Who will pay for failed GM crops?
Wednesday, 26 December 2012 22:01
Who will pay for failed GM crops?
Annie Zaidi
DNA, December 23 2012
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/report_who-will-pay-for-failed-gm-crops_1780764
Mumbai: There have been some interesting developments in the tweaked food department. Maharashtra has admitted that cotton yield is likely to reduce by nearly 40%. Bt Cotton has allegedly "failed" in more than 4 million hectares of land. A report sent by the state agricultural department to the Centre says that the estimate of the net direct economic loss to cotton farmers in the state will be in the vicinity of Rs6,000 crore, but that actual losses are much higher because with Bt Cotton, the cultivation cost also rises.
Naturally, farmers aren’t very happy. According to Kishore Tiwari of the Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti, about 5 million cotton farmers from Maharashtra want Rs20,000 per hectare as compensation for the failure of Bt Cotton. The question of who should be coughing up the money is an interesting one. One certainly hopes it will not be the government, because that actually just means you and me - the taxpayers.
Some reports also say that a "consortium of farmer organisations" is demanding the right to cultivate GM crops. Some new reports quote S Jaipal Reddy as saying that Andhra Pradesh has actually benefitted from GM crops. And Maharashtra, where such massive losses were reported, has set up a committee headed by a nuclear scientist, Anil Kakodkar, to advise the government on field trials of GM crops. It is interesting that the state already had a committee that included agricultural scientists or academics.
So far, Bt cotton has been the only GM crop allowed in India, but private corporations have been lobbying to bring in GM rice, tomato, wheat and so on. Bt Brinjal was attempted too, but the then environment minister Jairam Ramesh had stopped the release in 2010.
A parliamentary standing panel had also released a report earlier this year where it criticised Bt cotton and GM food tests. The panel had reportedly been sent 467 memoranda and 14,862 documents, and evidence from 50 organisations.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court does not ban open field trials of genetically modified (GM) food crops even though the TEC (Technical Experts Committee) recommended a ten year moratorium on field trials. The TEC was set up after a petition was filed by Aruna Rodrigues and the NGO Gene Campaign to stop field trials until independent experts have assessed the risk of GM crops corrupting traditional seeds.
About a hundred scientists and several farmers groups also wrote to ask the Supreme Court to accept the TEC’s interim report. But then, the committee itself was modified to include a state-appointed person. As it is, India has been crying hoarse about the purity of its exports, after the European Commission suspected genetically modified organisms (GMO) contamination in our Basmati rice.
But the Centre has told the Supreme Court that we need GM food to feed hungry people. “India is unlikely to meet the target of cutting the proportion of hungry people by half if recourse to advanced and safe biotechnology tools are not adopted,” the government affidavit said.
This, despite the fact that the godowns are overflowing, and that farmers are clamouring for the state to acquire foods - more than just wheat and rice - to ensure a minimum support price. The Supreme Court had, in fact, asked that the government to open its godowns rather than allow citizens to starve. Clearly, the Court is aware that overflowing godowns exist. Perhaps, the government could look at those?
In any case, I wish the government would decide who pays compensation to farmers if GM crops fail, or if they contaminate non-modified crops, or if they damage our health. I’m hoping it will not be me.
(Annie Zaidi writes poetry, stories, essays, scripts and in a dark, distant past, recipes she never actually tried)
Secret composition of pesticides is a scientific shame
Tuesday, 18 June 2013 22:10
EXCERPTS:
“Given that pesticides have long-term effects on human beings, why not evaluate those long term effects? Before us, nobody carried out this type of research,” said Gilles-Eric Séralini.
...
“In 2013, we found the toxic chemicals which are present in Roundup; these are also present in many other pesticides: for example, POE-15. These are classified as inert products by the manufacturer, and as a result no agency has requested long-term testing of the products.”
...
“The effects of these pesticides have been underestimated,” Séralini said. He added, “The largest sellers of pesticides are also the largest sellers of drugs.” He said one can find Monsanto products in almost all pharmacies and 90% of patents are in the hands of the agricultural giant, whose main activity is selling these patents.
...
Criticism [of Seralini's study came] from four Brazilian pro-GM scientists, two of whom are members of the National Technical Commission of Biosafety (NTCBio) in a report from October 2012. This report was published as “the vision of NTCBio” as a whole, in combination with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in Brazil. But it is now clear that no such consensus exists in NTCBio.
In March 2013, it was discovered that 15 members and ex-members of NTCBio had produced a detailed counter-report discrediting the arguments of the aforementioned four scientists, and supporting the validity of Séralini’s findings. This was stated in a letter to Flavio Finardi, NTCBio President, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among many other denials, the Commission members clarified: “As we understand it, this document, prepared by four scientists, two of whom are members of the NTCBio, cannot be considered as the Commission’s position, since it was not evaluated by a plenary session. Even if it had been, the doctors’ opinions do not represent the consensus view of this Commission.”
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The secret composition of pesticides is a scientific shame
Dr. Graciela Gomez
Argentine Association for Environmental Journalists (AAEJ) – Medio&medio, May 27, 2013
Translated into English from original Spanish article by New Europe Translations
http://gmoseralini.org/the-secret-composition-of-pesticides-is-a-scientific-shame/
The fact that two French scientists, respected the world over for their studies on the effects of the herbicide Roundup, are giving a speech together in the Roc’h Tredudon restaurant in Plouneour-Menez is no small thing. For the local media, the press conference was billed as “an impact study,” or “an explosive and exceptional event.” Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini and Dr. Robert Belle are leading lights in the field, setting the world on fire with their work on pesticides. Robert Belle, as a scientist of the Biological Station in Roscoff, recalled how he has been working and exchanging information with Séralini since 2001. “At that time I was exploring the potential toxicity of Roundup. Naturally, I have keenly followed the controversy surrounding the results of his work, on the effects of GM crops, NK 603 maize and pesticides on rats.”
Belle supports the Séralini study. According to him, “The research agencies and the media rounded on him and tried to discredit his work. Séralini is the only scientist to carry out long-term testing, examining the effects on health after existing on a diet of a Roundup-resistant GM crop; compared with a diet based on crops not treated with Roundup. He is also the only scientist who has taken 46 different parameters into account, including the development of cancerous tumors. The scientific community, so far, has not validated any of the methods or estimated results on the effects on the rats, claiming that the results are insignificant. I respect that. But one thing is true: if Gilles-Eric Séralini is right, we’ve got a problem.”
Belle was eager to reiterate that, “All GMOs are not necessarily harmful. The issue is that if the damage they produce had already been demonstrated scientifically, then the French government would be shown in a rather unflattering light. They have to justify the authorisations that have been given to date, for example, on the purchase of soybeans, canola or GM maize seeds from abroad.” Le Telegramme, a Breton journal, published a note to both scientists. The note asked of Belle: “And what of the collusion allegations filed against Gilles-Eric Séralini?”
“They are baseless and are part of the whole conspiracy,” replied Belle.
In another juicy interview, published on May 22 in Bretagne Durable, the interviewer Estelle Caudal said that the study undertaken by Gilles-Eric Séralini and his team of researchers in molecular biology was carried out between 2008 and 2011, and began with a banal observation.
“Given that pesticides have long-term effects on human beings, why not evaluate those long term effects? Before us, nobody carried out this type of research,” said Gilles-Eric Séralini, at a conference in Plouneour-Menez.
“This starts with the premise that an active ingredient – which can cause side-effects deep within our cells – causes direct changes to our genes, and also, at a level above genetics: epigenetics. It is the cumulative effect of chemicals on our genes.”
According to the researcher, the genes work best when they’re “naked”. If they are covered up, i.e. enveloped in pesticides, this will have a negative impact on how they function – causing chronic diseases. Regarding the issue of lack of evidence, he stated, “It is like measuring the impact of tap water on the body of a person who drank alcohol for his entire life.” The results are alarming: after two years of experiments, only 90 out of 200 rats survived.
“In 2013, we found the toxic chemicals which are present in Roundup; these are also present in many other pesticides: for example, POE-15. These are classified as inert products by the manufacturer, and as a result no agency has requested long-term testing of the products.” The [industry] tests performed in France were carried out on only 6 rats over a three-week period, followed by tests for irritation, redness, and effect on the eyes. For the industry, only the instructions on the label need to be adhered to: “Avoid contact with the eyes or skin”. However, no tests on the long-term effects of this product have been carried out.” He added, “It is difficult to gain access to the studies because the Monsanto group claims they are its intellectual property.”
… “The effects of these pesticides have been underestimated,” Séralini said. He added, “The largest sellers of pesticides are also the largest sellers of drugs.” He said one can find Monsanto products in almost all pharmacies and 90% of patents are in the hands of the agricultural giant, whose main activity is selling these patents.
Gilles-Eric Séralini’s study on the impact of pesticides has been widely criticized in the scientific world. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has said, “It is not possible to draw valid conclusions about the development of tumors in the rats tested.” The French National Food Safety Agency ANSES also refuted the study conducted by the professor, citing “weaknesses” in the work, but called for an investigation into the long-term consumption of GMOs when fed in combination with pesticides to be conducted. Accustomed to his research eliciting tantrums from the multinationals, on 12 November Séralini responded to them in the journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology, by publishing: “Answer to critics: Why is there long-term toxicity associated with consumption of glyphosate or Round-Up tolerant NK603 GM maize?”
In their response, the scientists claimed, “Some critics have emphasized the fact that there are no reports on the side-effects suffered by farm animals or humans in the US who have consumed foods derived from GMO crops. Such statements are scientifically erroneous for the following reasons:
- Firstly, it is important to bear in mind that there have been no epidemiological studies of the human population, nor a follow-up to studies on farm animals, to try to correlate any effect on health observed in relation to the consumption of a genetically modified crop.
- Secondly, we must remember that farm animals are not bred to live for the entire duration of their natural life cycle; therefore, they often do not live long enough to develop long-term chronic diseases, which is in contrast with the rats in our experiment.
- Thirdly, since there is no GMO labeling in the U.S., the actual amount consumed is unknown, and there is no control group. Therefore, without clear traceability or labeling, no epidemiological survey can be done.
When one evaluates the regulation of GMOs, chemical products and drugs, the tests are performed by the companies themselves, often in their own laboratories. As a result, conflicts of interest arise. “Our study does not seek to market a new product. On the contrary, we wanted to calculate the risk these products pose to health. This is the most detailed test that has been conducted so far, and it is independent of biotechnology companies and pesticides. We encourage others to replicate similar long-term experiments, with greater statistical power,” said Séralini.
This response also answered criticism from four Brazilian pro-GM scientists, two of whom are members of the National Technical Commission of Biosafety (NTCBio) in a report from October 2012. This report was published as “the vision of NTCBio” as a whole, in combination with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in Brazil. But it is now clear that no such consensus exists in NTCBio.
In March 2013, it was discovered that 15 members and ex-members of NTCBio had produced a detailed counter-report discrediting the arguments of the aforementioned four scientists, and supporting the validity of Séralini’s findings. This was stated in a letter to Flavio Finardi, NTCBio President, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among many other denials, the Commission members clarified: “As we understand it, this document, prepared by four scientists, two of whom are members of the NTCBio, cannot be considered as the Commission’s position, since it was not evaluated by a plenary session. Even if it had been, the doctors’ opinions do not represent the consensus view of this Commission.”
For its part, in a letter dated October 19, 2012, the French National Food Safety Agency (ANSES) makes reference to the Séralini study after concluding there is a need to “carry out studies in order to trace the potential health effects associated with long-term consumption of GMOs or exposure to the phytosanitary [pesticide] formulations.” It also recommends that “these studies should be particularly focused on exposure to GMOs and the associated plant protection formulations” and that “these studies should be publicly funded and be based on a detailed experimental protocol that will enable a response to the questions raised.”
Eighty percent of transgenic products are developed to withstand the pesticides; the remaining 20% are engineered to produce an insecticide. The combined effect of these contaminants in human cells is what Gilles-Eric Séralini and his team worked on, studying placental and umbilical cord cells, in cell lines and human embryos.
Meanwhile, we are awaiting the publication of the book, Tous Cobayes! in Spanish in October of next year, by the Barcelona-based publisher Need Ediciones, the presentation of which to the general public promises to be another explosive event for which Dr. Séralini will be in Spain for four days – much to the delight of my friends and groups [who were present] last April.
GM-free battles in Poland and the Netherlands
Thursday, 29 November 2012 11:55
1.Veto GMOs in Poland - Take action!
2.Legally binding GM-free? Yes we can
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1.Veto GMOs in Poland - Take action
International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside
This is an urgent call!
The political heat is rising fast in Poland. The pro-GMO Seeds Act is at the President's door. He can sign – and cast Poland into a GM corporate wasteland – or he can 'veto' the Act and give his Country the chance to proudly proclaim "GMO free Zone" status.
Thousands upon thousands of Poles are rapidly waking-up to the crisis at their doorstep and the internet is on fire with demands to ban GM crops and seeds. Celebrity performers, artists, farmers, ecologists and aware consumers are joining forces to keep up a continuous vigil of demonstrations outside the President’s Palace demanding: "Veto the Seeds Act!"
You too can join them from around the World and thereby put further pressure on the President to throw out this despotic GM Act of aggression. Letters sent from abroad are all registered and are known to carry real weight among decision makers.
So, with no further ado, just write these words: "Pan President, keep Poland GMO Free – Veto the Seeds Act!" and send it off to:
Pan President Bronislaw Komorowski,
Kancelaria Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej ul. Wiejska 10
00-902 Warszawa
E-mail:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Or put it in your own words.
Thank you:)
Jadwiga Lopata and Julian Rose
ICPPC - International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside, 34-146 Stryszów 156, Poland tel./fax +48 33 8797114
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.icppc.pl www.gmo.icppc.pl www.eko-cel.pl
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2.Legally binding GM-free? Yes we can
Diederick Sprangers
Genethics Foundation, 28 November 2012
After declaring itself GM-free in 2011, the Dutch city of Nijmegen has moved on and incorporated the GM-free status in the zoning plan of one its quarters with farmland. This means that GM crops are now legally forbidden in the quarter Ooyse Schependom of the city. Other Dutch cities and provinces are getting interested: local and regional politicians are considering taking the same steps as Nijmegen.
Many of the regional and local GM-free declarations in Europe are declarations of intent. If the farmers are party to such a declaration, this is of course sufficient. Many pro-GM politicians and activists claim no more is possible: they say the EU decides about commercial GM crops and national governments about GM field trials. There is some space in EU-law for regional bans on GM crops, but this is very hard and also disputed. However, this does not mean that farmers', consumers', and regional politicians' hands are bound. Firstly, nothing can stop a community or a region from banning GM on farmland which is its own property. And secondly, GM laws are not the only laws: there are also spatial planning or zoning laws. Although these are different in every country, they usually allow the spatial separation of conflicting land uses. It is not hard to argue that GM agriculture – especially the present pesticide-related GM crops, but also other ones – conflicts with other land uses, like GM-free agriculture or nature. Some nature conservation rules, like Natura 2000, even demand that adjacent land is also protected. With these arguments, GM bans can be enforced in zoning plans. This is what Nijmegen has just done.
Deadly GM food
Wednesday, 26 December 2012 21:54
EXTRACT: Companies aim to maximise profit for shareholders. Any safety requirements are secondary concerns. In a democracy, we... expect our elected officials to take care of these concerns on our behalf. But how can they when governments and regulatory bodies have virtually become mouthpieces of private vested interests, in this case agribusiness?
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Deadly GM Food
Colin Todhunter
Deccan Herald, December 26 2012
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/300930/deadly-gm-food.html
*When tested, the GMO-fed groups showed the greatest rates of tumor incidence with 80 per cent of animals affected.
Global agriculture has undergone more changes during the last 60 or so years than it did during the preceding 12,000 years. If chemical-intensive agriculture represented the first wave of the so-called "Green Revolution", genetically modified organisms (GMOs) comprise its second coming.
A new study published in the September edition of the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology is the most damning indictment of GMOs carried out so far. Led by Gilles-Eric Seralini, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Caen in France, the research analysed the health effects of GMOs on rats.
Females rats fed GMOs died two to three times more than controls (groups of rates not fed GMOs) and more rapidly. They developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than the controls. Liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5 to five times higher in males that were fed GMOs. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented four times more large palpable tumors than controls.
By the beginning of the 24th month of the study, 50–80 per cent of GMO-fed female animals had developed tumors, with up to three tumors per animal, whereas only 30 per cent of non GMO-fed rats were affected. The GMO-fed groups showed the greatest rates of tumor incidence with 80 per cent of animals affected.
Such results had not yet become evident in the first 90 days, the length of most all agribusiness industry tests to date - perhaps why the industry has avoided longer tests. As rats are mammals, their systems should react to chemicals, in this case GMO corn treated with Monsanto Roundup chemical herbicide, in a similar way to those of a human test subject.
Seralini’s was the first long-term independent study of the effects of a GMO diet on rats. It took place 20 years after US president George H W Bush gave the commercial release of GMO seeds the green light. Writer William F Engdahl notes that Bush did so following a closed-door meeting with top officials of Monsanto Corporation. GMO seeds were permitted in the US with not one single independent government test to determine if they were safe for human or animal consumption.
In Europe, the Seralini study has exposed that, as in the US, the EU controls on GMO constitute nothing other than accepting at face value the test results provided by the GMO companies themselves. It smacks of collusion between the GMO agrichemical cartel, EU commissioners, the GMO panel members of European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and several member governments of the EU.
The EFSA recommended approval of Monsanto’s Roundup-tolerant maize in 2009 without conducting any independent testing. In making its decision, the EFSA partly relied on information supplied by the applicant (Monsanto) - tests on rats that were for only 90 days.
Toxic effects
Seralini’s study noted that the massive toxic effects and deaths of GMO-fed rats took place well after 90 days. Three years after the commercial introduction of Monsanto GMO maize in the EU, Seralini’s study shows Monsanto’s GMO maize demonstrably causes severe rates of cancerous tumors and early death in rats.
Engdahl argues that because of US government arm-twisting and due to the power of the GMO agribusiness lobby in the US and EU, no regulatory authority in the world had requested mandatory chronic animal feeding studies to be performed for edible GMOs and formulated pesticides.
In the wake of the Seralini study, Engdahl states the EFSA’s refusal to re-examine its earlier decision to approve Monsanto GMO maize suggests the EFSA is controlled by the GMO agribusiness lobby. It is thus worth considering that over half of the scientists involved in the GMO panel which positively reviewed the Monsanto’s study for GMO maize in 2009, leading to its EU-wide authorisation, had links with the biotech industry.
Scientist Harry Kuiper, chair of the EFSA GMO panel has led the panel since 2003, during which time EFSA went from no GMO approvals to 38 GMO seeds approved for human consumption. The criteria for approval were developed by Kuiper in cooperation with the GMO industry and the Washington-based International Life Sciences Institute. The board of this institute in 2011 was comprised of senior people from Monsanto, ADM (one of the world’s biggest purveyors of GMO soybeans and corn), Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods (major proponent of GMO in foods) and Nestle, another giant GMO food industry user.
It therefore comes as no surprise that the EFSA has condemned the Seralini study with vague accusations. It is typical. With threats of lawsuits and UK government pressure, some years ago top research scientist Dr Arpad Pusztai was effectively silenced over his research concerning the dangers of GM food. A campaign was set in motion to destroy his reputation. Similarly, a WikiLeaks cable highlighted how GMOs were being forced into European nations by the US ambassador to France who plotted with other US officials to create a ‘retaliatory target list’ of anyone who tried to regulate GMOs. Companies aim to maximise profit for shareholders. Any safety requirements are secondary concerns. In a democracy, we thus expect our elected officials to take care of these concerns on our behalf.
But how can they when governments and regulatory bodies have virtually become mouthpieces of private vested interests, in this case agribusiness?
Given the stranglehold of this sector on the US government, how long before GM foods are let onto the Indian market? Let’s hope for the sake of the population at large, they never are. The health of the nation, food security and sovereignty are not reliant on GM foods. Quite the opposite in fact!
Bono can't help Africans by stealing their voice
Tuesday, 18 June 2013 21:40
Elevation: Who do Bono and the ONE campaign really represent: the very poor or the very rich?
George Monbiot
Monbiot.com, June 17 2013 published in the Guardian June 18 2013
http://www.monbiot.com/2013/06/17/elevation/
It was bad enough in 2005. Then, at the G8 summit in Scotland, Bono and Bob Geldof heaped praise on Tony Blair and George Bush, who were still mired in the butchery they had initiated in Iraq[1,2,3]. At one point Geldof appeared, literally and figuratively, to be sitting in Tony Blair’s lap. African activists accused them of drowning out a campaign for global justice with a campaign for charity.
But this is worse. As the UK chairs the G8 summit again, a campaign that Bono founded, with which Geldof works closely[4], appears to be whitewashing the G8’s policies in Africa.
Last week I drew attention to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, launched in the US when it chaired the G8 meeting last year[5]. The alliance is pushing African countries into agreements which allow foreign companies to grab their land, patent their seeds and monopolise their food markets. Ignoring the voices of their own people, six African governments have struck deals with companies such as Monsanto, Cargill, Dupont, Syngenta, Nestlé, and Unilever, in return for promises of aid by the UK and other G8 nations.
A wide range of activists, both African and European, is furious about the New Alliance[6]. But the ONE campaign, co-founded by Bono, stepped up to defend it[7]. The article it wrote last week was remarkable in several respects: in its elision of the interests of African leaders and those of their people, in its exaggeration of the role of small African companies, but above all in failing even to mention the injustice at the heart of the New Alliance – its promotion of a new wave of land grabbing. My curiosity was piqued.
The first thing I discovered is that Bono has also praised the New Alliance, in a speech just before last year’s G8 summit in the US[8]. The second thing I discovered is that much of the ONE campaign’s primary funding was provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation[9], two of whose executives sit on its board[10]. The Foundation has been working with the biotech company Monsanto and the grain trading giant Cargill, and has a large Monsanto shareholding[11]. Bill Gates has responded to concerns raised by land grabbing in Africa by claiming, in the face of devastating evidence and massive resistance from African farmers, that “many of those land deals are beneficial, and it would be too bad if some were held back because of Western groups’ ways of looking at things.”[12] (Africans, you will note, keep getting written out of this story).
The third thing I discovered is that there’s a long history here. In his brilliant and blistering book "The Frontman: Bono (in the Name of Power)", just released in the UK, the Irish scholar Harry Browne maintains that “for nearly three decades as a public figure, Bono has been … amplifying elite discourses, advocating ineffective solutions, patronising the poor and kissing the arses of the rich and powerful.”[13] His approach to Africa is “a slick mix of traditional missionary and commercial colonialism, in which the poor world exists as a task for the rich world to complete.”
Bono, Browne charges, has becoming “the caring face of global technocracy”, who, without any kind of mandate, has assumed the role of spokesperson for Africa, then used that role to provide “humanitarian cover” for western leaders. His positioning of the West as the saviour of Africa while failing to discuss the harm the G8 nations are doing has undermined campaigns for justice and accountability, while lending legitimacy to the neoliberal project.
Bono claims to be “representing the poorest and most vulnerable people”[14]. But talking to a wide range of activists from both the poor and rich worlds since ONE published its article last week, I have heard the same complaint again and again: that Bono and others like him have seized the political space which might otherwise have been occupied by the Africans about whom they are talking. Because Bono is seen by world leaders as the representative of the poor, the poor are not invited to speak. This works very well for everyone – except them.
The ONE campaign looks to me like the sort of organisation that John le Carré or Robert Harris might have invented. It claims to work on behalf of the extremely poor. But its board is largely composed of multimillionaires, corporate aristocrats, and US enforcers[15]. Here you will find Condoleezza Rice, George W Bush’s National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, who aggressively promoted the Iraq war, instructed the CIA that it was authorised to use torture techniques[16] and browbeat lesser nations into supporting a wide range of US aims.
Here too is Larry Summers, who was chief economist at the World Bank during the darkest days of structural adjustment and who, as US Treasury Secretary, helped to deregulate Wall Street, with such happy consequences for the rest of us. Here’s Howard Buffett, who has served on the boards of the global grain giant Archer Daniels Midland as well as Coca-Cola and the food corporations ConAgra and Agro Tech[17]. Though the main focus of ONE is Africa, there are only two African members. One is a mobile phone baron, the other is the finance minister of Nigeria, who was formerly managing director of the World Bank. What better representatives of the extremely poor could there be?
If, as ONE does, an organisation keeps telling you that it’s a “grassroots campaign”[18], it’s a fair bet that it is nothing of the kind. This collaboration of multimillionaires and technocrats looks to me more like a projection of US and corporate power.
I found the sight of Bono last week calling for “more progress on transparency” equally revolting[19]. As Harry Browne reminds us, U2’s complex web of companies, the financial arrangements of Bono’s Product RED campaign and his investments through the private equity company he co-founded are all famously opaque. And it’s not an overwhelming shock to discover that tax justice is absent from the global issues identified by ONE.
There is a well-known if dubious story which claims that at a concert in Glasgow Bono began a slow hand-clap. He is supposed to have announced: “every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies”. Whereupon someone in the audience shouted “well fucking stop doing it then.” It’s good advice, and I wish he’d take it.
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. http://www.monbiot.com/2005/06/21/bards-of-the-powerful/
2. http://www.monbiot.com/2005/07/09/africas-new-best-friends/
3. http://www.monbiot.com/2005/09/06/the-man-who-betrayed-the-poor/
4. http://www.one.org/c/international/faq/1613/
5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/african-hunger-help-g8-grab
6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jun/12/new-alliance-imperialism-monbiot-know-better
7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jun/12/new-alliance-imperialism-monbiot-know-better
8. http://www.one.org/international/blog/bono-addresses-global-leaders-on-hunger-agriculture-and-transparency-at-pre-g8-symposium/
9. Eg Harry Browne, 2013. The Frontman: Bono (in the Name of Power). Verso, London.
10. http://www.one.org/c/international/about/3575/
11. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/29/gates-foundation-gm-monsanto
12. http://allafrica.com/stories/201102091101.html?viewall=1
13. Harry Browne, 2013. The Frontman: Bono (in the Name of Power). Verso, London.
14. http://www.jannswenner.com/archives/Bono.aspx
15. http://www.one.org/c/international/about/3575/
16. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/23/condoleezza-rice-cia-waterboarding
17. http://www.one.org/c/international/about/3575/
18. http://www.one.org/c/international/about/3833/
19. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jun/12/european-union-laws-extractive-industries-payments
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