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39 NGOs Denounce 39 Pharmaceutical Transnationals' Legal Action Against the South African Government and the Complaint Against Brazil Lodged by the USA with WTO.

On 29 March 2001 a Canadian judge dealt a crushing blow to Farmers' Rights by ruling that Percy Schmeiser, a third generation Saskatchewan farmer, must pay Monsanto thousands of dollars for violating the Gene Giant's monopoly patent on genetically modified canola seed.

Behind Closed Doors reveals that year after year the publication of the EPA's report on dioxin has been stalled due to pressure from the chemical industry.

Arsonists on Tuesday set fire to a Monsanto depot a week after the Italian government said tests showed genetically modified material in one of the company's seed shipments.

Still, about 70 of the 500 protesters outside the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade were arrested during a ''search and rescue mission'' to retrieve a working draft of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) includes an array of new corporate investment rights and protections that are unprecedented in scope and power. NAFTA allows corporations to sue the national government of a NAFTA country in secret arbitration tribunals if they feel that a regulation or government decision affects their investment in conflict with these new NAFTA rights.

The UN Climate Change Conference in The Hague (COP-6) last November -- intended to wrap-up three years of negotiations on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol -- ended without result. At the last moment, European environment ministers rejected a compromise proposal that would not only have enabled industrialised countries and their corporations to escape their promised greenhouse gas reductions, but also would have allowed them to significantly increase their emissions.

Arriving in Buenos Aires from the pampa hinterland is like playing a simulation game called First World. The concentration of capital, concrete and a third of the Argentine population is dizzying for anyone approaching from the small farming towns of the province or from the far-flung villages of empty Patagonia and the northern altiplano.

Policy making authority in the Bush administration on tobacco issues will rest largely with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Justice Department, the U.S. Trade Representative and, above all, the White House. Many key officials in these agencies have ties to the tobacco industry or have suggested sympathy for positions favored by the industry.

The leader of one of Turkey's longest running environmental campaigns was jailed for a year and a half this week under the country's tough anti-protest laws written by the Turkish military.