Saturday, April 22, 2006

EU Quizzed Over GM Backing

Green Consumer Guide -- Environmental campaigners have slammed the European Commission this week after it emerged that the authority has been backing the growth of genetically modified crops despite having several serious concerns over their effects on human health and the environment. The doubts over safety were revealed in a dossier of scientific evidence that the EU sent to the World Trade Organisation, obtained by Friends of the Earth through the Freedom of Information Act regulations. The emergence of the information could lead to a significant problem for the EU, and the UK, in terms of clarifying official opinions on GMO safety.

The dossier, which was written up by EU officials in support of the original ban on GMOs, outlines the ‘large areas of uncertainty’ and gaps in the scientific knowledge on biotech crop varieties. The document goes on to detail the potential dangers that GMOs could pose to human safety, conventional crops and the wider environment, on which it highlights a key study that supports GM planting as ‘scientifically flawed’.

Since the dossier was submitted, the EU has approved seven new types of GM varieties, and commercialised thirty-one types of Monsanto’s GM maize for development in the region.

“This latest evidence is absolutely shocking,” commented Caroline Lucas, South-East England’s Green Party Euro-MP. “Not only does it reveal the depth of uncertainty – and therefore potential risks – surrounding GM, it makes plain as day the unpalatable fact that the EU Commission has been well aware of these concerns whilst authorising new GM products for sale and growth.”

“This has the makings of a full-scale EU-wide food safety scandal and the European Commission must halt the sale and import of all GM crops and products in the EU until its fears over the crops’ uncertain effects on health and the environment have been allayed,” added Dr. Lucas.

The UK Government was one of the major supporters of the EU’s aims, voting in six of the seven ballots on GM approvals, a situation which campaigners are now calling to be clarified.

"When the EU Commission broke the moratorium and forced GM foods into Europe, it told the public they were safe. But the Commission clearly knew this was not the case and was prepared to recognise the risk behind closed doors. The UK Government must now reveal whether it had access to these documents and whether it voted in support of GM foods while knowing the risks they posed," said Friends of Earth’s Claire Oxborrow.

***

MELES DEFENDING GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS
"Should we rule out GM crops or biotechnology as a weapon in our arsenal? No. Why should we rule out any technology? GM technology is like every [other] technology," Meles told journalists. "It could be used well, or it could be misused. The issue is how to use it well. I think it can be used well if is used safely and if it does not increase the already big power of huge multinationals at the expense of the small-scale farmer."

Friday, April 21, 2006

Thandie Urges Celebs to Drop SUVs

thandie.jpg
Green Consumer Guide -- ‘Crash’ star Thandie Newton has written to a host of fellow celebrities in the US and UK to urge them to follow her lead and change their cars from 4x4s to more eco-friendly alternatives.

BAFTA winner Thandie made the switch from a BMW X5 to a hybrid Toyota Prius after Greenpeace campaigners left a sticker on her 4x4 explaining the environmental impact of driving SUVs. As part of the awareness-raising campaign from the environmental group, which has been ongoing for several months, cardboard clamps, fake tax discs and information leaflets are left attached to 4x4s.

"My concerns for the environment had been growing for a long time but I had not connected them with the car I drove. When I saw the sticker it just connected all the dots up," said Thandie Newton.

"We didn't know it was Thandie Newton's car when we did it. To us it would have been just another massive 4x4,” explained Cat Dorey, the Greenpeace activist who left the sticker on Thandie’s X5. ”We've talked to a lot of 4x4 owners through our campaign, and most do understand our view - they have just never thought about how much CO2 their cars are pumping out. The saddest thing I hear is that people buy these huge cars to keep their kids safe, as if climate change is going to be good news for anyone's kids!"

"I think it's fantastic that Thandie sold her 4x4 to buy a Prius. Some of these 4x4s pump out two or three times their own body weight in CO2 every year, but hybrids have a much better fuel efficiency. Hopefully some of the other famous people she's written to will do the same. Celebrities have such a big influence on public fashions and they have to realise that when they are pictured in Hello magazine clambering out of these climate wreckers it sends out a really bad message,” added Cat Dorey.

Recipients of Thandie’s letter included fellow actors Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck and Charlize Theron, musicians Chris Martin, Michael Jackson and Ozzy Osbourne, and football stars David Beckham, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney, among others.


OTHER NEWS

Cuba Promoting Genetically Engineered Agriculture

‘Green’ champions receive UN laurels at Singapore gala

The 2006 Champions of the Earth are:

  • Tewolde Gebre Egziabher of Ethiopia, who campaigns for community rights in Africa and against the patenting of life forms.
  • Tommy Koh of Singapore, who chaired the Earth Summit and the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea.
  • Mikhail Gorbachev of the Russian Federation, who is prominent in the field of international environmental politics.
  • Rosa Elena Simeon Negrin of Cuba, a champion of small island developing states.
  • The Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), which promotes women’s economic, social and gender rights within sustainable development.
  • Mohamed El-Ashry of Egypt, former head of the Global Environment Facility, which helps developing countries with sustainable development.
  • Massoumeh Ebtekar, Iran’s first female vice-president and a champion of cleaner production in the petrochemical industry.

Get On the Bus to NYC for Human Rights with Amnesty International!



2:30-3:00 pm

Demonstration # 2 at the Ethiopian Mission to the U N
Map of 866 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10017-2905, US


Subject: the widespread arbitrary detention, ‘disappearances' and use of excessive force by police and soldiers against anyone suspected of supporting opposition groups and the prosecution of 131 people, including 40 opposition party leaders and supporters, 10 newly-elected members of parliament, 3 prominent human rights defenders, 15 independent journalists, 30 Ethiopian expatriates (including 5 journalists from Voice of America) and many members of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy for high treason and genocide, which could lead to death sentences for those convicted.

Amnesty International

Ethiopia
Free All Prisoners of Conscience
Free Prof. Mesfin Woldemariam
Respect Freedom of Expression and Association
Freedom of speech and association for Ethiopia!
Protect the human rights of all Ethiopians
Freedom of speech and association are human rights

Names of Ethiopian prisoners of conscience
Dr. Berhanu Negga, Professor of Economics
Dr. Yacob Hailemariam, a former prosecutor in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Daniel Bekelle, lawyer and policy manager of ActionAid Ethiopia
Netsanet Demissie, environmental and human rights lawyer, chair, Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia
Kassahun Kebede, Ethiopian Teachers Association
Berhane Moges
Frezer Negash
Hailu Shawel
Bitukan Mideksa
Getachew Mengiste
Gizachew Shifferaw
Dr. Hailu Araya
Debebe Eshetu
Muluneh Eyual
Daniel Bekele
Natsanet Demissie
Dr. Befekadu Degefe
Abraham Roda, farmer
Abraham Tula, former Sidama Development Corporation (NGO)
Abure Assefa, civil servant
Dessalegne Gassamo, USAID educational advisor
Edasso Ebissa, farmer
Musse Alemayehu, civil servant
Tadesse Washo, nurse
Tefera Janba, Awassa Tabour school student
Yosef Lalimo, Awassa Tabour school student
Kifle Tigeneh, aged 67, elected member of parliament
Solomon Aregawi, age 20, journalist
Admassu Abebe, age 50
Getachew Kebede, age 58, elected member of Addis Ababa City Council, army captain
Kifle Mekonnen, age 60, elected member of Addis Ababa City Council
Solomon Demissie, age 70, elected member of Addis Ababa City Council
Molla Alemayehu, age 56
Mulunesh Mammo, age 39
Natnael Mekonnen, age 28
Wassihun Alemu, age 60

Source: getonthebustonyc.blogspot.com

Where’s Official Outcry Over NSU Prof Jailed in Ethiopia?

The Virginian-Pilot -- Imagine standing up for what is right and being imprisoned.”

Those words adorned T-shirts worn by many of the 300 citizens gathered at Norfolk State University Tuesday evening. They had come to free Yacob.

Black, white and brown, wearing sorority jackets, suits and kids on their hips, they gathered outside the Wilder Center amid the pink azaleas and young boxwoods on a spring day when it’s hard to imagine anything is wrong in this world.

But something is wrong.

In fact, something’s dreadfully wrong when the people are leading and the leaders are silent. Or hoping like Hades no one asks why they haven’t generated some official action for Yacob Hailemariam.

“Dr. Yacob,” as he was known to his NSU students, left his comfortable Virginia Beach home of two decades to spread America’s democratic values to his native Ethiopia by running for a seat in parliament, which he won, last May.

But Ethiopia’s leader gutted parliament of any real power — a nice little totalitarian perk — and threw Hailemariam, 61, and his fellow pro-democracy leaders in jail on bogus charges of treason and genocide.

Now he sits in prison with more than 100 democratic activists and journalists, guilty only of a passion for freedom, with a possible death sentence hanging over his graying head. Amnesty International has declared him a prisoner of conscience.

Something’s wrong when hundreds of neighbors, former students, sailors, Marines and Spartans who never took a class with Hailemariam but knew him by reputation turn out in force on his behalf and still can’t get their congressional representatives’ attention.

Something’s also wrong when the excited, purposeful hubbub of students — the very group politicians are always tut-tutting for not being “engaged on the issues” — overpowers those same politicians’ radio silence.

And something’s wrong when a White House and a Congress that could hold a two-way bull-excrement-flinging contest about democracy in the Middle East are conspicuously mum about it elsewhere.

Some lawmakers aren’t. A bill by New Jersey GOP Rep. Chris Smith to encourage the Ethiopian government to shape up or lose aid money is wending its way through the House.

Co-sponsors run the gamut from fire-breathing conservatives to crotchety liberals, and include two Virginians, Democrat Jim Moran and Republican Frank Wolf.

Absent are Rep. Thelma Drake, who represents Hailemariam’s family, Rep. Bobby Scott, who represents NSU, and Sens. George Allen and John Warner.

Allen and Drake say they’ve sent letters of inquiry to the State Department or the Ethiopian Embassy, which is a little like knocking on the fox’s den as he’s gnawing on a chicken bone.

Drake told me in February that she hadn’t joined Smith’s bill because she hadn’t yet received a “Dear Colleague” letter — an announcement of the bill that goes out to all members of Congress. But Smith’s office confirmed Tuesday that the letter was sent in November.

Scott’s office refused to talk on the record Tuesday. Allen has resisted all entreaties, including a face-to-face one from Hailemariam’s daughter, to introduce similar legislation.

Something’s wrong when those sporting the title of “representative” ... well, aren’t. As NSU sophomore Alonzo Walker put it, “I can’t believe they wouldn’t use this issue to push democracy. But hey, what’s in it for them? It’s a give-and-take political system.”

Neither a diplomatic démarche nor a sternly worded letter to The Times will free Yacob.

In the global war on terror, America is not a supplicant. Ethiopia is one of our largest aid recipients, and we have monetary and diplomatic levers at our disposal to encourage compliance with democratic ideals.

Maybe the White House and Congress need to be reminded that we don’t have to occupy a country in order to liberate its people.

Yes, imagine standing up for what’s right.

***

FOR MORE ETHIOPIAN-RELATED NEWS, GO TO ETHIOMEDIA.COM

FREEYACOB.COM

Monday, April 10, 2006

Bureau Disposes Obsolete Pesticides

Walta -- The Agriculture and Rural Development Bureau of SNNP state disclosed that it has disposed 117,701 kgs of obsolete pesticides during the last seven months.

Agriculture Sector Crop development and Protection Team leader,Simayehu Tafesse, told WIC today that the Bureau has finalized the disposal of the pesticides both in liquid and powder form.

The obsolete pesticides were deposited in the state for a long period of time becoming a threat to human and animal health, especially to agricultural workers and farmers.

The Bureau disposed the obsolete chemicals in cooperation with Food and Agriculture Organizations (FAO), he said.

The activity is part of the task of disposing obsolete pesticides at national level accumulated for the last 40 years without being used, he added.

Research Institute Develops 12 New, Improved Seed Varieties

Walta -- The Oromia Agricultural Research Institute disclosed that it has developed 12 new and improved varieties of seeds.

Crops Research Director with the Institute, Dr. Amsalu Ayana, told WIC yesterday that the institute develops different varieties of seeds every year and added that currently it has submitted 23 new and improved varieties of seeds to the National Seeds Certification Committee out of which 12 are now approved.

The new and improved varieties were developed in Bako and Sinana agricultural research centers.The improved varieties of millet, teff, potato, sweet potato, tomato and wheat produce 10 percent more yield than the old ones, while the varieties of fenugreek, black cumin and dinbilal are new.

According to Dr. Amsalu, the institute has been contributing its share in improving productivity by organizing field visit, establishing extension sections in research centers and demonstration centers on plots of farmers.

He added that training have also been offered to 40 farmers drawn from Oromia, SNNP and Tigray states.The director urged governmental and non-governmental organizations to multiply the new varieties and dispatch them to farmers in time.

Previous Post: Are GM Crops the Answer to Food Shortages?

Poverty in Africa Linked to Water Management

Dominican Today -- According to the United Nations, African countries will be hard pressed to emerge from poverty due to poor water management, not a lack of available water.

African countries will be hard pressed to emerge from poverty due to poor water management not a lack of available water, the United Nations said on Thursday. "There is enough fresh water in Africa for everybody, but management of water resources is less than optimal," said Nick Nuttall, spokesperson of the U.N. Environment Program.

Nuttall spoke in Nairobi after the release of a U.N. report on water development ahead of the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City, which links mismanagement of water to development.

"Water is power and those who control the flow of water in time and space can exercise this power in various ways. It is often claimed that clean water tends to gravitate towards the rich and waste water towards the poor," it said.

The United Nations estimates 1.1 billion people globally do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion still do not have basic sanitation. Although it is unevenly distributed, there is plenty of water for everyone in the world, but poor management is why everyone does not have access, the United Nations said.

The United Nations estimates 1.1 billion people globally do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion still do not have basic sanitation.

The majority of Africa's population live on less than a dollar a day and African countries lack the basic infrastructure to provide adequate health services. In sub-Saharan Africa access increased from 49 percent to 58 percent between 1990 and 2002 but that fell short of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 75 percent, the report said.

In water-scarce North Africa, good water management is the reason its countries use more of available water than water-rich sub-Saharan Africa, said Kevin Pietersen, director of the South Africa-based Water Research Commission. The report said Algeria uses 42 percent of its available water while the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has twice as much water, only uses 0.03 percent.

Although it is unevenly distributed, there is plenty of water for everyone in the world, but poor management is why everyone does not have access, the United Nations said.

Improved water management can also boost a country's economic growth. In Kenya, improved ability to deal with floods and drought could help raise its gross domestic product from 5 percent to 6 percent annually, the report said.

Water management also impacts energy output, one of the most important ingredients for economic growth in developing countries. In Ethiopia, it is estimated that 30,000 mega watts (MW) of hydropower can be generated from existing water, but only 670 MW are actually used, the report said.

"While Europe makes use of 75 percent of its hydropower potential, Africa – where 60 percent of the population has no access to electricity – has developed only 7 percent of its potential," the report said.

Ethiopia Endowed with Climate Favorable for Cherry Tomato Cultivation

AND -- The Melkasa Agricultural Research Center (MARC) on its part said the cherry tomato variety under trial could yield more than 1,000 quintals per hectare.

Representative of the Israeli Company, Tomaisin, Ofer Kahane, told Ethiopian News Agency on Friday that the company is the only firm that discovered three varieties of tomato that could be prepared in the form of dry tomato.

Kahane said although the company attempted to multiply the varieties in West Africa, Latin America and other parts of the world so as to supply the produce to the European market, it has not found a climate as favorable for the varieties as in Ethiopia.

Trials jointly conducted by the company and MARC have proved that the variety could be cultivated in abundant quantity and very good quality around the Rift Valley area and the surroundings of Mekele in Tigray State, Kahane said.

He added that the company will begin partially supplying the product next year, and enter into the European market with full capacity after two years.

Kahane said the supply of the product to the European market would help the foreign currency earnings of the country to increase substantially.

Director of MARC, Dr. Fasil Reda said the trial production launched in November last year has confirmed that the variety could yield more than 1,000 quintals of tomato per hectare.

Dr. Fasil said the cherry tomato variety tried in Ethiopia is in high demand on the European market than that of the similar variety in Israel.

The annual market share of cherry tomato in Europe is around 150 million US Dollars. Dr. Fasil said.

The variety could easily be cultivated by household farmers and be preserved for more than a month without its taste and content being changed, while it could also be easily transported by air or land.

Dr. Fasil said the supply of the variety to market would help maintain the economic growth the nation registered over the past three years.

Previous Post: The Color Orange: Key to More Nutritious Maize?