france

Just more evidence of how safely uranium is handled around the world.

Sacre bleu. At the end of last week, French president Nicolas Sarkozy took a stand against biotech giant Monsanto and banned a strain of GM maize which has previously been grown by French farmers. Their MON 810 variety - according to AFP, the only type of GM maize currently being grown in France - has been withdrawn after a committee of scientists, farmers and politicians raised doubts over its continued use.

Sarkozy announces new wind turbine policy

Industrial wind turbine development to end in rural and wild areas.

The Sustainable Environment Federation (FED), with the heritage and countryside associations who demonstrated in Paris on October 6 against industrial wind energy, are pleased by President Sarkozy’s redirection of French policy concerning wind turbines and renewable energy.

Yet another reason to love Paris!

Here's one way to turn junk into art. A French designer takes discarded porcelain cups, bowls, and saucers and transforms them into wildly original lamps. Green meets high fashion.

The disappearance of hundreds of household cats has sparked calls for an official inquiry amid fears that they could have been killed, skinned and turned into blankets.

Concern has been fuelled by the existence of a legal Swiss trade in cat fur, which is reputed to be good for rheumatism. But cat blanket retailers have denounced allegations of widespread cat-napping across the border in France as absurd. They insist that they buy skins from wild felines killed in Switzerland and Britain.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy highlights the need for U.S. action on global warming in a speech to a joint session of Congress.

The Collectif du 6 octobre notes that they are succeeding in turning environmentalists against industrial wind turbines in rural and wild areas, as evidenced by Nicolas Hulot writing in Le Figaro, October 20, 2007.

Demonstration this Friday, October 6, in front of the Environment Ministry in Paris at 2:00 in the afternoon • Community and environmental groups from all over France will be demonstrating against the madness of industrial wind turbine development. They will be demanding that the Environment Ministry protect the environment instead of wreck it. • For details, go to the Collectif 6 Octobre web site.

How's this for a creative and exciting example of direct action - it's a blockade but with a difference. Earlier this morning in Romania, Greenpeace volunteers quarantined a whole island where GM soya crops are being grown, which is illegal under EU law. Vehicles leaving Braila island were hosed down by people wearing white biohazard suits to prevent genetic contamination spreading to the mainland. Even a donkey and cart were washed and made GM-free!

Bribing and Pressuring Fissile Regimes
On July 25th, France offered to build a nuclear reactor for Libya to power a water desalinization plant. Russia is delaying the delivery of nuclear fuel for Iran's nearly completed Bushehr to help pressure them to comply with UN Security council demands for less secrecy.