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Landmark Victory in World's First Case Against Biopiracy!!
[ Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology | The Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament | International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) ]
Direct Action Blockades Against GM
[ Full Story | IMC UK ]
Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approve liberalisation of transgenic crops
In spite of demonstrations opposing transgenic crops, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies passed a Biosecurity bill yesterday (2 March), which regulates the production of genetically modified organisms.
The WFP and the US accused of not listening to the concerns of Central American society
[ Centro Humboldt | GM Food Aid ]
Farmers launch massive agitation against new patent law
[ IMC India | Article - Sowing The Seeds Of Dictatorship | Vandana Shiva ]
Canadian Government to Unleash Terminator Bombshell at UN Meeting
A confidential document leaked today to ETC Group reveals that the Canadian government, at a United Nations meeting in Bangkok (Feb 7-11), will attempt to overturn an international moratorium on genetic seed sterilisation technology (known universally as Terminator). Even worse, the Canadian government has instructed its negotiators to "block consensus" on any other option. [ Stop Terminator Action Alert |ETC Group | Terminator Technology | Convention on Biological Diversity ]
Berlin Manifesto for GMO-free Regions and Biodiversity in Europe
[ NGO Network on Genetic Engineering | Foundation on Future Farming ]
Governo brasileiro libera soja transgênica por mais um ano
O Governo Federal liberou pela terceira vez o plantio de soja transgênica, que já ocupa 22,4% da produção do gênero no Brasil. A Medida Provisória (MP) 223, foi sancionada no dia 12 de janeiro e publicada no Diário Oficial da União no dia 13. Ela regulamenta o plantio e comercialização da soja geneticamente modificada entre 31 de dezembro de 2004 e 31 de janeiro de 2006, podendo o prazo ser prorrogado por até 180 dias. Não conseguindo aprovar o Projeto de Lei de Biossegurança no Congresso, o Governo Federal recorreu novamente à Medida Provisória. Em 2002 e 2003, pressionado pelos grandes proprietários de terra, pelas empresas Monsanto e Bunge e pela bancada ruralista no Congresso, o Governo editou as MPs 113 e 131, sob pretexto de não desperdiçar a soja transgênica contrabandeada. A MP 223 não exige a realização de um Estudo de Impacto Ambiental para averiguar os possíveis riscos para a saúde e meio ambiente. O texto também retira a responsabilidade das empresas que produzem a soja geneticamente modificada, obrigando apenas os/as produtores/as assinarem o Termo de Compromisso, Responsabilidade e Ajustamento de Conduta. Diário Oficial publica lei que autoriza plantio e venda de soja transgênica | Sancionada MP que regulamenta plantio e comercialização de soja transgênica | Suborno da Saúde e da Alimentação | O que é alimento transgênico? vídeos :: o correto manejo ecológico para a soja transgênica :) | agricultores processados pela monsanto | ação direta contra os transgênicos em supermercado de belo horizonte (fórum social brasileiro, 2003) sítios :: Contra Encontro Iguaçú 2005 | Campanha Por Um Brasil Livre de Transgênicos | CMI Biotecnologia
Monsanto Assault on U.S. Farmers Detailed in New Report
[ Center for Food Safety | Full Report | Monsanto ]
After strong protests from farmers, as well as from the environmental minister, Monsanto got approval to grow Bollgard Bt cotton in the South Sulawesi province. 40 tonnes of GM seeds were flown into from South Africa under milatry protection. Only after 2 growing seasons with farmers protests, burning fields and harvest failures - and the failed attempt to buy itself out of the environmental stdies - Monsanto pulled out of Bt cotton in Indonesia. The experiences match those of farmers in India where Bollgard is still grown, and Thailand which banned Bt cotton in 2000. Monsanto is now trying to introduce Bt cotton into West Africa. [ Full Story | GRAIN (1 | 2) | GM Watch | Corporate Watch| Friends of the Earth ]
GE Free Campaign Gathers Record Number of Signatures
[ GE Free Sonoma ]
Power Struggle over Biotech in Brussels
[ Full Article | Corporate Europe Observatory | Pdf | Lobbywatch | PR Watch ]
World Conservation Union Calls for Moratorium on Further Release of GMOs.
[ IUCN | IUCN Press Release | Reaction ]
Keep GM Out of Europe!
[ The Institute of Science in Society | The Independent Science Panel | A GM-Free Sustainable World(pdf) ]
People's Caravan For Food Sovereignty Sweeps through Asia
Hundreds of peasant organizations and support NGOs, representing millions of poor Asian farmers, are currently participating in the People’s Caravan 2004 for People’s Food Sovereignty that is sweeping through 15 countries across Asia and Europe. After a first caravan in 2000, this year's caravan bears the theme "Asserting Our Rights to Land and Food" and will culminate in Nepal with a public rally and the Conference on Alternatives to Globalization on September 30. PC2004 aims to raise awareness on the issues involved in food sovereignty, including the World Trade Organization (WTO), genetic engineering (GE), pesticides, agrochemical transnational corporations (TNCs), workers' rights, and the promotion of sustainable agriculture. [ Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia Pacific | Resist Agrochemical TNCs | Indymedia Biotech | IMC-QC (Philipines) | radiomundoreal Spanish Radio Coverage ]
Roundup Ready: GMO actions in the European summer
Crop decontaminations have taken place in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, while in Finland, activists successfully felled a genetically modified tree study. In the UK, a nation wide protest took place against the supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, for selling dairy products from cows raised with genetically modified feed.
Art is not Terrorism
When the police arrived on May 11, they became suspicious of Kurtz's art supplies and called the FBI. Soon agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and FBI detained Kurtz, cordoned off the entire block around his house, and later impounded Kurtz?s computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body for further analysis. Dr. Kurtz and CAE are internationally recognized lecturers in the areas of biotechnology, information technology and media studies. Nine artists and one book publishing company, Autonomedia, were subpoenaed in this case. [ Critical Art Ensemble Defence Fund | background 1, 2 | Sunshine Project ]
Some 17,000 people from biotech companies from about 60 countries are meeting behind closed doors to set up more contacts, to sell their ideas, to raise venture capitalism - and to convince journalists and the public that biotech is just great. To spin pro-biotech PR, corporate journalists were provided with story ideas already a week before the conference started, while Indymedia journalists were denied press credentials due to writing from an "activist point of view".
The agenda is covering all kind of biotech topics in presentations, so-called executive workshops, receptions and corporate exhibitions. It is a place for companies to convene, to make business contacts, to lobby, and to convinve themselves that they are doing the right thing... Which they aren't! BioDev is organizing a teach-in with panels and workshop from 3 to 5 June, followed by 4 days of colorful street actions to resist biotechnology, reclaim the commons and plant alternatives! Check for the RTC web site www.reclaimthecommons.net for an overview of actions and events or call 877-806-2071. The Convergence Space is loaceted at 960 Howard between 5th and 6th. [ Indymedia: Biotech IMC | Indybay || Biodevastation to Biojustice | Reclaim the Commons ]
Monsanto's pulling out of GM wheat
"We don't want it" - A message as simple as that is finally being heard. Monsanto, the world's biggest producer of GM crops and the related herbicides, backed down for economic reasons. Against consumer and farmers wishes there is no market for GM wheat in Europe: foreign buyers started looking for alternative sources in Australia and Eastern Europe, and US and Canadian farmers were not prepared to take the chance of some short term benefits, a lot of future problems, and the loss of a world market overnight. Earlier this year, Monsanto had already closed its grain research facilities in Europe. Two GM wheat field trials of Syngenta were destroyed in Germany [2]. Over the last year in Europe, the big biotech companies have been dropping out of one GM project after the other: Monsanto and Syngenta dropped GM sugar beet, while Bayer decided not to market GM maize in the UK even though they had got permission, and Spain has withdrawn Bt176 maize from the market: the only GM crop commercially grown in the EU. Whole regions have gone GM-free [1 | 2]. Finally, this is reflecting back on shareholders options and the US markets... [ Reclaim the Commons 3-9 June San Francisco, USA | Corporate Watch | GM Watch | etc group | Boycott Bayer | anti-GM slam poetry ] |
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Munich, March 8, 2005. In a landmark decision today, the European Patent Office upheld a decision to revoke in its entirety a patent on a fungicidal product derived from seeds of the Neem, a tree indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.
At 3am on Saturday 26th February, a coalition of environmentalists used direct action to blockade Sainsbury's huge regional distribution centre at Emerson's Green, causing disruption to Sainsbury's retail supply across the South-West and beyond. Braving sub-zero temperatures and snow, campaigners blockaded the entrance to the depot, locking themselves together for three hours with steel tubes. There were six arrests.
Organizations of the civil society in Centralamerica are presenting today irrefutable proofs of the presence of StarLink –a genetically modified maize banned for human consumption in the US-, in food aid sent to Centralamerica. The proofs presented contradict earlier declarations from the World Food Programme (WFP ) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which questioned the existence of StarLink in food aid distributed by the WFP.
New Delhi - Several agitating farmers' organisations and trade unions began on February 26 a day of countrywide agitation with a march to parliament followed by a "Beej Satyagraha" to oppose the new 'anti-people' patent law. Farmers' bodies have decided to oppose the recent government ordinance, which seeks to introduce patent monopolies on seeds and the privatization of the water sector. As an alternative, the farmers’ bodies have decided to draft a new agriculture policy and submit it to the government.
All-out push for commercialisation of Sterile Seed Technology.
European Conference, Berlin 22 -23 January 2005 - The Regions of Europe should be given the final say on the growing of genetically modified crops (GMOs) in their area, a major European conference today concluded.The conference, organised during the International Green Week in Berlin, heard that with over 100 regional and 3500 sub-regional areas now declaring themselves GMO-free, it was time for European law to be changed to protect such areas from the cultivation of GM crops. 200 delegates from GMO free regions and from 30 European countries called on the European institutions to protect conventional and organic seeds from GMO contamination, to establish the regions right to stay GMO-free and to give them a say in the approval process of GMOs, which they find scientifically questionable and not based on the precautionary principle.
WASHINGTON - The Center for Food Safety released on January 13th an extensive review of Monsanto's use and abuse of U.S. patent law to control the usage of staple crop seeds by U.S. farmers. The Center (CFS) launched its investigation to determine the extent to which American farmers have been impacted by litigation arising from the use of patented genetically engineered crops. Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers details the results of this research, discusses the ramifications for the future of farming in the U.S. and outlines policy options for ending the persecution of America's farmers.
Santa Rosa, California – Advocates for a moratorium on genetically engineered crops turned in 45,387 petition signatures today, shattering the previous Sonoma County record of less than 33,000. Despite torrential rain in the past few weeks, nearly one in five County voters stopped to sign the petition and show their support.
Biotech companies, NGOs and EU institutions in unfinished battle over new rules for GM in food and agriculture. 
From Bangkok, on the 22 November, IUCN (World Conservation Union) members voted by a large margin for a moratorium on the further release of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) until they can be demonstrated, beyond reasonable doubt, to be safe for biodiversity, human health, and animal health.
Scientists, politicians and farmers have joined up to call for the European Commission to abandon its drive for GM crops and to focus instead on supporting non-GM sustainable agriculture. Representatives from numerous civil society organisations - organic farmers, gardeners, producers, chefs, lawyers, doctors - and MEPs turned out to add supporting voices.
The dropping of the moratorium and the beginning of the EU labelling regime far from appeased the European anti-genetics movement. In fact actions have been a prominent part of the summer so far, particularly in July with different corners of Europe seeing a spate of anti-genetics events. 
On May 11, Steve Kurtz, professor of art and member of the 
According to the film 
From 6 to 9 June, some 17,000 people from about 60 countries will converge at the 