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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories June 17, 2003 Peter Phillips and Jason Spencer Entertainment Media 2003 Wayne Madsen Outting Ashcroft's Latest Hypocrisy June 16, 2003 Frida Berrigan Death in Aceh: US Weapon Aid the Repression Publius Candidate Dem and Citizen Green Tarif Abboushi Roadmap or Roadkill? Rep. John Conyers Bush's Deceptions about Iraq Threaten Democracy at Home Julian Samuel A Review of Pilger's The New Rulers of the World Uri Avnery The Children of Death Steve Perry Bush's Lies, Part 2   June 14 / 15, 2003 Edward Said A Roadmap to What and Where? Jeffrey St. Clair Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's Mad Quest for the Federal Bench David Lindorff Rumsfeld v. Belgium Jennifer Loewenstein Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice Lee Sustar US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich Ben Tripp Of Dissidents and Dissonance William S. Lind Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence Joanne Mariner Rebellious Judges Gila Svirsky A Macabre Alliance Mickey Z. Where We Are Chris Floyd Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder Noah Leavitt Peru as Our Crystal Ball? Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi The G8 and Africa Dr. Gerry Lower Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals Ted Dace A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature Adam Engel Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake Poets' Basement Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer Website of the Weekend AEI: Starts Wars; Creates Poverty   June 13, 2003 David Vest Bush Roadmap to What? Ron Jacobs The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded? John Chuckman The Man Who Wasn't There Jason Leopold Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence Michael Leon Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media Negar Azimi Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America Saul Landau Shiite Happens Hammond Guthrie Then and Now Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/13   June 12, 2003 Gary Leupp The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology Ahmad Faruqui The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day War Wayne Madsen Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign Laura Carlsen Hunger and Security Tarif Abboushi Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba Ray McGovern Deceived into War: Reflections of a Former CIA Analyst Steve Perry Counting Bush's Lies, part 2   June 11, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the Generals Hate the A-10 Elaine Cassel Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's Top Gremlin David Lindorff The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay Tom Gorman Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004 Alfredo Castro Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth for Trade Unionists Nnimo Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to Eat! Julie Hilden Spike Lee v. Spike TV CounterPunch Wire Blair Bros. Change Jobs! Eric Hobsbawm The Empire Expands, Wider and Still Wider Steve Perry DHS: As Big a Planning Snafu as Iraq?   June 10, 2003 Benjamin Shepard A Season in the Anti-War Movement Chris Floyd Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi Germany Wayne Madsen Weaponsgate Jason Leopold Powell's Denials Ring Hollow Richard Lichtman Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World Domination Ray Close A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About WMD Matter Hammond Guthrie Banking on Saddam? Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/10   June 9, 2003 Alex Coolman Male Rape in US Prisons Elaine Cassel Ashcroft is Coming! Lee Sustar Is Iran Next? Agustin Velloso Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many Poor Gila Svirsky Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others Dr. Gerry Lower Human Worth in Bush's America Michael S. Ladah A True Liberation Ishmael Reed Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder Steve Perry How to Beat Bush, part 1   June 7 / 8, 2003 Alexander Cockburn The Terrible Truth Jeffrey St. Clair Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species Joanne Mariner Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers Steven Sherman A Different Theory of Everything Ron Jacobs Sports, Politics and the 60s M. Shahid Alam Pauperizing the Periphery Amelia Peltz If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost Shelton Hull Another Powell, Another Capitulation Binoy Kampmark Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea Ben Tripp A Fish Story Sen. Robert Byrd Where is the Outrage? Robin Philpot Congo Distortions Julie Hilden Murder and the Matrix Laura Flanders An Interview with Isabel Allende David Lindorff The Last Byline Adam Engel Talk Dirty Scary Monsters Poets' Basement Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod   June 6, 2003 Elaine Cassel Ashcroft the Insatiable David Krieger The Big Lie Ramzy Baroud Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers Anthony Gancarski Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege" Sam Hamod His Own Little Country Sean Carter Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay? David Lindorff Cracks in the Consensus Stew Albert Ari's Great Set Steve Perry Greens and Moore in 04? No   June 5, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina Imraan Siddiqi Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth Michael Leon Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done Robert Jensen Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy Ann Harrison Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over Paul Dean How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush Gary Leupp When Spooks Speak Out Website of the Day Evidence in Black and White?       Hot Stories CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.   Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

June 17, 2003 WTO and Salmon Frankenfish Threaten Wild Salmon By DAN BACHER Anne Veneman, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, is promoting the USDA ministerial conference in Sacramento from June 23 to 25 as a benign event to alleviate world hunger and spread the gospel of high-tech corporate agriculture. "Technology is one of the most powerful tools we have to achieve the goals of increasing agricultural productivity, ending famine and improving nutrition," Veneman said. "This conference will focus on the needs of developing new food and agricultural technologies. We will look at the role of partnerships and ways to share the benefits of technology." However, when representatives from 180 countries meet in Sacramento for the "WTO-Level Ministerial Conference on Agricultural Science and Technology," Natasha Benjamin of the Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR) will be one of thousands coming from the U.S. and throughout the world to protest the march of unsustainable industrial agriculture and genetically engineered crops and fish by participating in an alternative "festival of diverse resistance." Critics such as Benjamin, whose organization is the non-profit affiliate of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, an organization comprised of commercial fishing groups, charge that the conference will promote unsustainable corporate agriculture, the same type of agribusiness that resulted in the country's worst-ever fish kill on the Klamath River in September 2001, Genetically engineered (GE) crops are on the agenda, but not fish. And fish are the first genetically engineered animals which Aqua Bounty and other aquacultural giants are seeking to develop for food. Benjamin is scheduled to speak at a teach-in on Saturday, June 21 about the potential consequences of farmed and transgenic salmon to West Coast and world fisheries. The teach in is one of many alternative events, including a march and rally, ice cream social, organic food fair, debate and movie showing, that the Sacramento Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture and many other groups are planning from June 20 to 25. Benjamin, a marine biologist and marine policy analyst with a "passion for the ocean," would like to see the threat posed by transgenic fish in ocean pens placed on the conference's agenda to be debated and discussed in the open. But not only will the issue not be discussed, but the ministerial funded by U.S. tax dollars and sponsored by the USDA, USAID and the State Department, is completely closed to the public! "Transgenic fish is not on the agenda," said Benjamin, "but we are trying to get it on the agenda and that's why I will be there participating in the teach-ins, debates and actions sponsored by a variety of environmental, fisheries and other organizations." The conference occurs at a time when commercial and recreational fisheries groups are concerned about the potential harm that farmed Atlantic salmon, grown now in Europe, Maine, British Columbia and Chile, present to ecosystems. According to a new study in the British weekly New Scientist, farms provide a greater risk to wild salmon than previously thought, since farmed fish that escape their pens are more successful at mating than the wild species. Experiments conducted on farmed, wild and hybrid species of Norwegian Atlantic salmon by Oxford University scientist Danny Garnat and Colleagues found that farmed yearling salmon were four times successful as wild ones in fertilizing eggs. Add the genetically modified fish factor and things get even more threatening. "Genetically engineered salmon are different from wild or other farmed fish because they are have been genetically engineered to contain a desired trait," according to an analysis by the Center for Food Safety (CFS). "Biologists are now able to take genetic material from one organism and insert it into the permanent code of another fish. There are already over 35 species of GE fish being developed around the world. Some of these fish contain genes from other fish, humans and insects.Some GE fish are being developed to grow faster, resist disease and tolerate different water temperatures. At least one company, Aqua Bounty Farms, is currently requesting approval to mark its GE fish to consumers for food, according to CFS. Aqua Bounty GE Fish contain a growth hormone gene from a chinook salmon and antifreeze protein gene promoter from an ocean pout that keeps the growth hormone active. This gene is injected into fertilized eggs. Due to the continuous production of the growth hormone gene, these fish are grow as much as ten to thirty times faster than normal salmon. Why is Benjamin opposed to allowing genetically engineered fish for food? First, fish farms on the ocean cause enormous pollution, through the release of fish wastes and antibiotics into the water. These pollutants are put into otherwise pristine eco-systems. Also, the fish farms introduce artificial dyes into the feed to give the salmon a nice pink color designed to entice the customers in the stores. Second, fish farms always have a certain amount of fish escape, through human error, weather, and through attacks by sea lions and other predators that damage the pens. On the average, 15 percent of farmed fish escape into the wild. For example, over 170,000 farm raised salmon in Maine escaped from a net pen after a storm several years ago. GE fish, like other farmed fish, are sure to escape. And although the producers say they are 100 percent sterile, in nature "100 percent sterility is impossible," she stated. If these fish escaped, they would compete with wild fish for habitat and food, she emphasized. And nobody knows the consequences that these salmon will have if they cross breed with wild and hatchery fish. "There is the potential for them to compete with the wild fish by taking over the habitat and forage base of wild fish," Benjamin said. "This super salmon, if approved, would be the first genetically modified animal approved for human consumption. It will open the now closed doors of selling other fish and animals for use as food." Once the FDA approves these Atlantic salmon, there will be no federal requirement to label them as "genetically modified organisms" - GMOs. However, Benjamin is clear to state that although her organization is opposed to using GE fish for food, she is not against carefully controlled medical and scientific research with transgenic fish. "If they're doing good research for a cure to cancer or other disease, we don't want them to stop. We just don't want allow the commercialization of genetically engineered salmon. In a time of when we are struggling to rebuild salmon populations, we can't afford another risk to salmon recovery," she said. Benjamin's contentions regarding farmed salmon are supported by the recently-released report of the independent Pew Oceans Commission, which calls for immediate reform of U.S. ocean laws and policies to restore ocean wildlife and protect ocean ecosystems. The Commission calls for a moratorium on the expansion of marine finfish aquaculture (including salmon) until national policies and standards are in place. For information on the series of alternative events and protests occurring the week of the ministerial, click on www.sacmobilization.org Dan Bacher can be reached at: danielbacher@hotmail.com Weekend Edition Features Edward Said A Roadmap to What and Where? Jeffrey St. Clair Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's Mad Quest for the Federal Bench David Lindorff Rumsfeld v. Belgium Jennifer Loewenstein Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice Lee Sustar US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich Ben Tripp Of Dissidents and Dissonance William S. Lind Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence Joanne Mariner Rebellious Judges Gila Svirsky A Macabre Alliance Mickey Z. Where We Are Chris Floyd Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder Noah Leavitt Peru as Our Crystal Ball? Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi The G8 and Africa Dr. Gerry Lower Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals Ted Dace A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature Adam Engel Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake Poets' Basement Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer Website of the Weekend AEI: Starts Wars; Creates Poverty   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /