Nexus - 1403 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

OB OY oF VEN? MEDIA FREEDOM DECLINES IN USA SUPPRESSED REPORT SHOWS CANCER LINK TO GM POTATOES Nix countries have moved ahead of some Western democracies in the fifth annual Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index. "Each year new countries in less-developed parts of the world move up the Index to positions above some European countries or the United States. This is good news and shows once again that, even though very poor, countries can be very observant of freedom of expression. Meanwhile, the steady erosion of press freedom in the United States, France and Japan is extremely alarming,” Reporters Without Borders said. The three worst violators of free expression—North Korea, bottom of the Index at 168th place, Turkmenistan (167th) and Eritrea (166th)—have clamped down further. Northern European countries once again come top of the Index, with no recorded censorship, threats, intimidation or physical reprisals in Finland, Ireland, Iceland and The Netherlands, which all share first place. The USA (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index (2002). Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of "national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his "War on > Campaigners against genetically modified crops in the UK are calling for trials of GM potatoes this (northern) spring to be halted after releasing more evidence of links with cancers in laboratory rats. UK Greenpeace activists said the findings, obtained from Russian trials after an eight-year court battle with the biotech industry, vindicated research by Dr Arpad Pusztai, whose work was criticised by the Royal Society and The Netherlands State Institute for Quality Control. Graham Thompson, a Greenpeace campaigner, said the evidence "backs up the research by Pusztai, which was smeared at the time by the industry". Brian John of GM Free Cymru in Wales, which released the findings on 16 February, said the research was conducted in 1998 by the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and had been suppressed for eight years. It showed that rats fed GM _ potatoes developed tumours and suffered serious damage in the liver, kidneys and large intestine. The potatoes contained an antibiotic resistance marker gene. The Russian institute refused to release all the information. However, Greenpeace and other groups mounted a protracted legal campaign to obtain the report. In May 2004, the Nikulinski District Court in Moscow ruled that information relating to the safety of genetically modified food should be open to the public. The institute, however, refused to release the report. Greenpeace and Russian activist groups again took the institute to court, and in September 2005 won a ruling that the report must be released. Greenpeace consultant Irina Ermakova, who has conducted her own animal feeding trials with GM materials, analysed the findings. She said the GM Russett Burbank potatoes were the "most dangerous" of the feeds used in the trials and "on the basis of this evidence they cannot be used in the nourishment of people". (Sources: The Independent, /7 February 2007, http://tinyurl.com/2dwrff; GM Free Cymru, http://www. gmfreecymru.org.uk/ pivotal_papers/ feedingrats.htm) Terrorism". The zeal of Federal courts which refuse to recognise the media's right not to reveal sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism. Apart from Yemen and Saudi Arabia (161st), all the Arabian Peninsula countries considerably improved their rank. Kuwait (73rd) kept its place at the top of the group, just ahead of the United Arab Emirates (77th) and Qatar (80th). New Zealand was ranked at 19th place, the UK at 27th and Australia at 35th. (Source: Reporters Without Borders, 24 October 2006, http://www. rsf.org/rubrique. php3?id_rubrique=639) 6 = NEXUS APRIL — MAY 2007 www.nexusmagazine.com