Friday, May 04, 2007


New Labour apparatchiki, Mandelson and others, are helping Sarkozy's campaign in the French presidential election. Honour among thieves takes precedence over solidarity among social democrats. And poor Ségolène has tried so hard to demonstrate her liberal-capitalist credentials. Not good enough for the Blairites doing the Bushwhackers' dirty work in Europe. They prefer the real thing, a dyed-in-the-wool bastard.
Time to play the race card, Madame R., everyone else has. Le Petit Nicolas, c'est le Petit Le Pen.

http://sarkostique.over-blog.com/article-1198852.html

On the midday news on Channel 4 on Wednesday one Barry Stickings of BASF was telling us all how safe his GM potato is, safe enough to plant in the open fields of East Yorkshire. Preceding him was a scientist from ACRE who said the potato had been tested by ACRE and found to be safe. Unfortunately the interviewer neglected to ask him who funded the research, so I'm trying to fill that gap in my knowledge.
It would appear that not everyone is as confident as Mr. Stickings and his friends in ACRE; certainly not the Dutch government.

"Last Wednesday, March 7th, The Council of State in The Netherlands judged in a appeal by Greenpeace that the field trials of BASF had been illegally permitted by the Ministry of Housing, Spacial Planning, andEnvironment (VROM) and destroyed the permits immediately. The court decision was based on the grounds that1) these potatoes had been insufficiently tested in a controlled environment (like a greenhouse or laboratory) to be release in the open, and 2) the Ministry had not been able to do a proper environmental effect assessment (as required) since BASF had failed to provide information specific enough for this purpose on the location of the trial sites. It concerns three BASF GM potato varieties, two with changed starch content similar to the Amflora-potato and one with hightened late blight resistence. All three are also herbicide-resistent."

What a difference a couple of months make, especially in the Britain of GM- embracing Blair.


1 comment:

Jemmy Hope said...

For almost a week the above posting included the word proceeding instead of preceding - now corrected.I do feel a fool!