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Profits before people: The great African liquidation sale
,----[ Quote ]
| The fervour with which foreign commercial
| interests are forcing their agricultural
| âsolutionsâ on the African continent
| represents nothing more than an
| established endeavour to protect profits
| and access to resources, writes Joan
| Baxter. For all that they are dressed up
| as âhelpâ and âknowledgeâ, these
| ostensible solutions are about one thing:
| Money. So long as powerful initiatives
| like the Green Revolution and
| agribusinesses are able to trample on the
| continentâs sovereignty, Baxter argues,
| Africaâs land, traditional knowledge,
| biodiversity, seeds and crop varieties
| will remain in liquidation.
|
| [...]
|
| And just to make sure thereâs absolutely
| nothing impeding or taming the tidal wave
| of investment, the World Bank and the US
| are busy helping African governments
| âharmoniseâ laws to privatise land and
| open the doors for the patenting of crop
| and tree varieties and for genetically
| modified (GM) organisms crops.[i]
`----
http://farmlandgrab.org/8757
A closer look at the Gates Foundation-supported AGRA
,----[ Quote ]
| AGRA is run by several people with close
| ties to the biotech monster, Monsanto, and
| just like Green Revolution Number One, it
| recommends âmodernâ technological
| solutions such as imported fertilizers and
| purchased seeds.
`----
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/12/10/4401356.html
Last week:
H.I.V. Tests Turn Blood Into Cash in China
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| âGates has created a huge blood-buying
| operation that only cares about money, not
| about people,â said Ma Tiecheng, who runs a
| seven-year-old AIDS organization in the
| northwest city of Shenyang. âIâve seen people
| getting four H.I.V. tests a day.â
|
| [...]
|
| Dr. Yip, who is the former director of the
| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
| office in China, embraces the Gates
| Foundationâs philosophy of bold initiatives
| and risk taking â traits often lacking in
| government-run global health behemoths. He
| said that if some of the money ended up in the
| pockets of corrupt officials running fake
| organizations, it was the cost of doing
| business in China, where government
| malfeasance is endemic.
|
| âWe donât expect every grant in every city to
| be spectacularly successful,â he said. âThatâs
| like buying 30 stocks and expecting them all
| to go up.â
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/health/policy/03china.html?_r=2
Recent:
The Gates Foundationâs agriculture program: experimenting or floundering?
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| Hereâs what we know about the Gates
| Foundationâs agriculture program:
|
| * Gates believes itâs suggestive that
| âApart from a few states and small, oil-
| rich countries, no country has managed a
| rapid rise from poverty without
| increasing agricultural productivity. In
| the poorest countries, agriculture
| employs a majority of the people.â
| * This isnât a new argument or an
| undisputed one. See Peter Timmer on
| Green Revolution âoptimistsâ vs.
| âpessimistsâ.
| * Gatesâs approach is âcomprehensive,â
| targets âno single, simple solutionâ,
| and includes farmer training/support,
| irrigation initiatives, market access
| initiatives, and funding of agricultural
| research with a focus on gender
| empowerment.
| * This isnât a new approach or a
| historically successful one. The World
| Bank has focused on essentially the same
| set of interventions recently, with
| unclear results, and the previous
| âholisticâ approach of âIntegrated Rural
| Developmentâ is widely considered to
| have failed. Details at our overview of
| agriculture aid.
|
| In other words, the Gates Foundation
| approach â as described â appears to be
| neither a continuation of things that have
| worked before nor a fundamentally new
| approach to the problem. So what might be
| different this time around?
`----
http://blog.givewell.net/?p=437
Kenya: Gates Foundation and Monsanto to Develop Genetically
Modified Seeds for Small Farmers
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| Many of the emotionally charged headlines
| that drive Africaâs food security debate
| are intricately connected to the critical
| and complex Kenyan seed industry: Kenya is
| the second largest seed consumer in sub-
| Saharan Africa, and a key driver of
| agricultural research on the continent. For
| decades, donors and private interests have
| been funneling millions of dollars into the
| Kenya Agricultural Research Institute
| (KARI), in an effort to develop new plant
| varieties that can repel pests, withstand
| disease and produce higher yields.
|
| KARI is now one of the main partners in a
| new programme funded by the Gates
| Foundation that will attempt to develop
| genetically modified (GM) maize that can
| withstand drought. The plan is to
| distribute the seeds to small farmers in
| Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania
| and Uganda. The technology is coming from
| Monsanto, the American corporate seed giant
| that does a lot of work for the Gates
| Foundation in Africa. Normally Monsantoâs
| patented seeds come at a high price, which
| has inspired an endless stream of vitriol
| from activists who accuse the company of
| exploiting poor farmers for obscene
| profits. This time, farmers will receive
| the seeds royalty free â indefinitely â as
| part of Gatesâ push for a âgreen
| revolutionâ in Africa.
`----
http://www.ratio-magazine.com/200911261425/Kenya/Kenya-Gates-Foundation-and-Monsanto-to-Develop-Genetically-Modified-Seeds-for-Small-Farmers.html
Kenya: Gates Foundation and Monsanto to develop GM seeds for small farmers
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=54698
Hunger, Hypocrisy And The U.N.
,----[ Quote ]
| This is hypocrisy of the vilest sort. In
| fact, U.N. agencies, programs and policies
| themselves have prevented farmers in the
| developing world from obtaining the tools
| they need to become more productive. That
| gets us back to Bill Gates and his big
| plans: His choice last year of former U.N.
| Secretary General Kofi Annan to head a new
| group intended to achieve a "green
| revolution" in African agriculture, the
| Alliance for a Green Revolution--established
| with an initial $150 million grant from the
| Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the
| Rockefeller Foundation--was
| incomprehensible. If past performance is any
| indication, the only things likely to become
| greener are the numbered bank accounts of
| Annan and his cronies.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/20/united-nations-bill-gates-world-hunger-opinions-contributors-henry-i-miller.html
Chinese copy of the Gates Foundation
,----[ Quote ]
| Monday the papers were all asplash with
| announcements that there would be a Chinese
| copy of the Gates Foundation. Now it appears
| that the celebration might have been premature.
| Perhaps New Huadu is a perfect imitator, as
| Microsoft also engaged in illegal activities
| before the Gates Foundation emerged.
`----
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/22/4358475.html
Chinese innovation and the Gates Foundation
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| If this is how the Gates Foundation tries to
| support innovation in China it is not trying
| very hard. China has lots of new tech talent
| educated in the US. If the environment is right
| in the next twenty years there will be lots of
| innovation. But are small timebound grants the
| way to support it?
`----
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/19/4354533.html
Unions, Bill Gates pump last-minute cash against Wash. ballot issue slowing gov't growth
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| National labor unions and Microsoft Corp. co-
| founder Bill Gates are among the donors who
| have poured nearly $1.5 million of last-minute
| cash into the campaign against Initiative 1033,
| a ballot measure that would slow the growth of
| state and local governments.
`----
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/16/4352483.html
Gates Foundation program advisory panel member speaks out on war and security
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/14/4350448.html
Is the Gates Foundation listening?
,----[ Quote ]
| Gates Keepers thinks there will be no Gates
| Foundation grants for Reganold or Herren
| forthcoming.
|
| Isn't it governance that is lacking for the
| Green Revolution in Africa? Does blaming people
| who question genetically modified plants help?
| Heim is asking the right questions of the right
| people. Is the Foundation listening?
`----
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/21/4357663.html
Will Bill Gates Come to the Rescue of Journalists?
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| Online news site Crosscut's announcement
| yesterday of a $100,000 grant from the Bill and
| Melinda Gates Foundation surely raised some
| hopes in the tumultuous world of journalism. Is
| Bill Gates waking up to the havoc caused by the
| digital technology he has unleashed? Will his
| enormously deep-pocketed philanthropy come to
| the rescue of a profession--and means of
| informing that the public-- that threatens to
| disappear? Can the New York Times expect a
| bailout next?
`----
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2009/10/will_bill_gates_come_to_the_re.php
Vanessa Mazal talks about how the Gates Foundation is getting into the media
,----[ Quote ]
| This is frightening. She tries to simplify
| media development and media for development but
| in the end it all sounds manipulative ... like
| our strings are being pulled by the Gates
| Foundation.
`----
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/13/4349646.html
Former Gates Foundation CEO's new employer gets a big grant from the Gates Foundation
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/20/4356547.html
Does the Gates Foundation support circumcision coercion?
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/12/4348746.html
Monsanto: Making Microsoft Look Good
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| Do genetically-modified seeds bring
| increased productivity? There seem doubts;
| but even assuming it's true, Gates sets up a
| false dichotomy: one reason GMO seeds aren't
| sustainable is because they are patented.
| That is, farmers *must* buy them year after
| year, and can't produce their own seeds.
| It's a situation that's relatively easy to
| solve: make GMOs patent-free; do not place
| restrictions on their use; let farmers do
| what farmers have done for millennia.
|
| And look, there you have it, potentially: productivity and
| sustainability. But we won't get that, not because the idealistic
| environmentalist are blocking it, but because the seed industry
| wants farmers dependent on their technology, not liberated
| by it. It is sheer hypocrisy for a fan of patents to
| accuse environmentalists of being the obstacle to
| productivity and sustainability: that would be the
| industrial model of dependence, enforced by
| intellectual monopolies, and espoused by big
| companies like Monsanto, the Microsoft of
| plant software.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/10/monsanto-making-microsoft-look-good.html
No Patents on Seeds...or We're Really Stuffed
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| Good to see that I'm not a lone voice crying
| in the wilderness:
|
| The continuing patenting of seeds,
| conventional plant varieties and animal
| species leads to far-reaching
| expropriations of farmers and breeders:
| farmers are deprived of their rights to
| save their seeds, and breeders are under
| strong limitations to use the patented
| seeds freely for further breeding. The
| patent holder controlls the sale of the
| seeds and the planting, decides about
| the use of herbicides and can even
| collect royalties at the harvest â up to
| the finished food product.
|
| Our food security is increasingly
| dependent on a few transnational
| chemical and biotechnological companies.
| The European Patent Office (EPO) has
| continuasly broadened the scope of
| patentability and undermined existing
| restrictions, in the interest of
| multinational companies.
|
| [..]
|
| This exactly parallels the situation with
| software patents, where the EPO is using
| every trick in the book to approve them;
| except it's even worse.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/10/no-patents-on-seedsor-were-really.html
Related:
Dark cloud over good works of Gates Found
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Gates Foundation Revokes Pledge to Review Portfolio
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| ...the Gates Foundation took down their public statement on this
| and replaced it with a significantly altered version which seems to
| say that investing responsibly would just be too complex for them
| and that they need to focus on their core mission: 'There are
| dozens of factors that could be considered, almost all of which
| are outside the foundation's areas of expertise. The issues
| involved are quite complex...
`----
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/12/1756212&from=rss
Gates Foundationâs Influence Criticized
,----[ Quote ]
| The chief of malaria for the World Health Organization has complained that
| the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates
| Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping
| out the world health agencyâs policy-making function.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/science/16malaria.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation- Truth Revealed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttq0IdULfjg
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation- Truth Revealed Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVlnqnMHQ1c
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