Genetic engineering pamphlets in New Zealand supermarkets are part of a multi-national "global disinformation campaign", Green Party Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said today.

The light-green coloured brochures, headed GM Foods - Answers to Your Questions, have been published by the Grocery Industry Council.

"The paper purports to be unbiased but uses language of the United States-based food and chemical giant Monsanto," Ms Fitzsimons said. " It is full of half-truths and carries only one side of the genetic engineering debate. If supermarkets stock it, they should include pamphlets which present the other side."

Questions such as who profits from the technology, who is testing the products and how the consumer can avoid genetically engineered foods are not answered in the brochure, she said.

The pamphlet's foreword is written by Royal Society of New Zealand president Professor Sir John Scott, who has been one of this country's main advocates of genetic engineering.

"Last year in the middle of New Zealand's first genetic engineering hearings in Wellington his society hosted a pro-genetic engineering seminar in conjunction with the United States embassy," she said. "The public presentation, at which American pro-genetic engineering lobbyist Sylvia B Rowe was speaking, was part-funded by Monsanto."

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>