September 2002's Issue
For those who thought space was the final frontier, here’s news - it’s actually life. And the conquistadors are Life Science' multinationals who are hell-bent on owning it. But should natural resources, living creatures and our very genesbelong’ to corporate players? Or should they belong to us all?
Intellectual property rights clauses stitched into trade agreements are making it virtually impossible for countries to opt out of and oppose patents on life. And yet the patents themselves are nonsense - if life cannot be created, it clearly cannot be owned.
Whilst the debate on the dangers and benefits of genetic modification rages on, a clear stand must be taken: research in this field must not mean ownership of the living `product’.
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Featured in issue 349
The democracy killers
There is little tolerance in Pakistan for alternative ideas, says Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, but squatters can still be a match for generals and financiers.
- Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
Interview with Jacquie Soohen
Filmmaker Jacquie Soohen talks about her time inside Bethlehem’s besieged Church of the Nativity.
- Katharine Ainger
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
Barcoding life
Geneticists are playing Russian roulette with life, believes Jordi Pigem.
- Jordi Pigem
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
The gene hunters
Australian biotech company Autogen dangled a big carrot in front of the people of the tiny Pacific islands of Tonga. Lopeti Senituli for one lost his appetite.
- Lopeti Senituli
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
Nguyen Huu Tuan
Women brick-kiln labourers, by Vietnam’s Nguyen Huu Tuan.
- Nguyen Huu Tuan
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
Conquest by patents
The US leads in the push for patents. But it wasn’t always that way, says Beth Burrows.
- Beth Burrows
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
8 things you should know about Patents on Life
The very stuff of life itself is for sale. Dinyar Godrej tells us what we need to know in order to confront the high bidders.
- Dinyar Godrej
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
Home-grown healing
A plant that holds out hope for people with aids in South Africa remains in the public domain. But that’s not where the story ends, as Ferial Haffajee discovers.
- Ferial Haffajee
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
Live at Town Hall, New York City, September 19-20, 2001
Live at Town Hall by Laurie Anderson
- Louise Gray
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
Abdul Rashid Dostum
Tactically brutal, pragmatically treacherous: Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum.
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
A visitor in the mountains
My grandparents’ grave and the rancour of civil war, by Reem Haddad.
- Reem Haddad
- 1 Sep 2002
- 0
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