Category: Stop State and Capitalist criminals

Monsanto: Study proves GMO mass murder is REAL

U.S.
 Battle Escalates Against Genetically Modified Crops
By Kanya D’Almeida  with thanks!

 

new study shows GMO mass murder is REAL

WASHINGTON, Oct 1, 2011 (IPS) – Home to a fast-growing network of farmers’ markets, cooperatives and organic farms, but also the breeding ground for mammoth for-profit corporations that now hold patents to over 50 percent of the world’s seeds, the United States is weathering a battle between Big Agro and a ripening movement for food justice and security.

Conflicting ideologies about agriculture have become ground zero for this war over the production, distribution and consumption of the world’s food.  One camp – led by agro giants like Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – define successful agriculture and hunger alleviation as the use of advanced technologies to stimulate yields of mono-crops.

The other side argues that industrial agriculture pollutes, destroys and disrupts nature by dismissing the importance of relationships necessary for any ecosystem to thrive.  At the heart of this struggle is the debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which were given the green light in 1990 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated, “(We) are not aware of any information showing that GMO foods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”

The Pitfalls of Terminator TechnologyAccording to Frees, one of the worst manifestations of GE/M is the use of Terminator technology, used to cause seed sterility and forcibly eliminate seed saving.

“Terminator is a biological means to enforce intellectual property rights, and its introduction into developing countries that rely on saved seeds for 80 to 90 percent of planting could mean elimination of farmers’ right to save seeds; dramatically higher seed costs; and poor farmers’ inability to survive,” he said.

From seven percent of soybean acres and one percent of corn in 1996, GE acreage in the U.S. is now 94 percent of soybean and 88 percent of corn. / Credit:Public domain

“Terminator is morally reprehensible and must be banned,” Frees told IPS. Lovera added that between 2001 and 2007, annual U.S. glyphosate use on GE crops doubled to 185 million pounds.

“Ubiquitous Roundup application has spawned glyphosate-resistant weeds, driving farmers to apply even more toxic herbicides, according to a 2010 National Research Council report,” Lovera told IPS.

“Farmers may resort to other herbicides to combat superweeds, including 2,4- D (an Agent Orange component) and atrazine, which have been associated with health risks including endocrine disruption and developmental abnormalities.”

“In the United States, irrigated corn acreage increased 23 percent and irrigated soybean acreage increased 32 percent between 2003 and 2008,” she added. “The rising U.S. cultivation of GE corn and soybeans further threatens the strained High Plains Aquifer, which runs beneath eight western states and provides nearly a third of all groundwater used for U.S. irrigation,” Lovera said.

“Ninety-seven percent of High Plains water withdrawals go to agriculture, and these withdrawals now far exceed the recharge rate across much of the aquifer.”

“The worldwide expansion of industrial-scale cultivation of water- intensive GE commodity crops on marginal land could magnify the pressure on already overstretched water resources,” Lovera warned. “But these are the crops the biotech industry has to offer.”

In addition to wreaking havoc on land, GE/M has also filtered into the oceans, with the attempted introduction by Aqua Bounty of GE salmon engineered with a growth hormone gene to grow faster.

“Studies suggest that the salmon could be more susceptible to disease; and if it’s grown in pens in the ocean and [inevitably] escapes, it could mate with wild salmon and make them less fit, potentially devastating wild salmon populations,” Frees told IPS.

But a report released Wednesday by the Washington- based Food and Water Watch (FWW) on the destructive impacts of GMOs added fuel to a two-decades-long fight by farmers, economists and experts against the FDA’s conclusions.

“Genetically Engineered Food: An Overview” details how the genetic engineering of seeds, crops and animals for human consumption is not the foolproof answer long championed by agribusiness and biotechnology industries to feeding the world.

To the contrary, the study found that genetically engineered/modified (GE/M) organisms do not out-perform their natural counterparts, and their proliferation into vast tracts of cropland have caused a slew of environmental and health crises, and actually increased poverty by forcing millions of farmers to “buy” patented seeds at exorbitant prices.

The report also says that three U.S. federal agencies – the FDA, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – are complicit in these crises due to shoddy oversight, weak enforcement of regulations and a complete absence of coordination.

It found that Big Agro spent half a billion dollars between 1999 and 2009 on lobbying to ease GE regulatory oversight, push GE approvals and prevent GE labeling.

This, after attorney Steven Druker in 1999 obtained 40,000 pages of FDA files containing “memorandum after memorandum warning about the hazards of (GE) food,” including the likelihood that they contained, “toxins, carcinogens or allergens” and testified that GE foods violated “sound science and U.S. law”.

Ceci King, a member of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, told IPS that in 2011, an estimated “60 to 70 percent of all processed foods in the U.S. contain at least one GE element.”

“Eighty-four percent of GM crops in the world today are herbicide- resistant soybeans, corn, cotton or canola, predominantly Monsanto’s ‘Roundup Ready’ varieties that withstand dousing with herbicide,” Bill Frees, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and author of ‘Why GM Crops Will Not Feed the World’, told IPS.

“Pesticide and chemical companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer have bought up many of the world’s largest seed companies, and now call themselves biotech companies – this represents a historic merger of the pesticide and seed industries, which allows them to profit twice by developing expensive GM seeds that increase use of the company’s herbicide products,” he added.

Seed patents, an off-shoot of the “agro-biotech revolution” that also spawned GE/M, have had two negative consequences since their original issuance by the U.S. Patent Office in the mid-1990s, Frees told IPS: “They enticed pesticide companies to buy up seed firms; and they led to criminalisation of seed-saving.”  “Farmers have saved seeds from their harvest to replant the next year for millennia,” he added. “Monsanto is changing that. The company has already sued thousands of farmers in the U.S. for saving and replanting its patented seeds and won an estimated 85 to 160 million dollars from farmers, in lawsuits that have ruined farmers’ lives, and (partially explains) why we have ever fewer farmers in America.”

The fightback

Ray Tricomo, a mentor at the Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity in Minnesota, told IPS, “People of colour must re-radicalise themselves and go on the offensive including the return to land bases, from Turtle Island to Africa and Asia.”  “Ancient knowledge systems are to be painstakingly recovered, even if it takes centuries,” he added.  And this is exactly what is happening.

Despite the deep pockets and aggressive efforts of Big Agro, a major pushback from a broad coalition of forces has limited 80 percent of GE/M planting to just three export-oriented countries: the U.S., Brazil and Argentina.  Nearly two dozen other countries, including the European Union and China, have passed mandatory GE/M labeling, and millions around the world are refusing seed patenting and developing seed banks to protect, share and preserve their seeds.

In Florida, the 4,000-strong Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is organising to resist farm wage-slavery and “seed-servitude”. The Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil has organised 400,000 peasants to join forces with the nearly half-billion farms around the world that are responsible for producing 70 percent of the world’s food.  Navdanya, an organisation in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh, has united 500,000 farmers in their struggle to fight chemical dependency and save indigenous seeds, including preserving over 3,000 varieties of rice.  “For five years, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (CSD) had indigenous farmers from all over the globe come to speak against destructive farm practices and GMOs,” King told IPS.

“During the Indigenous People’s Permanent Forum, there were complaints about the harm caused by industrial agriculture and the acts in the name of agribusinesses. Farm workers like the (CIW) are protesting their fate,” she added.  “They are picketing companies like Trader Joes and Whole Foods, letting the public know that their tomatoes were picked from workers who are basically slave labour.”  “Third World Network is fighting back by exploring the problem of GMOs and publishing findings that scientists working on GMOs are capitalists using humans as guinea pigs in a global lab experiment,” she added.

“[Numerous] deaths and disabilities have been traced back to a GM product emulating tryptophan. It took nearly 20 years to find the source of the problem,” King told IPS.  “GM technology i antithetical to an agroecological approach to agriculture, our only hope for truly sustainable food production,” Frees told IPS.  “Without radical change we will continue to have famines,” he added. “Haiti is a good example of what happens when a country’s farmers are put out of business by cheap, subsidised imports from a rich producer nation (here the U.S.).”

Read More Click HERE

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105315

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useless TAV STOPPED in Susa Valley

Stop that train!In May,2011 the  construction site in Susa was occupied and fortified. On June 26 a massive police army finally evicted the site, after determined resistance by the whole population. The next week 50,000 gathered for another pitched battle and since then it is the police who are under siege. The resistance is stronger than ever, and work had yet to begin.

Latest News is that Italy is totally trapped by Impossible Debts, it’s less and less likely that this TAV line will proceed, indeed the Italians may yet get credit for toppling the teetering capitalist system!

NO TAV (No to the High Speed Train) is a movement based in the Susa Valley in Piedmont that opposes the creation of the new high speed railway line between Turin and Lyon in France.

The simple principle behind the movement is that a new high speed railway line in the Valley is completely useless and not needed, its only purpose being the profit of the many private companies that have shares in it.

The NO TAV  think that the current railway line between Piedmont and France is more than sufficient, considering that traffic in the area has never been incredibly high. More importantly, the construction of the line would utterly and irreversibly destroy a huge part of the Susa Valley, causing not only an environmental but also an economic and social disaster, with businesses closing down and villages being completely disfigured or disappearing.

High speed railway lines in Italy are considered to be of “strategic interest”, which translated from political bullshit language means that the law allows this type of works WITHOUT consulting the local population and institutions whatsoever. At a time of economic collapse such as Italy is going through, the works require billions of Italian taxpayers’ money, at the expense of primary services like education and health. It would mainly be construction and other private companies profiting from it, but when finished and in use, the low demand for the line would end up making it a loss-making burden on the taxpayers. Like in Rossport, Ireland, the locals’ concerns and proposals are being completely ignored in the name of the only Modern God: money.

The NO TAV came up with their own plan for the area which would include:
– changing the production and distribution processes to decrease transport of people and goods, especially on long distances
– supporting local sustainable trades instead of big industries  
– creating or improving local means of sustainable and green transport for workers and students
– supporting and incrementing the use of the already existing local railway line

READ MUCH MORE HERE; IN ENGLISH  http://italycalling.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/brief-history-of-the-no-tav-movement/

Irrawaddy Dam stopped..VICTORY in Burma

Myanmar’s president called Friday for work on a controversial Chinese-backed hydroelectic dam to be halted and the concerns of its critics settled, in a startling turnaround welcomed by democracy activists and environmentalists. President Thein Sein said in a statement read out on his behalf at Parliament that the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project in the northern state of Kachin should be suspended because “it is against the will of the people.”  Thein Sein’s statement said Myanmar would discuss pending contracts regarding the dam with China.

Environmental activists have said the dam would displace countless villagers and upset the ecology of one of the country’s most vital national resources, the Irrawaddy River. It also would submerge a culturally important site in the ethnic Kachin heartland where the Malikha and Maykha rivers meet to form the Irrawaddy. The Myitsone dam was supposed to export about 90 percent of electric power it generated to neighboring China, according to the government. The vast majority of Myanmar’s residents, meanwhile, have no electricity.

“This is the first time in 50 years that the government has given in to the wishes of the people,” said Dr. Than Tut Aung, a prominent publisher who is also one of the leading advocates of the“Save the Irrawaddy” campaign. “The decision to suspend the dam project is not just an environmental issue but a national issue. We welcome the good news.”

Thein Sein came to power in March after the nation’s long-standing junta disbanded, promising to bring democratic reforms to one of Asia’s most repressive nations. But skeptics see his government — dominated by retired military officers — as a proxy for continued army rule, and there has been much debate over whether his reform pledges are merely rhetoric.

The new government has boosted hope for change by unblocking the long-censored Internet, calling on exiles to return, and holding talks with prominent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from seven years of house arrest last year.Yet more than 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars, while fighting with multiple armed ethnic rebellions has displaced about half a million people within the country and forced at least 200,000 more to flee abroad.

On Friday, Suu Kyi met for a third time with Labor and Social Welfare Minister Aung Kyi, part of an ongoing dialogue between the two sides that some see as proof the that concrete change is imminent.

Afterward, Suu Kyi said she welcomed Thein Sein’s message on suspending the Myitsone dam.  “All governments should listen to the voices of the people,” she said.

Read MORE HERE…http://burmadigest.info/2011/09/30/burma-related-news-september-30-2011/

 

Belo Monte : judge halts destruction

judge halts work on genocidal dam

A judge in Brazil has ordered a halt to construction of a multi-billion-dollar dam project in the Amazon region.

Judge Carlos Castro Martins barred any work that would interfere with the natural flow of the Xingu river.

He ruled in favour of a fisheries group which argued that the Belo Monte dam would affect local fish stocks and could harm indigenous families who make a living from fishing.

The government says the dam is crucial to meeting growing energy needs. Judge Martins barred the Norte Energia company behind the project from “building a port, using explosives, installing dikes, building canals and any other infrastructure work that would interfere with the natural flow of the Xingu river, thereby affecting local fish stocks”.

Legal battle

He said the building of canals and dikes could have negative repercussions for river communities living off small-scale fishing.The judge said building work currently underway on accommodation blocks for the project’s many workers could continue as it would not interfere with the flow of the river.

The consortium behind the project will appeal against the decision.

Now is the moment to escalate the campaign as this will probably be only a temporary victory

 

OccupyWallSt: Cops arrest 700 / Big Unions joining in

700 arrested marching over Brooklyn Bridge

More than 700 people from the Occupy Wall Street protest movement have been briefly arrested for marchimng on New York’s City’s Brooklyn Bridge, police say.

They were part of a larger group crossing the bridge from Manhattan, where they have been camped out near Wall Street for two weeks.

“We are unions, students, teachers, veterans, first responders, families, the unemployed and underemployed. We are all races, sexes and creeds. We are the majority. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.” read more at Occupy Wall Street website and occupytogether.org.

NYPD Mass Arrests of Occupy Wall Street Protesters

UPDATE, 6:07 pm Kristen reports via text: ”Now it’s raining. There are still hundreds of us, people are putting backpacks on their fronts, so cops don’t take them when we’re arrested.”

She says that rumors in the crowd include the suggestion that the Lawyers Guild is working on bail money for the arrested protesters and negotiations with the cops. She says, “a friend told me there’s a rumor this is over. It’s not over.”

As for morale? The remaining protesters are huddled together under umbrellas singing “this little light of mine.”

A Massive Union Just Voted To Side With Protesters

According to Daily Kos, The New York Transit Workers Union (TWU) voted to support the Wall Street Protestors at their meeting last night. A member of TWU Local 100 told a reporter that they would join the protest Friday at 4PM.

Here’s more about them from their website: The TWU has four main divisions: Railroad; Gaming; Airline; Transit; and Utility, University and Service. The Union has 114 autonomous locals representing over 200,000 members and retirees in 22 states around the country.

Occupy Wall Street has been picking up some decent support from unions in the past few days. Yesterday we reported that the Teamsters Union declared their support for protestors, and we also found out that the United Pilots Union had members at the protest demonstrating in uniform.

Today we learned the Industrial Workers of the World put a message of support on their website as well.

UPDATE: Verizon union workers have joined the protestors in NYC.

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20111001135826694

Click here to see the protestor’s list of demands >

 

Occupy Wall St: 1000s defy brutal police

Several thousand anti-Wall Street protesters marched through downtown Manhattan on Friday night to protest against incidents of police brutality at a previous demonstration.

The group was part of the Occupy Wall Street movement which has camped for almost two weeks in a New York square to protest against the finance industry, among other grievances.

The group had attempted a march last weekend which ended in scores of arrests. Numerous incidents of police roughing up protesters were caught on film including one senior officer spraying mace at several female demonstrators being kept behind a police barrier.

Video of that attack went viral on the internet prompted mainstream media – which had mostly ignored the protests – to give them sympathetic attention. Computer hackers also released the name and address of the officer caught on film. Since then the occupation has garnered many new supporters and global press attention.

It has attracted celebrity visits from liberal figures such as filmmaker Michael Moore and actor Susan Sarandon. On Friday an apparently false rumour that the band Radiohead were to play an impromptu gig at the square caused a temporary Twitter storm.

But Friday night’s march was aimed at highlighting the police violence at the previous protest. A long line of placard-carrying demonstrators wound the short distance from Zuccotti Park where the protesters are camped near Wall Street to Police Plaza, where the New York Police Department has its headquarters.

The march was led by a group of elderly grandmothers wearing yellows bibs emblazoned with the words: “Grannies for peace”. That seemed to symbolise the protest’s good-natured mood which appeared to be matched by the police’s willingness to give the group the freedom to demonstrate.

Michele Moore, a former bank worker from Georgia, said she had been on the previous week’s march that had ended in violence. “The videos of those events were completely accurate,” she said. But she added that Friday’s protest had felt completely different. “Everything I saw today was peaceful and positive. It was delightful,” Moore said.

The protest was filled with the usual mix of Occupy Wall Street supporters. But there was also a smattering of people wearing T-shirts with trade union logos as well as ordinary working New Yorkers

Climate Chaos: New monster Typhoon Nalgae to hit Luzon

The hotter seas, provoked by global warming are causing tropical storms to mushroom into giant typhoons. Luzon is to be hit twice in a week, threatening 38 million people

As Philippine was observing commemorations for the nearly 700 people killed during the 2009′s typhoon Ketsana, which dumped a month’s rainfall in just 12 hours, powerful typhoon Nesat smashed the country’s coastline. Nesat has killed some 31 people in the country; with winds gusting to 93 mph (150 kph) and rainfall above 100 mm, the country’s capital Manila was completely brought to standstill on September 26 with at least 111,000 people immediately evacuated from the Albay province. Nesat is the 17th tropical storm and the 8th typhoon of the current year. Nesat was a dangerous category-3 hurricane that is still active (September 28) and moving towards Vietnam and adjoining China now after devastating Philippines. 

 But now another “expected” monster is forming in the Pacific!There had been a total of 32 tropical depressions in the western Pacific ocean during the current year.

Updates regarding Typhoon Nalgae (also known as Quiel)

It is the 19th tropical storm of the current year, it is the 9th typhoon. Tropical storm Nalgae intensified into a category-1 hurricane and now 1, 195 km ENE of Manila. The storm has continued to move westwards. It is expected to further intensify into a category-2 hurricane due to favorable outflow and warm sea temperatures on late Friday/early Saturday, its affect will mostly start by Friday late or Saturday.

Latest: Nalgae is strengthening phenomenally due to temperatures of 30C in The Phillipine Sea. Some reports estimate it will strike Luzon as a Category 4 Hurricane, with winds to 250kph. Some predict it will then swerve North, sparing Vietnam, but threatening Hong Kong