Davidson reports: "France has held firm in its opposition to Monsanto's genetically modified MON 810 maize - and the agri-chemical multinational has admitted defeat."
French beekeepers protest the use of genetically-modified organisms in front of French Monsanto headquarters in Bron, near Lyon, January 20, 2012. (photo: Robert Pratta/Reuters)
France Defeats Monsanto
04 February 12
rance has held firm in its opposition to Monsanto's genetically modified MON 810 maize - and the agri-chemical multinational has admitted defeat.
Monsanto had been putting legal pressure on the French government to lift its 2008 cultivation ban on MON 810, firstly with a successful appeal to the European Court of Justice, then with a follow-up case heard in France's own highest court, the Council of State.
But despite both these institutions ruling that the ban was "insufficiently justified in law", the French Government, backed by President Sarkozy, has insisted that it will still not allow cultivation of the biotech maize.
Now Monsanto has announced that it would not be selling seeds for MON810 in France this year.
France's stand - and Monsanto's capitulation - has been warmly welcomed by anti-GM lobbyists GM Freeze, whose campaign director Pete Riley said: "The decision by Monsanto not to market MON810 seeds in France in 2012 is yet another sign that Monsanto has failed to convince the public or policy makers that there is any benefit to growing to growing GM crops.
"This needs to be acknowledged by industry and politicians and there should be a big shift to agricultural research and development which addresses the future sustainability of farming in Europe. EU policy needs to forget about the bottom line of biotech corporations and focus on developing agro-ecological farming which provides for the needs of farmers, consumers, the environment and future generations."
Five other EU countries - Germany, Greece, Austria, Luxembourg and Hungary - have current bans on MON810 cultivation in place, and the issue has recently been complicated by another European Court of Justice ruling requiring honey contaminated with GM pollen to be fully authorised as a novel product and labelled as such before it can be sold.
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I would want to join the demonstration by forming a group in association with local food growers. Monsanto is killing our seeds and poisoning our food and water and honeybees. The fact that these criminals are sponsoring OPB is scaring me from trusting the only free speech TV station available. Denise in Portland
Balance must be restored and the sanity of needed caution and wisdom over financial interests is a start.
Although this is a single episode in what is a constant battle, credit must be given to the process and the decision makers.
Please bring similar common sense back to U.S.
His decent views, decisions, and actions are more a reflection of Eurpoean world view and those political parameters that generally restrain most politicians who are at all at the mercy of general populous -- minus the shameless, the ego-maniacal, and the perpetually insulated, cool-aid-drinking bubble-dwellers that the U.S has in abundance (combined with ignorant, propaganda infused, delusional or wilfully blind, terminally-Party aligned apologists), which are usually more socially progressive, rather than Sarkozy's maintaining down-to-Earth idealogical alignment with ordinary people and selfless adherence to benevolent stewardship of the people's interest. For whatever credit he's due, this is more surprising than anything.
Maybe it's bias on my part; align yourself with Bush/Cheney/neo-con policies and agenda and you lose me. It is why, although Obama almost had my support, he never gained it -- except as a pre-Presidency comparative to neo-conservatives/Hillary, and through the nothing-to-judge-him-by period. His buckling on retro-active tele-com immunity and talk of looking forward, not backwards was foreboding enough to me, but I had no idea that he'd bee this bad. It's still hard to believe.
France gave up its sovereignty by signing the Lisbon Treaty. The EU hasn't seen a corporate-benefiting treaty it didn't like, including those through the WTO that enforce trade benefits to multinational corporations.
Monsanto had already taken most of its GM development outside the EU. BASF has just started that process. But that doesn't mean they won't be selling their products in the EU. The treaties will see to that.
The book claims that changes gradually brought into the American public education system attempt to eliminate the influences of a child's parents (religion, morals, national patriotism), and mold the child into a member of the proletariat in preparation for a socialist-collectivist world of the future. She alleges that these changes originated from plans formulated primarily by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Education, and the Rockefeller General Education Board. She details what she says are the psychological methods used to implement and effect the changes. She discovered how these policies of a socialist-collectivist nature originated all the way to President Reagan, Vice President George H. W. Bush, and their policy advisers. Up until 1960 Reagan, was a leading member of United World Federalists (whose purpose was to merge America into a world government), was a charter member of Americans for Democratic Action. Reagan was also a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Veterans Committee that was supposedly "under communist influence." She was an insider and came out...
BTW, in addition to my long-standing opposition to Frankenfoods, I've only just discovered, serendipitously , that underlying my ME/CFS is undetected gluten intolerance. I've begun the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet, with results within days. There I learned that the whole movement to replace saturated animal fats with oils, the move to lower fat everywhere, has left a whole generation without the nutrients for good brain and nerve health. Deliberate? Just capitalism at work? FDA collaboration and collusion? So many questions, so few answers. Thanks for this book.
These John Birchers have been playing the same tune since the 50s -- the ruling elites of the US (Fords, Rockefellers, etc) are secretly communists and want to move the US into merging with the USSR so that all americans can be slaves. Reagan was one of these lunatics. It was all a distraction created by the FBI. In reality, the ruling elites in the US have always been -- surprise -- capitalists and imperialists hooked up with the British ruling elite and now the Israeli capitalist elite group. Thus AAIE -- Anglo American Israeli Elite.
A better insider's story is Carroll Quigley whose Anglo American Elite and Tragey and Hope do tell the true story of the AAIE.
Gives a whole new meaning to "the bottom line".
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