Julia Wright – Farmers would do better to understand the land than grow GM crops

Suppose your relationship is falling apart and you want to save it. To find the best counsellor, you might search online or ask your friends. It’s no different in agriculture. The rational response to any food or farming dilemma is to test and compare different options to see which is most effective as a solution. Except when it comes to …

Independent scientists warn over Monsanto pesticide

* Two major agencies disagree over whether the world’s most-used pesticide, glyphosate, is safe. As the European Union debates the topic, nearly 100 scientists from around the world have urged it to heed safety warnings. It’s the most commonly used – and perhaps also most controversial – pesticide in the world: glyphosate. Opinion between the European Food Standards Agency (EFSA) …

CHRISTINA SARICH – Hungary and Austria Team Up to Regulate Ban on GMOs with Fierce Resolve

In the US we are still swimming from the FDA’s approval of GM salmon, while across the world, member states of the EU, Hungary, and Austria team up to make sure genetically modified food isn’t getting into their countries. Hungary Today reports: “European People’s Party MEPs György Hölvényi of Hungary and Elisabeth Köstinger of Austria organised a conference in Brussels on the …

Europe rejects GM crops as new report highlights 20 years of failures

Brussels – By the end of today, all 19 government requests for bans of GM crop cultivation are expected to go unchallenged by biotech companies, pathing the way for two thirds of the EU’s farmland and population to remain GM-free. The growing opposition to GM crops coincides with a new Greenpeace report reviewing evidence of GM environmental risks, market failures, …

Alternative Visions – Dissecting US 3rd Quarter GDP Numbers Today – 10.30.15

Jack Rasmus looks beneath the surface of today’s announced preliminary figures for third quarter 2015 GDP, which slowed sharply at 1.5% from the previous quarter’s 3.9% official growth rate. Jack predicts the US economy is headed, once again, in early 2016 for another ‘relapse’ with US GDP collapsing to zero or near zero growth—for the fifth time of a single quarter collapse since 2011. The US economy is on a ‘stop-go’ trajectory of periodic single quarter ‘relapses’ followed by short, shallow recoveries. Jack notes a similar process globally has been occurring in Europe and Japan, where ‘recessions’ instead of ‘relapses’ occur. 3rd Quarter US data show problems in business spending on inventories, business structures and equipment investment. Problems in US manufacturing and exports continue and will worsen, he argues, and housing growth will remain tepid based on high end residences and apartments. Jack challenges claims by media and economists that US consumer spending will continue to prop up the US economy, citing recent negative wage growth, deflating prices, and rising household debt. Look for 4th quarter growth no better than third, then a ‘relapse’ in 2016 as the likely trajectory. In the second half of the show, Rasmus discusses how US multinational corporations like Apple, Google, Starbucks and others manipulate global tax loopholes, how Wall St. manipulates the pharmaceutical companies, and how US consumers pay for pharma-bank profits and multinational corps taxes. Why politicians in office, and running, will do nothing about it—and pass even more tax cuts for US corporations after 2016 elections.

Christina Sarich – PhD Says Monsanto Has Been Lying About Safety of Cry Proteins in GM Bt Crops

In a recent interview on Food Sleuth Radio, Dr. Hansen exposes Monsanto’s latest contrivance – that Bt toxic corn is ‘safe’ to eat. Dr. Hansen provides ‘clean’ science through Consumer Reports that has no private backing, and certainly none by the GM industry. Hansen states that biotechnology allows you to move genetic traits from any possible source – viruses, bacteria, …

Austria and Italy celebrate bans on GM crops with EU opt-out

Austrian Health Minister Sabine Oberhauser and a number of Italian Ministries have confirmed that both countries are officially requesting an opt-out from growing the eight varieties of GM maize permitted or set to be permitted at the EU level, thus there will now be a full ban on GM crops in both countries under new EU regulations. “Austria has made …

Leid Stories – 09.09.15

Europe’s Refugee Crisis Rooted in Imperialism, Says French Journalist
Family’s Settlement in Police Homicide Case Repeats Disturbing Pattern
The European Union appears French journalist, political analyst and filmmaker Gilbert Mercier, cofounder and editor in chief of News Junkie Post, looks at Europe’s refugee crisis as the predictable result of Western imperialism and its aggressive implementation of failed-state policies in the war-torn countries from which the vast majority of refugees are fleeing.
The City of Baltimore’s five-member Board of Estimates is expected to finalize today a $6.4-million settlement in the police-homicide case of Freddie Gray, whose death a week after suffering injuries during a “rough ride” in a police wagon on April 12 touched off a wave of local and national protests.
“Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr., who has set many legal precedents in several high-profile cases involving excessive force by police and prosecutorial misconduct, discusses the implications of the settlement.

Peter Koenig – Greece: Has The New Government Already Sold-Out Before New Elections on 20 September?

The Delphi Initiative of Greece issued yesterday the following statement under the title Tsipras – Kammenos Surrender Greece: The Greek Left is a political force, the supporters of which gave heroic struggles in the past to defend democracy and national independence of Greece, thousands and thousands of them dying, sent into prison and exile or tortured. It is the first …

Science must be protected from commercial interests

Science must be defended against commercial interests that attempt to get important papers on GMOs and pesticides retracted rather than encouraging further research to clarify any uncertainties, says an important new peer-reviewed paper published in Environmental Sciences Europe. The paper, authored by Drs John Fagan, Terje Traavik and Thomas Bøhn, details the events that followed the publication of the research …