Agriculture, Beverages & Food

The European Commission said today that it had filed a civil lawsuit in the United States against the Philip Morris Company and the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company seeking damages for what it called their involvement with organized crime in smuggling cigarettes into Europe. Read More

The World Health Organisation (WHO), is targeting African policy-makers, to counter the intensified marketing campaigns by tobacco multinationals in the continent. Read More

Government representatives began discussions Monday in Geneva on a proposed anti-tobacco treaty for preventing smoking-related deaths, which are predicted to reach 10 million annually by 2030. Read More

The merger of two biotech corporations - the Swiss Novartis and British AstraZeneca - to create the world's biggest agribusiness is alarming some of Europe's largest development agencies. Read More

Biotechnology company Aventis admitted Monday that it had grown genetically modified sugar beet without permission at two trial sites in the United Kingdom. Read More

EuropaBio, the European biotech lobby group, has recently suffered a major blow when it had to cancel its annual congress. The Fourth Annual European Biotechnology Congress was scheduled to take place in Edinburgh, Scotland on October 9-13. According to the Dutch daily newspaper, De Volkskrant, EuropaBio, ''cannot deny that the conference was cancelled due to the fierce critique of genetic engineering in the UK and the resulting lack of sponsors.'' Read More

Anti-tobacco activists have added a new weapon to their arsenal in advance of next month's negotiations in Geneva for a global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Read More

DBCP, or dibromochloropropane, is one of the pesticides used on Nicaragua's banana plantations in the 1970s. Workers say it has affected 22,000 people, directly or indirectly, and that DBCP-related illnesses have already killed at least 83 of their comrades. Read More

The dairy company at the centre of Japan's biggest ever food-poisoning outbreak said Tuesday it was tying up with Swiss giant Nestle, as it unveiled big job cuts in a bid to repair the financial damage. Read More

A tribunal formed by more than 25 farmers groups in India called Monday for a 10-year national moratorium on the commercial use of genetic engineering in agriculture. Read More