In Brazil, farmer-led court actions are piling up against Monsanto for collecting royalties on RR1 soybeans regarded as illegal and for conditioning the sale of new GM seed Intacta RR2 to the signing of a contract seen as abusive, according to an article for Valor Online (Brazil). Lawyers for the farmers and representative bodies estimate the value of the claims against Monsanto at 1.9 billion Brazilian real (about USD 1 billion). Processes have not been completed, but preliminary estimates say the claims may affect the company’s profits.
According to Orlando Julius Caesar, lawyer for the Sinop Rural Union, a settlement reached in a previous lawsuit against Monsanto has resulted in many farmers refusing to buy Monsanto’s seed. “Monsanto is trying to create market rules that do not exist for any other product,” he said.
More than 250,000 anti-government protesters have again taken to the streets in several Brazilian cities and engaged police in isolated intense conflicts. Demonstrators vowed to stay in the streets until concrete steps are taken to reform the political system. Across Brazil protesters gathered to denounce legislation known as PEC 37 that would limit the power of federal prosecutors to investigate crimes. Many fear the laws would hinder attempts to jail corrupt politicians.
Federal prosecutors were behind the investigation into the biggest corruption case in Brazil's history, the so-called "mensalão" cash-for-votes scheme that came to light in 2005 and involved top aides of former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva buying off members of congress to vote for their legislation.
BRAZIL – Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, and key ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Friday following a night of protests that saw Rio de Janeiro and dozens of other cities echo with percussion grenades and swirl with teargas as riot police scattered the biggest demonstrations in more than two decades. The protests were sparked last week by opposition to rising bus fares, but they have spread rapidly to encompass a range of grievances, as was evident from the placards. “Stop corruption. Change Brazil;” “Halt evictions;” “Come to the street. It’s the only place we don’t pay taxes; “Government failure to understand education will lead to revolution.” A vast crowd – estimated by the authorities at 300,000 and more than a million by participants – filled Rio’s streets, one of a wave of huge nationwide marches against corruption, police brutality, poor public services and excess spending on the World Cup.
(Reuters) - Brazil's biggest protests in two decades intensified on Thursday despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations, as 300,000 people took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro and hundreds of thousands more flooded other cities.
Undeterred by the reversal of transport fare hikes that sparked the protests, and promises of better public services, marchers demonstrated around two international soccer matches and in locales as diverse as the Amazon capital of Manaus and the prosperous southern city of Florianopolis.
A new “soy rush” has been kick- started, and large-scale farm producers from all over Brazil are flocking to the Amazon forest in hopes of striking it rich with this golden crop. Yet all this comes at a price. Communities -- most often those found in the forest -- are often violently expelled from their lands in the wake of this uncontrolled scramble to plant soy.
For Brazil, it’s all in the name of progress. Still, to ask those whom have been chased from their lands and have seen first-hand the ecological wrath which has followed in the wake of soy in the region of Santarem, this new cash crop in the Amazon has brought nothing but destruction and misery.
For more information www.greenpeace.org Greenpeace Director: Todd Southgate Producer: Greenpeace
