GMW: EU Executive Faces Pressure to Deal With GMO Laws

[Guest guest]

GMW: EU Executive Faces Pressure to Deal With GMO Laws

" GM WATCH " <info

Fri, 5 May 2006 09:29:31 +0100

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

---

EU Executive Faces Pressure to Deal With GMO Laws

REUTERS BELGIUM: May 5, 2006

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36241/story.htm

 

BRUSSELS - EU countries will soon demand more clarity on rules for

separating traditional, organic and biotech crops, focusing on specific

plant varieties to help farmers who want to grow GMOs to be better

able to

do so.

 

The European Commission, the EU executive, issued general guidelines

back in July 2003 on how farmers should separate the three crop types.

The idea was for national governments to make their own laws to

facilitate GMO growing if farmers wanted it.

 

But this was not a legal obligation and most countries have been very

slow to draft and adopt laws on an area known in EU jargon as

coexistence. Some have not bothered at all.

 

As of the end of 2005, only four EU states had coexistence laws in

place, although several more have notified their plans.

 

The Commission has come under repeated pressure from several countries

to draft an EU-wide coexistence law to cover economic liability for

contamination and separation distances. In February, it disappointed many

by saying this was unnecessary.

 

Now, following a major coexistence conference held last month in

Vienna, the EU-25 is expected to instruct the Commission to come up

with far

more specific growing guidelines.

 

Later this month, EU farm ministers will vote on a paper that asks the

Commission to " identify ... best practice for technical segregation

measures and ... develop guidelines for crop-specific measures, "

according

to the paper's draft text. " The conclusion from the conference was that

we have to develop crop-specific guidelines, as rapeseed is different

from maize, for example, " a Commission official said. Privately,

insiders say the guidelines are unlikely to emerge before 2007.

 

LAST JIGSAW PIECES

 

The EU executive should also receive orders to sort out, finally, its

views on how much biotech material can be tolerated in seed batches --

and end a three-year row over the EU's last major GMO law. This area has

proved so controversial that even the Commission, usually united on GMO

policy, cannot agree.

 

The Commission would " come forward as soon as possible with common

labelling thresholds for seeds, " the draft paper said.

 

" ... the level of these thresholds should allow freedom of choice

throughout the whole food production chain, and it should not create a

disproportionate burden for any group of operators, " said the document,

obtained by Reuters.

 

Thresholds would be set so that the labelling threshold for final

products at the end of the production chain, which the EU has set at 0.9

percent, can be respected.

 

For once, green groups and the biotech industry can agree that GMO seed

thresholds are necessary and long overdue. But they differ widely on

the threshold levels that should be set.

 

What is at stake are the percentage levels of GMO content that can

reasonably be allowed in crops like maize and rapeseed before the seeds

have to be labelled as biotech.

 

Batches of conventional seed containing genetically modified material

below those thresholds would not have to be labelled.

 

None of this means, however, that the bloc is about to approve more GMO

varieties for cultivation since " live " GMOs remain a highly

controversial area for the Commission itself and the EU's 25 member

states -- long

divided on GMO policy.

 

Still, coexistence laws and seed thresholds are widely seen as the last

pieces of the jigsaw in the EU's plethora of GMO laws. Some EU states

say it is essential to have at least seed thresholds in place before new

" live " GMOs can be contemplated.

 

 

 

 

-------------------

 

 

 

Will, you help post this message around the net. Blogs, groups, newsletters,

etc.

 

 

 

 

Email Disappearing Without a Trace

 

and are censoring emails

Seems that is not the only one doing this though.

Google search is deleting some sites from the search resultsi. AOL and Comcast

are disappearing email.

 

They are all in violation of the BILL OF RIGHTS and the ideas of free speech..

 

 

 

Email Disappearing Without a Trace

New Form Of Internet Censorship

By Pamela May 4, 2006

 

Recently I have been experiencing great difficulty in getting information to you

all again. For the third time this week I have written entire articles, sent

them through my internet providers (AOL and Comcast) got a confirmation that the

email was sent, and then the entire email vanished with no trace in my outbox or

inbox.

 

I have lost email before while " in the process of writing it " . We all have.

Usually this happens when the entire connection was lost and the service needed

to be re-contacted. But never before have I lost email after it was confirmed

sent, with no trace of it in my sent box. I have sent mail before that was

returned to me for various errors in email addresses I sent mail to. But the

email was still sent to other recipients of that email. I have also been blocked

from sending email and got error messages for various email address reasons. But

never before has anything like this happened to where there was a confirmation

of mail being sent, then it is not sent, and no record at all shows in my out

box that the email ever existed.

 

This is becoming a greater concern to me, especially with the internet war they

are staging right now in order to silence many activist sites and drive out

small start up companies that threaten big business Internet monopolies. It is

obvious to me that certain links used in information that is shared via email is

being flagged for confiscation so that it is neither received ,nor is a record

left in our boxes. We either have to re-write the whole thing or just forget

writing it again if we have no back up record of that work.

 

Luckily I saved the recent information on microwave ovens I wrote today in a

word file so I would not have to painstakingly re-write it again like I had to

with the article on Babies being targeted with the FluMist vaccines. Because

once again, I wrote the entire piece, inserted my group email addresses, pressed

send, got the confirmation window the email was sent, then poof, no article in

my outbox or inbox.

 

I do believe our email is being censored and has been for a quite a while now.

Thus the reason why they earnestly wanted to (after the fact) pass laws that

allow them to do it legally (spy on Americans, on American soil, via

warrant-less and groundless tracking of our email, snail mail, phones, etc) so

we would have no recourse for this gross violation of our rights to privacy and

our rights to freedom of speech.

 

Am I sharing classified information that is a national threat? Hardly, All of

the information in my work is a matter of PUBLIC records. But when we see the

information being sent it is a matter of public records that they do NOT want

the public IN LARGER NUMBERS TO SEE it looks like they will go to any extremes

and they will pull a stunt like this by just confiscating the whole thing while

leaving no record behind.

 

How do we prove it? We can't, if there is NO proof the email ever existed in our

records we have nothing for proof. What about people who do not save their sent

email or send their emails to themselves too? How do they know what is really

being sent?

 

Did I learn from these recent experiences? No...Stupid me. This just happened

again on my other account with Comcast. I was talking on the phone with my

Mother sharing with her an email I had just written. Stupid me-I didn't save it

in Word. Didn't think I needed to as this has NEVER happened on my Comcast

account. Right after I sent that email- it vanished from all my email records.

No error message, nothing- it was gone. I did not get it in my AOL account email

box either. I sent it to myself. If I would not have read it to someone else no

one but me would have ever known it existed. I do not know " who " is getting what

I send when these articles just dissappear. But I am angry beyond belief to

continue to see efforts ramped up by these internet provider giants to silence

people who are trying to help others learn many of these truths.

 

While I am not naive enough to not know they will target people like me who

dares to tell the truth about mainstream medicine, what our OWN laws allow them

to do to us, and what our own government is really doing.

 

It is still unnerving to see them in action and know that they do have the right

to arrest anyone just based upon " suspicion. " They do have the right to trash

our homes, and confiscate anything they like without a warrant and without ANY

evidence and they can DETAIN us as long as they like while not having filed ONE

CHARGE against us. This used to be called false imprisonment. But in la-la

government terror war land they call it detainment.

 

This disallows us the right to hire an attorney who can start to help us mount a

defense against the charges. How can we hire any lawyer if no charges are filed

against us yet? What does that lawyer have to go from to mount any defense when

no charges are yet made? Indeed, how can anyone fight against what they are not

told they are being accused of? Ask hundreds of detainees in Iraq who have been

detained for several YEARS now,with no charges filed against them, what they

think of this rogue system of law?

 

What is sad to me is how the American people continue to look away as the truth

tellers are being silenced, lives destroyed, and locked up. We have talked about

these people who are facing forced mental evaluations because they dared to put

up a poster that said, Bush Step Down. "

 

We need to see that if American's will look away as so-called detainees are

rotting away in a war prison with not ONE charge filed against them yet, and

with no evidence to justify locking them up, then why would we be naive enough

to not think they would look away as we are locked up one by one?

 

You all may remember quite some time ago when I had difficulty sending another

email. Each time I tried to send that important article I got error message

after error message. Finally I had to transfer the whole article in a word file

and disable all the links to get it through. Many of you told me you could not

get those links to work after pasting them into your web browsers. Well, that

worked rather well for them to prevent you from seeing evidence in those links

didn't it? That has not happened again since then. I ousted them when I finally

got that email sent and told you all what happened.

 

But this is different. It is not the same as losing your internet connection

while writing an email, nor is it the same as knowing the email will not be sent

through getting non-stop error messages in return. This is direct sabotage after

they tell us they sent the email,(thus the confirmation button) and give no

error messages, and then confiscate the email leaving no record behind. It is a

direct violation of my rights to free speech, but with no proof other then my

word files now, what leg do I have to stand on?

 

If you have experienced this too please let me know. If not, let others know

what is happening so they can safeguard their work and not lose all their

efforts in the process.

 

Take care, be well, and stay informed

 

God Bless

Pamela

 

 

PS: I am still trying to send you information on the dangers of microwave ovens.

Wish me luck. >sigh< Ironically a lot of the links in that article is compiled

mainly of revisited information and links I had already sent many of you several

years ago. What has changed in this time frame to make this NOT new information

such a threat? You tell me.

 

 

--------------------------------

 

 

 

 

is disappearing messages to the Alternative Medicine Forum group and

other groups again. Messages

which have a content that isn't politically correct are going missing.

 

This isn't the first time that such practices, as well as other

things, have been used against this group as well as other groups. In

fact, I suspect that the problem is probably quite widespread, and has

been ongoing in one form or another, for quite some time now.

 

Please be aware of the situation and alert others and other groups.

 

Sometimes, I have had to post the same message to the group as many as

5 or 6 times to finally get one copy to slip through. Other simply disappear.

All would have been considered not politically correct. It seems that

is, once again,

politically censoring messages in violation of free speech.

 

Other times the message will get posted to the group's message section but then

it seems that it doesn't go out as group email to the members.

 

It appears that there is some type of screening program that screens/searches

for certain

keywords in messages being posted to and screened once again all

messages leaving . Those messages being screened out then seem to

disappear.

 

Please pass this information on.