toxicity, but signs of toxicity," says Seralini. "I'm sure there's no acute toxicity, but who's to say there are no chronic effects?"

The researchers are suggesting that if the GM corn has the same affect in humans that is does in rats, we're unknowingly taxing our kidneys and livers, and probably raising the risk of damaging those organs.

But as is often the case in these type of reports, the conclusions aren't terribly convincing. For one, the effects are barely statistically significant, and the article goes on to say that independent toxicologists who saw the paper said Seralini was reading too much into the results. source
My comment: Ok, this is hardly news, this was the first thing I read in the very few scientific researches on GM toxicity. Which by the way is strange, scientists usually like to study new things in great details but on GM crops, this is not the case. There are really FEW official peer-reviewed articles on GMOs. At least this was what a person I know found when doing his little research. But if we leave this aside, what that study discovered was hormonal changes and increase immune response in the test mice. And that oddly enough, the study wasn't continued generations ahead to see what will happen. So, I really believe that GM crops do pose a health risk. Even if it's barely statistical, still, 0.1% in 1 000 000 (million) people are 100 people. Who has the right to destroy the health of those people? And I believe the percentage is higher. And also, we're speaking not of millions, but of billions and 0.1%*1billion makes 1 million!!! Again, no news on this in official media. Interesting, huh?

'Genetically modified crops benefit farmers'

REUTERS, Apr 15, 2010, 01.09am IST
WASHINGTON: Genetically engineered crops are profitable for farmers and may help protect people and the environment from an overload of pesticides, a panel of experts has reported.

But there is a risk that weeds are developing resistance to Roundup, a weedkiller that is used to treat fields planted with certain genetically modified crops, the researchers said on Tuesday. And genetic engineering is not being exploited enough, given its potential benefits, the National Research Council panel concluded.

"We do see good, hard evidence that weed resistance is growing to glyphosate. That needs serious attention," said David Ervin of Portland State University in Oregon, who chaired the panel.

Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Monsanto's widely used Roundup herbicide. The weedkiller is considered safer for people than other pesticides. That means farmers can use more Roundup without fear of damaging their crops. But the practice may have allowed weeds to develop their own natural resistance, the committee found.

Nine weed species in the United States have developed resistance to glyphosate since the introduction of genetically engineered crops, compared with seven in areas where genetically modified crops are not used, the report found. But in general the use of gene-engineered crops is beneficial, the experts found.

Using crops engineered to resist pesticides allows farmers to rely less on tilling the soil, a practice that can reduce soil quality and worsen erosion, the report found. source
My comment: Yeah, weeds develop resistance but in general GM crops are safe! Idiots!!!

Research links pesticides with ADHD in children

May 17, 2010 By CARLA K. JOHNSON , AP Medical Writer

(AP) -- A new analysis of U.S. health data links children's attention-deficit disorder with exposure to common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables.

While the study couldn't prove that pesticides used in agriculture contribute to childhood learning problems, experts said the research is persuasive.
Children may be especially prone to the health risks of pesticides because they're still growing and they may consume more pesticide residue than adults relative to their body weight.
In the body, pesticides break down into compounds that can be measured in urine. Almost universally, the study found detectable levels: The compounds turned up in the urine of 94 percent of the children.
The kids with higher levels had increased chances of having ADHD, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a common problem that causes students to have trouble in school. The findings were published Monday in Pediatrics.
She said people can limit their exposure by eating organic produce. Frozen blueberries, strawberries and celery had more pesticide residue than other foods in one government report.source My comment: No comment really. I just see growing evidences for the effect of some common chemicals on human health, more specifically in producing serious diseases. Hopefully, the moral is clear for everyone.

Evidence of First Virus That Infects Both Plants and Humans

My comment: Why this is important? Because if a virus can infect both humans and plants, and we introduce new genes in plants by viruses, just imagine what could happen one day.

Scientists uncover transfer of genetic material between blood-sucking insect and mammals -

My comment: Just like in the previous article. Our planet and all the living creatures on it are connected. If we mess with one thing, we're likely to mess with everyone. And this is precisely why we want to be VERY careful about what we do in terms of genes. Otherwise, we may get some very unpleasant surprises.

And finally:
EU governments seen opposing GM crop proposals - European Union governments have signalled their strong opposition to proposals allowing member states to decide whether to grow or ban genetically modified (GM) crops, a Belgian EU Presidency source said on Thursday (29 July).
My comment: Why do you think they oppose it? Not because a country may decide they want to or not want to grow GMOs! They fear sanctions of WTO if they decide against it!!! They fear the integrity of the open market! I just want to throw up. Sometimes I'm amazed by people's stupidity. Because most countries actually posed bans on GMOs, so they are against current European regulations. And yet they don't want the new one, which legalize what they do anyway. It's absurd, but yet - true!

Internet privacy gets less and less private, 08.2010

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:31:00 +0300

Internet is the biggest social achievement of the last 2 decades (one of them anyway), so I think it's important to keep a very close eye on what's going on with it. Today I pasted some (very-shortened) scraps from news mostly concerning new legislations in the area. As I see it, governments are desperately trying to find the right terms to deal with the issue. From one side, everyone want to have a piece of the pie and profit the most out of the authority. From the other side, however, are all the consumer's organisations who are very very careful not to take away the privacy of people. On the bottom are of course the people, who mostly don't care. Which is wrong. First because one never knows when someone will want to see the criminal in him/her. And second, because those people trade with our information, with our personalities. Isn't it fair that we get a share of their profit? Yet, we don't. Well, that cannot continue. My personality is mine. But back on "criminals":

Note how Obama's administration wants to expand FBI's access to information. The most interesting thing I find in this article is that FBI already have that access, they merely try to legalize it! The article says like 3 times that they regularly require such information from Internet companies which comply and give them the PRIVATE information without a court warrant! I find that news most disturbing. No agency should have access to private data without a very good reason for that. And only the court can decide what is a good reason and what not! Otherwise, there is a great possibility for abuse! But obviously, privacy isn't very private these days.

You also will see the news how 70 000 blogs disappear because of FBI intervention. Yes, they claim they didn't require the server to go down. But if it did go down, it probably had a very reason for it. And I doubt that all those thousands of blogs were terrorist-linked. Unless we're talking about literature-terror.

Also a very interesting development can be seen in the piracy field. First, agencies in France and UK that were created to warn pirates and to cut their traffic are absolutely useless. Which everyone knew right from the beginning. There is no way to point to a person in this business, even if they had the money to track each and every computer user and to monitor the files s/he downloads. Not to mention that piracy shouldn't be a criminal act at all (which for example happens in Bulgaria where SWAT guys came in the apartment of our friend, because he's son downloaded stuff from Internet) .

Yes, the fear from fines and criminalizing would stop piracy for a while, but people, especially pirates are very inventive, they'll find a way to make the system crazy in no time. So it's remarkable that the agencies understood the world is different from 15 years ago and that it constantly changes. For example, I don't mind paying little (LITTLE) additional sum to enable myself to download whatever multimedia I like. As long as the price is reasonable. But on the other side, why should I pay that if I know that the money won't go to authors, but to producers? Anyway, it's very positive that the industry finally is starting to get the picture. In the article, it said that to monitor the piracy of 100 games it will cost $400 000. That give a very clear idea of why this is impossible. So it's hight time they find another way of monetizing their work. Just as we all constantly do.
Finally, the battle over BlackBerry in India. The last news says that after RIM, it's time for Google and Yahoo to open their codes and encryptions. So here's what I wrote as a comment: "Even if they got to spy on every possible communication, they cannot physically interpret all the information! That's impossible. If you need someone to listen to every conversation, you'll need just as much people working for you as there are calls/mails.
Not to mention the supercomputer option - even if it's able to alert you when someone uses a "dangerous word" - why would terrorists use such words in the first place if they know all the calls/emails are spied at? It doesn't make sense at all.
It's so simple to avoid those systems, I don't see how they could eventually help to stop terrorism. Maybe only the least organized one. Which is hardly enough to justify the compromised privacy.

The only reason why governments might want such information is espionage (national/international/corporative/political). And I don't see why companies should feel sympathetic to their needs. Or why we should feel sympathetic at all.

Note how nowhere in those news the word court order is mentioned. In normal countries the authorities shouldn't be allowed to spy on your emails/calls/mail unless they get a COURT ORDER. Whatever counts as normal these days.
Such lack of responsibility by people in power can lead only to abuse!"

Enjoy!

Today:

F.C.C. Proposes Rules on Internet Access

Consumer Groups Say Proposed Privacy Bill Is Flawed

Europe’s Public Broadcasters Ask Lawmakers to Make It Easier to Offer Programs Online

France’s Three-Strikes Law for Internet Piracy Hasn’t Brought Any Penalties

70,000 Blogs Shut Down After FBI Finds Terrorist Materials

White House Seeks to Clarify F.B.I. Powers vis-à-vis E-Mail

India Sets Sights On Google, Skype After BlackBerry

F.C.C. Proposes Rules on Internet Access

By EDWARD WYATT Published: May 6, 2010

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission outlined a plan on Thursday that would allow the agency to control the transmission component of high-speed Internet, but not rates or content.

In announcing the F.C.C. decision, Julius Genachowski, the commission’s chairman, said the agency would begin a process to reclassify broadband transmission service as a telecommunications service, subjecting the Internet to some of the same oversight as telephone services.
But, he said, the commission would also exempt broadband service from many of the rules affecting telephone service, seeking mainly to guarantee that Internet service providers could not discriminate against certain applications, Internet sites or users.
The approach would specifically forbid the commission from regulating rates charged by telephone and cable companies for Internet service and would not allow the commission to regulate Internet content, services, applications or electronic commerce sites.source

Consumer Groups Say Proposed Privacy Bill Is Flawed

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD Published: May 4, 2010

A LONG-AWAITED draft of a Congressional bill would extend privacy protections both on the Internet and off line, but privacy advocates said the bill did not go far enough in protecting consumers.
The draft legislation was released Tuesday by Representatives Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, and Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida.

The proposed bill would expand what information should be considered confidential. It would require companies to post clear and understandable privacy notices when they collected information. Such information could range from health or financial data to any unique identifier, including a customer identification number, a user’s race or sexual orientation, the user’s precise location or any preference profile the user has filled out. It could also include an Internet Protocol address, the numerical address assigned to each computer connecting to the Internet that many companies use now to aim particular messages at users, which the companies argue is not personally identifiable. Essentially, companies would need to alert consumers whenever any information the companies are collecting can identify a single person or a single computer or device.
“This bill, were it to pass, would get us closer to the more stringent privacy regimes that we see in other countries,” Ms. Sotto said.
The online and off-line privacy notices would have to include a description of the information being collected, why the company was collecting that information, how that information might be linked or combined with other data about the individual or computer, and why the company would disclose that information and to what types of other companies, among other requirements.
There was an exemption from the disclosure requirements for what was called “operational” (defined as “a purpose reasonably necessary for the operation” of the company) or “transactional” (defined as “a purpose necessary for effecting, administering or enforcing” a transaction between company and customer). Those exceptions were “troubling,” said Peter Eckersley, senior staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of these groups. Privacy advocates said they were disappointed that this approach relied on a privacy policy, which few site visitors actually read. source

Europe’s Public Broadcasters Ask Lawmakers to Make It Easier to Offer Programs Online

By ERIC PFANNERPublished: March 16, 2010

PARIS — The European Broadcasting Union, which represents public television and radio providers, said its proposals were intended to push cross-border online video services, which have been slow to develop in Europe.
The group plans to present the proposals to the European Commission and the European Parliament on Wednesday.
The broadcasters want to streamline a copyright system that requires them to obtain separate agreements from actors, directors, musicians and others if they want to use programs on the Internet. Under the proposal, rights deals would cover digital use, much as they already do for cable and satellite broadcasting. source

F.C.C. Allows Movie Studios to Block Copying of New Video-on-Demand Releases

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

LOS ANGELES — In a significant victory for the major movie studios, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday approved a request to allow companies that sell movies via video-on-demand services to activate signals that would block the copying or other re-use in home entertainment systems of recent releases.
But to prevent the studios from blocking the copying of all films, the commission restricted its use to either a 90-day period from the first activation of the blocking technology for any film, or until the movie’s release in a prerecorded format like DVD or Blu-Ray, which ever comes first. The bureau also said it planned a detailed review of the technology’s impact, and required companies that use the technology to provide a report on its effect in its first two years. source

France’s Three-Strikes Law for Internet Piracy Hasn’t Brought Any Penalties

By ERIC PFANNER Published: July 18, 2010

PARIS — Nearly three years ago President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed what was to have been the world’s toughest crackdown on illegal file-sharing. After two years of political, judicial and regulatory setbacks, the legislation was approved last September, authorizing the suspension of Internet access to pirates who ignored two warnings to quit. Early this year, the government set up an agency to implement the law.
Since then, not a single warning has been sent out; not a single broadband connection has been cut. (...) The first warnings would be sent out “before long,” she added.
But she did not give a date, and news reports have shown growing unease about the legislation. Even some lawmakers in Mr. Sarkozy’s party have expressed doubts.
Jean-Claude Larue, the head of a trade group representing video game publishers, questioned the cost of tracking pirated works, after officials of the new agency said they planned to pursue only the most prolific pirates, rather than all violators.
As consumer preferences and technology change, some people in the music industry are proposing new ways to deal with piracy. For example, PRS for Music, a royalty collection agency in Britain, proposed a levy on Internet service providers, based on the amount of pirated music that passes through their networks. The British government also recently approved legislation for a three-strikes approach. But, as in France, the measure has yet to be implemented.
The French government seems unlikely to scrap the system, given the amount of political energy that has been expended. Some rights holders are keeping the faith.
source

70,000 Blogs Shut Down After FBI Finds Terrorist Materials

Apparently it Wasn't the FBI's Call to Shut Down All Those Blogs
Monday, July 19, 2010

By Chris Crum

Something strange is going on. As CNET's Greg Sandoval reports, Blogetery.com and Ipbfree.com, blog/forum platforms that hosted massive amounts of user-generated content, have been shut down by unnamed law enforcement agencies for unnamed reasons. Blogetery is said to have hosted over 70,000 blogs.
Update: CNET now reports that the FBI sent Burst.net (which hosted the Blogetery service) a Voluntary Emergency Disclosure of Information request, but never requested Burst's server (the shutting down of which resulted in the termination of Blogetery). source

White House Seeks to Clarify F.B.I. Powers vis-à-vis E-Mail

By CHARLIE SAVAGE, Published: July 29, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has asked Congress to give clear authority to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain records related to the context of e-mails and other Internet-based communications without first obtaining a warrant from a judge.
Some advocates of electronic privacy have raised alarms about the proposal, saying it could expand government eavesdropping on computer activity without court oversight.
The administration portrays its proposal, first reported by The Washington Post, as a mere technical fix to clarify a confusingly written statute and says it would not grant the F.B.I. any new powers. It says that F.B.I. agents have been requesting such information for years and that most Internet service providers routinely provide it.
Specifically, administration officials have asked Congress to include a provision in the 2011 intelligence authorization bill modifying the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which forbids companies that handle electronic communications — including Internet service providers and Web-based companies like Google — to reveal customer information without a court warrant. The act makes exceptions for information relevant to national-security investigations, when speed can be essential. For example, it allows F.B.I. agents to issue a “national-security letter” requiring a company to turn over records listing the phone numbers someone has called, although a warrant is still required to eavesdrop on the content of calls.
The proposal would add “electronic communication transactional records” — like e-mail addresses used in correspondence and Web pages visited — to a list of the categories of information that F.B.I. agents can demand.
source

India Sets Sights On Google, Skype After BlackBerry

Message encryption dispute may widen

Friday, August 13, 2010

It turns out that India's government intends to target Google (and Skype) once it's finished trying to gain access to messages sent courtesy of RIM.
source

GMO progress in Europe, 08.2010

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:56:30 +0300

The biggest danger of GMO crops is their escape to the wild. And this is happening right now. Check the first article. Two types of GM canola have escaped and the MATED producing plants with both genes! Monsanto is of course playing down the problem, but it's HUGE. And I hope our so-called leaders finally start grasping it. Once it's in the wild, it's very hard to control it, because it will do anything to survive. So it will be either very expensive or very hard to control the population and to bring it back on the fields. This is precisely why GMOs should be very carefully cultivated if at all - in a controlled environment, making very sure that the risks are worth the outcome. So far I don't see any crop for which the profits are worthy the trouble - the only reason why farmers prefer the GM seeds is because their price is artificially kept lower than the organic seeds. And of course, because nobody tells them what exactly means growing those seeds in terms of money and herbicides. Oh well.
The other articles are older and they are about the great European will to get involved in the dirty GMO business. My comments are after the articles.
Enjoy! (if you can, if not, try a way to stop those idiots)

Today:

Canola, Pushed by Genetics, Moves Into Uncharted Territories

Paper reveals EU plan to boost GM crop cultivation

Commissioner slams green 'scaremongers' in GM debate

MEPs restate opposition to food derived from cloned animals

EU wants to put GMO dispute to an end

Canola, Pushed by Genetics, Moves Into Uncharted Territories

By ANDREW POLLACK
August 9, 2010
Genetically engineered versions of the canola plant are flourishing in the form of roadside weeds in North Dakota, scientists say, in one of the first instances of a genetically modified crop establishing itself in the wild.
Critics of biotech crops have long warned that it is hard to keep genes — in this case, genes conferring resistance to common herbicides — from spreading with unwanted consequences.
Canola, whose seeds are pressed to make the popular cooking oil, is a type of oilseed rape developed by breeders in Canada. In the United States, it is grown mainly in North Dakota and Minnesota, though cultivation is spreading. In the plains of Canada, where canola is widely grown, roadside biotech plants resistant to the herbicide Roundup have become a problem, said Alexis Knispel. Some farmers, she said, have had to return to plowing their fields to control weeds — a practice that contributes to soil erosion — because they can no longer use Roundup to control the stray canola plants.

Monsanto, the developer of Roundup Ready canola, one of the modified plants, said the new findings were neither surprising nor worrisome. Even before biotech crops were developed, canola grew on roadsides, it said; now that 90 percent of the canola planted by farmers is engineered, it would be reasonable to expect a similar percentage in roadside samples.
For the North Dakota study,
Of the 604 plants collected, 80 percent were genetically engineered, Dr. Sagers said. Some were Roundup Ready, with a gene conferring resistance to Roundup, also known as glyphosate. Others were Liberty Link crops, with a gene conferring resistance to glufosinate.
Two plants were found to have genes conferring resistance to both herbicides, suggesting that the crops resistant to each herbicide had mated.
The biotech canola has also been found growing in Japan, which does not even grow the crop, only imports it. source
My comment: More "Transgenic Canola Plants Break Free of Farm". Note the Monsanto comment - they say it's normal to have GM canola on the roads. Yeah, sure, that's normal, why not. Then, that canola will go to someone else's fields and the nice guys of Monsanto will come asking for money. And note - they don't care at all about keeping the GMO crops contained. Not to mention that it's not normal two GM crops to mate and to give plants with doubled resistance. Because in the end, destroying those plants will get harder and harder. Not to mention what will happen if they give their nice genes to some of the weeds. The herbicides used to kill the weeds will become USELESS! Is this the point? I suppose not. I think this article is VERY IMPORTANT, because it shows us that GM crops are not something harmless. They do escape in the wild and when they do it, they cross with other plants to create something different! It's hard to even think about all the possible outputs that can happen. And this is not counting for mutations, which also do happen. So dear European leaders, please, please, do your homework and stop blindly following USA. You have a responsibility to your citizens, not to US corporations. Please do the job you were chosen for.

Paper reveals EU plan to boost GM crop cultivation

04 May 2010

Europe faces a major overhaul of the way it deals with genetically modified (GM) crops, after the European Commission sparked controversy with new plans to circumvent its cumbersome legislative review process.

The EU executive wants to let national governments decide whether or not to grow genetically-modified crops without a long drawn-out review of the bloc's current GM legislation, an initial impact assessment seen by Reuters showed.
Details of the plan, which would open the door to widespread GM cultivation in Europe, provoked a furious reaction from environmentalists already angry at the EU executive's decision to approve the commercial growing of a GM potato in March (EurActiv 03/03/10).
But the plan will be a boost to biotech companies in the EU, where blockages in the current approval system have confined commercial growing to less than 100,000 hectares across the 27-nation bloc.
It could also ease trade tensions between the EU and the United States, which launched a World Trade Organisation dispute against the EU in 2003 after countries including Austria and Germany banned the cultivation of an approved GM maize (EurActiv 22/11/06).
The paper outlines several options for implementing the proposal within the existing legislative framework, and makes it clear that a key consideration will be the likely reaction of WTO countries, particularly the US.
The first and most likely option set out in the paper is that approval for GM cultivation requests would continue to be granted at EU level following a safety assessment, but countries would then decide individually whether to grow them or not.When it comes to how member states will justify their decision whether or not to cultivate, one option is to revise non-legislative EU guidelines on the 'co-existence' of GM and non-GM crops, according to the paper.
This would allow countries to specify a five or 10 kilometre 'buffer zone' between GM and non-GM fields, which would effectively make cultivation of GM crops impossible in practice.
Another option in the paper is to allow countries to cite "socio-economic" factors as the basis for their decisions, such as protecting organic production, increasing farmers' yields, or reducing the use of herbicides and pesticides (EurActiv 09/12/08). source
My comment: It's important to note that as stated the policy actually gives the power over GMOs back to the member-states, which I think it's good. The problem is that if the states decide for themselves, then there should be a EU-wide politics on labeling the GMO products so that we all can eat the same food. Otherwise, in a free market, it will be very hard to know the GM-content of the food. And of course, last but not least, the EC should protect the organic farmers by setting a big-enough buffer zone so that the organic production is safe.

Commissioner slams green 'scaremongers' in GM debate

Published: 05 May 2010

Europe's biotech industry must engage with the public on controversial issues like genetically-modified foods and cloning, according to John Dalli, the EU's health commissioner.

In his first appearance before the European Parliament since his confirmation hearing in January, he said he is in favour of science-based policymaking and "sustainable innovation".
However, he warned that an "instinctive fear and suspicion" had taken hold among European consumers due to scaremongering and a reluctance of industry to explain the science behind their products.
He said that whenever all the legal criteria have been met, there is no need to delay progress

He said the Commission will produce a report on cloning by the end of the year, and will also revise legislation on tobacco, clinical trials and veterinary medicine to address shortcomings. Medical devices legislation will also be reviewed including in vitro diagnostics.sourceMy comment: I don't think "legal" is the correct word. People decide what is legal and what is not. Here we talk about safety and this involves much more than merely willing to support innovation. Just as with medicaments, you cannot just sell something, because you invested a lot in it. You have to prove that it's safe. Which in the case of GMOs is much more complicated.

MEPs restate opposition to food derived from cloned animals

07 May 2010

The European Parliament's environment committee has voted not to authorise the entry of any food derived from cloned animals onto EU markets, putting MEPs on a collision course with the European Commission and the EU's Council of Ministers.

The Parliament's environment, public health and food safety committee reaffirmed yesterday (4 May) the House's first-reading decision to entirely exclude food derived from cloned animals and their offspring from the EU's novel foods regulation.
Instead, MEPs asked the Commission to present a separate legislative proposal on the matter.
MEPs also voted to exclude foods produced by nanotechnology processes from the EU authorisation list until they have undergone a specific risk assessment regarding their possible impact on health.Once approved, all food containing nanomaterials will need to be clearly indicated on the ingredients list, MEPs said.
Back in 2008, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) found no clear safety concerns related to food products from clones of cattle, pigs or their offspring. But its scientific opinion underlined that there was not enough scientific data on the subject and that the practice has major repercussions on animal health and welfare (EurActiv 25/07/08).

The European Group on Ethics for Science and New Technologies (EGE) has also advised against cloning animals for food.
A new Testbiotech report prepared for German MEP Martin Häusling (Greens), published on 4 May 2010, concludes that cloning could have adverse human health effects.
German MEP Martin Häusling said "higher rates of infection, along with diseases and malformations in liver and brains of mice, sheep and cows, have been reported".
"Furthermore, these effects could also be detected in subsequent generations of these cloned animals. From a consumer perspective it is alarming that US research has shown in a few cases that even the composition of milk can differ between a cloned and non-cloned animal," he added. source
My comment: Yeah, one smart move from the side of the Parliament. I personally don't get why would farmers prefer to use cloned animals than normally bred ones. Cloning should be more expensive than breeding and in the end, breeding can always produces something better, why cloning cannot. It's strange...

EU wants to put GMO dispute to an end

13 July 2010

The European Commission will tomorrow (13 July) propose an overhaul of the EU's policy for approving genetically modified (GM) crops, which will allow countries more freedom to ban cultivation on their territory while retaining an EU-wide authorisation system.

The new policy for GM crop cultivation, to be unveiled tomorrow, aims to draw a line under years of stalemate between countries that support GMOs and those opposed to their cultivation.
The initiative aims to deliver on a promise made by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso before his reappointment last year (EurActiv 03/09/09).
At present, EU member states are only able to restrict GM crop cultivation under strict conditions, as authorisation licences are valid across the 27-country bloc, in accordance with the principles of the EU single market.
The plans would allow large-scale commercial planting in pro-GM countries such as Spain, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, opening up new markets for major biotech companies, while at the same time legally endorsing existing GM bans in countries like Italy, Austria and Hungary.
sourceMy comment: I didn't find more details on this one, so I don't know if they made the proposal or they postponed it. When I find out, I will post it