Time now to follow up on some of the news stories we've been tracking recently. You may remember our coverage of the two Mexican anti-logging activists who received the Goldman Environmental Prize after being jailed in their country. Now, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera will have new evidence heard in an appeal to the same court that convicted them of drug and weapons charges in 1999.
Environmental activists call the charges trumped up.
Alejandro Queral of the Sierra Club says the court must now admit medical records showing the two men confessed while being tortured. If this appeal at the lower court level is denied, then the implications may be, or it may set a precedent for admitting evidence extracted under torture in other cases, and clearly this is a setback for civil society in Mexico. There's been a resolution in the dispute between Canadian Farmer Percy Schmeiser and biotech giant Monsanto. Monsanto sued the farmer for growing its genetically-modified canola plants without paying for them. Mr. Schmeiser denies stealing the plants and says seeds containing the patented genes must have blown onto his fields.