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TOP CHEF KEVIN Thornton has expressed his concerns over a new EU-US trade deal that could open the door to genetically-modified foods in Ireland.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is currently being discussed by the European Parliament in Brussels.
Speaking ahead of a protest in Dublin against GM foods on Saturday, Thornton said that food standards are much higher in the EU than the US.
“You want trade between these countries but our standards are much higher than for the US. In the US the whole thing is run by multinational companies who are really only interested in the bottom line and money.
“The standard of food in Europe is much higher than it is there. My biggest concern would be is that you would have GM produce all over the place and no body is going to know about it.
Take something simple like raspberries. In a fridge raspberries would last a day or day-and-a-half max. So when your raspberries are lasting in the fridge two weeks, how is that possible? Because they are radiated.
The Michelin-star chef said he is concerned that the trade talks are happening “behind closed doors”.
Anything that happens in secret is a problem because it means they are hiding stuff. If you are going to hide stuff it means you are ashamed of it or you know that people are going to be opposed to it.
Responding to Thornton’s comments about GM, a spokesperson from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland said that the organisation “is of the view that foods on the EU-wide market, including those that are derived using GM technology, are safe to eat”.
There is a robust system in place which uses the most up-to-date, independent scientific data, that evaluates the safety of GM foods and which is carried out by the European Food Safety Authority.
The spokesperson added that the food legislation is “harmonised” in the EU and Ireland in relation to the authorisation and labelling of GM food and feed.
“GM-labelled food is rarely seen in retail outlets in the EU for a variety of commercial reasons, but none related to safety.”
Thornton noted that Ireland should be standing up as a “totally green” country.
“Our stance should be an example to the rest of the world of how food quality should be – clean and no chemicals. Okay, there are limits to no chemicals because if you have a blight how are you going to work it but it should be foolproof.”
He added that he would never serve GM food in his own restaurant.
“We breed our own cattle. I’ll go out and I will pick seaweed and try to be as honest as possible. It doesn’t mean I’m a saint but I try.”
Pro-GM scientists argue that genetically-modified foods are not inherently more dangerous to either the environment or human health than any other method of crop mutation — whether through selective breeding or naturally through evolution.
Huw Jones, a scientist at Rothamsted Research in the UK, believes GM food could be safer than other food.
In fact, GM is actually safer than most forms of breeding because we know exactly which properties are being implanted — it’s much less random.
Thorton added that people need to be more conscious of what they eat.
I think we got lost along the way in relation to food and we need to think about what we are passing on to the next generation. When I was growing up there were three markets a week in the town but now there are none.
“It is just too convenient for people to go to supermarkets. In the last few years people have started to think about food and we want people to do more than think about it we want people to act on it.”
Socialist politician Paul Murphy has said that TTIP “represents a very serious attack on our right to regulate in the interests of the environment, in terms of labour standards, in terms of food safety, consumer safety”.
“It isn’t really a free trade agreement, we effectively have that already, so what this is about is so called ‘non tariff barriers’ which include environmental, labour, health, consumer and financial regulations,” Murphy stated.
Additional reporting: AFP.
This post was updated on 15 July to include the comments from the FSAI spokesperson.
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The article should state since US troops withdrew partially. There is still a significant US military presence in Iraq.
While that is true, officially the troops that are still there are a lot more restricted in their potential operations than what they were allowed to do before December 2011. The idea I believe was to ween Iraq off US dependency for military operations in the aftermath of the invasion rather than leave in one go and abandon the Iraqi army to an insurgency they certainly can’t handle entirely on their own right now.
They’re mostly stationed around oil producing facilities.
How about the terrorists mortar and bomb attacks in Syria, Damascus and Homs, that killed 60 people (including 13 kids playing in their schoolyard) and injuring hundreds. Is that not deemed worthy enough for your readers good folks at thejournal.ie? I would like a reply on this please.
We will probably see the same thing happen in Syria with the up and coming presidential election.
Oh wait, didn’t the United States just recently supply their organ consuming malitia FSA friends with anti tank missiles……
“Oh wait, didn’t the United States just recently supply their organ consuming malitia FSA friends with anti tank missiles……”
Proof?
Proof? The very fact you demand proof to the worst kept secret in modern history just goes to show what a shill you really are…goodbye my love.
All the Proof you need…
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/syrian-rebels-acquire-us-made-antitank-missiles/980/
“Proof? The very fact you demand proof to the worst kept secret in modern history just goes to show what a shill you really are…goodbye my love.”
So I ask for proof that the US was involved in selling those weapons, which you’ll notice I’m not actually denying the existence of, and suddenly I’m a “shill”? Last time I checked accusations usually have to be backed up by proof.
This distraction effort tells me there isn’t any.
Frank, very first paragraph of that article:
“It is unclear how the rebels obtained the wire-guided missiles, which are capable of penetrating any armored vehicle used by the Syrian army.”
Therefore it is not proof. You claimed the US supplied them. Where’s the proof of that?
The US Government is full of lies.
We will know soon enough when these Terrorists are supplied with these latest weapons.
Perhaps the next Christian town that will be ransacked.
“We will know soon enough when these Terrorists are supplied with these latest weapons.”
So you admit that you’re claiming the US sold the weapons to the rebels in Syria without any evidence to support it then?
Stop trying to badger bait the subject… This is typical of what a website Shill would do.
I never said anything about weapons being sold…they were supplied free to terrorists. .
All you have to do yourself Jason is Google US arms rebels in Syria and you’ll get hundreds of thousands of articles, I’m sure you’ll get it there, but you’re intentionally staying ignorant of the fact, simple as that.
“It’s potentially a very significant development. These missiles have not been seen before in Syria,” says Charles Lister, a specialist on the Syrian conflict and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center think tank, who first wrote about the missiles in IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly. Even if the weapons were passed to the rebels from a government that bought them legitimately from the U.S., strict regulations apply to their transfer. “Even if country like Saudi had decided to send these to the rebels, technically the U.S., and [President] Obama would have known about it and given its blessing,” says Lister. It is of course possible that the missiles in question were bought on the black market, and as long as the number of star turns on social media sites run by rebels stay low, that is the most likely scenario. Even if the U.S. or its allies didn’t want to advertise the fact that they were supplying weapons to the rebels, the ubiquity of social media on the Syrian battlefield would mean that their distribution wouldn’t stay secret for long.
Where is the shill gone? Frank, any ideas?
I think you scared him off with the truth.
In the same article you that you presented him with:
The weapons were not directly provided by the United States. “Friends of Syria” delivered them, he said, referring to the U.S.-backed alliance of Western powers and Persian Gulf Arab states established to support the opposition Free Syrian Army. The rebels had to promise to return the canister of each missile fired, to not resell the weapons and to protect them from theft.
Awda declined to offer further details of the provenance of the missiles. But he said the donors made clear to him that the delivery had U.S. approval, and U.S. officials have confirmed that they endorsed the supply.
He probably only read the first two sentences and said, that’s all I need to know thanks.
And the Americans are worried about Russian ‘interference’ in Ukraine. Crazy.
Washington is only worried about keeping its masters in business, the war on terror has run it’s course pal, people are starting to see past that big charade, the focus has now shifted to Russia as the new ‘threat’ to justify the massive public spending on war. The military industrial complex…
This is how the big news networks work nowadays, keep em distracted about the things going on that they/we should really know about…
Did you hear about the LA Clippers? Did you hear about what Cliven Bundy said? Did you hear about that missing plane? Just stay focused on these highly-important stories for a little while longer until I’m done redeploying U.S. forces outside the borders of China and Russia so that when they decide they’ve had enough and attack us for provoking them, you will all be totally in the dark about events leading up to such a move and inevitably turn to your trusted friends in government to ask why they hate us.
have your say