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French Prime Minister François Fillon immediately convened a committee of both houses of French parliament to review and reintroduce the legislation for another vote, when whips will presumably insure a full turnout to gain passage. Despite public suspicion of GMOs, that shouldn't prove difficult, since the bill is hardly radical. It obliges farmers to separate natural and GMO cultivation, and sets permitted limits of GMO "contamination" to surrounding plots; requires public disclosure of where GMO crops are located; and make the destruction of GMO crops by protesters - an act for which Bové has been repeatedly arrested...
...meager results of Sarkozy's reform agenda have left conservatives disinclined to follow his lead. That wariness among his own allies contributed to the multiplication of problems the increasingly unpopular Sarkozy has faced this year. "As long as he was popular and helping the right win elections, conservatives in parliament were happy to vote through whatever Sarkozy told them to," says Reynié. "Now they are not only refusing to do that, but on issues like the GMO law, openly demonstrating that they stand with the public, not with the President and government...
That does not bode well for Sarkozy, who must get the reintroduced GMO bill passed before tabling sweeping institutional and constitutional reform, including changes to parliament itself, in June. Many conservatives have already expressed concern over such measures and are looking to the left as possible allies to turn them away. If that happens, Sarkozy may soon be hearing more parliamentary applause of the sort he'd prefer to avoid...
There are no longer any Hizballah fighters surrounding the grand red sandstone Beirut town house belonging to Walid Jumblatt, a member of Parliament and one of the leaders of Lebanon's governing coalition. Still, Jumblatt, a top American ally, is under virtual house arrest. After the lightning speed with which opposition Hizballah fighters defeated government supporters in a six-hour battle on Thursday - only to vanish a few hours later - it became clear that it is pointless to resist the Iranian and Syrian-backed militia, which could return at any time. "I am a hostage now in my home...
...Since he can't form a government on his own, he will need to find a coalition partner. Paradoxically, the most likely candidate is the Socialist Party of Serbia, whose founder was Slobodan Milosevic, the darkest figure in Serbia's recent history. The Socialists won 20 seats in the parliament, which, along with ethnic minorities who have 10 seats, should be enough for Tadic to build a comfortable majority...