[p2p-research] Fwd: GMO - WikiLeaks: US Ambassador Planned "Retaliation" Against France Over Ban on Monsanto Corn

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 6:24 AM
Subject: GMO - WikiLeaks: US Ambassador Planned "Retaliation" Against France
Over Ban on Monsanto Corn
To: sustainable_solidarity at yahoogroups.com, hc_ecology at yahoogroups.com,
econowmix at googlegroups.com


in relation to previously sent post

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hc_ecology/message/1009
 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hc_ecology/message/1009>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sustainable_solidarity/message/971

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sustainable_solidarity/message/971>excerpt :

“Strictly speaking, they would have to do it all over again,” Commission
administration spokesman Michael Mann told this website last month. “The
Greenpeace view that the petition counts as the Lisbon Treaty is in place
doesn’t stand up to legal scrutiny.”

wikileaks cable released

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/12/07PARIS4723.html

excerpt :

Summary: Mission Paris recommends that that the USG reinforce
our negotiating position with the EU on agricultural biotechnology by
publishing a retaliation list when the extend "Reasonable Time
Period" expires.


more :

http://www.truth-out.org/wikileaks-us-ambassador-planned-retaliation-against-france-over-ban-monsanto-corn66131


WikiLeaks: US Ambassador Planned "Retaliation" Against France Over Ban on
Monsanto Corn

Tuesday 21 December 2010

by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | Report
<http://www.truth-out.org/wikileaks-us-ambassador-planned-retaliation-against-france-over-ban-monsanto-corn66131>

[image: WikiLeaks: US Ambassador Planned "Retaliation" Against France Over
Ban on Monsanto Corn]
Craig Stapleton, former US ambassador to France at a Memorial Day service in
Fere-en-Tardenois, France. Stapleton was concerned that a French decision to
suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON-810 corn could spread anti-biotech
policy across the EU. (Photo: LeAnne MacAllister, 5th Signal
Command<http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldpost/2533518466/>
)

The former United States ambassador to France suggested "moving to
retaliation" against France and the European Union (EU) in late 2007 to
fight a French ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) corn and changes
in European policy toward biotech crops, according to a
cable<http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/12/07PARIS4723.html>
released by WikiLeaks on Sunday.

Former Ambassador Craig Stapleton was concerned about France's decision to
suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON-810 corn and warned that a new French
environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across the
EU.

"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list
that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective
responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits,"
Stapleton wrote to diplomatic colleagues.

President George W. Bush appointed
Stapleton<http://people.forbes.com/profile/craig-r-stapleton/130672>
as
ambassador to France in 2005, and in 2009, Stapleton left the office and
became an owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Bush and Stapleton
co-owned the Texas Rangers during the 1990s.

Monsanto is based in St. Louis.

The EU's 1998 approval of MON-810 corn has since expired. In recent years,
several European countries joined France in banning MON-810 and similar
biotech crops while the products are reassessed in light of
research<http://www.saveourseeds.org/downloads/French%20Ban%20-%20French%20Memo%20EN.pdf>showing
they could harm the environment and human health.

*Get Truthout in your inbox every day! Click here to sign up for free
updates. <http://www.truth-out.org/newsletter>*

It is not clear if Stapleton's retaliation scheme was ever implemented.

"In our view, Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with
France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the
Commission ... Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path
has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European
pro-biotech voices," Stapleton wrote.

MON-810 is engineered to excrete the Bt toxin, which is poisonous to some
insect pests. A stacked version of MON-810 is also engineered to be
resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide first popularized by Monsanto under
the brand name Roundup.

The debate in France over Monsanto's GM products has grown ugly in recent
years.

A recent Truthout
report<http://www.truth-out.org/war-over-genetically-modified-crops-gets-ugly-birth-defects-superweeds-and-science-intimidation64915>
detailed
the story of Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini, a scientist at the University of Caen
in France. Seralini's
supporters<http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12587-urgent-your-support-needed-for-professor-g-e-seralini-and-colleagues>
claim
the scientist has faced intimidation from within the French scientific
community after he published several studies showing Monsanto GM corn and
glyphosate posed risks to human health.

*[image: Creative Commons
License]<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/>
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States
License<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/>
.*



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