The Old News

Not too much old news to report today because, out of the 35-40 webpages I sent myself to read at work, 4 arrived. Just gotta love that trusty, dependable work email. I also sent myself links to some stories, but those got lost. So you're just gonna have to trust me.

Common Dreams: US Firms 'Tried to Lie' Over GM Crops, Says EU

American biotech companies tried to lie to Europe in an attempt to force genetically modified crops upon them, Margot Wallström, 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."

Good article. Like I said, I have no links, blame work email. Just goto Common Dreams and search for it.

The BBC has a couple articles on the WTO.

G22 will talk trade 'any time' - The Group of 22 developing nations led by Brazil, who came into existance during the recent WTO trade meetings in Cancun, in meeting in Buenos Aries to form a stance opposing subsidies the US and European governments pay to their farmers, which has been described aby Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil as, "a form of social apartheid which discriminated against farmers in developing countries," to quote the BBC article. The G22 is hoping to stick together and be a counter weight to superpowers in trade talks. This does not fit with US interests, and they are offering bilateral trade deals with other G22 nations.

WTO hopes for reconciliation - Because the developing nations formed the G22 to stick up for themselves at the WTO, and the US and Europe had, uhm, trouble dealing with the G22 because now they couldn't ram their trade agenda down a weak, developing nations throat, the last WTO takls in Cancun didn't go anywhere. So the WTO is trying to regroup, but nobody is expecting any big news out of it, especially since India and the US have elections next year and they aren't expected to make big trade decisions.