Microsoft in Europe, GM Foods and the Political Crisis in Honduras
Microsoft and European Union officials hold talks over computer industry competition.
Former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Val Giddings releases a blueprint for reforming the regulation of genetically modified crops.
President Obama nominates Georgetown University professor Arturo Valenzuela to be Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America.
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1. BUSINESS
Microsoft and European Union officials hold talks over computer industry competition.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the motivation behind the EU’s investigations of Microsoft:
“It’s a familiar story; subjecting Europe’s technology sector to political predation via aggressive antitrust regulation and involuntary licensing is less about protecting consumers than about competitors’ regarding themselves as entitled to someone else’s customers. Antitrust regulation protects politically connected competitors, not mom-and- pop operations, and certainly not the competitive process. Even Google sought to prevent Microsoft from embedding a search box within the new Internet Explorer browser that would default to Microsoft’s own search service.”
2. SCIENCE
Former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Val Giddings releases a blueprint for reforming the regulation of genetically modified crops.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Gregory Conko on the safety of GM foods:
“It is important to recall that these are superior products made with state-of-the art technology that is both more precise and predictable than other techniques for the genetic improvement of plants. The safety and importance of GM technology have been endorsed by dozens of scientific bodies around the world, including the French Academies of Science and Medicine, U.K. Royal Society, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, American Medical Association, and many others.”
3. INTERNATIONAL
President Obama nominates Georgetown University professor Arturo Valenzuela to be Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans Bader on the nominee’s opinion of the current political crisis in Honduras:
“Arturo Valenzuela, Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State, falsely claims it was an illegal ‘coup’ for Honduras to remove its corrupt would-be dictator, President Mel Zelaya, without providing more ‘judicial process,’ even though courts said it was perfectly legal. Obama has joined Cuban dictator Castro and Venezuelan dictator Chavez in demanding that Zelaya be reinstated. He nominated Valenzuela despite Valenzuela’s reputation as a loud defender of dictator Chavez. Obama, too, claims Zelaya’s removal was ‘illegal,’ even though it was carried out on orders of Honduras’s supreme court, and ratified by Honduras’s Congress, pursuant to Articles 239 and 272 of the Honduran Constitution.”
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