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While officials from corporations like Monsanto mingle with Indian government officials and agribusiness CEO's, India's farmers will be joined by farmers from around the world, environmentalists and opponents of the genetic engineering of food at a series of events called: Global People's Seed 2000 (GPS 2000).

A confidential internal report leaked to GeneWatch UK reveals that Monsanto is involved in a global campaign to promote GM foods by influencing which experts get on international scientific committees, promoting their views through supposedly independent scientists and gaining influence with key decision makers in government departments in developing countries.

A tribunal formed by more than 25 farmers groups in India called Monday for a 10-year national moratorium on the commercial use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

DBCP, or dibromochloropropane, is one of the pesticides used on Nicaragua's banana plantations in the 1970s. Workers say it has affected 22,000 people, directly or indirectly, and that DBCP-related illnesses have already killed at least 83 of their comrades.

Biotechnology company Aventis admitted Monday that it had grown genetically modified sugar beet without permission at two trial sites in the United Kingdom.

The following quotes outline some of the basic differences between supporters and critics of genetically engineered food. We counter pose view points from industry and activists on environmental, health and political issues surrounding biotech agriculture. We'll let you decide who's right.

Six farmers -- from the U.S. and France -- named as representatives of farmers worldwide, under the aegis of the National Family Farm Coalition, in a suit formulated by Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll on behalf of a consortium of other firms, have launched a major anti-trust, price fixing law suit against the Monsanto Corporation.

The Biosafety Protocol has finally been adopted in the hope that it will bring some transparency into the trade in genetically-modified products. But some say it is weak and watered down to suit US interests.

This is a list of processed foods that tested positive for genetically engineered ingredients. These tests were not ''safety'' tests; they were only to establish the presence of unlabeled genetically engineered ingredients.

On 29 March 2001 a Canadian judge dealt a crushing blow to Farmers' Rights by ruling that Percy Schmeiser, a third generation Saskatchewan farmer, must pay Monsanto thousands of dollars for violating the Gene Giant's monopoly patent on genetically modified canola seed.

The International Rice Research Institute has been pushing research for rice genetic engineering to the detriment of both farmers and consumers and despite the presence of safe and sustainable alternatives.

In a press conference held in the Defence Colony market in Delhi, Greenpeace announced that Genetically Engineered (GE) food have illegally entered the Indian market. Greenpeace provided evidence of two popular products - Pringles Potato Chips and Isomil Baby food containing genetically engineered ingredients.

Several corporate public relations groups are using a leaked grant proposal in an internet attack on the Oakland-based Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. Food First is well known for it's research reports which cast doubts on biotech industry claims concerning the virtues of genetically engineered (GE) foods and crops, also known as GMOs.

In the second year of UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan's policy of UN engagement with the private sector, the Group of 77 Friday called for appropriate rules to guide such an engagement.

Over twenty-five authors address land and water, biological diversity, labor, food security, consumer issues of food safety, corporate agriculture, and grassroots models for change in A Place at the Table.

Members of the Upper Midwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (GrainRAGE) shut down the international headquarters of Cargill today. Before employees arrived this morning, GrainRAGE members in white biohazard suits and respirators blocked the road into the Cargill compound with cars and their bodies.

EuropaBio, the European biotech lobby group, has recently suffered a major blow when it had to cancel its annual congress. The Fourth Annual European Biotechnology Congress was scheduled to take place in Edinburgh, Scotland on October 9-13. According to the Dutch daily newspaper, De Volkskrant, EuropaBio, ''cannot deny that the conference was cancelled due to the fierce critique of genetic engineering in the UK and the resulting lack of sponsors.''

The merger of two biotech corporations - the Swiss Novartis and British AstraZeneca - to create the world's biggest agribusiness is alarming some of Europe's largest development agencies.

In time for Thanksgiving, the United Farm Workers union ended its 16-year ''Wrath of Grapes'' boycott Tuesday -- halting the longest of its three California table grape boycotts.

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