Leeds Bradford Technology
Ready to remove a blight on our landscape?
16-04-2007 09:01
This month a controversial experimental genetically modified potato crop is due to be planted in the UK by the German chemical giant BASF (offshoot of the infamous AG Farben). DEFRA initially gave approval in December for BASF to undertake trials at two sites, one in Cambridgeshire (at the National Institute of Agriculture and Botany) and the other initially in Derbyshire - until the farmer pulled out.
The trials are the first GM crops to enter British soil in nearly 3 years, after public opposition forced a u-turn in government and corporate plans for patented crops. Although presented as an R&D trial into the effectiveness of an anti blight gene, they are widely considered to be trial of public opinion.
On 14th April in Cambridge a protest walk took place [photos 1, 2]. This was followed on the 21st by a rally in Hull. This event ended with the proposed trial being effectively sabotaged even before it had began when over a hundred people entered the site and planted several varieties of seed potatoes in the field making it impossible for a scientifically valid trial to take place there.
LINKS:
Cambridge 1 | 2 | 3 | grid reference
Hull 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | pics
Background GM - Back on the agenda? | Sabotage promised | New GM crop trials | London info night (Tues 17th)
Campaign sites mutatoes.org | hedonagainstgm.org.uk | Cambridge GM concern | myspace.com/gmfreepotatoes
Read more | 1 addition | 6 comments >>'i' the film - screening tour
09-10-2006 22:14
- Tue Oct 10 - London - RampART - 15-17 Rampart St (starts 8pm)
- Wed Oct 11 - Brighton - The Cowley Club - 12 London Road
- Thu Oct 12 - Nottingham - The Sumac Centre - 245 Gladstone Street, 7.30pm (read article | report and audio from screening)
- Sat Oct 14 - Glasgow - Document 4 Intl. Human Rights Film Festival
- Sun Oct 15 - Edinburgh - Quaker Meeting House, Victoria Terrace, 7pm
- Mon Oct 16 - Edinburgh - Forest Café, 3 Bristo Place, 7.30 pm
Technopolis: Unraveling the Net of Technological Domination
04-06-2005 23:00
Technopolis will be at Buckingham Road off Headingley Lane, Leeds LS6 1BP (map)
Three days of learning, discussion and games to explore new technologies of control and our resistance to them.
Welcome to the Machine!
The machine is all around us, omnipresent and omniscient. It's the camera on the street corner, the chip in your debit card and the number allotted to your child at birth. The machine is without and within. It's in the way we have been trained and domesticated since birth to fit into a mechanical world dictated by capital and the tick, tick, tick of its clock.
Those who want to increase control and domination over our lives have invented increasingly pervasive technologies. From biotech to nanotech, through RFID, gait analysis and new 'non lethal' weapons to aid crowd control: they are all further attempts to quantify and standardise our lives.
We see these 'new technologies of control' as part of a wider project of a new wave of enclosure by capital.
We are calling this gathering in order to discuss and analyse the implications of these new technologies of control, alongside potential responses of resistance that do not merely fall into playing out stock responses, and fulfilling the role of 'loyal opposition'.
[click on "read more" for the gathering's topics and how to find out its location]
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