<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, May 04, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Las Ultimas Noticias editor Eleazar Diaz Rangel has released what seems to be snippets from General Melvin Lopez Hidalgo's report on US involvement in the April 11, 2002:

On April 8, 2002, when rumors were rife in the barracks and the conspiracy was afoot, US Embassy Naval Attache, Captain David H. Cazares approached a group of Venezuelan Army and Navy (Armada) officers and asked General Roberto Cardenas why he hadn't made contact with US ships off the coast and a submarine off La Guaira. 

"What were they waiting for?" 

General Gonzalez Cardenas said he didn't know what he was talking about and went off to speak to the Brazilian Military Attache. 

Cazares asked Navy Captain Moreno Leal if the person he was talking to was General Gonzalez , who served on the border ... "it's General Gonzalez alright but I don't know if he served on the border." He spoke to Gonzalez Cardenas again, asking why no contact was made with three ships and the submarine. Gonzalez Cardenas said he would find out. 

It is evident that Cazares had got the wrong Gonzalez ... he met the right one in the elevator and reminded him, "this will have an operational cost ... I await your answer."

On Friday April 12, US Embassy military attache, Colonel Donal F. McCarthy called the Venezuelan Air Force (FAV) Intelligence Office asking for authorization for an overflight of a Hercules C130 transporting a "diplomatic load" of 5 kilos of lithium battery, 5 kilos of compressed oxygen class 2.2, 56 kilos of 1.4 munitions, 30 kilos of flares, 40 kilos of demolition charges, and 2 kilos of detonator.

A General involved in the April conspiracy admitted that what took place on April 11 was a coup attempt. National Guard (GN)  General Alfonso Martinez told the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ)  but the majority of magistrates decided that there was a "vacuum of power" on April 11. The General's declaration found no echo in the media.

On Saturday, April 13 there was a US ship near La Orchila island from where a plane made several overflights without authorization from Venezuelan authorities but the movements were detected and recorded.

Las Ultimas Noticias published a photo of US Colonel James Rodgers driving his car in Fuerte Tiuna barracks during the coup d'etat ... the AFP agency reported that the Colonel had been there from Thursday, April 10 until Saturday, April 13 ob the 5th floor of the Army Command building.

<a href=www.nzherald.co.nz>nzherald.co.nz Barbara Sumner Burstyn: 05.05.2003

I love a finely tuned argument, a sound justification or a well-debated issue. I've even been known to swap sides in response to new information or a reasoned defence.

So when I read about the first crops of genetically modified potatoes planned for planting after October when New Zealand's GM moratorium is lifted, I was at first dismissive. But by the end of the article, ably reported for the Herald by Simon Collins, I was almost convinced.

First, there's the pesticide argument. Genetically modified crops, in this case Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) infected potatoes will be resistant to alien invaders, allowing farmers to cut back on pesticide. In fact, biological controls will increasingly replace chemicals to control all manner of pests and diseases.

That argument worked for me. After all, with around 3300 tonnes of pesticides finding their way into our ecosystem annually, anything that reduces them has to be a plus.

Then there's the productivity angle. GM crops will produce more for less effort. Or as Lincoln University's Dr Colin Eady, from Crop and Food Research, puts it, genetic modification allows for the production of safe, sustainable and efficient food supplies.

Eady, who seems typical of New Zealand scientists, says his motivation comes from a desire to reduce the harm done to the environment.

He believes his vision is complementary with a green viewpoint and he quickly has me seeing the virtue of a world in which biotechnology, and not poisons, is used to specifically deal with pests and disease - a world that can provide plentiful nutritious and varied food with reduced impact on natural environments and free of poisons like 1080, varroa mites and painted apple moths; a world without possums; and, most especially, a world able to deal with the problems of famine.

But ask Dr Suman Sahai about resolving famine through genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and she's dismissive. Dr Sahai is part of the Gene Campaign in India, an organisation dedicated to protecting genetic resources, strengthening self-reliance in agriculture and sustainable food production.

According to Dr Sahai, the first commercial Bt cotton in India, grown under normal local conditions, either did poorly or failed altogether. Even so, a report published in the reputable journal Science hailed the crop a huge success.

Now here's the really disturbing part. The article, which is being widely quoted, is based exclusively on data supplied by the company that owns the Bt cotton, Mahyco Monsanto. To make it worse, the figures were based on a few selected trial plots belonging to the company, not farmers' fields.

But it's not only India. The antipathy to GM foods is spreading to other Third World countries.

Last year Zambia refused 63,000 tonnes of GM corn from the United States.

And across Africa there's a growing concern that the US is taking advantage of famines to dump genetically modified foods on starving populations, which, in turn, depresses prices and destroys local markets

Then there's the issue of the growing importance of organic produce. Even though our own scientists want to believe they share the green agenda, the organic brigade does not agree.

In short, with worldwide demand for organic produce rising at about 10 per cent a year, European consumers are rejecting GM food as if it were the plague.

The American response to consumer rejection of GM is to blame tightened European labelling laws for fuelling fear. In fact, Americans, just like people in Africa and Europe, want to be able to make informed choices about what they eat.

In February a collaborative study by 12 US universities found that 93 per cent of Americans wanted GM food labelling.

But under present regulations it's an offence to label food as genetically modified.

That's because US food law recognises only outcome and not process - so a tomato is a tomato no matter its composition or how it's grown.

There are many other areas of concern, from contamination of non-GM crops and lack of compensation for the contaminated - in New Zealand as in the US - to the compromising involvement of agribusiness in pushing for and controlling the development of GM products and markets, to fundamental concerns about GM safety.

For example, new research just in by scientists at Imperial College London and the Universidad Simon Rodrigues in Caracas, Venezuela, has found that Bt, the same naturally occurring poison that New Zealand scientists are preparing to insert into potatoes - seems to be acting as a "supplementary food protein", nourishing the pests they have been specially engineered to kill.

According to the research, one of the key benefits of GM - crops that come equipped with their own pesticide - is being radically undermined, striking at the heart of genetic engineering in agriculture. The report also suggests an even greater threat to organic farming than has been envisaged.

Pete Riley, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, said: "If we'd come up with the suggestion that crops engineered to kill pests could make them bigger and healthier instead, we'd have been laughed out of court."

Given all the loose ends of this debate and the safety and moral implications of the development and use of GM, you have to ask why New Zealand, a small, perfectly formed country, isolated in the middle of the South Pacific, is rushing to embrace a technology that has the potential to destroy its most compelling international advantage - being GM-free.

Herald Feature: Genetic Engineering

Sun May 4, 2003 12:17 PM ET By Amy Taxin

QUITO, Ecuador (<a href=asia.reuters.com>Reuters) - Wearing a name tag around her neck, 13-year-old Diana waits at Ecuador's airport to board a jet that will take her to join her parents for the first time since they emigrated to Europe three years ago.

Preparing for the trip from Quito to Amsterdam then on to Milan, the shy teen-ager shows no fear of making her first flight, but she is nervous about life in a new country and a new language.

"We'll have to see if I can get used to it," said Diana, who hopes to stay with her parents in Milan now they have obtained Italian visas after leaving their poor homeland in search of jobs.

In Ecuador, a nation with one of Latin America's highest migration rates, dozens of children board transatlantic jets by themselves every day to rejoin their parents in Europe, hoping the joy of reunion will help ease painful memories of years of separation.

More than half million Ecuadoreans have emigrated since an economic crisis hit the small Andean nation in 1999. People left homes and even children behind in a frantic rush for a better life.

Faced with the option of a treacherous journey through the Mexican desert to cross the U.S. border illegally on foot, many opted for Europe where more relaxed visa rules made it much easier to travel by plane with just a passport in hand.

Ecuadoreans can currently travel to many countries in Europe without a visa while the United States requires one. But the European Union will begin requiring visas on June 1 and there is currently a rush of people trying to beat the deadline.

Already more than 350,000 Latin Americans live legally in Spain -- a four-fold increase from 1996 -- while many others live in Italy. The two nations were sources of heavy migration to Latin America during the 19th and 20th centuries and now the migrants' grandchildren are seeking a way back.

In nations hit by economic chaos like Argentina, Venezuela and Uruguay or by poverty like countries in the Andes and Central America, it's hard for people to see a bright future.

In Ecuador, officials say budding economic recovery has done little to stem the tide of migration as crisis-weary citizens set their hopes on a new life in the developed world.

"People have lost their faith in our country," said Leonardo Carrion, director of Ecuador's office for residents abroad. "They just want to leave."

TEARFUL GOOD-BYES

Indian women wearing embroidered blouses and ankle-length skirts huddle together clutching the wire fence around Quito's airport to watch the planes that will whisk their families to Europe, maybe for good.

But as they shed a tear, many who stay behind know migration is the only way for their families to put food on the table in a nation plagued by 60 percent poverty and where remittances have become one of the biggest sources of cash.

Families in Ecuador are traditionally close knit, but money remittances can't make up for the absence of parents who left their children under the watchful eye of elders or neighbors so they can earn enough to pay the bills.

In the southern Andean highlands near Cuenca, many villages have been left almost entirely in the hands of women. Some later join their husbands overseas, but many marriages simply dissolve under the strains of time and distance.

"After losing two or three generations, we've cut the cycle of passing down education, knowledge, values," said Franklin Ortiz, who works with migrants' children in a church-sponsored group in Cuenca. "The entire family structure has changed."

Officials say it's tough to pin down the precise number of Latin Americans living in Europe since many don't need entry papers and simply travel with tourist visas to the EU legally.

But many end up becoming illegal immigrants by overstaying their visas to take jobs on the black market. They pray an eventual amnesty will push their papers through.

At least that's the hope in Ecuador, as people book last-minute flights hoping to gain admittance to Europe before the EU's visa requirement goes into effect in June.

BLACK MARKET SMUGGLERS

Spain counted 132,628 Ecuadoreans with resident permits in June 2002, 81,709 Colombians and 37,863 Peruvians, followed by Dominicans, Argentines and Cubans.

Although Spanish authorities hope to crack down on illegal immigration by requiring visas, experts from the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) say the policy may end up pushing people into the hands of traffickers working in the $10 billion-a-year business of human smuggling.

"Even if it does put the brakes on migration, it can also eventually create channels for irregular migration and immigrant trafficking," IOM's regional advisor for Latin America, Jose Angel Oropeza, told Reuters from Geneva.

Latin Americans from nations which need visas may buy fake passports from dealers in countries like Bolivia where no visa is required to enter the EU freely. Or they seek financing for their travels from powerful loan sharks, taking on massive debts before they even board the plane.

Faced with a shortage of manual labor and the EU's lowest birth rate, Spain took steps to draw Ecuadoreans, Colombians and Dominicans across the Atlantic by offering private sector jobs via local embassies in exchange for a visa.

The Iberian nation also relaxed rules this year to allow people of Spanish ancestry to apply for citizenship.

That doesn't mean life for immigrants is easy in Spain. Reports of alleged xenophobia keep some would-be immigrants at bay and human rights group Amnesty International has denounced police treatment of foreign nationals.

But many immigrants see no other choice as their nations fail to put wobbly economies on stable footing, and where the minimum wage is hardly enough to keep children from going hungry, let alone to send them to school.

Joselyn, a 29-year-old Ecuadorean mother who earns $900 a month waiting tables in Mallorca, holds back a tear while talking about the 9-year-old daughter she has left behind in her hometown of Riobamba nestled in the snow-capped Andes.

"I've been gone from Ecuador for many years and she doesn't know me so well," the young mother said, waiting for her flight back to Europe after a fleeting vacation with her family. "But what else can we do? All our struggle is for them."