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Even as MNCs are trying to woo various state governments to allow them sell genetically modified food products and Punjab government also showing keen interest in this regard, volunteers of various organizations and public forums and members of different communities like students, lawyers, engineers and doctors came together on a common platform here on Sunday to raise their voice against GM foods. Starting their campaign by organizing a workshop at Panjab University on Sunday to highlight the ill effects of GM foods, the activists have targeted US-based food products firm Monsanto with a campaign named ”Monsanto - A threat to health, environment and human rights.”

Chinese authorities quarantined two containers holding corn from Argentina, after detecting genetically modified strains that had not been approved beforehand, alleged the Chinese buyer. China imported 4.56 million tons of corn in first 10 months of 2012, with 99% coming from the US, the largest corn exporter in the world. An unidentified Chinese government official said they had bought the small volume as a test, and as of yet imports coming from Argentina have not been successful. Chinese corn imports are expected fall by more than half next year due to high US prices, and a rise in overall consumption will put domestic supplies under more pressure despite another record harvest, according to an official forecast on Wednesday.

Washington could become the first U.S. state to require labeling of genetically modified foods. The People's Right to Know campaign last week announced it has gathered 300,000 signatures in order to approve a petition for consideration by the Washington State Legislature. The campaign is seeking $50,000 in seed money to meet a deadline by the end of the year to secure 320,000 signatures in support of The People's Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act (I-522). ”As recommended by the Secretary of State, our goal is to turn in at least 320,000 signatures to ensure we have the 241,153 valid signatures required,” the campaign explains on its website.

The European Commission is trying to find a budget to fund two year long-term GMO feeding studies in rodents, Ladislav Miko, deputy director general of DG SANCO (food) said last week. Speaking at the EFSA managment board meeting, which heard of EFSA's assessment of the Seralini study, which was a long term study, Mr Miko made clear that he is looking for a research budget to test the method of two year studies. He said that one EU project, known as Grace, would focus on 90 day GMO feeding studies, which the Commission has long said it would fund. But this project did not have the budget to fund the two year studies. Catherine Geslain-Laneelle, executive director of EFSA said the Authority said the Grace study would be on MON810, not NK 603, the GM maize used by Eric Gilles Seralini.

Parents of children who unwittingly took part in a controversial testing of genetically modified rice on children in Hunan five years ago - which resulted in the sacking of three scientists on Thursday - were only shown the last page of the endorsement paper, state media reported yesterday. Professor Yin Shian, director of the Hunan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's department of female and child nutrition, was sacked for violating academic ethics. Wang Yin, science and technology director of the Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences, and Hu Yuming, assistant director of the Hunan CDC, were also sacked.

After the defeat of Proposition 37, Jay Vroom, president and CEO of CropLife America, said the ballot measure “would have required most, but not all, foods made with genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled in the state, and would likely have caused unnecessary, increased food costs for California consumers and frivolous lawsuits against farmers, grocers and food companies.” [...] The Cornucopia Institute had a different view of the defeat, writing in a blog, “After a deluge of allegedly misleading advertisements paid for in large part by pesticide and biotechnology corporations, California voters defeated Proposition 37.” [...] “This is a story about money,” fumed Stacy Malkan, media director of the Proposition 37 campaign. “Our loss had to do with being outspent. We didn’t have the funds to compete on the air in the central regions of the states.”

Saanich council took a united stance Monday night in opposing the use of genetically modified seed crops in the municipality. [...] “The councillors are not trained in the science, and they do not have the ability to differentiate between science and the pseudo-science,” said Robert Wager, who teaches at Vancouver Island University and has a background in biochemistry and molecular biology. [...] He says genetically modified crops that are drought and frost tolerant, and resistant to viruses and fungal infections. “There is so much research out there that rebuts any of the pseudo-scientific information (that informed council’s decision),” Wager said. [...] Council supported the motion 9-0 to oppose genetically modified seeds crops and write letters encouraging mandatory GMO labelling.

Agribusiness giants Monsanto, DuPont and Dow are plotting the boldest coup of a global food crop in history. If their requests to allow a massive commercial planting of genetically modified maize are approved in the next two weeks by the government of outgoing president Felipe Calderón, this parting gift to the gene giants will amount to a knife in the heart of the center of origin and diversity for maize. The consequences will be grave – and global. With the approvals and December planting deadlines looming, social movements and civil society organizations have called for an end to all GM maize in Mexico. Mexico’s Union of Concerned Scientists (UCCS) has called on the Mexican government to stop the processing of any application for open-field release of GM maize in Mexico.

Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar Vidal announced yesterday that the government has approved a new regulation that imposes a moratorium on the production and entry of genetically-modified organisms, also known as transgenics, into the country for the next ten years. [...] Vidal called the measure a “demonstration of the government’s commitment to preserve the biodiversity of native crops”. [...] “The existing law and now this regulation establish a moratorium of ten years, and this means that we must use this period to efficiently and effectively strengthen our own capacity and our scientific capacity in biotechnological processes regarding our natural resources”, Vidal said.

On Tuesday the 6th of November at 12:30 p.m., the first public signatures against Monsanto’s Genetically Modified corn seeds in Costa Rica will be delivered to the State Phytosanitary Service, a division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock [...] Environmental organizations have formed a coalition against the planting of transgenic corn seeds in Costa Rica and will be taking direct action that day in order to protest the introduction of this crop into the country. [...] If the requests are approved, the companies would be allowed to plant 35 hectares of GM corn in Costa Rica.