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The Islamic State group is little more than the proxy bastard child of a New Cold War that looks set to escalate

Russia is bombing “terrorists” in Syria, and the US is understandably peeved.

A day after the bombing began, Obama’s Defence Secretary Ashton Carter complained that most Russian strikes “were in areas where there were probably not ISIL (IS) forces”.

Anonymously, US officials accused Russia of deliberately targeting CIA-sponsored “moderate” rebels to shore-up the regime of Bashir al-Assad.

Only two of Russia’s 57 airstrikes have hit ISIS, opined Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in similar fashion. The rest have hit “the moderate opposition, the only forces fighting ISIS in Syria,” he said.

Such claims have been dutifully parroted across the Western press with little scrutiny, bar the odd US media watchdog.

But who are these moderate rebels, really?

Moderate al-Qaeda

The first Russian airstrikes hit the rebel-held town of Talbisah north of Homs City, home to al-Qaeda’s official Syrian arm, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the pro-al-Qaeda Ahrar al-Sham, among other local rebel groups. Both al-Nusra and the Islamic State have claimed responsibility for vehicle-borne IEDs (VBIEDs) in Homs City, which is 12 kilometers south of Talbisah.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that as part of “US and Turkish efforts to establish an ISIS ‘free zone’ in the northern Aleppo countryside,” al-Nusra “withdrew from the border and reportedly reinforced positions in this rebel-held pocket north of Homs city”.

In other words, the US and Turkey are actively sponsoring “moderate” Syrian rebels in the form of al-Qaeda, which Washington DC-based risk analysis firm Valen Globals forecasts will be “a bigger threat to global security” than IS in coming years.

– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/war-islamic-state-new-cold-war-fiction-1608242142#sthash.mAgLlnu2.dpuf

The collapse of Saudi Arabia is inevitable

September 29, 2015

The collapse of Saudi Arabia is inevitable

Deep-rooted structural realities means that Saudi Arabia is indeed on the brink of protracted state-failure, a process likely to take-off in the next few years

On Tuesday 22 September, Middle East Eye broke the story of a senior member of the Saudi royal family calling for a “change” in leadership to fend off the kingdom’s collapse.

In a letter circulated among Saudi princes, its author, a grandson of the late King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, blamed incumbent King Salman for creating unprecedented problems that endangered the monarchy’s continued survival.

“We will not be able to stop the draining of money, the political adolescence, and the military risks unless we change the methods of decision making, even if that implied changing the king himself,” warned the letter.

Whether or not an internal royal coup is round the corner – and informed observers think such a prospect “fanciful” – the letter’s analysis of Saudi Arabia’s dire predicament is startlingly accurate.

Like many countries in the region before it, Saudi Arabia is on the brink of a perfect storm of interconnected challenges that, if history is anything to judge by, will be the monarchy’s undoing well within the next decade.

Black gold hemorrhage

The biggest elephant in the room is oil. Saudi Arabia’s primary source of revenues, of course, is oil exports. For the last few years, the kingdom has pumped at record levels to sustain production, keeping oil prices low, undermining competing oil producers around the world who cannot afford to stay in business at such tiny profit margins, and paving the way for Saudi petro-dominance.

But Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity to pump like crazy can only last so long. A new peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering anticipates that Saudi Arabia will experience a peak in its oil production, followed by inexorable decline, in 2028 – that’s just 13 years away.

– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/collapse-saudi-arabia-inevitable-1895380679#sthash.m9EuQel9.dpuf

Secret files: British government courting Arab tyrants, fossil fuel interests

September 21, 2015

Secret files: British government courting Arab tyrants, fossil fuel interests

Official documents show how oil and business interests trump democracy

A range of official government documents released under Freedom of Information (FOI) expose how the British government is valiantly promoting democracy in the Middle East: by courting the region’s most vociferous opponents of democracy.

The approach reflects the consistent focus of Britain’s strategy in the region on promoting “stability” through energy investments and arms sales with authoritarian regimes and outright dictatorships.

Responding to an FOI request in February, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) Middle East and North Africa Directorate provided a list of meetings hosted by other governments or companies attended by Edward Oaken, then the FCO’s Director for the Middle East.

According to the list, Oakden was hosted fifty-nine times during a period of just over a year, almost entirely by autocratic Arab regimes, fossil fuel companies, and corporate interests.

Oakden was FCO Middle East director from 2013 to 2015 before being appointed British Ambassador to Jordan in February,

From 18th September 2013 to 14th January 2015, Oakden had a total of 26 “hospitality” meetings with representatives of serial human rights abusers — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Oman and Morocco — and a further 15 with business groups, investors, and oil companies.

The rest were largely routine meetings with British and European political leaders.

The FCO conceded that the list of meetings provided was not exhaustive.

Blood for oil for cash

The Foreign Office meetings included three receptions hosted by British Petroleum (BP), including a “high level dinner” to discuss “global energy challenges”; a Genel Energy annual reception; and a lunch meeting with Centrica Energy “on business prospects in the Middle East.”

British firms BP and Genel are heavily invested in Iraq. BP is involved in the giant Rumailah oil field and the huge northern Kirkuk field in the Kurdish region, while Genel is invested primarily in Iraqi Kurdish fields of Taq Taq and Tawke.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Gulf states lead call for regime change in Syria

September 17, 2015

Gulf states lead call for regime change in Syria

Though the Gulf has called for the overthrow of Assad, sources suggest Obama agreed to Putin’s increased support for him

The Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the world’s second largest intergovernmental body after the United Nations, issued a dramatic call this Sunday for the overthrow of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The new OIC communique comes in the wake of recent indications that the West is willing to slow-down the offensive against Assad to focus on defeating the Islamic State (IS).

Earlier this month, Downing Street declared plans for “limited” airstrikes against IS targets in Syria, coupled with a diplomatic push that would see Assad remain in power for six months.

Toward a ‘new Syrian state’

Highlighting the need for urgent action to address Syria’s escalating refugee crisis, the OIC communique on behalf of 57 member states urged the UN Security Council (UNSC) to renew “the pursuit of rapid political solutions” to the conflict that would establish a “transitional government with full executive power that would allow building a new Syrian state”.

This would require the UNSC to “fully implement the Geneva Communique,” the aborted 2012 roadmap for the transition of Syria to a new unity government without Assad.

Among the major reasons the Geneva plan broke down was US and UK determination to continue arming and training rebel groups even during the peace talks, the exclusion of Kurdish groups from the process, and the West’s insistence at the time that the outcome would necessarily exclude Assad from power.

The new OIC communique is thus effectively a call to escalate military support for Syrian rebels to forcibly oust Assad from power.

– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/gulf-states-lead-call-regime-change-syria-889890058#sthash.8dYh1Pmb.dpuf

A thousand 9/11s

September 11, 2015

A thousand 9/11s

The 9/11 attack was just the beginning of the bloodletting and the wanton abuse of law to extend unaccountable state authority

Fourteen years ago, 2,996 people were murdered when four civilian planes in the United States were hijacked by al-Qaeda extremists, one flown into the Pentagon, and two into the World Trade Centre towers.

But this was just the beginning of the bloodletting.

The 9/11 attacks ushered in a new era of global warfare to root out extremism. Far from defeating al-Qaeda, the “War on Terror” has seen its enemy metastasise into a self-styled “Islamic State” (IS).

Along the way, we have seen the collapse of the rule of law: the illegal invasion of Iraq, the fabrication of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), extra-judicial assassinations, systematic torture (still continuing), organised kidnapping, indefinite detention and global mass surveillance.

We have also seen the wanton abuse of law to extend unaccountable state authority across Western homelands: eroding habeas corpus, policing ordinary citizens, normalising racial profiling and criminalising dissent.

Fighting fire with fire

Conservative figures suggest that since 9/11, the “War on Terror” has killed some 14,000 Afghans, 35,000 Pakistanis, and 120,000 Iraqis – excluding indirect deaths from destruction of power, water, sanitation and medical facilities: 150,000 people overall. That’s fifty 9/11s.

At the higher end, a survey of major epidemiological studies by the Nobel Prize-winning doctors group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, puts the direct and indirect death toll at some 1.3 million people. That’s over four hundred 9/11s. Yet another study based on UN Population Division mortality data suggests the full death toll may be as high as four million: that’s over a thousand 9/11s.

The casualty figures keep wracking up. An August study by the nonprofit journalism project Airwars found conservatively that coalition strikes against IS had killed hundreds of civilians – perhaps over a thousand – in the first year of operations.

– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/thousand-911s-1602359316#sthash.6BwtSTeC.dpuf

UN plan to save Earth is “fig leaf” for Big Business: insiders

September 5, 2015

UN plan to save Earth is “fig leaf” for Big Business: insiders

Why the new Sustainable Development agenda is “fundamentally compromised” by corporate interests

UN records reveal that the intergovernmental body has already marginalised the very groups it claims to be rescuing from poverty, hunger and climate disaster.

At the end of this month, the UN will launch its new 2030 Sustainable Development agenda for “people, planet and prosperity” in New York, where it will be formally adopted by over 150 world leaders.

The culmination of years of consultations between governments, communities and businesses all over the world, there is no doubt that the agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer an unprecedented vision of the interdependence of global social, economic and environmental issues.

But records from the SDG process reveal that insiders at the heart of the UN’s intergovernment engagement negotiations have criticised the international body for pandering to the interests of big business and ignoring recommendations from grassroots stakeholders representing the world’s poor.

Formal statements issued earlier this year as part of the UN’s Post-2015 Intergovernmental Negotiations on the SDGs, and published by the UN Sustainable Development Division, show that UN ‘Major Groups’ representing indigenous people, civil society, workers, young people and women remain deeply concerned by the general direction of the SDG process — whereas corporate interests from the rich, industrialised world have viewed the process favourably.

Big business

Among the ‘Major Groups’ engaged in the UN’s SDG process is ‘Business and Industry.’ Members of this group include fossil fuel companies like Statoil USA and Tullow Oil, multinational auto parts manufacturer Bridgestone Corporation, global power management firm Eaton Corporation, agribusiness conglomerate Monsanto, insurance giant Thamesbank, financial services major Bank of America, and hundreds of others from Coca Cola to Walt Disney to Dow Chemical.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Indian anti-corruption official: state “orchestrated” Islamist terror

August 26, 2015

Indian anti-corruption official: state “orchestrated” Islamist terror

Mumbai atrocities enabled by intelligence operations of India, Pakistan and the United States

A senior Indian police officer and anti-corruption investigator last month accused the Indian government of orchestrating the Mumbai terror attacks which occurred nearly seven years ago, according to an Indian government official.

R. V. S. Mani, a former undersecretary in India’s home ministry now in the urban development ministry, testified in July that a senior police officer who investigated the 2004 ‘encounter killings’ of four Indian Muslims in Gujarat by the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch, had told him that the 2008 Mumbai attacks were “set up” by the Indian government.

The police officer, Satish Verma — currently Principal at the Police Training College in Junagadh — is well-known for his secondment to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s elite anti-corruption law enforcement agency, to lead the probe into the 2004 ‘encounter killings.’

The 2004 victims were Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year-old girl from Mumbra, Maharashtra, and three men — Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Gulam Sheikh), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar. Gujarat police authorities with the support of Indian government officials claimed that the killings were justified due to credible intelligence linking the four to Islamist terrorists.

Anti-corruption investigator blames government for terror

According to Mani, who has signed affidavits submitted to court on the encounter killings, Satish Verma privately accused successive Indian governments of “orchestrating” not only the Mumbai terror attacks, but also the December 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi.

Verma made the allegations while questioning Mani on Indian government claims that intelligence proved Ishrat Jahan’s links to Islamist terrorists. According to the Times of India, the former home ministry official revealed in his affidavits that Verma had said the terror attacks were set up by the government “with the objective of strengthening the counter-terror legislation.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Officials: Islamic State arose from US support for al-Qaeda in Iraq

August 14, 2015

Officials: Islamic State arose from US support for al-Qaeda in Iraq

A former Pentagon intelligence chief, Iraqi government sources, and a retired career US diplomat reveal US complicity in the rise of ISIS

A new memoir by a former senior State Department analyst provides stunning details on how decades of support for Islamist militants linked to Osama bin Laden brought about the emergence of the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS).

The book establishes a crucial context for recent admissions by Michael T. Flynn, the retired head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), confirming that White House officials made a “willful decision” to support al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists in Syria — despite being warned by the DIA that doing so would likely create an ‘ISIS’-like entity in the region.

J. Michael Springmann, a retired career US diplomat whose last government post was in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, reveals in his new book that US covert operations in alliance with Middle East states funding anti-Western terrorist groups are nothing new. Such operations, he shows, have been carried out for various short-sighted reasons since the Cold War and after.

In the 1980s, as US support for mujahideen fighters accelerated in Afghanistan to kick out the Soviet Union, Springmann found himself unwittingly at the heart of highly classified operations that allowed Islamist militants linked to Osama bin Laden to establish a foothold within the United States.

After the end of the Cold War, Springmann alleged, similar operations continued in different contexts for different purposes — in the former Yugoslavia, in Libya and elsewhere. The rise of ISIS, he contends, was a predictable outcome of this counterproductive policy.

Pentagon intel chief speaks out

Everyday brings new horror stories about atrocities committed by ISIS fighters. Today, for instance, the New York Times offered a deeply disturbing report on how ISIS has formally adopted a theology and policy of systematic rape of non-Muslim women and children. The practice has become embedded throughout the territories under ISIS control through a process of organized slavery, sanctioned by the movement’s own religious scholars.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Leveling the Playing Field of Death

August 11, 2015

Leveling the Playing Field of Death

In April 2015, the Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility released a landmark study concluding that the death toll from 10 years of the “War on Terror” since the 9/11 attacks is at least 1.3 million, and could be as high as two million. However, Nafeez Ahmed begs to differ, writing that western wars have killed four million or more Muslims since 1990.

It seems that the Empire is exterminating Muslims at a higher rate than those of other confessions. Why might that be? There seem to be two competing philosophies at work within the throbbing brain of the Empire: the environmentally hostile, infinite growth-oriented, natalistic view of economists, and the eco-friendly, Malthusian, population-control view of ecologists.

Neoclassical economists are infinite growth advocates, and many of them are natalists, wholeheartedly promoting ever-faster reproduction of everything. They dominate all the university economics programs in the US, as well as the Wall Street financial institutions who operate the US government as a wholly owned subsidiary. So you might think they would dominate the Empire too, in which case you might be right. But natalism and population control are just different sides of the same coin—not!—so how do we reconcile this?

The cornucopian economist Julian Simon wrote a book called The Ultimate Resource, in which he advocated unlimited human population growth for the advantage of increasing the number of human minds, which he called “the ultimate resource.” He claimed that the earth could support population growth for another 4 billion years—the current age of the planet. But the Empire doesn’t seem to be following this plan.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Britain’s secret ties to governments, firms behind ISIS oil sales

August 1, 2015

Britain’s secret ties to governments, firms behind ISIS oil sales

In the scramble to access Kurdistan’s oil and gas wealth, the US and UK are turning a blind eye to complicity in ‘Islamic State’ oil smuggling

Key allies in the US and UK led war on Islamic State (ISIS) are covertly financing the terrorist movement according to senior political sources in the region. US and British oil companies are heavily invested in the murky geopolitical triangle sustaining ISIS’ black market oil sales.

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq and Turkish military intelligence have both supported secret ISIS oil smuggling operations and even supplied arms to the terror group, according to Kurdish, Iraqi and Turkish officials.

One British oil company in particular, Genel Energy, is contracted by the KRG to supply oil for a major Kurdish firm accused of facilitating ISIS oil sales to Turkey. The Kurdish firm has close ties to the Iraqi Kurdish government.

Genel operates in the KRG with the backing of the British government, and is also linked to a British parliamentary group with longstanding connections to both the British and KRG oil industries.

The relationship between British and Kurdish energy companies, and senior British politicians, raises questions about conflicts of interest — especially in the context of a ‘war on terror’ that is supposed to be targeting, not financing, the ‘Islamic State.’

Kurds, Turks and blind eyes

One of ISIS’ most significant sources of revenue is oil smuggling. The Islamic State controls approximately 60% of Syria’s oil, and seven major oil-producing assets in Iraq.

Using a carefully cultivated network of intermediaries and ‘middlemen’ in the Kurdish region of Iraq, as well as in Turkey, ISIS has been able to produce a phenomenal 45,000 barrels of oil a day, raking in as much as $3 million a day in cash by selling the oil at well below market prices.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Beyond Extinction: Transition to post-capitalism is inevitable

July 29, 2015

Beyond Extinction: Transition to post-capitalism is inevitable

In Margaret Atwood’s powerful essay on the reality of climate change — and its implications for the future of oil-dependent industrial civilization — she tells two vastly distinct stories of our future.

The first is a tale of dystopia — a future so bleak, it would make Hollywood moguls looking for the next science fiction blockbuster of action-packed (post)apocalypse salivate with anticipation. Here, Atwood tells a story of human failure: of short-sighted choices based on fatal addiction to business-as-usual, and an egoistic hubris rooted in centuries of globalisation.

The post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max: Fury Road (credit: Warner)

In this scenario, we largely ignore the overwhelming evidence of climate change, and the result is that industrial civilization enters a period of protracted collapse, fuelled by accelerating war, famine, and natural disasters.

The second is a vision of utopia — a collectivist dream-world in which everybody works together, harnessing the best of human ingenuity across society, economics, politics and technology, to peacefully restructure the fundamentals of human existence. Here, Atwood tells a story of human success: of far-sighted decisions based on confronting the follies of business-as-usual, and by embracing our unity as a species.

Image of a future techno-utopia by Staszek Marek

In this scenario, we act on the overwhelming evidence of climate change, and the result is that industrial civilization enters a period of carefully calibrated transition to a techno-utopian post-capitalist, post-materialist infrastructure, avoiding the worst of today’s scientific warnings.

Crossroads

Of course, both these scenarios are extremes, but there is a purpose to such extremes. Atwood uses the power of story to help us awaken to the starkness — and gravity — of the choice we now face: a choice, effectively, between hell and heaven on earth.

And Atwood is spot on when she notes that this is not just about climate change.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran Deal is About Staving Off the Coming Oil Shock

July 26, 2015

Iran Deal is About Staving Off the Coming Oil Shock

The US wants to use Iran to sustain its regional influence in the face of the next global economic recession

The Iran nuclear deal signals a major shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Integral to the equation is oil, economics, terror – and US hegemony.

The Bush administration had initiated a long-term covert strategy to undermine Iranian influence in the Middle East and Central Asia, combined with overt pressure through diplomatic initiatives and economic sanctions.

Under Obama, this strategy accelerated, largely in concert with other Gulf powers like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, who have long sought to roll-back Iranian influence.

Yet even as the strategy accelerated, unlike its predecessors which openly declared their warmongering hostility to Iran, the Obama administration had used the pressure to forge an unprecedented deal with the country.

Averting regional war

The reasons for the shift are, of course, pragmatic. For years, US intelligence agencies have told the White House that there is simply no evidence Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.

And the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly certified that uranium is not being enriched to levels necessary for weaponisation, nor is it being diverted to a secret weapons programme.

Meanwhile, senior US military officials have long warned that the sort of US-Iran military confrontation which frothing neoconservatives have been pining for would likely fail and destabilise the entire region.

What about an Israel-Iran confrontation? A classified Pentagon war simulation held in 2012 found that an Israeli attack on Iran would also lead to a wider regional war.

Unlike the neocons, for the military pragmatists in successive US administrations, war with Iran could never be a preferred option.

The added bonus is that Iran might notch down its involvement in Iraq and Syria.

– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/iran-deal-about-staving-coming-oil-shock-1366649799#sthash.fMD7hQbp.dpuf

An Open Letter to Britain’s Leading Violent Extremist: David Cameron

July 21, 2015

An Open Letter to Britain’s Leading Violent Extremist: David Cameron

Dear Prime Minister David Cameron,

It is with deep disappointment that I read excerpts of your speech provided by Downing Street to the press, purporting to set out a five-year strategy to tackle fundamentalist terrorism, which — whatever its intentions — is thoroughly misguided, and destined to plunge this country, as well as the Middle East, into further chaos and misery.

I am writing this open letter to request you, as a matter of urgency, to abide by your obligations as a human being, a British citizen, a Member of Parliament, and as our Prime Minister: to undertake proper due-diligence in the formulation of Britain’s foreign, counter-terrorism and security policies, based on the vast array of evidence from scientific and academic studies of foreign policy, terrorism and radicalisation, rather than the influence of far-right extremist ideology, and of narrow vested interest groups keen to profit from war and fear.

Ideology, innit

In your speech, you say:

“It begins by understanding the threat we face and why we face it. What we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. It is an extreme doctrine. And like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive. At its furthest end it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim….

And like so many ideologies that have existed before — whether fascist or communist — many people, especially young people, are being drawn to it.

We need to understand why it is proving so attractive… The root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself.”

But this is already incoherent. You state that the threat is Islamist extremism, an ideology. You then claim that we need to understand why that ideology is so attractive, and you answer the question by claiming that the “root cause” of this threat is the “extremist ideology itself.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Endless enemies – how the US is supporting the Islamic State by fighting it

July 18, 2015

Endless enemies – how the US is supporting the Islamic State by fighting it

From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State to Assad, the US is fighting terrorists of its own creation by partnering with other terrorists of its own creation

Geopolitics is a murky game. Precisely how murky is reflected in the well-worn phrase, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

What happens, though, when you follow that ancient proverb with the faith of a religious believer?

Now that the war on the “Islamic State” (IS) is, ostensibly, in full-swing, the US is making “friends” out of enemies, old and new. Among our new friends is al-Qaeda.

Except they are supposedly not “our” friends, but friends of our allies.

Al-Qaeda, freedom fighters for Gulf monarchies

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are now working to support al-Qaeda’s official arm in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, to re-take Syrian territory from Bashir al-Assad. The strategy resulted in a coalition of rebel groups, led by the al-Qaeda faction, conquering Idlib in April.

The three regional powers claim they are hoping to compel al-Nusra to renounce its relationship to al-Qaeda – but the reality is they are funding the al-Qaeda affiliate without any meaningful guarantee of control.

“Nusra will stay with al-Qaeda unless the other rebel forces are able to unify into one force,” said one al-Nusra member. “[Al-Qaeda leader Ayman] al-Zawahiri says the unification of Muslims is more important than membership in any group.”

According to Rami Abdelrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, al-Nusra is “not so different from IS. They want to make an emirate but are looking for the right opportunity.”

Publicly, the official line is that the Saudi-Qatari-Turkish strategy is not directly funding al-Nusra, although the geopolitical coalition is aware that al-Nusra will benefit from the support to Islamist rebel groups.

– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/endless-enemies-how-us-supporting-islamic-state-fighting-it-1621962798#sthash.A6sh8j6a.dpuf

No scientific evidence of GM food safety

July 14, 2015

No scientific evidence of GM food safety

It is “premature” to declare GM safe due to “incomplete” scientific knowledge, finds report commissioned by Norwegian Environment Agency

A new study commissioned by the Norwegian government, and conducted by a nationally recognised scientific authority on the safety of biotechnologies, concludes that available scientific data on GM crops is inadequate to prove their safety.

The scientific report was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency and completed last year, before being publicly released in June by the Genok Centre for Biosafety, located in the Arctic University of Norway. The Genok Centre is a nationally-designated centre of competence on biosafety issues.

Absence of evidence

The new study analyses a dossier by giant agribusiness conglomerate, Monsanto, submitted to the Brazilian government, and also conducts a comprehensive review of the available scientific literature from other sources.

Its focus is on Monsanto’s GM soybean Intacta Roundup Ready 2 Pro, which is grown in Brazil, and also authorised in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and probably also present in Bolivia due to illegal introductions from neighbouring countries.

The report, titled ‘Sustainability Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Crops’ concludes that due to major gaps in the scientific literature, it is not possible to give a scientific verdict on their safety. Monsanto’s dossier, the report concludes, demonstrates a range of methodological weaknesses, and highlights the problem of incomplete information and research on GM crops in the available literature.

According to Monsanto, genetically modified organisms do not harm human or animal health, and therefore do not have any adverse effects on crops and the environment.

But according to the new Norwegian study:

“Contrary to this assertion, the literature provides indications of harmful and adverse effects to the environment and to health (both animal and human), as well as to socio-economic conditions, particularly over the medium- and long-term.”

The new study is authored by Georgina Catacora-Vargas, a researcher at the Agroecology Centre (AGRUCO) at the Faculty of Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry Sciences, University Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Catacora-Vargas was until recently technical biosafety advisor at Bolivia’s Vice-Ministry of Environment, Water and Forestry Management.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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Black gold hemorrhage

Blood for oil for cash

Toward a ‘new Syrian state’

Fighting fire with fire

Big business

Anti-corruption investigator blames government for terror

Pentagon intel chief speaks out

Kurds, Turks and blind eyes

Crossroads

Averting regional war

Ideology, innit

Al-Qaeda, freedom fighters for Gulf monarchies

Absence of evidence

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