August 2002

World News
Posted: Saturday, August 31, 2002

• 24 die in plane crash in Brazil
• Ten thousand protest outside World Summit
• Deaths of 200 Talibs Confirmed
• Delegates leave a mountain of waste
• Gunmen Kill 3 People In Indonesia
• 50 Feared Dead In India Boat Crash
• Beating about the bush
• 'I'm a world leader, get me out of here!'
• Holding tight: U.S. and the new Shah of Pakistan
• EU closes ranks as Blair avoids the issue
• Chechen villagers flee new bloodshed
• WTO backs EU against U.S. law
• Talking dirty
• Attacks of Afghani Mujahideen
• War For W's Soul
• Terrorism or simply war?
• The Terror of Pre-Crime
• Americans must do as we said in Afghanistan, not as we did
• Road map to a war
• The British Army's 1945-48 campaign in Palestine
• A bigger agenda than merely "regime change" in Iraq
• The Terror of Pre-Crime
• Terrorism or simply war?
• Iraq says it will be tougher than the Taleban
• Saddam taunts Bush as support for US crumbles
• We'll send Australians home in bags, says Iraq
• Blair losing control of party over Iraq
• US bows to pressure to expand peace-keeping beyond Kabul
• Bush plays for time as war of words engulfs Washington
• Iraq set to head off attack with offer of arms inspections
• Arab states point to Israel as main source of regional instability
• Is Hijack attempt linked to bin Laden?
• Salafi conference organisers deny link to 'hijacker'
• Blair's solidarity with Zimbabwe's White farmers
• Summit disarray as EU officials walk out
• Summit scoffs at US pitch on fixing global ills
• New military chief hopes to be hammer of Indonesia's Aceh

World News
Posted: Friday, August 30, 2002

• A world of bullies
• Musharraf Critical Of Attack On Iraq
• Foolish Rationalizations for a Foolish War
• Does Bush Really Know What To Do In Iraq?
• Residents of summit city call for help
• US presses Africa to take GM foods
• Britain is 'failing to stand up to Bush'
• Don't exaggerate the importance of 11 September
• Chirac urges restraint over Iraq
• Save the planet? It's rich vs. rich
• Israeli forces killed 2 Palestinian youths
• Israeli dart shells kill family of Palestinians
• Bush may yet seek UN backing on Iraq
• Germany at one in opposing Iraq attack
• Blair losing influence over Iraq
• Palestinian factions plot new course
• Al-Qaida rich and ready to strike, says UN
• Twin towers 'fixer' faces 3,000 counts of terrorism
• Bush's war on terror doesn't add up
• EU urged to resist US on world court
• Sub proves US fired first at Pearl Harbor
• Washington opens a winter window
• US intervenes to stop war in the Caucasus
• Britain readies evacuation plan in case slaughter begins
• US wants to learn why it is unpopular
• Saudi racehorse to be offered to US in goodwill gesture

World News
Posted: Thursday, August 29, 2002

• Four killed in Israeli shelling of Gaza Strip
• Sleepy silence hides fury of Palestinians living under curfew
• Bin Laden remains an ever-moving target
• I'm with Dick. Let's make war!
• Why America has turned to Winston Churchill
• Pressure on Bush to back off
• Bush to seek approval on Iraq war, aides say
• Britain calls for deadline to be set for Saddam
• Iraq attack unwise, says Saudi minister
• Amid talk of war, only one thing is certain: fuel prices will rise
• Baghdad warns US threats block diplomatic solution
• In Baghdad streets, they're not quaking in their boots
• Secret files on Baghdad's weapons plans
• The dossier against a dictator
• Why war should be America's last resort
• Straw poised to step up pressure on Iraq
• France shifting stance on Iraq
• Below the Beltway: Neo-Cons vs. New York Times
• Kidnapping rife in crippled Argentina
• Poor countries seek redress over firms' damage

World News
Posted: Wednesday, August 28, 2002

• Turkey Joins List Of Iraq Skeptics
• Khatami warns US against attack on Iran
• Al-qaida Leaders Reportedly In Iran
• 'A link between Saddam and bin Laden? No way'
• World Leaders Urge U.S. Restraint
• The President Is Reading a Book, I'm Afraid
• U.S. Offers Zambia Food Safety Help
• Russia Guards Confess To Murders of their comrades
• Top Gop Senator Wants Iraq Hearings
• Iraq takes reporters on tour of suspected chemical weapons site
• World corruption index, from top to bottom
• Why the frenzy?
• Friend of the US, enemy of justice
• Israeli tank fire kills four in Gaza
• 6 family members killed in Alabama
• US troops not welcome here, warn Pakistani tribal belt residents
• Daggers drawn in the house of Bush
• Banned Basque party clash with police
• Bush's secret visa courts after Sept 11 ruled illegal
• 'It's a way of life by which I feed the world'
• Belgian minister quits in arms row
• Blair faces defeat on Iraq
• Attack on Iraq would create chaos in Middle East, Egypt cautions US
• Belgium warns Blair over US relationship
• Britain must reject Cheney's Iraq strategy
• In case you thought it was safe to dismiss war against Iraq
• Outlaw threatens to behead Indian political hostage
• Australia's deficit blows out by $2 billion
• Two men missing since September 11 found alive
• We're not beating war drum: State department
• After 17 years, DNA frees man who confessed to murder
• Read my lips: it's time for war on Iraq - maybe
• Chechens admit death of commander

Chavez Frias invited to visit Trinidad & Tobago
Posted: Wednesday, August 28, 2002

During a meeting between Venezuela's Foreign (MRE) Minister Roy Chaderton Matos and Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning, an invitation was extended to President Chavez Frias to visit its Caribbean neighbor.

Chaderton Matos also met with Trinidad's President Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson to discuss bilateral relations and the strengthening of economic and commercial relations as well as cultural exchanges. MORE

World News
Posted: Tuesday, August 27, 2002

• Police storm Basque party headquarters
• US court rules against secret deportation hearings
• US warplanes hit radar site in northern Iraq
• Code phrase gets retooled for Saddam
• Iraq Defiant, Arabs Alarmed by New U.S. War Talk
• Beijing praises US ban on Islamic 'terror' group
• Iraq: The Lying Game
• Populace Feels The Winds of War
• Weapons of Mass Deception
> How the Government Scares Us into War
• No Posse Can Stop Them
• Wimps on Iraq
• Iraqi Official Dismisses Cheney's Remarks
• Big Business Accused of Hijacking Earth Summit
• The World Summit on Sustainable Hijackings
• Summit row over big business plans
• Cheney waves White House war banner
• US city where you can be guilty until proven innocent
• Cheney: Better attack Saddam sooner rather than later
• We must destroy Palestinian threat, army chief says
• Israel set on tragic path, says chief rabbi
• Attack on Saddam cannot wait, says Cheney
• Israeli army chief says Palestinian 'threat like a cancer'
• Israel delays withdrawals for 6 weeks
• Israeli defence chief stands by stalled withdrawal plan
• Israeli forces accepts freeze on human shields - `neighbor practice'
• Saudis oppose war on Iraq
• Macedonia says Albanian gunmen seek to wreck vote
• Mugabe's new economic and political war Cabinet
• Britain criticises Bush for summit absence
• America attacked for ICC tactics
• Amid Internet failures, pornographers and spammers are thriving
• Pandering to Big Steel
• The Bush family's phony wars

Lobsters, Caviar and Brandy at Summit on Starvation
Posted: Tuesday, August 27, 2002

World Summit 2002

By Neil Syson, www.thesun.co.uk

THE sickening champagne and caviar lifestyle being enjoyed by Earth Summit delegates was exposed yesterday.

They are gorging on mountains of lobster, oysters and fillet steak at the Johannesburg conference — aimed at ending FAMINE.

As the summit began yesterday, desperate kids in nearby shanty towns queued for water at standpipes.

Bigwig politicians among the 60,000 delegates, including Deputy PM John Prescott, also get vintage bubbly and brandy.

Taxpayers are footing the £500,000 bill for the 70-strong British party. Friends of the Earth called the extravagance "deplorable".

The head chef of the swanky hotel hosting Earth Summit bigwigs described the mountains of posh food he is laying on for their pleasure. MORE...

Humiliation for Powell at earth summit

September 04, 2002, Guardian UK

Delegates jeer and unfurl a banner during US secretary of
state Colin Powell's speech to the earth summit.

Discord dominates world summit

BBC August 30, 2002

Several campaign groups, including Greenpeace and Oxfam, have pulled out of negotiations, saying that agreements reached on aspects of trade and globalisation were watered down to such an extent they were practically worthless.

"What we fear is that the World Trade Organisation agenda seems to be overriding the objectives of sustainable development," said Meena Raman of Third World Network. MORE

Residents of summit city call for help

by John Vidal, Guardian UK, August 30, 2002

Bertie Malasi, Ivy Nuvuno, Ethel Dyie, Agnes Ngwane and Johannes Madisha sit in the courtyard of the large community centre at the heart of Alexandra township. The five pensioners are well aware of the summit being held just a mile away from their homes.

"Tell the leaders we are old and suffering," says Ivy. "Life is too bad. People have no houses. They live and die in their shacks". MORE

Summit for nothing

by Jennie Bristow, August 29, 2002, spiked-online.com

Flicking across the internet in search of some intelligent commentary on the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) currently running in Johannesburg, I stumbled across a 'child's perspective', displayed on the homepage of the BBC News website. 'You can't stop poverty by drinking champagne' read the headline, above an article by an 11-year-old. MORE

Small producers tell of their struggle to compete

by John Vidal, August 28, 2002, Guardian UK

Tell Samuel Togo that northern governments subsidise their farmers by £230bn a year and the small farmer from Sirar in the north of Tanzania looks askance. He earns a few hundred pounds a year, and all the west has done for him, he says, is to stop him exporting his crops, and to try to sell him new seeds that don't work very well, and fertilisers and pesticides that he becomes dependent on. MORE...

What do we really want?

by George Monbiot, August 27, 2002, Guardian.UK

There is scarcely a discussion of climate change on the radio or television that does not involve a "climate sceptic" - someone who believes there is no problem. This would be unexceptionable if the media always promoted dissent: if, for example, someone was brought in to attack capitalism every time the economy was discussed. But the coverage the anti-environmentalists receive suggests that the dissent that reinforces an underlying orthodoxy is welcome while that which challenges it is not. Whatever the explanation may be, the airtime their views receive is out of all proportion to the scientific support they muster. MORE

Big Business Accused of Hijacking Earth Summit

by Alister Doyle, Reuters, August 27, 2002, via commondreams.org

JOHANNESBURG - Activists accused big business on Tuesday of hijacking the Earth Summit from its goal of curbing poverty without damaging the planet.

"The agenda has been taken over by the United States and the European Union in trade liberalization," she said, as activists complained about limited access to the main summit venue.

Delegates from poor nations at the summit, which focused on environmentally friendly agriculture on Tuesday, say the United States is leading resistance to their calls for more aid and new timetables to meet goals of halving poverty and hunger by 2015. MORE...

Rich World's Farm Subsidies Destroy Lives

The billion-dollars-a-day subsidies that have turned farmers in the rich world into behemoths is helping to cripple their counterparts in developing countries, food experts warned at the Earth Summit.

One of the fathers of the so-called Green Revolution, whose bounty has saved hundreds of millions of lives, M.S. Swaminathan, told delegates that the farming world was being dangerously polarized into two cultures.

The first, in North America and Western Europe, was "largely one of agribusiness" with access to lavish subsidies, technology and capital; the other, in Asia, Africa and Latin America, was small-scale personal farms. MORE

Main development from WTO talks is a fine line in hypocrisy

by Kevin Watkins, Monday August 26, 2002, Guardian UK

Last November, trade ministers from Europe and the United States experienced a rare consensus. In Doha, Qatar, they solemnly pledged to make the current bout of World Trade Organisation negotiations a "development round".

The development of poor countries? Try again. This is a trade round geared towards the development of rich country self-interest and corporate profit - and it will reinforce a pattern of globalisation that is perpetuating mass poverty and extreme inequality. MORE...

• The World Summit on sustainable development

• Host Country Official Website

• BBC's Newsround Website

World News
Posted: Monday, August 26, 2002

• Zimbabwe Under Siege
• Lobsters, caviar and brandy for MPs at summit on starvation
• Summit opens with call for action
• Main development from WTO talks is a fine line in hypocrisy
• Bush Aides Say Iraq Decision Is His
• We the People, We the Warriors
• Cheney States Case for Pre-Emptive Strike on Iraq
• Qatar's foreign minister says his country opposes attack on Iraq
• Kashmir violence takes mental toll
• British War Cabinet
• Outpost, U.N. facility in Afghanistan attacked
• Dishonesty in the Hunt for Terrorists
• What Is Israel Hiding?
• Donald Rumsfeld Fount Of Bad Ideas
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Iraq Attack
• Gulf War II
• US rift widens over Iraq
• America 'reliant on Kabul's neighbours'
• Taliban melt away before army sweep
• US rebukes Russia for Pankisi raid
• Return of the ugly American
• Millions Behind Bars In U.S.
• 'US following Zionist agenda'
• US, UK jets kill eight in Iraq
• Burundi army repels attack, kills 24 rebels
• Iran rules out tacit support for United States strike on Iraq
• Saudi envoy to deliver letter from Prince to Bush
• Dubai Building Collapse Kills Seven
• Bus Collision In Bangladesh Kills 11
• Republican warns against rush to war
• ‘Disaster’ looms at Johannesburg talks
• State department bodyguards step in to keep Afghan protégé alive
• Medieval murder marks tragedy of Kosovo
• Bush and father at odds over Iraq strike
• Bush to woo Saudi envoy in meeting at ranch
• Britain blames US for failing world's poor
• Save the Earth, but what about the marijuana?
• Worlds apart
• Exiles recruited as US steps up war of words
• Nuclear rivals hushed up bloody offensive
• US must uncover truth buried in Afghanistan's mass graves
• Bush team enlists Madison Avenue in war on terror
• 'Whole Arab world' targeted by US threats: Syria

World News
Posted: Sunday, August 25, 2002

• Let's cancel this war
• Zambia Rejects U.N. Food Appeal
• Jeb Bush Rivals Face Uphill Battle
• 1 Hurt in Blast at U.N. Afghan House
• Russia Defends Ties With Iraq
• Indian Woman Killed as India, Pakistan Trade Fire
• One killed, two wounded in Nepal bomb blast
• Indian dam leak forces 12,000 to flee
• Philippine troops kill kidnap chief and free 2 hostages
• Canadian Farmers Devastated by Prairie Drought
• Eight killed in Kashmir as US envoy flies in
• Palestinian Militia Executes Woman
• 9 Die In Moscow Building Collapse
• Blair's eco record under fire
• Hawks in the dovecote
• Time's running out for giant that thinks the web is TV
• Defiant Baghdad in diplomatic offensive
• Killer tomatoes strike at Disney
• How Russian troops arm their enemy
• Israel steps up attacks, scraps pullout deal
• 'America's Army' Targets Youth
• Best justice for crimes against humanity
• Republican 'criticism' no war-stopper
• Letter to a Pilot
• Democracy as Afterthought
• A Bit Too Much Texas Swagger

Genetically modified food aid
Posted: Saturday, August 24, 2002

Farm Group Says USDA Put Bad Corn Into Feed Chain

January 24, 2002

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Iowa farmers and an environmental group on Thursday charged the U.S. government with selling a problem supply of genetically engineered corn to a feed company despite complaints that the corn had caused hormonal problems in pigs.

The Iowa Farmers Union (IFU) and Friends of the Earth sent a letter on Thursday to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, asking the USDA to bar use of the corn in human or animal food "as long as the cause of reproductive failure in swine is unresolved." MORE

FDA Policies for Gene-Altered Foods Faulted in Report

by Justin Gillis, Washington Post

Excessive levels of harmful compounds could show up in genetically engineered foods because the government has failed to put strong safeguards in place to catch them, a consumer group says in a report scheduled for release today.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington group known for a moderate stance on the use of genetic engineering to alter food plants, contends that the Food and Drug Administration, the primary federal agency responsible for food safety, missed "obvious errors" in reviewing some gene-altered crops. Although crops now on the market appear to be safe to eat, the group said the FDA's procedures are so full of holes that continued safety cannot be ensured as companies press to bring many more genetically engineered plants to market. MORE

India rejects food aid over GM content

January 03, 2003
By Edward Luce in New Delhi, Financial Times

India has rejected a large shipment of food aid from the United States because it contained genetically modified food, the Financial Times has learned.

The shipment of maize and soya - part of the US government's annual $100m in food aid to parts of India that suffer from chronic malnutrition - is thought to have contained bio-engineered content, say Indian officials. MORE

UK: GM crops are breeding with plants in the wild

December 29, 2002 : Independent/UK
By Geoffrey Lean

Alarming new results from official trials of GM crops are severely jeopardising Government plans for growing them commercially in Britain.

The results, in a new Government report, show – for the first time in Britain – that genes from GM crops are interbreeding on a large scale with conventional ones, and also with weeds.

The report is so devastating to the Government's case for GM crops that ministers last week sought to bury it by slipping the first information on it out on the website of the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Christmas Eve, the one day in the year when no newspapers are being prepared. MORE

Alarm as GM pig vaccine taints US crops
Strict new guidelines planned after contamination

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
December 24, 2002, The Guardian

US authorities, shaken by a case in which food crops were contaminated with an experimental pig vaccine, are preparing to impose stringent guidelines on a new generation of experimental GM crops.
The department of agriculture and the environmental protection agency are encountering growing disquiet from a coalition of farmers and food manufacturers about the potential dangers of the next phase of GM products - "biopharming", or the implanting of genes in food crops to grow drugs and industrial chemicals. MORE

US calls food aid refusal a crime against humanity

Dec. 05, 2002

BRUSSELS, Dec 5 (Reuters) - African leaders who refuse to accept food aid due to fears of genetically modified products are committing crimes against humanity and should be put on trial, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

He said Europe, which has effectively banned the development and import of new genetically modified crops, should do more to help millions of people facing famine in southern Africa and reassure them over the safety of such crops.

"People that deny food to their people, that are in fact starving people to death should be held responsible...for the highest crimes against humanity in the highest courts in the world," Tony Hall, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations food agencies, told reporters.

His words were principally directed at Zambia, which has banned GM food, and to some extent Zimbabwe, where he said red tape was delaying food shipments although it had in principle accepted aid. MORE

Gene-altered grain mishaps spark fears of contamination
Corn, soybeans in two U.S. states ordered destroyed Texas firm takes responsibility for farm incidents - Nov. 18, 2002

by Justin Gillis
Special to the Star

WASHINGTON - The chief executive of ProdiGene Inc., the company that mishandled gene-altered corn in Iowa and Nebraska, said his scientists will carefully study the possibility of growing such corn only in parts of the country where it could not contaminate the food supply.

That pledge by Anthony Laos, president and chief executive of the College Station, Texas, company, was a break from ProdiGene's past statements claiming that corn altered to make industrial or pharmaceutical proteins could be a boon for family farmers throughout the midwestern Corn Belt. MORE

Drought : Lessons from America
September 2002, by Devinder Sharma

There isn't a time when an educated Indian doesn't search for answers from 'America - the dream land' for the problems that crop up time and again at home. Whether in preventing hunger, promoting sustainable agriculture, kick-starting industrial growth, food habits, music, or adopting successful models of economic growth, India must follow the Americans. No wonder, the intelligentsia, the economists and the scientists are always desperate for opportunities to travel and return with a bag full of answers to our multitude of problems.

The solutions to India's raging drought - some call it the worst in recent memory - which haunts and ravages 12 states, too rest in the way America has managed its crop lands. After all, the United States has put together a drought-mitigation strategy, which has been touted as something that India needs to follow immediately. With hi-tech transformation, American agriculture, we all believe, has become insulated from the vagaries of drought. They apply laser, information technology and huge machines to farm cropland. They use satellite data, electronics and now genetic engineering for what is popularly called 'precision farming'. MORE

The Year of Playing Dangerously
The Great Containment:
Genetic Material Fallout from Mexico to Zambia

Oct. 26, 2002,
by HOPE SHAND AND SILVIA RIBEIRO

Thirteen months ago, the agbiotech industry wakened to a nightmare. Illegal and unwelcome, the presence of genetically-modified (GM) maize was reported smack in the crop's center of genetic origin in Mexico. There's never a good time for a political/ecological calamity, but the beleaguered Gene Giants were already struggling to persuade consumers, following the Taco Debacle (Starlink), that companies could control their inventions and their inventory.

The seed companies were also hoping to arm-twist EU ministers into lifting the ban on GM products in Europe. Suddenly, the headlines were full of the contamination scandal.

To make matters worse, the year ahead was shaping up to be the Year of the Summits--a succession of diplomatic poverty, hunger, and pollution "retros" including the Monterrey Summit on development financing in March; the 10th anniversary of the Biodiversity Convention in April; another World Food Summit (once more with feeling) in June-- all boiling up t! o the "mother of all summits" (World Summit on Sustainable Development) in South Africa in September. For the corporations (and the United States so aggressively supporting them) the issue was: how to run the gauntlet of intergovernmental marathons with GM contamination on their backs? Thirteen months later, the issue for governments, international agencies, and civil society is: how did the Gene Giants duck and dodge their way through all these fora and end the year with Southern African governments--half a world away from the "scene of the crime"--being blamed and vilified for rejecting GM seeds? MORE

Row grows over GM food aid for Africa

By Leonard Doyle, Independent UK, Oct. 19, 2002

A United Nations human rights envoy has been accused of endangering efforts to save 14 million people from starvation after he questioned the safety of genetically modified food destined for southern Africa.

Jean Ziegler, a UN special investigator for food, claimed that big corporations had more to gain from the use of GM food in the developing world than the poor countries that were trying to fight starvation.

"I'm against the theory of the multinational corporations who say if you are against hunger you must be for genetically modified organisms. That's wrong," Mr Ziegler said this week. "There is plenty of natural, normal, good food in the world to nourish the double of humanity."

Mr Ziegler's role is to report on the world food situation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and the UN General Assembly in New York. But his remarks have caused outrage in the international aid community, which is struggling to feed millions of hungry people in six southern African countries.

Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are all affected by spreading famine. Several countries, including Zimbabwe, initially rejected GM food aid but in the face of a pending calamity have reluctantly begun to distribute it. However, in Zambia, where people are now dying of hunger and from eating poisonous wild roots, the government has refused to allow GM food aid from Canada and the United States to be distributed. MORE...

Genetically Engineered Seeds Self-Destruct

by Pianke Nubiyang

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SEEDS SELF-DESTRUCT AFTER ONE PLANTING, FORCING FARMERS IN "THIRD WORLD" NATIONS TO CONTINUALLY DEPEND ON FOREIGN COMPANIES FOR THEIR SEEDS.

One may not believe their eyes after reading this (AFRICANS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA, TROPICAL AFRICA, INDIA, THE WORLD, LISTEN GOOD).

According to the September issue of Scientific American Magazine, seed companies and their scientists are now thinking about developing genetically engineered seeds, from natural foods found in the tropics. These seeds will only be capable of producing foods ONCE, and the genetic engineers will have the power to sell more seeds, while the local seeds would become contaminated and local farmers would have to depend on foreign companies for their seeds.

In California, there is about 11 months of dry weather. In fact much of California is in the high mountains or desert regions, some of it is near the coasts or the far north. Yet, most of California's best land is in regions that were dry lake beds or deserts that are sometimes identical in looks to parts of West Africa Sahel and the regions of Sudan and Southern Africa. In fact after Texas, California has the type of hot climate (110-125 degrees F, that one finds in parts of Africa), yet because of good and efficient irrigation, California's billion-dollar industry is agricultural produce. (hear this African leaders...West Indians others...its agriculture)

Therefore, the idea of taking African seeds and having foreign scientists genetically engineer seeds to produce only once is really committing genocide. How can any nation on earth agree to this scheme of destruction and dependence?

Here is the scheme again. Seed producing companies and scientists are planning to create genetically engineered seeds that will produce crops only once. After that, nations will have to depend on the seed companies to create more seeds, because the crop seeds will not be of any use.

AFRICANS/OTHERS AROUND THE WORLD MUST UNITE IN STOPPING THE DESTRUCTION OF CROP YIELDS AND PLANT LIFE

In stead of creating seeds that self-destruct after one planting, so that farmers will be held like slaves to the producers of seeds that originated in tropical lands, farmers around the world should unite and work to stop the attempt to control the production of food by a few people. Let's get farmers and Ministers of Agriculture from Africa, the Caribbean, China, Europe, America, Australia and other lands to unite on this issue.

Farmers are the people who keep the world alive. If there were no farming, civilization would not exist. Farmers, especially Black farmers in the U.S., some White family farmers in the U.S. and Europe, farmers of China, Japan, India, Africa, the Caribbean and around the world are a breed of people who make great sacrifices, and many of us have seen what they have to go through on the news or read it in the paper. Imagine being a farmer in Trinidad and Jamaica, St. Lucia or Haiti and planting a crop, tending it and watching it get near harvest, only to have a hurricane wipe it out. That is heart breaking. Imagine you are a farmer in Europe and floods destroy all your livestock and crops. Imagine a farmer in China having to cut down because its not attracting people, who prefer to move in the cities. Imagine a Midwestern U.S. farmer selling his equipment due to being broke. Imagine peasant farmers in parts of Southern Africa having no land and have to work on the farm of foreigners like semi-slaves for a few dollars, while a few people control the entire system of agriculture.

FARMERS AND GOVERNMENTS SHOULD BE AWARE AND PREPARED

Farmers and governments in Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere should be very careful about the trickery of selling their national heritage in the form of seeds, so that companies can control the food supply of the entire world and hold the rest of humanity hostage with their scheme to genetically modify seeds and crops.

UK Report Casts Doubt on North American GM Crops

Published on Wednesday, September 18, 2002 by Reuters
by Veronica Brown

LONDON, Sept 17 - Genetically modified crops in North America have been an economic disaster, which has caused some farm groups there to call for a moratorium on GM wheat, the next proposed crop to be altered, a report released on Tuesday said.

The study by the Soil Association, Britain's leading organic organization, estimated that gene-altered maize, soya and rapeseed may have cost the U.S. economy $12 billion since 1999 in farm subsidies, lower crop prices, loss of major export orders and product recalls.

Scientists have said that the advent of such crops could be the answer to world hunger, but the report said claims of increased yields have not been realized overall -- except for a small increase in some maize yields. MORE

Zimbabwe says No to GM food aid

September 2, 2002
From Wisdom Mdzungairi in JOHANESSBURG

ZIMBABWE will not accept food aid containing genetically modified organisms, Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister Cde Joseph Made said here yesterday. MORE

Zambia must take GM crops or starve

The United States, which grows genetically modified, or GM crops, provides 75 percent of the food WFP distributes to southern Africa.

The Zambian government says it is concerned about the safety of biotech food, and is afraid that GM grains might be planted, thus contaminating its food crop.

Donors are exaggerating food crisis

www.zamnet.zm - PRESIDENT Levy Mwanawasa has saild Government's rejection of Genetically Modified maize does not warrant a smear campaign from some donors who are now exaggerating the extent of hunger in the country.

Mr Mwanawasa said contrary to assertions by some donors, it was not true that 2 million Zambians face starvation now that Government had rejected the GM maize.

Speaking in Sinazongwe at the start of his tour of Southern Province yesterday, the President warned that Government may be forced to give matching orders to such donors if reports that 2 million Zambians may die of starvation persist.

"If these people think we have committed a sin to reject the GMOs, then they should go before we give them matching orders," the President said when he addressed Sinazongwe residents yesterday.

Mr Mwanawasa said if the donors had information that some people in areas they know were dying of hunger, they should go to his office where upon he would give them relief food.

"If these people know who is starving because of lack of food, let them come to me and say so and so is starving. We will give them relief food to give those people," Mr Mwanawasa said.

The President said the government's decision to reject the GMOs did not mean that the country undermined the people who offered her food.

He said the decision was made in the interest of the public and he did not have any regrets for taking such a stance.

Mr Mwanawasa stated that no one would die of hunger for as long as the MMD government remained in office.

Mr Mwanawasa underscored Government's decision to provide for the hungry when he announced that 100 metric tonnes of maize had been supplied to Sinazongwe while 150 tonnes were destined for Choma.

The President wondered how else the country could have accepted GMOs when in fact these foods had been rejected in Europe.

"If Europe has rejected the GMOs why should we accept them just because we are poor," Mr Mwanawasa asked.

Mr Mwanawasa said if Zambia produced GMOs, Europe would have been the first to reject the items.

He said Zambia should be proud that her agriculture products were accepted in Europe because they were not genetically modified.

Mr Mwanawasa urged the people of Sinazongwe to work hard and ensure there was food throughout the year to feed themselves.

He said it was a shame that despite having been independent for the past 37 years, Zambia depended on food imports.

Mr Mwanawasa said the winter maize project going on in the area should be supported because it would create employment and ensure food security.

He warned the people not to steal the produce from Agriflora because doing so would frustrate investors who may end up leaving the area.

Mr Mwanawasa said he was impressed with the performance of the winter maize project in Sinazongwe.

And KELVIN CHONGO reports that Agriflora general manager Niel Sledge said their farm was making K400 million per day in agricultural products exported to European markets representing sales of K12 billion per month.

Mr Sledge said the company supported the government's efforts and policy on agriculture.

Speaking when he took President Mwanawasa on a conducted tour of the farm, Mr Sledge said the farm has employed 7,000 workers and at full scale can produce 20,000 metric tonnes of winter maize and a similar quantity of rain-fed maize.

He said from the current winter maize grown, his company would produce 800 metric tonnes of maize.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Mundia Sikatana said he was happy with the project because it had also guaranteed employment throughout the year to the villagers.

U.S. Offers Zambia Food Safety Help

Wednesday August 28, 2002, Guardian UK

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) - The United States offered Wednesday to help Zambia assess the safety of genetically modified grain, after the Southern African nation rejected donations despite an impending food crisis.

Washington has offered to help Zambia set up its own biotechnology plant so scientists can research genetically modified foods, said Andrew Natsios, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The United States will also provide Zambia data collected by its own scientists, he said. Natsios made the offer at a meeting with Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa, during a two-day visit to Zambia.

Natsios told reporters shortly before his departure that the United States had also offered to help Zambian scientists travel to the United States to review the safety of the corn produced there.

He maintained that genetically modified food is safe, saying Americans eat it every day. MORE