November

Web MD
Nov. 1, 2003
Are Genetically Modified Foods Safe to Eat?
Most Americans have eaten genetically modified foods without knowing it, but are they safe?
By Cherie Berkley
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/76/90064.htm

Genetically modified food has quietly become second nature in the U.S., and it may surprise you just how many foods you are eating that you never knew contained a genetically modified ingredient.

"Contamination is a very real risk in terms of growing genetically modified crops," says Lisa Archer, grassroots coordinator for the Safer Foods-Safer Farms campaign and Kraft campaign at the nonprofit organization Friends of the Earth -- the group that sparked the StarLink investigation. "[Genetically modified crops] can contaminate neighboring crops relatively easily. Once you get this stuff out into nature it's very difficult to control where it goes, and StarLink is a great example of that."

Archer's group continues to press Kraft -- the leading U.S. food supplier -- to stop using genetically modified ingredients in their products, hoping if it does, the move will have a domino effect on other food suppliers.

"I think consumers need to have info about the foods they're consuming. ... I think that if these products are so great, then why are there no labels? Why can people not know that [genetically modified ingredients] are in their food?" Archer tells WebMD.

Fort Worth Star Telegram
November 2, 2003
Hummer H2 is capturing some hearts;
Love 'em or hate 'em, Hummers are selling like crazy
By: Dave Ferman

GRAPEVINE--Over and over again, Travis Patterson uses a phrase, the Hummer lifestyle, to describe what it's like to own one.

But like no other vehicle in recent memory, the Hummer polarizes opinions. Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Friends of the Earth hate the vehicle, calling it a gas-guzzling, air-fouling beast that oozes testosterone -- a midlife crisis on wheels that, with its poor gas mileage, is keeping the United States more dependent on foreign oil.

But then there's what Friends of the Earth spokesman David Hirsch calls "the unspoken stuff" -- the sheer machismo of the vehicle and the attitude that can go with it.

"It looks aggressive," Hirsch said.

"And sometimes it's easier to close your eyes and mind and click back to that 'Me first' attitude, to not think about the wider implications of what you're buying."

CNN International
Nov. 2, 2003
Should U.N. Publish Names of War Profiteers?
By: Jim Clancy

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR (voice-over): More than five years of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has cost more than two million lives. Now, a controversial section (ph). A United Nations report names about who profited from that war may never see the light of day. The Security Council must decide whether to release details that may embarrass members of an interim government, now charged with making the peace. Some believe that details of who profited from the illegal sale of diamonds, gold and other minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo would be so embarrassing it could ruin any peace deal.

Those profits fueled arms trafficking and involved more than 50 companies, according to an earlier U.N. report.

COLLEEN FREEMAN, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH: Well, obviously the report that the U.N. Security Council is debating today is the final report of over three years of an investigation into the economic causes of conflict and how the illegal exploitation of resources has financed the conflict in the Congo.

So what is really important is the recommendations in the final report. The panel is basically passing the baton to government, including the Congolese government and its neighbors, as well as the international community, and in that report, it has several very important recommendations that if we're going to see peace in the Congo and if we're going to see an end to the illegal extraction of these resources that is financing the purchasing of arms and financing human rights abuses, and basically just an abysmal humanitarian condition in the country, the international community needs to bind together and take these recommendations seriously and act upon them.

Agence France Presse
November 4, 2003 Tuesday
World Bank unit approves loans for Caspian oil projects

The World Bank's private sector arm on Tuesday approved up to 310 million dollars in loans for contentious multibillion-dollar projects to bring oil from the Caspian Sea to world markets.

But environmental and human rights groups had urged the IFC to reject the loans, saying that oil production off Azerbaijan's Caspian coast and the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline would fuel corruption, political oppression and environmental disasters.

"IFC buried its head in the sand on this one," Carol Welch, international program director at Friends of the Earth, said Tuesday.

Environmental Finance
October-November 2003
Camisea Project Wins IADB Backing, Loses Exim

The controversial Camisea gas development project in Peru won support from one major financial backer last month, soon after being rejected by another.

"By supporting the Camisea project, the IADB has upheld its mission to encourage sustainable development in Latin America," said the project partners in a 10 September statement.

Not so, say environmentalists. The IADB has lax environmental policies, claims Jon Sohn, a campaigner on international financial institutions with Friends of the Earth in Washington, DC. The decision "lowers the bar for environmental standards to a level that is unacceptable," he says.

The development involves drilling for gas in a region of tropical forest that is home to remote indigenous tribes and piping it over the Andes to an export terminal on the Pacific coast. It is one of the most important gas reserves in Latin America the developers say.

The Associated Press
November 19, 2003
Energy bill has broad implications for Northwest

Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell is looking for ways to derail a 1,100-page energy bill that would overhaul everything from the way permits are granted for hydroelectric dams to loan guarantees for a pipeline connecting Alaska and the lower 48.

The bill also provides $18 billion in loan guarantees to back construction of a natural-gas pipeline from Alaska to the Midwest. If the pipeline is built, estimates indicate it will create 400,000 jobs direct and indirect nationwide, thousands of which could land in the Puget Sound area.

Environmentalists see the measure as another unsound effort to subsidize Alaska and energy interests.

"This is one of the most profitable industries and one of the least-taxed industries in the United States," said Erich Pica, Friends of the Earth economic campaigns director.

The Miami Herald
November 20, 2003
Trade draft criticized as diluted;
By Jane Bussey and Gregg Fields

Negotiators kept the Free Trade Area of the Americas effort alive Wednesday, but only by producing a compromise agreement that critics said fails to create the common market originally envisioned.

Specifically, the deal was openly called ''FTAA Lite'' by detractors because it allows countries to simply opt out of trade requirements that they find unpalatable.

Although it proposes to complete negotiations by January 2005, the draft document lists only one specific deadline, of Sept. 30, 2004, to complete negotiations on tariff reductions. Deadlines for all other issues aren't mentioned.

''By doing this, they are acknowledging there is no way to get the rest of it done by the end of next year,'' said David Waskow, trade policy coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

''It's a hollow shell of an agreement. For the U.S., this is a clear rebuff,'' Waskow added.

The Washington Post
November 21, 2003
Trade Talks End in Vague Accord; Framework for Americas Less Than Had Been Envisioned
Paul Blustein, Washington Post

Top officials from the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean agreed Thursday on parameters for a free-trade zone in the Western Hemisphere. But they bridged vast differences with fuzzy language suggesting that the trade pact will be much less ambitious than initially conceived.

"Today's outcome turns the FTAA into a hollow shell of an agreement," said David Waskow, a trade policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, which has opposed many trade pacts on the grounds that they protect foreign firms at the expense of environmental standards. "It is a clear rebuff to U.S. business lobbies that had insisted on a wall-to-wall deal."

The delight of activists like Waskow was matched by gloom among U.S. business representatives, who said they would insist on a much more far-reaching FTAA than the one outlined in the declaration but were glad that negotiations were continuing.

Austin American-Statesman (Texas)
Nov. 21, 2003
Draft free-trade deal approved amid heavy protests
Free-trade draft approved despite heavy protesting
By: Traci Carl

MIAMI -- Trade ministers from across the Americas on Thursday approved a framework for the world's largest free trade bloc, even as police in riot gear clashed with hundreds of demonstrators protesting the talks.

Anti-free-trade activists proclaimed at least a partial victory, saying the initial plan has been watered down. Corporate lobbyists have fumed at the outcome, and U.S. government officials have been fending off charges that they are signing on to a minimal accord just to keep the talks from collapsing.

"For the U.S., this is a hollow agreement," said David Waskow, trade policy coordinator for Friends of the Earth, which has opposed many trade pacts on the grounds that they protect companies at the expense of environmental standards. "The agenda of a comprehensive, across-the-board agreement has been rebuffed."

The delight of activists such as Waskow was matched by the gloom among many U.S. business representatives, who said they would insist on a much more far-reaching accord than the one outlined Thursday.

Grand Forks Herald
Nov. 24, 2003
FTAA negotiations to continue;
By Jerry Hagstrom; Special to Agweek

While waiting here for trade minsiters from 34 countries in the Americas to adopt a watered down declaration for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas last week, Trade Representative Bob Zoellick announced that the Bush administration intends to begin bilateral and regional free trade negotiations next year with Latin American countries that are likely to worry U.S. sugar growers about imports but make it easier for wheat farmers to export their products.

Friends of the Earth said the declaration "turns the FTAA into a hollow shell of an agreement" that is a "clear rebuff to U.S. business lobbies that had in sisted on a wall-to-wall deal. But it's good nes indeed for people and the environment around the hemisphere."

Tom Paine.com
Nov. 24, 2003
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9470
Lights Out
By: Ben Geman

Republican leaders and industry lobbyists are straining to drag a huge energy bill through Capitol Hill towards the president's desk, and its 1,000-plus pages contain a little of everything Democratic leaders allegedly detest about White House environmental policy.

"The reason such a disastrous bill is as close to passage as this is because there's a little bit in it for everyone," says Sara Zdeb, legislative director for Friends of the Earth, noting the modest renewable energy provisions and other language. Friends of the Earth has attacked the bill as a giveaway to polluting industry, with the harmful provisions far outweighing any beneficial language.

Friends of the Earth and other environmentalists believe several swing votes remain and are trying to persuade Minnesota's Mark Dayton and several others to block the measure. But it's a tough fight-Zdeb believes Daschle's support for the bill is enabling Democrats to back the measure and pushing it to the brink of passage.

"It's a tremendous failure of leadership on his part," she says. "It is clear he supports the bill for narrow parochial interests he has put ahead of the public's interest and the environment."

One Democratic strategist with expertise on environmental issues fears passage of the bill, skewed toward reliance on traditional industries as it is, will nonetheless help insulate President Bush from attacks on his environmental record and failure to ensure energy independence. It could allow Bush to parry the vastly greener energy platforms floated by Democratic presidential hopefuls and neutralize the issue.