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GE - news March 1st 1999

1) Third World rejects GM
2) NEW DELAY FOR BIOSAFETY PROTOCOL 
3)  DEMONSTRATION IN MEXICO LEADS TO ACTIVISTS' ARREST 
4)  Third World Opposes Genetically Modified Foods
5) The Ottawa Citizen February 26, 1999 - Seeds of dissension
6) Brazil: biological control procedures help save money 
7)  Money-Go-Round Peps Survey Part 1: Frankenstein walks with the
eco-friendly
brigade
8) Wrong people  charged with  'barbarism' 
9) The BBC Wildlife Magazine has started a GMO discussion on its 'Animal
Zone' 
10) PETITION TO LABEL GENETICALLY ALTERED FOOD 
11)  Just in case anybody missed these quotes about Marks and Sparks in the 
ethical investment article [The Guardian, “Mutants not to our taste,” 

======================


Sunday Independent (London) Feb 28, 1999
1) Third World rejects GM
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Correspondent
The world's hungriest nations have resolved to oppose genetically modified 
foods. A senior Ethiopian government official last night told the 
Independent on Sunday they were "absolutely united" in resisting US plans 
to "decide what we eat".
Dr Tewolde Gebre Egziabher was speaking after last week's talks collapsed 
in Cartagena, Colombia, following the United States' accusation that the 
developing countries were endangering free trade. An international treaty 
to regulate trade in GM produce had been discussed by 132 nations.
The revolt will strike a chord in the West, with many associating the 1980 
Ethiopia famines - which sparked Live Aid - with severe food shortages. 
Some biotechnology firms have consistently argued that GM crops' increased 
resistance to parasites and disease makes them suitable for the Third 
World.
Dr Egziabher, the senior Third World negotiator at the talks, said Third 
World resistance to the imposition of GM crops was increasing. Last week 
the government of Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil, the country's second 
largest soya-producing region, said it would ban the planting of GM beans 
produced by the US giant, Monsanto. And India's Supreme Court stopped 
trials of GM cotton.
The Third World's tough stance undermines the biotech companies' 
justification for GM crops - that they will help end world hunger; Dr 
Egziabher said that instead they could worsen the plight of the hungry.
The developing countries insisted the US and other food exporters ship GM 
foods separately from normal ones, and seek their "prior informed consent" 
before exporting. But the US and five other exporting countries - 
including Canada, Australia and Argentina - fear Third World countries 
would boycott GM produce.
===============

2) NEW DELAY FOR BIOSAFETY PROTOCOL 
CARTAGENA, Colombia, (Feb. 25) IPS 
> - A  stand-off between six countries headed by the United States and the 
> rest  of the world blocked approval of a Biosafety Protocol on transgenic 
> crops  this week, which will be delayed for at least another year. 
> Environmentalists and government delegates blamed the commercial 
> interests  of the United States, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile and 
> Uruguay --  the so-called Miami Group -- as standing in the way of the
Protocol, 
> on  which hinge the future of food security, the environment and human 
> health. 
After nine days and 10 nights of deliberations in Cartagena, 
> Colombia, the host country's efforts to reconcile the polarized 
> positions at the Extraordinary Conference of the Parties to the 
> Convention on Biological Diversity ended in the wee hours of 
> yesterday morning with an agreement to extend the talks. 
> At the last minute, a consensus was reached to continue the 
> debate on the basis of the progress on the accords made here, 
> which will allow the Cartagena Protocol to be agreed and 
> adopted in the future," said Colombian Environment Minister and 
> conference chairman Juan Mayr. 
> The Protocol "will be the first multilateral instrument to 
> arise from the Convention on Biological Diversity to regulate 
> the use, movement and trade of genetically modified organisms 
> (GMOs), especially transgenic foods," he explained. 
> The next meeting is to take place before or during the May 
> 2000 conference of the parties in Nairobi. 
> If and when it is adopted, the Cartagena Protocol must be 
> ratified by each signatory government, meaning it could take 
> three or four years to go into effect, said Colombian delegate 
> Manuel Rodriguez. 
> Meanwhile, each country must enact its own laws to regulate 
> imports of transgenic goods, create regional or bilateral 
> agreements, impose bans, or request a moratorium, as several 
> governments have already done. Ecuador, for example, in the 
> face of growing pressure from the U.S. biotechnology giant 
> Monsanto to allow the entry of transgenic cotton, has refused 
> to approve any petition until the Protocol is signed and 
> national legislation passed, said Ecuadorean delegate Elizabeth 
> Bravo. Monsanto is the world's leading producer of 
> agrochemicals and transgenic seeds. 
> Ethiopian delegate Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, 
> representing the bulk of African, Latin American, Asian and 
> Caribbean nations in the defense of the supremacy of biological 
> and cultural diversity over commercial interests, reached 
> agreement on a text with Europe and Japan. 
> Around midnight on Feb. 23, a European Union proposal that 
> the Protocol not be subordinated to World Trade Organization 
> (WTO) rules met with vigorous opposition from Washington's 
> informal delegation. 
> The United States participated in the conference in Colombia 
> as an observer, because it is not a signatory to the Convention 
> on Biological Diversity. Nevertheless, it was the undisputed 
> head of the Miami Group. The main U.S. arguments were that 
> the Protocol should be compatible with WTO rules and 
> subordinated to that organization, and that it should not set 
> barriers to trade in transgenics. 
> The Miami Group's insistence on that point arises from its 
> interest in monopolizing the global market for foodstuffs, 
> argued Dan Leskien with the international environmental group 
> Friends of the Earth. 
> The European proposal, more than an expression of solidarity 
> with developing countries, seeks to open new spaces for 
> commercial disputes between the European Union and the United 
> States, in scenarios other than the WTO, he maintained. 
> The Miami Group refused to accept the core concept of the 
> projected Protocol, the "precautionary principle," according to 
> which scientific certainty on the impact of GMOs would not be 
> needed in order to bar imports of such products. 
> The right of importer countries to inform themselves before 
> accepting or prohibiting the introduction of transgenic products 
> was also opposed by the Miami Group. 
> In addition, the bloc does not want the Protocol to cover all 
> transgenic products, and pushed for the exclusion of 
> pharmaceutical goods, basic elements used in food for humans 
> and animals, derivatives like flour and oil, organisms in 
> transit or experimentation, and commodities, especially grains. 
> But "such exclusion would leave out more than 90 percent of 
> transgenics, and would render the rest of the provisions 
> useless," protested Colombian delegate Rodrigo Artunduaga. 
> Little progress was seen in the debate on socioeconomic risks 
> or the definition of accountability and compensation in case 
> transgenic imports have an impact on health or the environment. 
> "From the start, the biotechnology industry, protected by the 
> United States and other industrialized countries, demonstrated 
> what was confirmed here: the Miami Group never wanted a 
> Biosafety Protocol, but rather a free trade treaty," said Third 
> World Network attorney Chee Yoke Lang. 
> Mario Rodriguez, spokesman for some 2,200 companies from 130 
> countries, said the extended timeframe would "allow the public 
> and governments to obtain more information on the benefits of 
> biotechnology in alleviating hunger, finding cures for many 
> diseases and remedying pollution." 
> "Uncle Sam is always accused of being the bad guy. But the 
> support of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Canada and Australia is 
> not mentioned," said the head of the U.S. delegation Rafe 
> Pomerance. "The political costs would have been much worse if 
> a bad agreement had been reached." 
> Cuba, the only Latin American country with an advanced 
> biotechnology industry, lamented that "a small group of 
> countries stood in the way of the moderately satisfactory 
> document that we came up with," in the words of Cuban delegate 
> Hector Conde. 
> "History will not forgive this moment," he added. 
> Germany's Green Party declared that since their governments 
> had failed to reach an agreement, "it is now up to citizens and 
> consumers to lobby for the adoption of national regulations." 
> Liza Covantes, with Greenpeace International, pointed out 
> that consumers in several European countries -- Great Britain, 
> Greece, France, Luxembourg and Norway -- had successfully 
> pressed for a ban on the planting of several transgenic crops 
> and the use of genetically engineered organisms containing 
> antibiotic-resistant marker genes. 
> Great Britain is also considering the possibility of 
> declaring a moratorium on transgenic soy, while Brazil is 
> studying a ban on all transgenic crops. Europe and Canada 
> banned imports of milk and meat from livestock treated with 
> growth hormones produced and exported by the United States, 
> after a scientific report revealed that they caused hormonal 
> alterations in teenagers. 
> 
> ======#====== 
> THE ORLANDO SENTINEL February 27, 1999 Saturday, 

3)  DEMONSTRATION IN MEXICO LEADS TO ACTIVISTS' ARREST 
> MEXICO CITY - Police arrested 10 Greenpeace activists who 
> climbed onto Mexico City's Angel of Independence monument this 
> week to hang banners protesting genetic engineering of plants 
> and animals, the environmental group said. 
> The protesters, wearing masks and overalls, hung a sign 
> reading "The corn is ours" in front of a statue of Mexico's 
> founding father, Miguel Hidalgo, and draped a banner reading "No 
> to genetic imperialism" from the monument's base. The group 
> accused the United States of leading efforts to block an 
> agreement for better controls on biotech companies. 
> The U.S. - backed by Canada, Australia, Uruguay and Argentina 
> - wants to protect a growing industry whose proponents insist 
> bioengineering is safe and environmentally sound. Biotech 
> companies genetically manipulate plants and xanimals to speed 
> growth. Developing nations fear that genetically engineered 
> crops could have devastating effects on their agriculture 
> business. 

> ======#====== 

4)  Third World Opposes Genetically Modified Foods
LONDON (Feb. 28)  XINHUA - 
> The third world countries are " absolutely united" to oppose 
> genetically  modified foods, the Independent newspaper Sunday quoted a
senior

> Ethiopian  official as saying. Tewolde Gebre Egziabher was speaking after
last 
> week's talks collapsed in Cartagena, Colombia, following the United 
> States' accusation that the developing countries were endangering 
> free  trade. The paper said biotechnology firms had consistently argued 
> that GM  crops' increased resistance to parasites and disease makes them 
> valuable to the third world. 
> An international treaty to regulate trade in GM produce had 
> been discussed by 132 nations. Egziabher, the senior third 
> world negotiator at the talks, said third world resistance to 
> the imposition of GM crops was growing. The third world 
> countries are united in opposing U.S. plans to "decide what we 
> eat," he told the newspaper in an exclusive interview. It was 
> reported that last week the government of RioGrande do Sul, in 
> Brazil, would ban the planting of GM beans produced by the U.S. 
> giant Monsanto. And India's Supreme Court stopped trials of GM 
> cotton. Enditem 28/02/99 11:49 GMT 
> 
> ======#====== 

5) The Ottawa Citizen February 26, 1999 - Seeds of dissension
For  the first time in 20 years, international negotiations on a key 
> environmental  issue have failed to meet their deadline. The collapse of
the 
> ``Biosafety  Protocol'' talks in Colombia this week is a serious blow to 
> environmental  security, leaving the world with no agreement on how to
regulate the 
> international transportation of plants and animals produced by the 
> relatively new science of genetic modification. Who is responsible? 
> Canada's own Jean Chretien, among others. 
> Canada joined five other nations to thwart an agreement that 
> had been reached among the other 125 nations represented in 
> Colombia. The thread binding Canada and her allied nay-sayers 
> (the United States, Argentina, Australia, Chile, and Uruguay) is 
> our reliance on exports of crops created by genetic modification 
> -- in which scientists snip out bits of genes from other plants 
> or animals and implant them in crops, creating new plants that 
> may, for example, be resistant to certain insects or likelier to 
> survive drought. In the U.S., somewhere between 25 and 45 per 
> cent of all crops are the result of genetic modification. More 
> than 40 per cent of Canada's canola crop is genetically 
> modified, as are about a quarter of our soy beans and corn. 
> Currently, these crops are treated like any other. If a nation 
> restricts their import, it risks sanctions under international 
> trade agreements. Only if it has hard scientific proof that a 
> genetically modified organism (GMO) is dangerous to human health 
> or the environment can it stop its entry. 
> Clear evidence of human health effects is hard enough to get, 
> and the environment is notoriously difficult to predict. What 
> happens if genetically modified crops brought into a country, 
> either for planting or consumption, escape into the local 
> environment? Will they out-compete local species and drive them 
> into extinction? Will they swallow habitats and defy efforts to 
> stop them? Until the GMO is actually introduced, it is difficult 
> to answer these questions with scientific clarity. And once it 
> is introduced, it's too late. This is not mere speculation. 
> From rabbits in Australia to purple loosestrife suffocating 
> Ontario wetlands, we have ample experience of how the 
> introduction of species alien to an ecosystem can go horribly 
> wrong. That's why most governments strictly regulate importation 
> of foreign species. GMOs contain novel genes and trade law 
> should allow governments to treat them accordingly. Such 
> safeguards could be twisted into protectionism, but are not 
> inherently so. There are sound grounds for letting nations apply 
> the ``precautionary principle'' and forbid the entry of GMOs 
> until there is evidence they are safe. In this way, the benefits 
> of 
> biotechnology can be balanced with the safety of ecosystems. 
> There is a cost to be paid with this approach: slower growth of 
> the biotech industry and more expensive food. This is why Canada 
> and its five allies did all they could to hamstring the 
> biosafety negotiations, including thwarting attempts to get the 
> ``precautionary principle'' enshrined in the agreement, and even 
> more modest proposals like allowing nations to require the 
> separation of genetically modified and unmodified crops. 
> The failure in Colombia has no doubt delighted biotech giants 
> like Monsanto, but it was only one in a string of wins. When the 
> European Union considered requiring products made with 
> genetically modified crops to be labelled accordingly, the U.S. 
> government bullied the Europeans into backing down with threats 
> of trade war. New Zealand capitulated even faster. Oh, and did 
> we mention that Monsanto's CEO is a major financial backer, and 
> chum, of William Jefferson Clinton? The success of American 
> stonewalling in Colombia is particularly galling given that the 
> U.S. isn't even a signatory to the 1992 Biodiversity Convention, 
> which is the basis of the biosafety talks. The U.S. even opposed 
> opening the negotiations in the first place. Canada's 
> opposition goes beyond galling to disgusting, since it was 
> Canadian leadership that helped create the Convention that we 
> are now obstructing. But of course that leadership was provided 
> by Brian Mulroney. Jean Chretien can hardly be expected to 
> follow the policies of such a notorious deep ecologist. 

> ======#====== 
> 02/27 2241 

6) Brazil: biological control procedures help save money 
> According to the Brazilian agriculture research company Embrapa, 
> biological control procedures represent an alternative for farmers to 
> cut  costs and replace agricultural chemicals' and fertilizers' imports. 
> Brazil  imported US$1.2bil-worth agricultural chemicals and US$911mil-worth 
> fertilizers last year. Embrapa estimates that the use of the 
> Bradyrhizobium germ in soybean seeds would help the country save 
> R$1.2bil  per year. The company also believes that if Baculovirus
Anticarsia 
> was  sed all over the country's soybean plantation area (11mil ha), 
> nearly R$50mil could be saved every year. 0- 
> Source: Gazeta Mercantil Page: B-24 Date: February 22, 1999 
> Country: Brazil Product: Agriculture Company: Embrapa Event: 
> Strategy and Planning SABI (South American Business 
> Information) 
> 
> ======#====== 
> THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) February 27, 1999 

7)  Money-Go-Round Peps Survey Part 1: Frankenstein walks with the
eco-friendly
brigade 
Many ethical funds hold shares in GM food  producers, 
discovers Melanie Wright 
BYLINE: By Melanie Wright 
BODY: THE furore  over  genetically -modified foods, dubbed by their opponents
Frankenstein 
> foods, 
> has left people wondering if ethical funds are partial to the 
> occasional 
> GM dish. Money-Go-Round's investigations have found that many ethical 
> funds, which pride themselves on a squeaky clean "eco-friendly" 
> approach to 
> equity investment, hold shares in companies that sell or produce GM 
> foods. 
> One of the biggest players in the ethical arena is NPI Global Care, 
> which 
> has five different ethical funds. 
> NPI, which is the subject of a pounds 1.3 billion takeover by 
> Australian insurance group AMP, invests in supermarket group 
> Sainsbury, even though it sells foods that contain GM 
> ingredients. 
> Toby Belsom, a spokesman for NPI Global Care, said: "This is 
> an issue we have been looking at over the past two years and one 
> which has been bubbling under the surface for a while. 
> "We do invest in Sainsbury and we do support consumer choice 
> when it comes to genetically -modified foods. We believe that 
> the release of genetically -modified foods into an uncontrolled 
> environment is not acceptable, whereas in contained situations 
> it might be." 
> Mr Belsom argued that other environmental initiatives by 
> the high street supermarket group more than justified its 
> inclusion in an ethical fund. He said: "With regard to 
> Sainsbury, it is offering a range of other positive social 
> initiatives which we support. It is one of the leading 
> proponents of integrated crop management and is attempting to 
> introduce less intensive farming methods." 
> According to a MORI opinion poll, more than 75pc of people 
> want GM crops banned. Nearly 60pc do not want to eat GM food at 
> all. 
> Only one of the major supermarkets, Iceland, has banned all 
> GM products from its stores. So, ethical fund managers have a 
> clear choice - invest in supermarkets which sell GM foods or 
> only buy one of the many supermarket retailing stocks. 
> Ethical funds use various criteria to screen companies 
> depending on the investment strategy of the fund. Different 
> ethical funds support a range of causes from the preservation of 
> tropical rainforests to an anti-vivisection stance. 
> The Co-Operative Insurance Environ Trust, for example, has 
> one of the more convoluted investment strategies. The fund 
> invests in companies which must be involved wholly or in part in 
> the manufacture of goods, industrial processes, or the provision 
> of services associated with improving the environment and the 
> "enhancement" of human health and safety. 
> The fund is, however, yet to make a decision on its attitude 
> towards GM foods. David Mott, of CIS, said: "The GM foods issue 
> is potentially an important one for our fund. We are therefore 
> monitoring developments and discussing the situation with our 
> independent researchers who oversee Environ investments. He 
> added: "Unfortunately little is known about the effects on the 
> environment of growing GM crops or the safety of GM foods. 
> Equally, it is difficult for investment researchers to 
> quantify the activities of manufacturers and retailers in terms 
> of their involvement in GM foods. 
> "At present Environ does not invest in companies that are 
> active in testing and producing genetically modified foods." 
> Like NPI, CIS continues to invest in Sainsbury. 
> The Ethical Investment Research Service (EIRIS) last week 
> announced that it has devised criteria to enable investors to 
> identify companies involved in genetic engineering. 
> Karen Eldridge, head of EIRIS, said: "Our genetic engineering 
> research means that investors can develop a policy that meets 
> their own needs. Some may decide on a policy of investing only 
> in those companies that avoid GM crops, while others may take a 
> "best of sector" approach." 
> However, even if you do manage to invest in an ethical fund 
> which has a clear conscience when it comes to GM foods, many 
> ethical funds could be accused of failing to invest for maximum 
> possible growth. 
> Ethical investors may have to pay dearly for their clear 
> conscience about the environment, as the performance table 
> shows. 
> If you had invested pounds 1,000 in the top performing 
> ethical trust Lloyds TSB Environmental Investor fund five 
> years ago, it would now be worth about pounds 1,946 on an offer 
> to bid basis with net income reinvested. Such a performance 
> is disappointing when compared with standard, or non-ethically 
> driven, funds. The five-year performance of the Lloyds TSB fund 
> is almost a third below the top performing conventional unit 
> trust Jupiter UK Growth Exempt, which is worth pounds 2,696 on 
> the same basis. Out of the top 10 performing conventional 
> trusts, even the trust which is in tenth position - BWD Balanced 
> Portfolio trust - beats the top performing ethical fund. 
> If you had invested pounds 1,000 in the BWD Balanced 
> Portfolio trust five years ago, it would now be worth pounds 
> 1,953 offer to bid with net income reinvested, compared with 
> pounds 1,946 with Lloyds TSB Environmental Investor. Fleur 
> Leach, head of ethical investment at stockbroker Capel Cure 
> Sharp, denied that ethical funds would always perform worse than 
> conventional unit trusts. 
> She said: "The greater the restrictions of the ethical fund, 
> the greater the level of volatility. It is only over the long 
> term that this volatility generally evens out. 
> For example, oil has underperformed over the past two years 
> which means that environmental funds will have benefited in 
> the meantime." 

> ======#====== 
> Financial Times (London) February 27, 1999, Saturday 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; 

8) Wrong people  charged with  'barbarism' 
BODY: From Mr David Sawers. Sir, You are wrong to treat  the 
> objections to the sale of genetically modified food as  "intellectual 
> barbarism". The term would be better applied to those who have 
> claimed  that genetically modified foods are safe, in the absence of 
> evidence to support their assertion; to those who have misrepresented the
results 
> of Dr  Arpad Pusztai's experiments as merely showing what happens when a 
> poison is added to a food, when they compared the effect of genetically 
> engineering potatoes to produce an insecticidal protein with the effect of
simply 
> adding this protein to potatoes; and to those who reacted to his results by 
> suspending him, gagging him and dismissing his results as 
> irrelevant. If the scientists concerned were truly interested 
> in the pursuit of knowledge, and in the safety of genetically 
> modified foods, they would have treated Dr Pusztai's results as 
> unexpected, worrying but inconclusive, and launched more 
> experiments. Their reaction, and that of other government 
> scientists, should worry the public. Their conduct has been 
> inconsistent with the best traditions of science and the public 
> service. 
> Ministers seem to regard themselves as advocates of technical 
> change, and have supported the interests of the producer, not 
> those of the consumer. They do not appear to understand that 
> they should represent the interests of all the people, and so 
> may need to protect the consumer from the producer. This role 
> implies that the government should ensure that companies wanting 
> to introduce products as foods must demonstrate that they are 
> not harmful if the companies themselves cannot see the 
> commercial case for doing so. And they should ensure that the 
> production of the new foods does not harm the environment, where 
> the scope for damage seems most obvious. 
> David Sawers, "Crosby", 10 Seaview Avenue, Angmering-on-Sea, 
> East Preston, West Sussex BN16 1PP 
> LANGUAGE: ENGLISH 

> ======#======
9) The BBC Wildlife Magazine has started a GMO discussion on its 'Animal
Zone' 
web site - the site will initially be running for a couple of weeks, and 
then will be altered to take into consideration the flavour of the debate - 
so here is a chance to have an input. 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/animalzone/index>www.bbc.co.uk/animalzone/index 
******************************************
=========================
>Gateway Green Alliance 
>P.O. Box 8094, St. Louis MO 63156 
>314-458-5026 E-mail: fitzdon@aol.com 
>For immediate release: February 26, 1999 
>Contact: Tammy Shea, 314-458-5026 (voice & fax) 
> 
>Webster Groves Could Set National Pace-- 
10) PETITION TO LABEL GENETICALLY ALTERED FOOD 
> 
>February 26, 1999. St. Louis, Missouri. Today, the Gateway 
>Green Alliance turned in over 500 signatures which call for the 
>City of Webster Groves to advocate strict federal standards in 
>labeling genetically engineered food. On Saturday, February 20 the 
>group obtained the required 338 signatures. Members continued to 
>collect signatures for several more days to be certain that they 
>would have enough to survive a challenge. At its meeting of 
>Tuesday, March 2, the Webster Groves City Council will be asked 
>either to approve the resolution or to place it on the ballot for 
>voters. 
> 
>Webster Groves could become the first US municipality to call 
>for strong federal labeling standards. Area environmentalists say 
>the action would be a blow to Monsanto, which has vigorously 
>opposed labeling of products such as its recombinant Bovine Growth 
>Hormone (rBGH). 
> 
>Webster Groves resident Steve Cassilly was pleased with the 
>enthusiasm he found. He reported that when circulating the 
>petition by the library some passing motorists jumped out of their 
>cars to sign. He found several residents were disappointed that 
>they could not sign because they were not registered to vote. 
>Cassilly noted "If Webster Groves, which is only a pollen-blow away 
>from Monsanto supports labeling genetically altered food, just 
>think of how strong sentiment must be in cities where no one is 
>dependent on Monsanto for a job." 
> 
>One of the biggest consumer concerns is food safety. Dr. Maggie 
>Hopper, a physician with three children in Webster Groves schools, 
>believes "Food should definitely be labeled. I know that milk from 
>cows given rBGH can cause health problems in humans and may 
>increase the risk of cancer. It indicates to me that people 
>producing it don't really know what the long term effects on humans 
>are." 
> 
>Government agencies which oversee labeling do not consider 
>religious and spiritual beliefs of consumers. This leads Green 
>Party activists to conclude that federal legislation is necessary 
>if consumers are to know if vegetables contain fish, pig, or cow 
>genes. The Webster-based Sisters of Loretto supports the labeling 
>initiative. According to Sister Gabriel Mary Hoare, who lives and 
>works in Webster, "The mixing of genes seems like a violation of 
>natural evolution of organic matter and living beings." 
> 
>Environmentalists are concerned with the potential for 
>genetically engineered crops to wreak havoc on ecosystems. 
>According to Sue Kupferer, who grows vegetables and flowers in her 
>Webster Groves yard, "there are seeds being engineered that kill 
>beneficial insects like ladybugs and lacewings. This is terrible 
>for organic gardening which is based on using beneficial insects 
>for control." 
> 
>The Gateway Green Alliance is a chapter of the Missouri Green 
>Party and the Greens/Green Party USA. 
> 
>Wording of AN ORDINANCE REQUESTING LABELING OF 
>GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD: 
> 
>The City of Webster Groves, Missouri calls upon the Legislature 
>of the State of Missouri and the Congress of the United States to 
>pass legislation that would require labeling on all food, food 
>products and products used in or intended for use in food which 
>contain any genetically modified organism and that such labeling be 
>required in all phases of processing, distribution and final sale 
>to consumers.
====================
From: Jonathan Matthews <mail@icsenglish.com> 

11)  Just in case anybody missed these quotes about Marks and Sparks in the 
ethical investment article [The Guardian, “Mutants not to our taste,” 
20/2/99] recently posted on the list:

"Most [ethical]funds are happy to hold frozen food retailer Iceland, 
which has a high anti-GM food profile, and to shun Marks & Spencer which 
has the least positive line on GM food avoidance and labelling."

"Marks & Spencer is bottom of the [supermarket] heap. 
Harragin says: "M & S has little organics, is behind most on labelling. 
There is no leadership - the GM food issue is part of the wider M & S 
malaise."