The US government's top trade official has threatened to take the European Union to court for its ban on new genetically modified (GM) crops, calling the European position "immoral" for leading to starvation in the developing world.

Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, said last week that he had lost patience with Europe's four-year ban on the approval of new GM crops when African nations refused to accept US donations of maize because it contained GM material.

"I find it immoral that people are not being supplied with food to live in Africa because people have invented dangers about biotechnology," the UK newspaper The Guardian reports Zoellick as saying. He added that it was "extremely disturbing" that the "European anti-scientific policies are spreading to other corners of the world".

The White House is expected to decide whether to bring a case to the World Trade Organisation on this issue by the end of January.

Link to Guardian article

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