Public / Private Relations

June 2008 ETC Group Translator Ciao FAO: Another "Failure-as-Usual" Food Summit   Contrary to the opinion of many, June's Food Summit actually did something. It signaled the beginning of the end for the multilateral system as we know it. Over the next six months the food emergency - and the international institutions designed to address it - could get worse.   The full text offers a line-by-line interpretation of the Food Summit's final declaration.   Issue: During the 3-5 June 2008 World Food Summit, governments patched together sufficient funds to keep the lid on food rebellions for a few months but all the fundamental and long-term institutional and financial problems remain. In Rome, governments opted for a mythical "techno-fix" led by agribusiness in collaboration with the Gates Foundation and other philanthro-capitalists. These "klepto-mandates" are usurping the multilateral system. There is also a clear power shift away from the... Read more

Communiqué May/June 2008 Issue # 99

Patenting the “Climate Genes”… And Capturing the Climate Agenda

Issue: The world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered to withstand environmental stresses such as drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. BASF, Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dupont and biotech partners have filed 532 patent documents (a total of 55 patent families) on so-called “climate ready” genes at patent offices around the world. In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis, the Gene Giants are gearing up for a PR offensive to re-brand themselves as climate saviours. The focus on so-called climate-ready genes is a golden opportunity to push genetically engineered crops as a silver bullet solution to climate change. But patented techno-fix seeds... Read more

ETC Group News Release Tuesday, May 13, 2008 www.etcgroup.org  

Gene Giants Grab "Climate Genes"

Amid Global Food Crisis, Biotech Companies are Exposed as Climate Change Profiteers     A report released today by Canadian-based civil society organization, ETC Group, reveals that the world's largest seed and agrochemical corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered to withstand environmental stresses associated with climate change - including drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. ETC Group's report warns that - rather than a solution for confronting climate change - the promise of so-called "climate-ready" crops will be used to drive farmers and governments onto a proprietary biotech platform.   "In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis,... Read more

News Release Coalition Against Biopiracy 7 March 2008 www.captainhookawards.org Ahoy, Mates! The Coalition Against Biopiracy today calls for nominations for the Fifth Captain Hook Awards

*** Please Circulate to Your Networks throughout the Seven Seas *** What's the most scandalous case of biopiracy[1] in your country? Who's ripping off indigenous knowledge in your community? Which privateer is most egregiously pillaging the global commons for profit? Who's monopolizing your genes or patenting your plants?

Nominate your least favorite pirate for a 2008 Captain Hook Award. All outrageous achievements in biopiracy deserve recognition!

Nominate your most admired biopiracy-resistor for a 2008 Cog Award. All those who have fought off biopirates, defeated predatory patents or otherwise foiled the nefarious plots of fiendish privateers deserve recognition. (Cog Awards are so-named because cogs were ships designed to... Read more

ETC Group 3 March 2008                             www.etcgroup.org Special Report on Human Genomics Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing and the Myth of Personalized Medicine: Spit Kits, SNP Chips and Human Genomics The topic of this report is the burgeoning Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) genetic testing industry, which is promising consumers a guidebook for maintaining health as well as a gene-based horoscope predicting future illness. Issue & Impact: “Personalized medicine” is based on the belief that we can – or, one day soon will be able to – detect, prevent and treat disease according to an individual’s genetic profile. “Gene-informed,”[1] individualized medicine is being touted as a boon to health and longevity around the world, though its efficacy and usefulness have yet to be demonstrated.... Read more

* also available in french*

Despite the fact that governments re-affirmed and strengthened the United Nations’ moratorium on Terminator technology (a.k.a. genetic use restriction technology [GURTs]) in March 2006, public and private sector researchers are developing a new generation of suicide seeds – using chemically induced “switches” to turn a genetically modified (GM) plant’s fertility on or off.

Issue: Under the guise of biosafety, the European Union’s 3-year Transcontainer Project is investing millions of euros in strategies that cannot promise fail-safe containment of transgenes from GM crops, but could nonetheless function as Terminator, posing unacceptable threats to farmers, biodiversity and food sovereignty. Terminator technology – genetic seed sterilization – was initially developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical... Read more

* also available in french* ETC Group today releases “Terminator: The Sequel,” a Communiqué reporting on new research related to “suicide seeds” and other genetically modified (GM) seed technologies that pose unacceptable threats to farmers, biodiversity and food sovereignty.

Today ETC Group reports on a new crop of genetic engineering technologies that are being promoted as a biosafety solution to the unwanted spread of transgenes from GM crops, trees and pharmaceutical-producing plants. In practice, these technologies, if commercialized, will allow the multinational seed industry to tighten its grasp on proprietary seeds and to restrict the rights of farmers.

The 28-page Communiqué begins with an examination of the European Union’s... Read more

ETC Group News Release 3 May 2007 www.etcgroup.org

REVOKED!! Monsanto Monopoly Nixed in Munich

but little joy in foiling soy ploy at this late date

Munich – The European Patent Office today put the brakes on Monsanto’s over-the-top corporate greed by revoking its species-wide patent on all genetically modified soybeans (EP0301749) – a patent unprecedented in its broad scope. ETC Group, an international civil society organization based in Canada, won its 13-year legal challenge against Monsanto’s species-wide soybean patent when an EPO appeal board ruled that the patent was not new or sufficient (i.e., the invention claimed was not sufficiently described for a skilled person to repeat it). The patent challenge was supported by Greenpeace and “No Patents on Life!” Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher of UK-based EcoNexus also joined the opposition team in Munich as a... Read more

ETC Group News Release February 1, 2007 www.etcgroup.org

Gambling with Gaia

On the Eve of the Release of UN Climate Change Report ETC Group Warns that US Government’s Push for Geoengineering is Unacceptable

On the day before the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sounds its loudest alarm yet, ETC Group warns that some OECD states, led by the United States, are betting on a pie-in-the-sky techno-fix to address climate change. “Geoengineering” refers to the intentional, large-scale manipulation of the environment to bring about environmental change. With no hope for Kyoto, little political will to ask industry or voters to change lifestyles and a growing recognition that carbon trading is a farce, some governments are concluding that massive earth restructuring is the only way out. The Guardian reported earlier this week that the US government is lobbying... Read more

News Release ETC Group 18 October 2006 www.etcgroup.org

EPA’s Nanotech Regs: Ironic Parameters Clean-up – Clam-up – Screw-up?

During summer vacation, the lead US environmental regulatory agency acknowledged it has approved at least 15 novel nano-scale chemicals. Earlier this year EPA sanctioned the unproven use of iron nanoparticles to clean up a pesticide dump. Hearings this week.

Hard on the heels of a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) commitment to consult openly and widely on the development of a regulatory approach to nanotechnology, the government has given the green light to introduce more than 15 novel, nano-formulated chemicals. Additionally, the EPA itself is experimentally testing iron nanoparticles to clean up groundwater in “Superfund” toxic dumps in a number of locations. The composition of the approved nano-chemicals, their potential commercial end-uses and even the manufacturers’... Read more

19th May 2006 NEWS RELEASE

Global Coalition Sounds the Alarm on Synthetic Biology, Demands Oversight and Societal Debate

Today, a coalition of thirty-eight international organizations including scientists, environmentalists, trade unionists, biowarfare experts and social justice advocates called for inclusive public debate, regulation and oversight of the rapidly advancing field of synthetic biology - the construction of unique and novel artificial life forms to perform specific tasks. Synthetic biologists are meeting this weekend in Berkeley, California where they plan to announce a voluntary code of self-regulation for their work (1). The organizations signing the Open Letter are calling on synthetic biologists to abandon their proposals for self-governance and to engage in an inclusive process of global societal debate on the implications of their work (see attached Open Letter).

"The researchers meeting in Berkeley acknowledge the dangers of... Read more

The Coalition Against Biopiracy exposed the globe's nastiest biopirates and rewarded the most steadfast resistors at the Captain Hook Awards on 24 March during the meeting of the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil. This ETC Group Communique provides a detailed description of the 2006 award winners.

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Ban Terminator Campaign News Release www.banterminator.org 22nd March 2006

Terminator Seed Battle Begins: Farmers Face Billions of Dollars in Potential Costs

Curitiba, Brazil. After a week that has seen a worldwide mobilisation against Terminator technology, the issue of Suicide Seeds is about to hit the negotiating floor of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Curitiba, Brazil. Known to the CBD as GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies), Terminator crops are genetically modified to create sterile seeds at harvest so that farmers must buy new seed every season. Today the Ban Terminator Campaign, a global coalition of over 500 organisations, released new financial calculations indicating that Terminator seeds will impose a burden of billions of extra dollars in seed costs on some of the world's poorest nations.

The calculations,... Read more

ETC Group Ban Terminator Campaign News Release 27 January 2006 www.etcgroup.org www.banterminator.org

Granada's Grim Sowers Plow up Moratorium on Terminator, Clear the Path for its Approval at UN

Terminator Opponents Prepare for Battle at COP8 in Curitiba, Brazil March 20-31, 2006

Indigenous peoples were betrayed and Farmers' Rights trampled at a UN meeting this week when the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian governments - guided by the US government and a brazen cabal of corporate Gene Giants - took a major step to undermine the existing moratorium on Terminator technology (i.e., plants that are genetically modified to produce sterile seeds at harvest). The damaging recommendations from the meeting in Granada, Spain, now go to the upcoming 8th biennial meeting of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in... Read more

ETC Group News Release 20 January 2006 www.etcgroup.org

Terminator Threat Looms: Intergovernmental meeting to tackle suicide seeds issue CBD's Working Group on 8(j) Meets in Granada, Spain 23-27 January

Indigenous peoples, farmers' organizations and civil society representatives are bracing to defend a de facto United Nations' moratorium on seed sterilization technology - the moratorium is now under attack by the multinational seed and biotech industry. A meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, where "suicide seeds" are on the agenda, gets underway in Spain next week. The UN moratorium - which recommends against the field-testing and commercial sale of seed sterilization technology - is under attack. Delta & Pine Land (a multinational seed company) and the US Department of Agriculture recently won new patents on Terminator in Europe and Canada.(1)

Terminator (a.k.a. "genetic use... Read more

The Enola bean patent case demonstrates that intellectual property challenges are not a viable means of "correcting" abuses in the patent system. It has been five years since the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture filed an official challenge of the now infamous Enola bean patent in Washington, DC. Because of bureaucratic delays and diversions, it's not over yet! ETC Group provides an update on Mexican bean biopiracy.

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ETC GroupNews Release16 December 2005www.etcgroup.org

ETC Group Releases New Report on Corporate Power, Oligopoly, Inc. 2005

As governments at the 6th WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong bristle with the thorny politics of trade, the report that ETC Group releases today, Oligopoly, Inc. 2005, serves as a reminder that what looks like buying and selling between countries is most often the redistribution of capital among subsidiaries of the same parent multinational corporation.

ETC Group's new report is available at www.etcgroup.org

 In Oligopoly, Inc. 2005 ETC Group revisits the sectors analyzed in Oligopoly, Inc. 2003 and finds that corporate concentration - not only in food and agriculture, but in all sectors related to the products and processes of life - has increased remarkably since the last review two years ago. Since then:

* the world's top 10 seed companies have increased their... Read more

In Oligopoly, Inc. 2005 ETC Group finds that corporate concentration -- not only in food and agriculture, but in all sectors related to the products and processes of life -- has increased remarkably since ETC's last review two years ago. The report also reveals that a subterranean struggle is underway at the nano-scale to control the fundamental building blocks of life and nature. Corporate investment in nanobiotechnology (or, synthetic biology) could give ultimate control to a very different set of corporate actors.

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