Quick Reads

Super-Consolidated TNC Control

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147 companies controlled nearly 40 percent of the monetary value of all transnational corporations in 2007.

147 companies controlled nearly 40 percent of the monetary value of all transnational corporations in 2007.
That’s the finding of a new study published in July 2011 by researchers at Switzerland’s ETH Zürich, based on an analysis of 43,060 transnational corporations (TNCs) located in 116 countries. Just 737 firms account for 80% of the value of all TNCs.

There are currently over 500 Multilateral Environment Agreements

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Since the Stockholm Conference of 1972, there has been a proliferation of treaties, agreements and institutions, but the money hasn’t matched the meetings and the decisions haven’t been matched with democratic participation. The multilateral system’s environmental response has been incongruously ad hoc and also ad nauseum. Among the indicators…

ETC Group warns that if powerful new technologies are put in the hands of the military, corporations or undemocratic governments they will be used to surpress dissent, enforce social control and wage war against marginalized and vulnerable groups.

Sólo tres empresas controlan más de la mitad (53%) del mercado global de semillas comerciales.

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En 2009, el mercado global de semillas comerciales tenía un valor estimado de 27 mil 400 millones de dólares.
Las diez principales empresas concentraban en 2009 el 73% del mercado global (por encima del 67% en 2007).

Sólo tres empresas controlan más de la mitad (53%) del mercado global de semillas comerciales.
Monsanto, la mayor empresa semillera del mundo y la cuarta más grande productora de pesticidas, controla ahora más de una cuarta parte (27%) del mercado global de semillas comerciales.

Dow Agrosciences - la quinta mayor empresa productora de pesticidas en el mundo - hizo su dramático retorno al listado de las diez principales empresas semilleras en 2009, después de haber adquirido varias compañías semilleras, entre las que se encuentran: Hyland Seeds (Canadá), MTI (Austria), Pfizer Seeds (EUA) y Triumph Seed (EUA), entre otras.

ETC Group calls for the creation of an international technology evaluation and information mechanism to assess the health, environmental, economic and social impacts of new and emerging technologies.

Governments should adopt a process to develop an international technology evaluation and information mechanism – based on the Precautionary Principle – that will strengthen national sovereignty and build capacity, especially in the global South, to assess the health, environmental, economic and social impacts of new and emerging technologies such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and synthetic biology.

Río+20 ¿Una nueva economía verde, o la misma vieja economía maquillada?

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Les tengo buenas y malas noticias sobre el futuro de nuestro planeta.  Primero las buenas noticias. El año próximo tendrá lugar una reunión global sobre el destino de La Tierra, una cumbre de abolengo. Formalmente llamada Conferencia de Naciones Unidas sobre Desarrollo Sostenible, esta reunión se conoce como RÍO+20 porque se realizará 20 años después de la primera Cumbre de la Tierra en Río en 1992.

Just 3 companies control more than half (53%) of the global commercial market for seed.

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The global commercial seed market in 2009 is estimated at 27,400 million.

The top 10 companies account for 73% of the global market (up from 67% in 2007).

Just 3 companies control more than half (53%) of the global commercial market for seed.

Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company and fourth largest pesticide company, now controls more than one-quarter (27%) of the commercial seed market.

Dow Agrosciences – the world’s fifth largest pesticide company – made a dramatic re-entry on the top 10 seed company list in 2009 following a seed company-buying spree that included Hyland Seeds (Canada), MTI (Austria), Pfister Seeds (USA) and Triumph Seed (USA), among others.

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