Greenpeace invades US embassy in Star Wars protest for Bush-Putin summit

Ljubljana, Slovenia, June 16-- Greenpeace activists invaded the US embassy in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in protest against the US push to deploy a Star Wars missile system, as US President George Bush arrived for his first summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A group of five activists climbed over the 3 metre high fence and attempted to replace the US flag with a banner saying “Stop Star Wars.” Another 20 activists also unfurled banners saying “Stop Star Wars” in front of the embassy and seven of this group locked on to the gates of the embassy. The activists came from Austria, the United Kingdom and Slovakia.

“Today’s summit will be an historic disaster for world peace if there is any deal struck between the US and Russia on Star Wars,” said Greenpeace disarmament campaigner William Peden. “Rather than enter a new era of conflict they should be building upon the work of previous Russian and American Presidents such as Bush senior, Clinton, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who gave the world historic agreements that deeply reduced their nuclear arsenals. The legacy of Bush and Putin could well be a return to the Cold War and a new nuclear arms race, if they reach agreement on Star Wars.”

“President Putin must continue to reject Star Wars and US demands to amend or destroy the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty which outlaws Star Wars. Putin has previously described Star Wars as a ‘cure that is worse than the disease,’” said Peden.

Under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the US and Russia are restricted to protecting only one site each from missile attack rather than their entire territory, as envisaged by Star Wars.

“If Bush continues to peddle dangerous myths to justify Star Wars, he will leave Europe in no doubt that American weapons manufacturers are driving US defense and foreign policy and not the desire for global security and stability. Bush will leave Europe branded as a dangerous arms salesman and not an international statesman,” said Peden.

Source: Greenpeace: www.greenpeace.org

Brazilian farmers’ leader found murdered

Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 16-- The bullet-riddled body of a regional leader of Brazil’s landless farmers’ movement was found Saturday on a roadside near the Paraguayan border, police said.

The body of Valdecir Padilha, 31, was found in the municipality of Itaquirai with three gunshot wounds to the chest and one in the neck, news agency Agencia Estado reported.

Police in nearby Navirai, 540 miles west of Sao Paulo, said they were investigating Padilha’s death.

Padilha was doing community service at Itaquirai hospital as a sentence for leading several invasions of large farms and ranches in the area for the Landless Farmworkers Movement.

Police said they found motorcycle tire marks and parts of a car headlight and rear-view mirror at the site.

The landless movement spearheads large-scale occupations of land it considers unproductive in order to pressure the government into speeding up its agrarian reform program.

In recent years, the movement has also taken to invading banks and other public institutions to press its demands, which include the settlement of some 4 million landless families it claims to represent.

In Brazil, the richest 20 percent of the population owns about 90 percent the land, while the poorest 40 percent holds just 1 percent.

More than 1,000 Brazilians have lost their lives in land disputes over the past decade, according to Land Pastoral, a Roman Catholic group that advocates land reform.

Source: Associated Press

Mexican government blocks bid to patent maize

By Diego Cevallos

Mexico City, Mexico, June 14 (IPS)— The Mexican government has stepped in to halt a patent for the maize variety known as Optium, produced by the agricultural bio-tech transnational Dupont, arguing that the grain originated in this Latin American country and cannot be claimed as property.

Dupont is seeking rights over a maize variety that it developed through crossbreeding, a traditional crop improvement method.

The patent was to take effect June 1 in Europe, but at the last moment, the Mexican government filed an appeal of nonconformity with the European Patent Office (EPO), launching a discussion and deliberation process.

The Dupont maize known as Optium HOC/HO possesses traits that are similar to several Mexican varieties. Recognition of the patent of these traits could harm local farmers because it would give the transnational exclusive rights over a type of grain derived from older and widely cultivated varieties, say experts.

Dupont has responded to these claims saying that its maize, which has a minimum content of six percent oil and 55 percent oleic acid, does not exist in Mexico or in any other country. The transnational further asserted that its product was developed by crossing corn varieties that are unknown in Mexico.

“There are no scientific reports indicating that Mexico has a type of maize with the exact traits of the Dupont variety, but we are the country of origin of this plant species and -- sooner or later -- the plant breeders here will obtain a similar variety,’’ said Víctor Villalobos, Mexico’s assistant secretary of Agriculture.

The case has not yet been won but the government move at least halted the “rapacity’’ of the transnational, said Liza Covantes, a spokeswoman for the environmental watchdog Greenpeace in Mexico.

If the Mexican government had not taken action before the June 1 deadline, when the EPO closed the period for accepting objections, the Dupont patent would have entered into full force.

Greenpeace, which sounded the alarm on the maize patent case, presented its own claim of nonconformity before the EPO.

The government, however, is still not assured of obtaining the annulment of the patent, which would be valid only in Spain, France and Italy, countries that do not buy Mexico’s corn exports.

The authorities recognize that exact copies of the Optium variety do not exist in Mexico, explained Villalobos.

The maize dispute is a typical case of “bio-piracy,’’ maintains the non-governmental Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).

Bio-piracy is a term environmental groups use to describe the practice of companies from the industrialized North of registering as their own intellectual property the ancestral knowledge of plants and other organisms held by communities in the developing South.

Ecologists and Mexican authorities alike believe that the patent the US-based transnational is seeking must not be granted because the Optium maize is too similar to locally cultivated varieties. Dupont insists that its maize is unique.

If Dupont is able to declare property rights over Optium, Mexican maize with similar traits would be impossible to market, at least in Europe, and its producers would have to pay royalties to the transnational, Covantes explained.

But the government does not see it that way. The Dupont patent would not hurt Mexico because it is valid only in countries that do not buy Mexican maize, according to Mexico’s secretariat.

Maize originated in the region that is now Mexico. Thousands of years ago the local population began to cultivate the plant, giving rise to an entire world-view and mythology that continues to permeate Mexican culture today.

The Dupont Optium dispute is not the first time this country has been caught up in a bio-piracy case.

Under Mexico’s previous governments, there was no internal coordination for handling these problems, which could soon involve requests to patent transgenic organisms (genetically modified plants or animals), pointed out Villalobos.

The Agriculture official announced that the government will create a special committee — possibly by the end of September — to study the bio-piracy matter in general, and whether the government should pursue efforts to block patents involving living organisms.

“We must watch over the rights of the farmer, the peasant, the Indian, because they are the ones who have selected the breeds and varieties that have become the crops we know today, but that now -- with additional modification (through genetic manipulation) -- take on greater value’’ and can be patented, he said.

According to RAFI, the case involving Mexican maize demonstrates that international laws for regulating patents on living organisms are precarious or non-existent, and are an indication of just how vulnerable developing countries are to bio-piracy.

US picks Ecuador for drug war base

By Anthony Boadle

Washington, DC— The United States will expand its military presence in South America this fall when a major anti-drug airborne surveillance facility begins operating at the coastal airport of Manta, Ecuador, US officials said.

The buildup will be the first in Latin America since US military bases closed in Panama in 1999 and will intensify American operations in the war against the drug trade centered in Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer.

Arms control advocates said in interviews yesterday that Ecuador would become a new Honduras, the hub of US military operations during the Central American wars of the 1980s. The think tank RAND last week recommended a multinational effort to contain Colombia’s civil war.

When the runway is lengthened by the end of September at the Ecuadorian Air Force base, two large Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes and two KC-135 refueling aircraft will be able to land there simultaneously if need be.

The US Southern Command, located in Miami, which controls US military operations in Latin America, said it would also deploy one or two Navy P-3 aircraft, like the one captured by China, plus two US Coast Guard P-3s and two C-130 transport planes.

The apron will be able to accommodate three ARL airborne reconnaissance aircraft developed by the US Army to carry out low-profile intelligence work by day or night.

A Southcom spokeswoman said the AWACS would not be assigned permanently to the Andean region, but would fly out of US home bases and not use Manta at the same time.

But the maintenance and flying of the planes will mean a significant increase in US military personnel in Manta to a maximum of 400 stipulated in a November 1999 agreement with Ecuador allowing use of the base for 10 years.

State Department officials said the aircraft would be used exclusively for aerial detection, monitoring and tracking of drug traffickers in the Andean region and the eastern Pacific.

They said they could not estimate the number of US military personnel who would be in Manta at any given time, because it would fluctuate according to mission requirements. But they assured that the US presence would remain under the agreed ceiling of 400 people.

Washington is spending $30 million to renovate and lengthen the runway and $18.4 million on hangars, housing, maintenance facilities and an operations building, contractors said.

The surveillance base in Ecuador follows an increased role in Colombia, where the US government is funding and training a military-police offensive against drug plantations protected by armed Marxist and right-wing groups in southern Colombia.

The operations are the largest by US military in Latin America since the 1980s in Central America, with the exceptions of the 1989 Panama invasion to oust dictator Manuel Noriega for his ties to drug traffickers and the 1994 task force to restore Haiti’s deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

US agency to probe use of F-16s against Palestinians

By Natan Guttman

Washington, DC— The US General Accounting Office (GAO) has began an investigation into the American military aid programs to the Middle East, following a complaint filed by a Congressman regarding the Israeli use of F-16 fighters against Palestinian targets.

A spokesman for the GAO, a Congressional agency, confirmed last night that an investigation was indeed underway and that it was still in the early stages.

The investigation began following a request by Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat from Michigan, and the results of the probe will be presented to him when it is completed. The findings will also be made public by the GAO.

In a letter to President Bush last week, Conyers informed him of his request for an investigation, stressing the fact that he considers it paramount that all sides in the Middle East comply with the rules regulating the use of American-made weapons sold in the region.

According to the terms of the sale of the F-16 fighters to Israel, the US limits their use for the purpose of “legitimate defense.”

Congressman Conyers argues that the bombing of Palestinian targets in Ramallah on May 18, which the Israel Air Force carried out with F-16s, diverged from the terms under which the aircraft were sold.

The GAO fulfills a dual function for Congress: It provides Members of Congress with data in order to assist them in their legislative tasks and also carries out investigations, at the request of Members of Congress, into the functioning of the government and its agencies.

In practice, the GAO operates much like the State Comptroller’s Office in Israel, and the person in charge is indeed called the Comptroller General.

The decision to embark on an investigation followed an initial examination showing that no other government agency had carried out a similar probe, and that it was within the jurisdiction of the GAO to carry out such an assignment.

The Israeli Embassy spokesman in Washington, Mark Regev, said in response to the announcement of the probe that the Israeli attack came in response to Palestinian violence, and that it was a clear act of self-defense.

Neither the State Department nor the US administration condemned Israel for the use of the fighter aircraft against targets in the territories.

Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell emphasized the fact that since the May 18 attack, Israel has refrained from using F-16s against Palestinian targets.

Source: Al Awda News: Al-Awda-News@yahoogroups.com