- "Far from developing GM crops to solve the problem
of starvation in the world, as they claimed, the biotech companies did
so to 'solve starvation amongst their shareholders'."
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- American biotech companies tried to lie to Europe in
an attempt to force genetically modified crops upon them, Margot Wallstrom,
the European environment commissioner, said yesterday.
-
- Far from developing GM crops to solve the problem of
starvation in the world, as they claimed, the biotech companies did so
to "solve starvation amongst their shareholders", said the European
Union's leading green politician.
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- Speaking to journalists in London, the 49-year-old Swede
followed her broadside over GM with an attack on the US over the so-called
ghost fleet of rusting and polluted American ships being sent to Britain
for dismantling, saying they should be kept in America.
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- She further suggested that the US government had been
putting pressure on Russia not to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
-
- Mrs Wallstrom's unusually outspoken remarks will add
to the ill-feeling between Europe and the US over genetic modification,
which has led to the American government launching a legal action through
the World Trade Organisation on the basis that European nations are dragging
their feet over GM crop authorisation.
-
- Her comments raise the political stakes before the publication
on Thursday of Britain's farm-scale trials of GM crops, which may provide
evidence of environmental damage that could lead to the crops being banned.
-
- At a lunch with journalists, the commissioner spoke of
the "legitimate concerns of European citizens and farmers and other
groups about the effects of GM crops on human health and the environment".
-
- Asked if US biotech companies had chosen the wrong products
to introduce into Europe - meaning crops that were modified to take more
powerful weedkillers, rather than give any other benefit - she replied:
"Of course they have. Absolutely. They have to face that. They have
to realise that they have chosen the completely wrong approach from the
beginning.
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- "They tried to lie to people, and they tried to
force it upon people. It's the wrong approach. You cannot force it upon
Europe. So I hope they have learnt a lesson from this, especially when
they now try to argue that this will solve the problems of starvation in
the world and so on. But come on ... it was to solve starvation amongst
shareholders, not the developing world."
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=453124
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