After more than six years of intense negotiations, Parties to the Biosafety Protocol finalized the negotiation of a new treaty known as the "Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety".

Named after two cities where the final rounds of negotiations were held, the new treaty will establish international rules and procedures for liability and redress in case of damage to biological diversity resulting from living modified organisms.

The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility, the Third World Network and the Federation of German Scientists (Vereinigung Deutscher Wissenschaftler) are announcing the Scientific Conference "Advancing the Understanding on Biosafety" to be convened in Nagoya/Aichi Prefecture/Japan from October 07-09, 2010. The Scientific Conference will gather 17 scientists and experts from developing and industrialised countries who have been engaged in the critical debate about the development of genetically engineered crops and their use in agriculture and nutrition for many years.

Syngenta Seeds, Inc. continues to gain regulatory approvals for trait developed to increase ethanol productivity

Syngenta Seeds, Inc., today announced it has received import approvals from Japanese and Taiwanese regulatory authorities for its Enogen corn amylase trait (Event 3272), which has demonstrated improved productivity and sustainability in the manufacture of ethanol from corn in tests conducted at ethanol plants.

A type of wild Cruciferae growing near a national highway in Mie Prefecture has been found to have genes of a genetically modified rapeseed, possibly a result of crossing between the wild plants and imported rapeseeds that had fallen during transportation, a survey by a civic group said Friday. [...] ”As the possibility that modified genes could spread among wildlife emerged, we are concerned that it could have an impact not only to farming products but also to ecosystems,” said Masaharu Kawata, a Yokkaichi University lecturer who was involved in the survey.

Syngenta Seeds, Inc., today announced it has received approval from Japanese regulatory authorities for the Agrisure Viptera™ trait, the Agrisure Viptera 3111 trait stack and the Agrisure Viptera 3110 trait stack. [...] These regulatory approvals allow the importation of U.S. corn grown with Agrisure Viptera trait stacks for food or feed use within Japan and clears the way for U.S. corn growers to plant corn hybrids with the Agrisure Viptera trait during the 2011 planting season.

The government has decided to apply its genetically modified food labeling rules to papayas, opening the way for the import of modified papayas as early as this summer. [...] The decision by the Cabinet Office committee for consumer affairs clears the way for the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to recognize the GM papayas for import and distribution under the Food Sanitation Act once the plan passes a public input phase.

Dennis Gonsalves, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, Hawaii, and professor emeritus of plant pathology at Cornell [...] admitted at the WSWS conference that Japan’s regulatory approval process is “tough,” but it is not “political.” Hawaiian papaya growers won Japan’s approval to export papaya there. Japan will begin accepting transgenic papaya this year, Gonsalves said, because the Hawaiians provided all the information and scientific data Japan required.

A group of Japanese researchers has developed a mosquito that spreads vaccine instead of disease. Even the researchers admit, however, that regulatory and ethical problems will prevent the critters from ever taking wing—at least for the delivery of human vaccines. Scientists have dreamed up various ways to tinker with insects’ DNA to fight disease.

We pledge to take this opportunity to change the trend so far, which has led to increased control over the global food supply through the introduction of genetic engineering. We will stem the tide towards safe and healthy foods by helping to develop local and regional agriculture. We will continue to expand the Soybean Trust Movement and increase Japan’s food self-sufficiency ratio, and strengthen our resolve to get rid of GM soybeans from our dining tables.

Kanematsu Corp., Japan’s largest importer of food soybeans, plans to boost sales of the oilseed by 67 percent in three years as it expands crop supply contracts in Canada and widens shipments to Europe and Asia. Sales of non-genetically modified soybeans will gain to 200,000 metric tons in 2012 from 120,000 tons this year to meet demand in countries including Japan, South Korea and Spain, Katsumi Morita, general manager at Kanematsu’s grain & oilseed department, said in an interview.