Earths.net

4/14/01
4:01:10 PM

Have A Happy Easter Sunday

Love Yourself, One Another And All Life

http://wwwEasterSunday.net

4/14/01
3:58:11 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

"We Cover the Earth For You"

MIMERS' RUSH FOR COLTAN THREATENS RARE GORILLA

GLAND, Switzerland, April 13, 2001 (ENS) - All but confined to a national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), one of the world's rarest creatures, the eastern lowland gorilla, is being wiped out by miners in search of "bushmeat."

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-13-12.html

BIODIVERSITY GIVES CARBON SINKS A BOOST

By Cat Lazaroff

UPTON, New York, April 13, 2001 (ENS) - The more diverse an ecosystem, the better it can serve to absorb carbon dioxide - a potent greenhouse gas - from the atmosphere, a new study suggests. The research has important implications for ongoing international negotiations over the best way to address global climate change, and the role that so called carbon sinks should play.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-13-06.html

SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT REOPENS FLOODED KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa, April 13, 2001 (ENS) - South Africa's premier wildlife attraction, Kruger National Park, is once again open for business after floods in February 2000 devastated the region.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-13-01.html

UK's EASTER EGG RETAILERS URGED TO GO LINDANE FREE

LONDON, United Kingdom, April 13, 2001 (ENS) - It is all but banned in Europe but lindane, a hormone disrupting pesticide linked to breast cancer, could be lurking in Easter eggs.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-13-10.html

SWIM WITH DOLPHINS THEME PARK IN HOT WATER

MANILA, Philippines, April 13, 2001 (ENS) - An ocean adventure park that not only wants to exhibit dolphins but allow paying customers to swim with them, is in hot water with the Philippines government.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-13-11.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 13, 2001

Weakened Standards Proposed to Air Conditioners, Heat Pumps

New Maryland Law Restricts Biotech Fish

Desert Dust May Diminish Global Warming Estimates

EPA Releases Revised Particulate Matter Criteria

Earth's Global Heat Engine Drives Plant Growth

USGS Budget Cuts Could Undercut Clean Water Efforts

New Software Could Help Reduce Building Energy Use

Bears Make Poor Easter Guests

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-13-09.html

4/14/01
3:55:13 PM

New at TomPaine.com this weekend

http://www.tompaine.com/

A FINE PLACE CALLED WASHINGTON

David Corn's Loyal Opposition

It's nice that White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, following the boss's orders, wants to encourage a better "tone" in Washington. But still the fibbing goes on relentlessly, and it's not the exclusive domain of one party or another.

http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/04/13/1.html

MADE IN CHINA

by Marty Jezer

The spy-plane incident reflects the contradictions inherent in the push for free market globalization. While American and Chinese nationalists would have chosen to escalate the incident, there was simply too much commerce at stake. The politics of trade creates a fault line that runs through both political parties.

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/04/13/index.html

COURTING THE PRESS

The third excerpt of Trudy Lieberman's Slanting the Story While courting the press is common among all types of political organizations, few have done so with more élan than the right-wing Manhattan Institute, which put tort reform on the national agenda.

http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/04/09/2.html

4/14/01
3:52:39 PM

Oppose the Dismantling of International Food Irradiation Standards!

On March 16, the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC), which advises the Codex Alimentarius ("Food Code") Commission, approved a proposal that would remove virtually every assurance that irradiated food will be of good quality, be handled by trained workers, and be processed under safe and clean conditions in government-inspected facilities.

The proposal is now about half-way through the steps required for final Codex approval. Codex sets food safety standards for over 160 countries, representing 97% of the world's population. It is operated by the World Health Organization and the United Nations. Codex standards are enforceable by the World Trade Organization.

The proposal would amend the Codex's 22-year-old food irradiation standard by stating that food companies "should" rather than "shall" comply with the standards. Many of the changes were proposed without any advance notice and approved at meetings that were closed to the public.

The Implications:

* Irradiated food standards in the U.S., which are much stricter than what the Codex is proposing, could be challenged through the World Trade Organization (WTO). A successful challenge could pressure the U.S. to weaken its standards.

* Irradiated food would no longer have to be "of suitable quality," in "acceptable hygienic condition," or "handled ... according to good manufacturing practices."

* Food irradiation facilities would no longer have to comply with "safety" and "good hygiene practices," or be staffed by "adequate, trained and competent personnel."

* Food irradiation facilities would not have to be licensed or inspected by government officials, or maintain certain records on radioactive activities.

* Food irradiation would no longer have to be carried out "commensurate with . . . technological and public health purposes," or conducted "in accordance with good radiation processing practice."

* Numerous U.S. food and nuclear safety regulations could be at risk. These include the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rules requiring all irradiation facilities using radioactive material to be licensed and regularly inspected; the Department of Agriculture (USDA) rules requiring beef, pork and poultry products to meet certain quality standards; and the USDA and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules requiring food to be processed under hygienic conditions.

CCFAC also endorsed removing the Codex's current irradiation dose limit of 10 kiloGray, which is the equivalent of about 330 million chest X-rays. When food is exposed to such doses of ionizing radiation, the flavor, texture, odor, nutritional integrity and chemical composition of food can be significantly corrupted. Very few of the new chemicals that are formed in irradiated food have been studied for toxicity. Most U.S. foods are dosed with between 1 and 7.5 kiloGray.

The proposal will be debated by the full Codex Commission, which meets July 2-7 in Geneva.

U.S. meat inspector chief, Thomas Billy, who is the chairman of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, has allowed your health and safety to be threatened. The shortcomings of the U.S. meat inspection service should not be projected onto the world. Tell him you will not stand for this.

Let the U.S. Codex representatives know that this proposal is unacceptable!

Contact Information:

Mr. Tom Billy

Chairman, Codex Alimentarius Commission, Department of Agriculture, 331-E

Jamie Whitten Bldg.,

Washington, DC 20250-3700

Phone: 202-720-7025, Fax: 202-690-0550

E-mail: Tom.billy@usda.gov

Dr. F. Edward Scarbrough

U.S. Manager for Codex,

Department of Agriculture, Room 4861, South Bldg.,

Washington, DC 20250

Phone: 202-205-7760, Fax: 202-720-3157

E-mail: Ed.scarbrough@usda.gov

Mr. L. Robert Lake

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (HFS-4)

Food and Drug Administration,

200 C St. SW, Washington, DC 20204

Phone: 202-205-4160, Fax: 202-401-7739

E-mail: LRL@cfsan.fda.gov

Sample letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am writing regarding the approval of the Revised Draft General Standard on Irradiated Food, by the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants. I strongly object to this proposal and to the propagation of food irradiation as a solution to filthy meat production and as an alternative to the use of methyl bromide on imports.

The proposal itself was produced in a truly undemocratic way, and its contents do nothing but weaken already inadequate public health and safety measures. The plan downgrades international irradiation standards from regulations to suggestions, and advocates for the removal of the current irradiation Codex dose limit of 10 kiloGray. Currently the maximum dose limit for most foods in the U.S. stands at 7.5 kiloGray.

I assume, since you function as a representative of the United States to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, you are concerned about the welfare of the public. Please do not compromise the well being of my family or of families throughout the world.

Do not allow this proposal to be accepted.

Sincerely,

Your Name

Your Address

General info on irradiated food at:

http://www.citizen.org/CMEP/rad-food/radfoodindex.htm

Research on effects of irradiated foods at:

http://www.citizen.org/CMEP/rad food/Factsheetprobswradfoodwhatresearch.htm

NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX

www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex

4/14/01
3:47:38 PM

FAIR

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Media analysis, critiques and news reports

MEDIA ADVISORY: Macedonia War Gets the Kosovo Treatment - In Reverse

At the outset of NATO's Kosovo bombing campaign in 1999, FAIR urged journalists not to oversimplify the conflict. At the time, U.S. coverage took a propagandistic tone-- blaming a long-standing, multi-faceted conflict almost entirely on the Serbs, or even solely on one man, Slobodan Milosevic. FAIR pointed to the region's complex history of ethnic confrontation, including the chronic turmoil of the 1980s, when it was the Albanian majority, then enjoying broad political autonomy, that was accused of discrimination and abuses aimed at driving out the Slavic minority.

In the jingoistic atmosphere of the NATO war against Yugoslavia, much of the media portrayed the conflict as little more than a racial pogrom orchestrated by the Serbs for the simple purpose of satisfying their own consuming hatreds. The fact that Serbian atrocities were taking place in the context of a full-scale armed Albanian guerrilla insurgency was often strangely missing.

Now an almost identical ethnic clash has erupted in neighboring Macedonia, but the press's coverage is almost a reverse mirror image of its Kosovo reporting. In each case, reporters and pundits have deferred to U.S. officials' view of the situation: While the war in Kosovo was blamed on the Serbian authorities (rather than the Albanian guerrillas), blame for today's clashes in Macedonia is placed mostly on the shoulders of the Albanian insurgents rather than the pro-NATO government. Whereas in Kosovo, Serbian repression and human rights abuses were the main focus of attention, today Macedonia's repression of Albanians is being downplayed.

In October 1997, when the Kosovo Liberation Army first began shooting at Serbian police and civilian officials, New York Times editorialists (10/23/97) blamed the Serbs. They wrote that the disturbances proved "the adage that those who make peaceful revolutions impossible make violent ones inevitable." Since 1989, the editorial explained, Albanians had been peacefully campaigning for a restoration of Kosovo's political autonomy, but "recently some Albanians, frustrated that politics is getting them nowhere, have turned to attacks" on the Serbian government.

The editorial condemned the Serbs' response as "indiscriminate repression"-- though by that point, very early in the conflict, Serbia's heavy-handed police maneuvers had caused few civilian deaths-- and called on Washington to "increase the pressure on Belgrade" to carry out reforms and allow international monitors. No pressure or demands on the Albanian militants were urged.

Contrast that with a recent Times editorial (3/13/01) on the sudden wave of Albanian guerrilla attacks in Macedonia. Far from accusing the Macedonian government of provoking Albanians' anger, the editorialists declared that "the West must make clear to this militant [Albanian] fringe that they will not be allowed to set off another Balkan war.... Macedonia itself must summon the political and military strength needed to blunt this challenge.... Responsible Albanian political leaders in Kosovo must now be equally forthright in isolating the armed militants.... If they cannot do so effectively, NATO may have to increase its military pressure on the guerrillas."

Yet just like the Kosovars, the Albanians of Macedonia have taken up arms after disillusionment with years of what they see as fruitless political dialogue amid constant Slavic police brutality. Kim Mehmeti, a prominent Albanian-language journalist and director of an NGO promoting inter-ethnic cooperation in Skopje, explained this disillusionment in a recent commentary for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting ("Futile Dialogue Exposed," 3/21/01). He wrote that the rebellion is "forcing the country to look itself in the mirror and to realize that inter-ethnic talks over the past 10 years have taken place against a backdrop of police repression of the Albanian community."

Macedonian abuses against ethnic Albanians have garnered little attention in the U.S. This is in marked contrast to neighboring Kosovo, where Serbian brutality was virtually the only aspect of the province's political situation that caught the U.S. media's interest. Yet while Kosovo may have featured more frequent nationalist flare-ups than Macedonia-- accompanied by more frequent police repression-- human rights organizations and activists like Mehmeti have documented a long and persistent record of ethnic abuses by the Macedonian authorities since the republic's founding in 1991 that have been all but ignored in the U.S.

For example, in 1992 a group of Albanian intellectuals sought to reopen the Albanian-language teachers' college that had been closed since a 1986 crackdown. After two years with no response from the Macedonian government, they opened Tetovo University on their own. According to Mehmeti, "While 'democratic dialogue' continued over the future of the institution, police were dispatched to forcibly shut down the university. This dialogue," he noted bitterly, "ended in the death of one Albanian [and] the detention of some of the university's organizers.... The Macedonian state has yet to recognize the institution."

In 1997, police intervened in the Albanian village of Gostivar to remove an Albanian flag from a municipal building. According to Human Rights Watch, "at least two hundred people were injured.... The police shot dead two men and beat a third to death." Gostivar's mayor was arrested and charged with "organizing an armed resistance." Police "continued to detain, interrogate, and abuse ethnic Albanians" for weeks, including several Albanian political activists who were "beaten and then released without any formal charges having been made against them." HRW added that the police contingent included "special forces trained by the United States."

In January 2000, a wave of police repression targeted the Albanian village of Aracinovo after the murder of three Macedonian police officers there. According to Amnesty International, "dozens of people-- all of them ethnic Albanian--...were tortured, beaten, or otherwise ill-treated.... Many men were held incommunicado for up to 11 days.... One man had his jaw broken, reportedly with a rifle butt," and there were "strong indications" that one man who died in custody "may have been extrajudicially executed."

International monitors recently reported the killing of a 16-year-old ethnic Albanian boy returning home to tend to his sheep, as well as the "arrest and beating of scores of ethnic Albanian civilians, and the vandalizing of dozens of houses" (London Guardian, 4/10/01). In an ominous move reminiscent of the Serbian crackdown in Kosovo, dozens of Albanian teachers, lawyers and other community leaders have recently been rounded up and arrested by Macedonian authorities on vague charges of "terrorism" ("Arrests Panic Albanians," IWPR, 4/5/01).

These incidents received virtually no coverage in the U.S. media, and reporters writing about the current rebellion have largely tiptoed around the subject. In a piece about the mobilization for war among ethnic Albanian expatriates in the U.S., the New York Times' Chris Hedges (3/19/01) tersely noted that Albanians in Macedonia "complain of discrimination and harassment from Macedonia's Slav majority."

Yet during the Kosovo war, Hedges spoke passionately about pre-war abuses in Serb-ruled Kosovo, calling it "a phenomenally repressive and brutal government," and argued that "the Serbs forfeited their right to rule Kosovo by that kind of behavior" (NPR's Talk of the Nation, 6/7/99).

What explains the media's reluctance to condemn abuses in Macedonia as forcefully as they did the Serbian crackdown in Kosovo? As usual, reporters and editors seem to be taking their cues from U.S. policymakers. In the Kosovo conflict, secretary of state Madeleine Albright and her aides were determined to paint the Yugoslav leadership as the main culprit behind the war in order to prepare the ground for NATO intervention on "humanitarian" grounds. "Our first priority," one of Albright's top deputies has written, "was to unite the Europeans behind air strikes by clearly defining the aggressor and the victim" (James Rubin, Financial Times, 9/30/00). At every opportunity, these officials worked to draw attention to Serbian abuses and were reticent about KLA provocations.

By contrast, Macedonia is viewed by U.S. policymakers across the political spectrum as a loyal regional partner of NATO and a bulwark against instability. Far from hoping to launch "humanitarian" airstrikes against the country, U.S. and European officials have acted to shore up the shaky Macedonian government. "Instead of criticizing human rights violations," Human Rights Watch has written, "the international community has rewarded the Macedonian government for being a 'factor of stability' in the region."

But journalists should not let the calculations of policy planners influence their coverage of human rights issues in the Balkans. Violence on both sides must be reported, and the grievances of each side examined. Just as the media were irresponsible in framing the Kosovo war as a simple story of Serbian violence against Albanians, they should not play down the very real abuses being committed against Albanians by the pro-NATO government of Macedonia.

To view FAIR's Yugoslavia coverage, see:

http://www.fair.org/international/yugoslavia.html

4/13/01
8:49:37 PM

http://www.GoodFriday.net

4/13/01
5:07:12 PM

Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

1. SUPER MODELS Two studies published today in the journal Science provide some of the strongest evidence yet that global warming is here and humans are to blame. The studies, based on computer models, found a direct connection between emissions of greenhouse gases and the extensive warming in the world's oceans since 1955. They also suggested that even if emissions were to cease immediately, greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere would double the amount of warming in the ocean within two to four decades. One of the study's lead authors, Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said, "This will make it harder for naysayers to dismiss predictions from climate models."

straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 13 Apr 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12064-2001Apr12.html>

straight to the source: BBC News, 12 Apr 2001 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1274000/1274252.stm>

read it only in Grist Magazine: How's the weather? -- taking the Earth's temperature -- in our Heat Beat section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/heatbeat/weather031501.stm>

2. CASE CLOTHED The White House yesterday chose to stick with rules approved by the Clinton administration requiring more efficient clothes washers and hot water heaters. The regulation for clothes washers, which was supported by manufacturers, will boost efficiency by 22 percent by 2004 and 35 percent by 2007. Efficiency will be increased by 8 percent for gas water heaters and 4 percent for electric water heaters, beginning in 2004. But the Bush administration has delayed a decision on air-conditioner efficiency, which would produce far greater energy savings, particularly during crunch times for the energy grid. Manufacturers generally oppose the air-conditioning rule, which would boost efficiency by 30 percent by 2006.

straight to the source: Washington Post, Peter Behr and Eric Pianin, 13 Apr 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13016-2001Apr12.html>

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, 12 Apr 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/558649.asp>

catch it only in Grist Magazine: Breakthroughs in energy-efficient design -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha012201.stm>

3. WE'RE GOING TO PUMP (CLAP CLAP) YOU UP Florida's Senate passed a measure on Wednesday that would relax environmental rules and allow untreated, partly contaminated water to be pumped into the state's underground aquifers. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has asked the U.S. EPA for a waiver from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which requires any water pumped into the ground to be treated first to meet drinking-water standards. State officials say they need to move ahead with the plan because the aquifers, the state's main source of fresh water, are already dangerously low. They say the bacteria in the tainted water could not survive underground or would not spread through groundwater. But opponents say pumping the water could put the state's water supply at grave risk.

straight to the source: New York Times, Douglas Jehl, 13 Apr 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/13/national/13FLOR.html>

Get a free book and help out Grist! <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/signup/book_signup.asp>

Carbon copycat -- the latest in the comic adventures of Zed, the last of his species <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/zed/zed041001.stm>

They paved pears and rice and put up a parking lot -- pavement is replacing the world's croplands -- by Lester R. Brown <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/brown030101.stm>

4/13/01
5:00:52 PM

WATER: Our New Resource Crisis

By Peter Phillips

Imagine, that we are beyond the energy crisis-in that we are used to paying double or triple prices for what in the previous century was a small part of the family budget. But now we are faced with a new shortage that taps another precious resource. Water only comes through the tap four hours a day and we are forced to pay ten to hundred times what we paid in the 90s.

Welcome to the world of privatized water, where fresh water is treated like a commodity, traded and sold in the international market to the highest bidder.

No longer can you assume a God-given right to drink from a mountain spring, but instead you will have to pay a toll to drink from Enron Springs, Monsanto Wells or receive tap water from Bechtel Water Works.

Global consumption of water is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth. According to the United Nations, more than one billion people already lack access to fresh drinking water. If current trends persist, by 2025 the demand for fresh water is expected to rise by 56 percent more than the amount of water that is currently available.

Multinational corporations recognize these trends and are trying to monopolize water supplies around the world. Monsanto, Bechtel, Enron and other global multinationals are seeking control of world water systems and supplies.

The World Bank recently adopted a policy of water privatization and full-cost water pricing. This policy is causing great distress in many Third World countries, which fear that their citizens will not be able to afford for-profit water.

Last year in a little known case of high scale international water marketing, a supertanker was reported to have filled up with water from Lake Erie and after paying the Canadian Government they shipped the water to Southeast Asia.

Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy group, states, "Governments around the world must act now to declare water a fundamental human right and prevent efforts to privatize, export, and sell for profit a substance essential to all life.

Research has shown that selling water on the open market only delivers it to wealthy cities and individuals. The finite sources of freshwater (less than one half of one per cent of the world's total water stock) are being diverted, depleted, and polluted so fast that, by the year 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will be living in a state of serious water deprivation."

Governments are signing away their control over domestic water supplies by participating in trade treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). These agreements give transnational corporations the unprecedented right to the water of signatory companies.

Monsanto plans to earn revenues of $420 million and a net income of $63 million by 2008 from its water business in India and Mexico.

Monsanto estimates that water will become a multibillion-dollar market in the coming decades.

This international water crisis news story was selected by over 150 faculty and student researchers at Sonoma State University's Project Censored in California as the number one most censored news story for 2000.

Credit for original reporting goes to: International Forum on Globalization: Special Report 6/99, The Global Water Crisis and the Commodification of the World's Water Supply by Maude Barlow

www.ifg.org/bgsummary.html

In These Times, Water Fallout: Bolivians Battle Globalization 5/15/00 by Jim Shultz

www.inthesetimes.com

Canadian Dimension, 2/2000, Monsanto's Billion-Dollar Water Monopoly Plans by Vandana Shiva

www.purefood.org/Monsanto/waterfish.cfm

Canadian Dimension, 2/00, Water Fallout, by Jim Shultz

San Francisco Bay Guardian, 5/31/00, Trouble on Tap, by Daniel Zoll

www.sfbg.com/News/34/35/bech2.html

San Francisco Bay Guardian, 5/31/00, The Earth Wrecker, by Pratap Chatterjee.

Peter Phillips is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored. Research for this story is from the book Censored 2001, 25th Anniversary Edition, scheduled for release in March of this year from Seven Stories Press.

Peter Phillips Ph.D. Sociology Department/Project Censored

http://www.projectcensored.org

Sonoma State University

1801 East Cotati Avenue

Rohnert Park, CA 94928

4/13/01
4:57:18 PM

WILD ALERT

The Bush administration intends to dismantle important new regulations that protect public lands from abusive "hard rock" mining practices. Hard rock mining for minerals such as gold, silver, platinum, copper, and lead has left deep scars across hundreds of thousands of acres of our western landscape, polluting thousands of miles of streams in the process.

Take action now from

http://www.wilderness.org/standbylands/blm/alert010413.htm

In January 2001, after a public review process lasting nearly four years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) adopted new rules governing hard-rock mining on public lands. The new regulations, collectively known as "3809", would: strengthen environmental standards, protect the environment from toxic chemicals like cyanide used in modern ore extraction processes, require miners to post financial guarantees to assure clean-up, and allow the BLM to deny permits for mines that would cause "significant and irreparable harm" to the environment and cultural resources.

The mining industry has vigorously opposed the new standards, and has sued the Interior Department to get them overturned.

In response, the Interior Department has directed the BLM to ask for public comment on whether the new standards should be abandoned and the old, ineffective regulations reinstated. The old regulations, which the industry supports, were created some 20 years ago and do not adequately address modern mining methods like "heap leach," which combines open pit excavation with the use of toxic chemicals like cyanide to extract minute amounts of gold from low grade ore.

The BLM is under great pressure from the mining industry to back away from these new standards, so your input is vital. Take action online at

http://www.wilderness.org/standbylands/blm/alert010413.htm

or write, fax or email your comments directly to the BLM at the address listed below. Your comments must be received by the BLM before May 7.

Here are some points to make:

* You support the new rule "43 CFR 3809," which protects BLM lands from abusive mining activities.

* The new standards were written by professionals at the BLM and informed by a great deal of public comment.

* Mining activities that "result in substantial irreparable harm to significant scientific, cultural, or environmental resource values" should be prohibited.

* The requirement that mining companies post "actual cost" bonds to cover 100% of the costs of restoration should be kept.

* New restrictions for cyanide and other toxic and hazardous substances should be retained to protect water quality. Contact the BLM directly at:

Ms. Nina Hatfield

Director (630)

Bureau of Land Management

Administrative Record

Room 401 LS, 1849 C Street, NW

Washington, DC 20240.

e-mail: WOComment@blm.gov. Please also include "Attn: AD22" and your name and return address in your email message, and send as "text-only."

For more information on this subject, check out the BLM page:

http://www.blm.gov/nhp/Commercial/SolidMineral/3809/

4/13/01
12:01:39 PM

EcoNet News

This Week's Headlines and Alerts from EcoNet

http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/enindex.html

EcoNet Alerts: April 13, 2001

Earth Day Actions! Be there!

Headline in the Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2001: "Bush Energy Plan Increases Reliance on Nuclear Power" Article in the Washington Post, April 10, 2001: renewable energy programs to be cut by 50% under Bush budget plan. What more reason could you need to come to Earth Day at the United Nations, Sunday, April 22? Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/987136533/index_html

Ask Mexican President to Free Rodolfo

As an affiliate of the JustEarth Network, Global Response joins other organizations in circulating this urgent call for faxes in support of Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/987136360/index_html

No Oil Development on Caribbean Coast / Costa Rica

I just returned from Costa Rica, where I met with local and national groups that are organizing the campaign to stop oil development (see Global Response Action #2/01: "No Oil Development on Caribbean Coast/Costa Rica" at http://www.globalresponse.org/gra/current.html). Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/987136270/index_html

Mattole Seige Continues! 4 Arrested

4 Arrested Tuesday Evening 04/08/01 The weekend quiet at the Mattole Free State was shattered last night and again this morning with a large contingent of Humboldt County Sheriffs storming the Mattole Free State. At 6:30am this morning 15 Sheriffs and Fish & Game vehicles loaded with ATVs drove into the area. The blockades were dismantled and burned along with everything the law got a hold of, including plastic tarps, buckets and sleeping bags. One lockdowned activist had to be jackhammered out of her cemented lockbox to take her into custody. 3 other activist were run down in the woods by Sheriffs and cameoed Fish and Game officials. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/987136210/index_html

NRDC Earth Actions 4/11

1.NATIONAL FOREST PROTECTION PLAN: Tell President Bush to keep and defend the rule preserving our last wild national forest lands

2.NATIONAL PARKS PRESERVATION: Tell Gale Norton to preserve Florida's Dry Tortugas National Park

3.CALIFORNIANS: Urge Governor Davis to stand up for California's Carrizo Plain and Coastal Monuments

Bush Drops Campaign Pledge to Finance Rainforest Conservation

04/10/01 OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org President Bush has broken his second campaign promise on the environment by abandoning a pledge to invest $100 million a year in a program for rain forest conservation. The President is pursuing a dangerous program of environmental rollbacks that is tantamount to declaring war on the Environment for the benefit of his corporate oligarchy. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/987134970/index_html

Concerns Rise With GMO 'Genetic Drift' Contamination

Did you know that 60 to 70 percent of all processed foods in America may be made with genetically modified soy, canola or corn? This is an estimate recently reported by the Grocery Manufacturers of America. More than 65 million acres in the USA, and 6.6 million acres in Canada are planted in GMO crops, according to Scientific American. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/987135117/index_html

1.6 Million Comments Not Enough to Save Roadless Plan

1.6 MILLION COMMENTS NOT ADEQUATE: A federal judge has declared that the roadless rule protecting 58 million acres of national forest "were illegally written" because they were "drafted without adequate public comment" says the San Jose Mercury News 4/5. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/987135594/index_html

Groups Say Bush Rejects Agriculture

WASHINGTON--Environmental groups claim the Bush administration is turning its back on agricultural conservation by proposing to eliminate programs that would encourage farmers to protect water supplies, create wildlife habitat on farmland and protect farms from sprawl. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/987135707/index_html

Papua New Guinea Forest Sector Review Highly Critical

04/10/01 OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org It is reported that the long awaited review of the Papua New Guinea (PNG) forest sector has come back with shocking results. Incompetence and illegalities marked the timber allocation process for some 30 timber projects covering millions of hectares of rainforests that were being "fast-tracked" by the PNG Forest Authority. This forest give-away would result in industrial forest destruction for most remaining large rainforest expanses in the World's third largest rainforest wilderness. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/987135850/index_html

Mad-Deer Disease Found in Canada

WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Wildlife officials have confirmed the first case of a mad-cow like disease in a wild deer in western Canada, prompting concerns the brain-wasting illness could wreak the same damage already under way in game farms. Read More...

http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/987136035/index_html

4/13/01
11:49:55 AM

New nuclear minister backs plan to import spent nuclear fuel

MOSCOW - Russia's newly appointed nuclear minister spoke in support of a widely-criticized plan to import spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing that helped cost the job of his predecessor, according to an interview published Friday.

"It will showcase Russia's technological potential and pave the way for new projects," Alexander Rumyantsev, who was appointed nuclear minister late last month, told the daily Izvestia.

He also said a law permitting the imports of nuclear waste is essential for Russia's efforts to exports nuclear fuel. "If we wan t to sell this product to other countries, we must have a law that allows us to take back spent fuel rods."

The plan foresees importing about 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel over 20 years to Russia in special, armored train cars for reprocessing and long-term storage.

Rumyantsev's predecessor, Yevgeny Adamov, strongly advoated the project, saying that Russia stands to earn dlrs 20 billion. He promised to spend dlrs 7 billion of the proceeds to clean up radiation spills i n Russia and upgrade safe ty at existing reactors.

But environmentalists and other critics of the plan warned that it would turn Russia into an international dumping ground for nuclear waste, and accused Adamov of pursuing his own business interests in the deal. Adamov has denied the allegations.

Critics also said that there would be no money left to clean up the environment after funds are spent to build and maintain storage facilities.

Parliament approved the bill in the first of three readings last December, but ab ruptly cancelled the second reading last month amid the controversy. Several days later, President Vladimir Putin fired Adamov as part of his sweeping Cabinet reshuffle.

Rumyantsev said that the financial aspect of the plan needs more work. He also sought to allay critics' concerns that the ministry earnings from the deal could be misspent, saying that special panels would "track down every single dollar" of the proceeds.

Rumyantsev had served as head of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's leading n uclear research center.

www.russiajournal.com

4/13/01
11:49:22 AM

Water damage sparks Yucca worries

By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com>

LAS VEGAS SUN

Areas inside the exploratory tunnel at Yucca Mountain that were sealed off for six months developed so much moisture that electrical test equipment in the rooms shorted out, losing valuable data, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report shows.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear reactor and weapons waste. Water is a concern there because the area's mineral-laden ground water could corrode containers holding the waste, releasing radioactivity into the environment.

If the moisture in the tunnel is found to be ground water, the dump project would be in jeopardy.

Federal scientists believe if the moisture is from condensation, it would be harmless. State scientists note, however, that even condensation, if it contains minerals from Yucca Mountain's rock, could be corrosive.

The Energy Department is expected to recommend the site later this year as the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository.

The three research areas were dug out along the 5-mile-long tunnel, which is near the surface, and equipped with probes to measure water inside the rock. They were sealed last August to prevent the dry outside air from entering, to simulate what the mountain was like before the tunnel was excavated.

By September scientists realized that the equipment's electricity had failed, including the backup battery power. When they reopened the research rooms in January, they found electrical shorts that appeared to be caused by excessive water.

It was one of several studies focused on finding out the path of ground water through the mountain, which is made primarily of layered volcanic ash. If water has invaded the repository level, 1,000 feet below the surface, within the past 10,000 years, the site could be disqualified as a repository.

The water table at Yucca Mountain is 1,000 feet lower than the site.

So far, none of the studies has definitively shown a problem, but none has ruled out dangerous levels of moisture either.

The report on the failed experiment was included in monthly reports of the NRC's on-site scientists, who are overseeing work by the Energy Department.

The DOE is charged with studying and, if it is found safe, building the repository. The NRC would have to license it before it could open.

DOE researchers reported to the NRC scientists that they had been unable to collect 75 percent of the data they sought on water at the three sites because of power outages in the hundreds of probes.

Humidity levels inside the alcoves jumped above 90 percent last summer, DOE scientists said.

The DOE suspected steamy conditions inside the alcoves had disrupted electrical connections to the probes monitoring the mountain. Although batteries backed up conventional power lines, their supply lasted only about two weeks.

The DOE opened the bulkheads in January, dried the air, better insulated the electronics, then resealed areas. The water monitoring project is expected to continue throughout this year, DOE spokeswoman Gayle Fisher said.

Power was restored to the monitors, but conditions inside the mountain have not returned to normal, according to NRC's technical staff. "They have a ways to go yet," Chad Glenn of the NRC's Las Vegas office, said this week.

The amount of moisture inside the mountain already has raised questions from independent scientists serving on the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. At a February meeting in Amargosa Valley, the scientists questioned DOE representatives closely about "soaked" drip cloths hanging inside the alcoves.

The scientific panel urged the DOE to chemically analyze the water found on the cloths to determine if it came from condensation or from moisture flowing through the mountain's rocks.

Scientists working for the state of Nevada, which opposes the repository project, are concerned with the lack of information provided after the DOE's power outages.

Water -- even condensation -- could create a film on the metal surfaces of waste containers and shields, causing chemical reactions, said Susan Zimmerman, technical program administrator for the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects. Heat from the buried waste could enhance the chances for such reactions, and the consequences are anyone's guess, she said.

The DOE has been studying Yucca Mountain since 1983. By the mid-1990s scientists discovered more water than expected in the rock.

Engineers now are suggesting multiple barriers to protect people and the environment from escaping radioactivity.

Those barriers include waste packages still being designed, titanium shields to deflect ground water from dripping on the packages and a filler to seal the mountain in 50, 100 or 150 years.

The additional protection against moisture is expected to increase the cost of the dump, which is currently estimated to be about $60 billion.

4/13/01
11:46:50 AM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

"We Cover the Earth For You"

NEW CLIMATE PROPOSALS AIM TO APPEASE USA

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands, April 12, 2001 (ENS) - The chairman of the United Nations climate negotiations, Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, has offered a new set of compromise proposals on rules for the Kyoto Protocol that are aimed at persuading the United States to rejoin the process.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-12-03.html

TOXICS RELEASE REPORT HIGHLIGHTS PROGRESS, SETBACKS

WASHINGTON, DC, April 12, 2001 (ENS) - New toxic pollution data released Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that ongoing industrial toxic pollution continues to affect American communities nationwide. Environmental and public interest groups say the data also demonstrate the need for better environmental protections.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-12-06.html

KEEP SPACE FREE OF WEAPONS, WARNS UN SECRETARY GENERAL

NEW YORK, New York, April 12, 2001 (ENS) - Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first human flight into space when Russian Yuri Gagarin made a single orbit of the Earth. Today is also the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first United States space shuttle.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-12-02.html

WAR IN THE WOODS OVER FOR TINY HANSON ISLAND

By Neville Judd

HANSON ISLAND, British Columbia, Canada, April 11, 2001 (ENS) - To anyone looking at the areas protected under last week's landmark agreement on the so called Great Bear Rainforest, Hanson Island is but a dot on the map of Canada's west coast.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-12-10.html

CONDEMNATION GREETS RETURN OF JAPANESE WHALERS

TOKYO, Japan, April 12, 2001 (ENS) - In the face of international condemnation, Japanese whalers aboard a factory ship returned home Wednesday with 2,000 tons of whale meat caught in an Antarctic whale sanctuary, 9,700 kilometers (6,000 miles) away.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-12-11.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 12, 2001

New Forest Service Chief Named

Bush Administration Lets Appliance Efficiency Rule Stand

New Jersey Lab Sentenced for Faking Gasoline Tests

Rutgers Physicists Tackle Plutonium Complexities

Synthetic Clay Removes Radium From Water, Soil

Gulf War Veterans Report More Ill Health

Air Force Base Becomes First to Use Biodiesel

Southern California Calls For Conservation

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-12-09.html

4/13/01
11:42:31 AM

The Nation

While stories of Florida's hanging and dimpled chads have covered news pages since Election Day, a new Nation investigation reveals that Florida elections officials-including Secretary of State Katherine Harris-engineered an electoral system that was stacked against black voters from the start and was in place well before the election.

According to the investigation by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Lantigua in the April 30 issue of The Nation, Florida's black community-bitterly at odds with Jeb Bush-mounted a voter registration drive that increased black voter turnout in November by an astounding 65 percent. In what many in the black community saw as a direct response to their efforts, the state took steps that led to the wrongful disenfranchisement of many current voters and failed to make appropriate preparations to accommodate the huge numbers of new black voters that had registered since the last state election.

Read this explosive special report in its entirety at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010430&s=lantigua

You can also find a related web-exclusive by The Nation's Washington Editor, David Corn, "Butterfly Wings," examining the "never-ending recount-a-rama in Florida," available now at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=corn20010430

And check out The Nation/Institute for Policy Studies' special site devoted to electoral reform to see how you can help prevent future fiascoes like Election 2000:

http://www.ips-dc.org/electoral/

Also, look for these new Nation features available currently on a wide-range of subjects:

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The Kiss of Henry

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010430&s=hitchens

KATHA POLLITT: Analyze This

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010430&s=pollitt

WILLIAM GREIDER: Sovereign Corporations

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010430&s=greider

TIM APPELO: Film Review: "The Circle"

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010430&s=appelo

TERRY ALLEN: Science or Politics? -- web exclusive

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=allen20010430

4/13/01
11:35:05 AM

US Congressman Dan Burton Requests Immediate Vaccine Recall

In an October 25, 2000 letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala, Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN), Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, requested a recall of all vaccines containing Thimerosal. The mercury-based product Thimerosal is added to vaccines as a preservative.

On July 18, 2000 the Committee conducted a hearing entitled, “Mercury in Medicine: Are We Taking Unnecessary Risks?” During the hearing, the FDA admitted that children are being exposed to unsafe levels of mercury through vaccines containing Thimerosal. It was also determined that symptoms of mercury poisoning mimic symptoms of autism -- a disease that has reached epidemic levels in the United States. However, the FDA has chosen to allow pharmaceutical companies to merely phase out their use of Thimerosal, leaving mercury-containing vaccines at public and private health facilities.

In his letter to Secretary Shalala, Chairman Burton stated: "We all know and accept that mercury is a neurotoxin, and yet the FDA has failed to recall the 50 vaccines that contain Thimerosal...On their own website, the FDA states, ‘lead, cadmium, and mercury are examples of elements that are toxic when present at relatively low levels’…" “Our children are the future of this country. As a Government we have a responsibility to do everything within our power to protect them from harm, including ensuring that vaccines are safe and effective. Every day that mercury-containing vaccines remain on the market is another day HHS is putting 8,000 children at risk. Given that Thimerosal-free vaccines are available, and the known risk of mercury toxicity, to leave Thimerosal-containing vaccines on the market is unconscionable.” Testimony from the July 18, 2000 hearing is available at

www.house.gov/reform

4/12/01
4:34:16 PM

Venus Resurrects This Easter Sunday

It is a rare event that won't happen for another 1500 years. John Pratt, a Ph.D. in astronomy and expert in ancient calendars says: "Have you noticed Venus, the Evening Star, currently blazing in the west after sunset? From Native American traditions we learn that in this phase it represents the Savior when he was at the heights of his ministry. In March it will plunge into darkness below the horizon even as the Savior conquered the forces of death in the underworld. Then, in an extremely rare event, Venus will resurrect precisely on Easter (April 15, 2001) as the Bright Morning Star. That rare coincidence, which won't happen again for 1500 years, can be witnessed around the world just before dawn on Easter Sunday wherever the eastern horizon is low and clear. This extraordinary sight was also witnessed on that Easter Sunday morning long ago when death was conquered by the Savior of all mankind.

4/12/01
4:26:25 PM

Label of genetically engineered foods

Three-fourths of Americans want to know if their food contains genetically engineered ingredients, according to a poll released yesterday by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents did not want such ingredients in the food supply, period. However, when they were told that the ingredients were already in many food products on grocery store shelves, nearly half of the respondents said the products must therefore be safe. Despite pressure from environmental and consumer groups, the U.S. has said it won't require labeling of genetically engineered foods. Labeling is already required in Japan, South Korea, Australia, and most of Europe.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/550142.asp

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/860106

http://www.gristmagazine.com

4/12/01
4:23:22 PM

"Good News Agency carries positive and constructive news from all over the world relating to voluntary work, the work of the United Nations, non governmental organizations, and institutions engaged in improving the quality of life - news that doesn't "burn out" in the space of a day. Good News Agency is distributed through Internet to over 1,900 editorial offices of the daily newspapers and periodical magazines and of the radio and television stations with an e-mail address in 22 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, and it is also available in its web site:

http://www.goodnewsagency.org

4/12/01
4:21:26 PM

From: http://www.guerrillanews.com/countdown/rn_script.html

RALPH NADER - Presidential Candidate, Green Party 2000

"I hear you say often that you're not turned on to politics. Well let me bring to bear the lessons of history. If you're not turned on to politics, the lesson of history is that politics will turn on you. So, let's start the countdown.

Those who are excessively greedy and excessively powerful must give up their privileges, must give up some of their power. Big business has been colliding with American democracy. And American democracy is losing.

We can have a democratic society, or we can have a concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both. Now imagine what can happen if political campaigns began paying attention to controlling what we own. We'd have our own radio stations, our own television stations, our own cable channels. It is time for a change. The system is not working.

Now look at your late evening news if you can bear it. Look at it. It's 30 minutes. 9 minutes of adds, 3 minutes of street crime right at the beginning, never corporate crime, very superficially covered. 1 minute of impromptu chit chat between the anchors. 4 minutes of weather, 4 minutes of sports. And that's what happened in your town tonight? And we own the public airwaves! It's a disgrace.

It's time to have our own TV stations, radio stations and cable channels. What we own, the public airwaves, has been surrendered to the most myopic and avaricious corporations. It is time for a change the system is not working.

This is a message of hope."

Excerpted from:

1. Ralph Nader's Acceptance Speech Green Party Convention June 25, 2000

2. NAACP Conference Baltimore, Maryland July 11, 2000

Intelligence for Operatives

The Green Party http://www.greenparty.org/

The Nader Page http://www.nader.org/

Campus Greens http://www.campusgreenparties.org/main.html

Grand Royal http://www.grandroyal.com/

Center for Public Integrity http://www.publicintegrity.org

Adbusters http://adbusters.org/home/

Big Noise Films http://www.bignoisefilms.com

Whispered Meida http://www.whisperedmedia.org

Media Activism http://www.americanreview.net/activism.htm

Media Alliance http://www.media-alliance.org/

Media Activist Kit http://www.fair.org/activism/activismkit.html

Facts and Figures http://www.inequality.org/factsfr.html

Culture Jammers Encyclopedia http://www.syntac.net/hoax/index.php

Billionaire's For Bush (or Gore) http://billionairesforbushorgore.com/

The Droplift Project http://www.droplift.org/

rtmark http://www.rtmark.com/

The Hypocrisy Entertainment Network http://www.hypocrisy.org/index.htm

Pickaxe Productions http://www.pickaxe.org/pages/videos.html

4/12/01
4:19:35 PM

From: http://www.trance-formation.com/

"It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free - to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state, or of some private interest within the nation, wants him to think, feel and act.

The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective."

- Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley, 1958

On August 3rd, 1977 the 95th U.S. Congress opened hearings into the reported abuses concerning the CIA's TOP SECRET mind control research program code named MK-Ultra. On February 8th, 1988, a top-level MK-Ultra victim, Cathy O'Brien, was covertly rescued from her mind control enslavement by Intelligence insider Mark Phillips. Their seven year pursuit of Justice was stopped FOR REASONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY. TRANCE Formation of America exposes the truth behind this covert government program and its ultimate goal: psychological control of a nation.

TRANCE Formation of America is the first documented autobiography of a victim of government mind control. Cathy O'Brien is the only vocal and recovered survivor of the Central Intelligence Agency's MK-Ultra Project Monarch operation. Tracing her path from child pornography and recruitment into the program to serving as a top-level intelligence agent and White House sex slave, TRANCE Formation of America is a definitive eye-witness account of government corruption that implicates some of the most prominent figures in U.S. politics.

TRANCE Formation of America was originally written, in graphic detail, for the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Oversight in 1995, seven years after Mark Phillips rescued my daughter Kelly and I from our White House/Pentagon level MK-Ultra mind control victimization. We had previously been stopped from presenting our compiled eyewitness testimonies, supporting medical documents and hard evidence to all local, state, and federal legal bodies for so-called "reasons of National Security". Once it became clear that we would not be able to address the Congressional Committee, TRANCE was released en masse in the form of a self-published book. It is now in its eighth printing, and is rapidly spanning the globe.

Mark and I began utilizing our First Amendment Rights by publicly whistle-blowing about mind control in 1991. In order to compile the evidence and begin a nation-wide mail-out of the information, we were reduced to living with Mark's mother in a tiny two-bedroom house, able to eat only through food stamps and donations. After sending the information to every prominent politician and political organization in Washington and receiving only the form responses, we finally had a breakthrough in 1992. At that time, I was able to address the Tennessee State Legislature after Kelly had been denied her Constitutional and human rights when forced into Tennessee State custody. The judge presiding over her so-called "legal" case, Judge Andrew Shookhoff, said in open court "laws do not apply in this case for reasons of National Security." This statement was the first stage of public validation from the bureaucratic and institutional realms. And it may have been the very act that saved our lives.

It is love for Kelly and determination to obtain classified technological rehabilitation for her and for the countless other victims worldwide who cannot think to speak for themselves, and love for humanity as a whole that motivates Mark and I to bring this reality to light. We are not alone in this effort, as there are individuals from global intelligence and governments who have been actively risking their jobs, retirement, and even lives to ensure that these facts reach people from all walks of society in order to make a necessary positive difference. Mind control is the most important issue facing humanity today as all other issues, causes, and choices are contingent upon free thought. We all formulate our thoughts, opinions, and actions based on what we know, and you Need-to-Know that your knowledge base is being deliberately altered through the suppression of pertinent information. Mind control is the missing piece of the puzzle that brings the global political picture into focus and explains so much of what we are seeing in society today. In a world where many people have fallen out of love with life, it is imperative to restore those human values we hold so dear NOW while we can still think to do so. Upon researching the detailed facts documented in TRANCE and responding to this no-longer-secret problem with action, we all stand to win the psychological war that has been waged on us by a very few. Kelly's and my named abusers' justify their application of mass mind control by invoking an entire spectrum of 'virtues,' from that of population control to a means of achieving world peace. I know from experience that there is no peace in mind control, because without free thought there is no free will and without free will there is no soul expression. As a nation, our future is at stake. It is time to join the ever-increasing number of people worldwide who are raising public awareness by spreading the word on this 21st century technology for psychological control of our planet. Indeed, it is truth that makes u.s. free! Cathy O'Brien From: http://www.guerrillanews.com/countdown/index.html Countdown - For those of you not interested in ringing in Dubya's ill-gotten presidency with the musical stylings of Ricky Martin and 98 Degrees, GNN offers an alternative: a Guerrilla News Video cut to "Countdown," Beastie Boy Ad Rock's remix of Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader's blistering critique of the news media and the current state of American politics. The video features GNN's innovative video-scratching technique, cut with footage from the Battle of Seattle, nightly news broadcasts and Mr. Nader's addresses at the Green Party National Convention and the NAACP.

4/12/01
4:16:08 PM

HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM AN EXCELLENT ACTIVIST-ORIENTED NEWSLETTER

From: "Sand in the Wheels" <newsletter@attac.org> Subject: ATTAC NEWSLETTER 75 - FRANKENSTEIN

To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://attac.org/listen.htm

To download printing Format RTF http://attac.org/attacinfoen/attacnews75.zip Format PDF http://attac.org/attacinfoen/attacnews75.pdf

NEW !!

Quarterly Reports International Trade & WTO - 1 http://attac.org/attacinfoen/commerceen1.pdf

Content

1- WTO Tidbits 2- What will our children inherit? 3- The Frankenstein era 4- WB, IMF self-critiques of conditionality 5- ATTAC in Scandinavia

What will our children inherit?

By Liz Elliott

For most tribal and village people, for most of human history, the cosmos felt to be a place of belonging and security, with significant connections to nature and community . Land was communally owned and cared for. In modern suburban, mobile culture we become cut off from the land and our neighbours, and thus suffer anxiety. To sedate this emptiness, the richest 20% of humans consume 80% of the world's resources, vast amounts of stuff, polluting air and water and destroying soil fertility. Consumerism and the religion of economic growth distract us from the purpose of human life; softening the underlying transfer of interest/debt money, power and resources to the top 1%, blinding us to the great impoverishment of environment, community and Third World enslavement. "Consume more!" urge the corporations, which spend more on advertising than the world spends on education.

However it cannot go on. If we all lived like Americans we would need three planets. And we are heading for 11 billion population in 100 years The maths of environmental destruction to pay debt shows this excessive consumption cannot go on; it is a compounding interest situation where 3% growth a year means 7 times the production in 60 years. The CSIRO estimates we Australians must decrease their resource use by 90% in 100 years! . How will we do this? Since 50% plus of prices=effort=environmental use are to pay interest, i.e. make the richest 5% richer, much resource use could be reduced by bank restructuring. Taxes and waste could be markedly reduced. Economic growth must be reduced by 2% a year, particularly with fossil fuel/greenhouse emissions, and replaced with growth in ecology, community, art/music, family, health and sprituality. Not necessarily a decline in true standard of living! In fact, a great opportunity!!

The current "Economic Growth in GDP" goal is based on false accounting (destroying our natural capital and calling this growth!), commercialising the huge unpaid love economy, on exporting our soil, water and work and beggaring-our-neighbours and on failing to pay the true cost of our consumption rampage. Our children will have to pay. And the cleanup will be much more expensive than the costs "saved" in the short run. We are wasting a precious opportunity to invest in sustainable technology, so that our children can live off the interest (for instance using petrol for solar cells manufacture). Actually, our true standard of living taking into account environmental loss, crime and others stresses, has been dropping since 1975.

The Free market/ economic irrationalist ideology is based on a perversion of Adams Smiths ideas; Smith never envisioned producers not paying their true costs of production, nor of capital being internationally hypermobile. Since profits in the unreal financial economy, derivatives, shares, merger driven profits etc have been 20% plus, investments in the real world of food, transport and housing must perform to the same unsustainable profit return if they are to attract scarce capital. Such high profits are only possible by not paying tax, stressing workers and gouging the Earth.

Elders everywhere tell the same story; their land does not look as lush or healthy as it used to. Gone are the great cod fisheries of eastern Atlantic, the Amazon goes in 25 years, and oil will start running out in 20 years. Humans already use 50% of world fresh water and arable soils. Minerals and petrol we extract will in future be from more marginal, harder to access sources. A quarter of a million acres of forest are lost a day. Trees are nature's water pumps, rain makers and nurseries. At the current rate of soil loss through desertification, salination and erosion, there will be no arable soils within 100 years. Agribusiness mines soils till they are just root holders to pour chemicals into. 12 kilos of soil are lost for every kilo of food produced. Globalized corporations scour the world for the cheapest raw materials, lowest environmental standards and worst working conditions for workers, small business and farmers.

The feedlot dairy industry is a classic agribusiness disaster, cruel to cows, polluting to rivers, wasteful! And capital intensive so farmers are progressively turned into bank serfs. In the US, chicken and hog farmers are dictated to every step by giant vertically integrated feed, fertilizer and storage companies like Cargill. Until there is a price squeeze or climate problem, when the farmers take the risk and their holdings are resumed by the banks, also owned by Cargill, ArcherDanielMidland and Aventis. Everywhere farmers' margins are reduced, whilst supermarkets and transport/fuel corporations make higher percentages. Chemical intensive/ petrol using farming and transporting sends farmers broke! International and continent wide transport of basics is unnecessary and polluting, yet supermarket style food chains are seen as cheaper. "Cheap" at the expense of farmers, environment and climate. Our climate is becoming more unstable due to Big Oil protecting its investment in anachronistic technology. Our seas and waterways are used as a toxic dump; 13 million tons of chemicals go into our environment every day. Chemicals are not recyclable, biomagnify and are totally unknown in their long term effect. 1000 new chemicals a year enter the US market, only 25 tested, never in the long term, on sensitive people or in combination.

Human physical health is threatened by agribusiness style farming; by these chemicals, genetic engineering and proliferation of new diseases. The shallow mineral and essential oil content of speed grown, longhauled supermarket supplied food system predispose to heart disease, cancer and depression, typical western diseases. These are exaggerated by worker stress and loneliness of the marginalized unemployed, old and young. Poorer nations' people suffer from simple infections and stress, due to spending more on debt repayments than Health, Education or Water.

In the Two Thirds World, efficient peasant farmers are threatened by monoculture farming for export. Small scale farms are much more efficient than industrialised farming in terms of energy in/energy out and total yield per acre. Small farmers are undermined by dumping of subsidised foods produced by unsustainable methods, and by excessive regulations favouring agribusiness, genetically engineered seed oligopolies and irrigation/big dams. Colonialism with greater environmental degradation! Once stable selfsufficient communities disintegrate. Rural to city migrations create sweatshops which undermine all workers' conditions and cause illegal emigration and wars. Water and resource disputes precede much "ethnic conflict"; GATS and other WTO treaties specify water as a tradeable commodity, with no local protectionism being possible. GATS calls the environment "a service", to be privately administered.

Unsustainable policies are promoted by Big Business. Big farms get most subsidies and infrastructure benefits. The major parties are bought out and offer no alternative to ecological collapse. Yet, in all this accelerating destruction there is hope!

50% of the world still lives in more traditional systems where democracy and sustainable agriculture are easily possible. With minimal investment in low interest banking, small tools and permaculture type training, many of these communities could be self sufficient again. If not propped up by First World aid, oppressive corrupt regimes could be toppled by third world people and much forest, water and mineral wealth be better managed. 10 million South Indian farmers have pledged to defend their land against genetic engineering. Huge demonstrations in Aisa, South America and India against corporate slave labour conditions rarely get press.

Slowly, our churches are beginning to oppose immoral IMF bank policies, and this last two years our intelligentsia are starting to debate the failure of 30 years of Washington nonsensus policies. Australian farmers are beginning to talk sustainability and group together to protect their local water basins. Many young people, as evidenced by S 11 and Seattle, have moved beyond "light green" awareness, saving forests and beaches, and are becoming "dark green"; looking at banking, money markets and trade policies that drive ecological gouging. The internet has spawned a huge educational counter to shallow commercial media and education. In Europe, the ATTAC group is spreading the word about green taxes; taxing resource use, not labour, and the Tobin tax and Flat tax.

The true nature of pharmaceutical=chemical=fertiizer=petroleum corporations is becoming obvious. Australians, long bought off by privatisation of their assets, ecological rape and third world slave labour cheapies, are waking up. The recent elections shows distrust of the neoliberals' spindoctors and centralized power brokers. The Green vote has not been analysed by the press because its implications are far more unsettling than Hanson's dress sense

Vegetarianism and antigenetic engineering activism is spreading across Europe. 20% yearly growth in organic farming and food demand in Europe is fanned by concerns about disease and chemical toxicity. European farmers are turning their farms and their bank balances around within 3-5 years of going organic!! Farmers' margins improve if less inputs and less transport are needed. Getting off the debt treadmill requires courage, but can be done in stages. BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY in crops and complex permaculture style intercropping is strength in times of climate change and monoculture crop disease.

LOCALISATION; the restoring of local food supplies and small business is underway in many aware areas, restoring jobs, social connection, fresher, more nutritious foods and pride in ethical business. In particular, the longhauling of foods can be reduced, cutting down much pollution and Big Oil stranglehold on politics.

Opposition to the impending G.A.T.S. treaty, privatising all services, looks set to be the biggest struggle of the decade, albeit being introduced by stealth. Slowly, people are seeing that globalization is not inevitable, not sustainable and that big business must be regulated. The rats cannot continue to run the ship. Globalisation is opposed to nature, culture and our children's future.

Dr Liz Elliott, catcher@norex.com.au

Talk given to the Inverell Forum, NSW, Australia, in March, 2001

4/12/01
4:12:56 PM

The Amazing Cures of a Brazilian Miracle Man

A gifted spirit medium, João de Deus incorporates spirit entities who perform physical surgery and psychic healing through him with miraculous results.

http://www.nexusmagazine.com//miracle.man.html

See also "Guide to the Casa de Dom Inácio" at

http://www.thestandingstones.com/library/factual/casa/casaindex.html

Joao Teixeira da Faria , commonly referred to as "John of God" (Joao de Deus), is arguably the most powerful unconscious medium alive today and is possibly the best-known healer of the past 2000 years. It is estimated that he has treated, either directly or indirectly, in the order of 15 million people during the past 40 years.

4/12/01
4:02:30 PM

http://www.lighteye.freeserve.co.uk/part1.htm

4/12/01
3:33:23 PM

Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

1. WHERE'S THE BEEF REPORT? The chemical, beef, and poultry industries are lobbying the U.S. EPA to stall even longer before releasing a final report showing that animal fat and dairy products containing tiny amounts of dioxin can cause cancer in humans. The agency circulated a draft report early last summer that concluded for the first time that at least one form of dioxin is a "human carcinogen," while other dioxins are "likely" carcinogens. Agency scientists remain confident of their findings and have asked EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman to release the final report this summer. But industry groups and GOPers in Congress are so opposed to the findings that the report, already more than a decade in the making, may be delayed for several more years. Meanwhile, Carol Browner, who ran the EPA under former President Clinton, took a jab at the Bush administration yesterday, saying that "the breadth and speed of some of their anti-environmental actions has been stunning."

straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 12 Apr 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7743-2001Apr11.html>

straight to the source: Philadelphia Inquirer, Frank Davies, 12 Apr 2001 <http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/04/12/national/ENVIR12.htm>

do good: Take action and tell the U.S. to support a treaty banning dioxin <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/toxic.stm#dioxin>

2. VICTOR, YOU GO! The administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox sent a tax reform bill to the Mexican Congress last week that contains strong environmental protection and cleanup provisions. Environment Minister Victor Lichtinger said that under the bill, ranching and mining interests would have to start paying for the water they use, giving them an incentive to conserve, and the worst-polluting cars would be taxed so that they became the most expensive cars on the market. Lichtinger said the new administration would rigorously enforce current environmental laws, pointing out that it had already begun to clamp down on water-pollution violations by Pemex, the state-owned oil monopoly.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Fiona Ortiz, 12 Apr 2001 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10497>

3. NATURE NURTURES Contact with nature may have therapeutic effects, says a professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Emory University. Writing this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Howard Frumkin says that interactions with natural landscapes, plants, and animals can have a "soothing, restorative, and even healing" effect. He says natural places may even cause some diseases to "run their course faster." Harvard scientist E.O. Wilson writes an accompanying piece in the journal, praising Frumkin for showing "why it is wiser ... to save the last stand of old-growth forests in the permanent service of preventive medicine than to cut them down for the short-term purchase of more pharmaceuticals."

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Francesca Lyman, 11 Apr 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/556098.asp>

4. IT'S A HARD-ROCKS LIFE FOR US The amount of toxic chemicals emitted by industry in the U.S. grew by 5 percent in 1999, the U.S. EPA said yesterday in its annual Toxics Release Inventory. Two-thirds of the 7.7 billion pounds of chemicals came from hard-rock mining companies and electric power-plant operators. Four mining states -- Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Alaska -- headed the list, as they did in 1998, the first year releases from the mining industry were considered. Environmentalists said the data show the danger of rolling back environmental protections. In particular, they criticized President Bush's decisions to rescind new regulations that would have reduced the amount of arsenic in drinking water and pollution from hard-rock mining operations -- two moves that favor the mining industry.

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, John Heilprin, 12 Apr 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/04/ 12/national0327EDT0454.DTL>

do good: Take action and write to the polluters in your neighborhood <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/toxic.stm#scorecard>

5. SH*TTY GROUP? Students gathered in about 80 cities around the world yesterday to protest Citigroup's role in funding environmentally destructive projects. At the company's headquarters in New York City, demonstrators tossed the company's signature red umbrellas and a replica of Earth into a coffin. They were objecting to projects like China's Three Gorges Dam, an oil pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, and expansion of palm plantations in Indonesia -- all of which they say have received Citigroup support. Rainforest Action Network, which organized the protests, used the occasion to launch an international boycott of Citigroup credit cards. A Citigroup spokesperson said that the company did not fund the Three Gorges Dam and that RAN was spreading false information.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, 12 Apr 2001 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10484>

do good: Take action and yell at Citigroup <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/politics.stm#citigroup>

6. SMOKY MOUNTAINS Concerned that North Carolina's mountains are being choked by pollution from coal-fired power plants, all 50 members in the state's Senate have asked President Bush to clean up the smokestacks of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The senators (35 Democrats, 15 Republicans) cited the work of a scientist at North Carolina State University, which found that about 80 percent of the air pollution hovering around the Great Smokies and other mountains in the western portion of the state originates outside of North Carolina, mostly from TVA plants. The average visibility in western North Carolina has dropped from 65 miles in 1980 to 15 miles today.

do good: Take action to save the Great Smoky Mountains from choking on smoke <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/air.stm#smokies>

Therapy for the silent -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha040901.stm>

Greener Meadows -- Grist readers remember Donella Meadows -- in our letters section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/letters/letters032801.stm>

California condos back from the brink? -- species to be bred in captivity and released back to the wild -- satire in our Main Dish section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/knight040101.stm>

4/12/01
2:36:41 PM

The Nation

THE SOCIALIST SCHOLARS CONFERENCE

April 13 - 15, New York City

Now in its 19th year, the S.S. Conf has become the longest-standing and largest annual gathering of the U.S. left. Two days of more than sixty panels will feature leading activists and thinkers debating a wide-range of charged political and cultural issues. The Conference will take place this weekend at Cooper Union in downtown Manhattan. Speakers include Naomi Klein, Eric Schlosser, Ellen Willis, Cornel West, Boris Kagarlitsky, Robert McChesney, Paul Buhle, Barbara Ehrenreich and Manning Marable, among many others. There will also be a special session in honor of The Nation's late Europe Correspondent Daniel Singer at 10:00 AM on Saturday, April 14, featuring Victor Navasky, Frances Fox Piven and Harry Magdoff. For ticket information and directions, please call 212-817-7868 or go to

http://www.socialistscholar.org

LABOR NOTES CONFERENCE

April 20-22, Detroit

No one knows how deep or long the current recession will be, but it raises the same questions for union members as the last slump did: Do concessions save jobs? Are strikes hopeless? The upcoming Labor Notes Conference in Detroit will be the first opportunity for large numbers of union activists to discuss the new context: a deteriorating economy and a colder political climate.

Labor Notes, a 22-year-old monthly, was one of the first labor organizations to take on concessions, with a conference in the early 1980s and a book, "Concessions and How to Beat Them" soon thereafter. This year's conference will look at ways to avoid the mistakes of those years and ally with the movement for global justice. Speakers include Ken Riley of the Charleston 5 dockworkers, framed on felony riot charges for picketing scab labor; Sandy Ellis, a leader of a nurses' strike against mandatory overtime; Meredith Schaffer, leader of the successful organizing drive at Powell's Books; and speakers from Brazil, Bolivia, Sri Lanka and Colombia. For ticket information and directions, please call 313-842-6262 or go to

http://www.labornotes.org

4/12/01
2:33:03 PM

FAIR

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Media analysis, critiques and news reports

ACTION ALERT: USA Today Conceals Key Information in Recount Story

On April 4, USA Today announced the results of its long-anticipated re-examination of Florida ballots (done in conjunction with the Miami Herald) with the headline: "Newspapers' Recount Shows Bush Prevailed in Fla. Vote."

The headline touting a Bush win referred to the paper's estimate of what would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court had not blocked the hand recount of 60 Florida counties that had been ordered by the state Supreme Court. The paper found that Bush likely would have won such a recount.

But USA Today's investigation also found something else-- something it chose not to tell its readers: The official hand counts in the remaining seven Florida counties, completed before the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, had missed hundreds, even thousands of potential Gore votes. If those votes had been properly counted, under two of the four counting standards used by the paper to determine valid votes, Gore would have won the entire state by 300 to 400 votes.

The paper examined ballots from all 67 counties in Florida, but it only *reported* the results from 60 counties where hand counts were unfinished (except on the paper's website, USAToday.com). The paper's decision to exclude its findings in seven counties was based on its strategy of trying to answer only one narrow question: What would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stepped in and stopped the manual recounts in Florida?

The paper therefore included only the *official* results from the seven counties, even though its own investigation found that the official results had potentially missed enough Gore votes to change the outcome of the election. None of this was revealed to USA Today's readers. The April 4 article explained that the "official counts were final and would not have changed if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount."

In making this decision, USA Today failed to report some of the most newsworthy aspects of its own ballot review. The Miami Herald, which worked with USA Today on the study, also played down the fact that the re-examination showed that Gore got more votes than Bush under two of the four standards (4/4/01). But the Florida paper at least provided its readers some valuable information about the limitations of the official recounts from the seven counties.

The Herald explained in an April 5 follow-up story that canvassing boards in Broward and Palm Beach counties "could have credited hundreds more ballots to the Democrat if they had counted every dimple, pinprick and hanging chad as a vote, a review of ballots in both counties shows. In Broward, where the official hand recount added 567 votes to Gore's county lead over Bush, a Herald-sponsored ballot review found that Gore's margin could have been 1,475, if every mark had been counted as a valid vote. In Palm Beach, where the official hand recount added a net gain of 174 votes to Gore's tally, the Herald-sponsored review found a potential Gore net gain of 1,081."

The Herald also reported on April 4 that the standards used in the original manual recount were not applied consistently: "The review found that canvassing boards in those counties discarded hundreds of ballots that bore marks no different from those on scores of ballots that were accepted as valid presidential votes. Had those ballots instead been counted as valid votes, allowing dimples, pinpricks and hanging chads, Gore would be in the White House today."

USA Today's investigation does indeed provide evidence that if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the statewide manual recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, George W. Bush might well still have been declared the winner of the Florida election, and could still have become president. This is a newsworthy finding, and it deserved to be reported.

But the larger question of the Florida election is who actually received more votes. The statewide totals USA Today chose not to report do much more to answer that question than the paper's more limited look at the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

USA Today justified not reporting its statewide results by saying that it "did not want to substitute its judgment for that of election officials." If that's the case, why recount the votes at all? After all, it was "election officials," including Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court majority, who decided that most ballots that needed to be manually recounted should be ignored. If, on the other hand, election officials are not infallible, then a news outlet should present as much information as it has about what actually went on during the election.

While the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court decision is an important question, the question of who actually got more votes in Florida is even more important. By not reporting vital information, USA Today has violated journalistic principles and further confused the public about a subject that surely needed no more confusion.

ACTION: Please contact USA Today and let them know that concealing the full statewide results of its investigation of undervotes was a disservice to readers.

CONTACT:

Hal Ritter, Managing News Editor USA Today

mailto:hritter@usatoday.com

Phone: (703) 907-7121 Fax: (703) 247-3100

As always, please remember that your comments will be more effective if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.

Unfortunately, we are unable to link to the online version of USA Today's recount report because the paper's website

http://www.usatoday.com

requires readers to pay to view archived stories. You can read the Miami Herald's recount report online at:

http://www.miami.com/herald/special/news/flacount/index.htm

4/12/01
2:03:48 PM

Public Citizen

Pharmaceutical Industry Remains Most Profitable in the Country

New Fortune 500 Report Confirms "Druggernaut" Tops Other Industries in Profitability Last Year

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The pharmaceutical industry's status as the most profitable industry in 2000 makes its opposition to Medicare prescription drug coverage unconscionable, Public Citizen said today.

The drug industry this week was named "more profitable than any other" by Fortune in its new Fortune 500 analysis of America's most successful companies and industries in 2000. The industry was also rated the most profitable industry last year and has been consistently ranked number one or two by Fortune over the past few decades.

The Fortune report shows that the 11 drug companies in the Fortune 500 enjoyed rates of profitability (measured in return on revenue) that were three to four times greater than the median for all industries in the Fortune 500. Pfizer, the second-largest drug company, has seen the value of its stock increase a stunning 1,454 percent over the last decade.

Public Citizen conducted additional analysis of the 11 drug companies' annual financial reports. The analysis available at

http://www.citizen.org/congress/drugs/factshts/mostprofitable.htm

shows that profits - not research and development of new medicines - were the top priority for drug companies. Public Citizen found that Fortune 500 drug companies plowed 30 percent of their revenues into marketing and administration, while committing just 12 percent of revenues to research and development. Seventeen percent of the revenues represented profit.

"Given the druggernaut's extraordinary profits, it's laughable that the industry - and the congressional leadership in Washington, D.C. - have fiercely opposed prescription drug coverage under the Medicare program for fear it would lead to price discounts," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

The drug industry has spent tens of millions of dollars in recent years to lobby against a Medicare prescription drug benefit because it might lead to price discounts as the federal government becomes a bulk buyer for millions of American seniors.

"The drug industry's insistence on price-gouging appears all the more greedy when you consider that the industry's profitability is largely based on federal government assistance in the form of monopoly patents, taxpayer-funded research and huge tax breaks," Clemente said.

Public Citizen's analysis also found that:

§ The largest American drug company, Merck, had profits of $6.8 billion in 2000, which was more than the profits of all the Fortune 500 companies in the airline, entertainment, food production, metals and hotel/casino/resorts industries combined.

§ Fortune 500 drug companies saw the value of their stock increase by 38 percent last year, as investors turned to these steady profit-generators during the stock market turbulence in 2000. Drug stocks have tended to be impervious to market gyrations and perform well during economic downturns.

§ The drug industry's success in Fortune 500 profitability rankings has become a rite of spring. In the 1970s and 1980s, Fortune 500 drug companies enjoyed rates of return on revenue that were two times greater than the median for all industries in the Fortune 500. In the 1990s, the drug industry's rates of return on revenue were almost four times greater than the median for all industries in the Fortune 500.

Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

For more information, please visit www.citizen.org

4/12/01
1:55:21 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

"We Cover the Earth For You"

EU WORLD TRIP CONFIRMS U.S. ISOLATION ON KYOTO

BRUSSELS, Belgium, April 11, 2001 (ENS) - A world trip undertaken by a European Union delegation following America's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol has resulted in five key countries pledging firm support for the climate change negotiation process, according to team leader Kjell Larsson.

Larsson, who is Sweden's environment minister, joined Belgian Energy secretary Olivier Deleuze and Jos Delbeke from the European Commission, in a round of climate change talks with Canada, Russia, Iran, China and Japan.

The opinions of these countries were sought as a gauge of developed and developing countries' opinions following the United States' withdrawal from climate change talks in late March.

President George W. Bush left Christie Todd Whitman, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to announce March 28 that the U.S. had "no interest in implementing that treaty," referring to the Kyoto Protocol.

A week later, Larsson and other European Union officials visited Washington, DC, but received little encouragement that Bush would change his mind. Whitman told the delegation that the U.S. believed the Kyoto Protocol to be unfair to the U.S. and to other industrialized nations.

This was because the protocol exempts 80 percent of the world from compliance, she said, which could damage the U.S. economy.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, 39 industrialized nations including the U.S., committed to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions to an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. The Protocol will not take effect until it is ratified by 55 percent of the nations emitting at least 55 percent of the six greenhouse gases.

The European Union believes that since developed nations are the world's biggest polluters they should take the lead in cutting emissions before expecting developing nations to do the same.

"Reducing greenhouse gases is really a credibility issue for the developed countries," said Delbeke today. "The EU believes that it is not realistic to ask the developing countries to reduce or limit their emissions if we cannot show that we, as the biggest emitters, have done something ourselves."

Since the U.S. emits roughly one quarter of all greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, its ratification of the protocol had been considered essential. But even without the participation, it is numerically possible to get ratification by countries emitting 55 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.

After their whistlestop tour, the European Union delegation appears more certain that the protocol can be ratified with or without the U.S.

"It must be in all our interest that the years of work and the efforts that have been put into the Kyoto Protocol are not abandoned," said Larsson. "We will lose a lot of time if we start from scratch."

Larsson said all countries visited expressed serious concerns about the recent scientific evidence of climate change, reported in the Third Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They were also concerned about the new U.S. position on the Kyoto Protocol.

In January, the IPCC projected a "potentially devastating" global warming of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.52 to 10.44 degrees Fahrenheit) over the coming century - higher temperatures than an assessment by the same panel five years ago.

Iran is the chairman of the G77 group of the developing countries, and Japan is a member of the so called Umbrella Group of non-European Union industrialized countries, which also takes in the U.S. and Canada.

According to Larsson, the countries confirmed the importance of resumed climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany in July, so the Kyoto Protocol can be ratified by 2002.

"Having heard the overwhelming support for the Kyoto process in those countries - Canada, Russia, Iran, China and Japan - the EU sees a chance for initiating a new momentum on the basis of the new proposals by Jan Pronk at the New York meeting in April," said a European Union statement.

Dutch environment minister Jan Pronk, who chairs the international negotiations to finalize the protocol, has unveiled new Kyoto Protocol compromise proposals, which will be discussed in New York on April 21.

These will offer a "greater chance of being adopted" than proposals made in The Hague last year," said Pronk last week.

Talks in The Hague, Netherlands last November were supposed to finalize agreement on how Kyoto's targets could be met. Those talks, officially known as the sixth Conference of Parties (COP 6) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), finished without agreement.

Officials from more than 160 governments will meet in Bonn, Germany, from July 16 to 27, to reconvene COP 6. While Whitman said the U.S. will remain "engaged" on the climate change issue, the presence at COP 6 of the world's largest producer of man made greenhouse gases remains in doubt.

Larsson said that only Japan had received "somewhat more encouraging signals" of the likelihood of the U.S. returning to the Kyoto process.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-11.html

ENERGY PRODUCTION, SPRAWL THREATEN AMERICA'S RIVERS

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, April 11, 2001 (ENS) - Energy production is slowly strangling some of nation's most beloved rivers and the species that rely on them, a new report charges. The 16th annual "America's Most Endangered Rivers" report from American Rivers finds that almost half of the 13 rivers cited have been damaged by impacts of hydropower dams, fossil fuel drilling and pollution from fuel burning.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-06.html

GET OFF THE PLATFORM AND ONTO RAIL, CANADA TOLD

VANCOUVER, Canada, April 11, 2001 (ENS) - Trains generate one fifth the greenhouse gas emissions of trucking, one quarter the emissions of urban autos, and one third the emissions of inter city autos or airplanes in densely populated corridors.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-12.html

PORTUGAL TO BURN INDUSTRIAL WASTE IN NATURE RESERVE

LISBON, Portugal, April 11, 2001 (ENS) - The Portuguese environment ministry yesterday formally approved plans for two cement kilns to burn industrial waste as fuel following four years of scientific investigation and public debate.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-01.html

EAST AFRICA REELS UNDER WORST DROUGHT IN MEMORY

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 11, 2001 (ENS) - The worst drought in East Africa in living memory has created a desperate situation for millions of people, particularly in Kenya. Aid agencies are warning that food shortages in the country are critical, and emergency supplies could run out next month.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-03.html

GREENPEACE ARGENTINA MADE IT RAIN ON U.S. EMBASSY

By Alejandra Herranz

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, April 11, 2001.- Activists from Greenpeace Argentina staged a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires Tuesday to protest U.S. President George W. Bush's withdrawal of support for the Kyoto climate protocol.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-02.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 11, 2001

Bush Seeks to End Wildlife Protection Lawsuits

Conservation Groups to Sue Over California Species

Working Group to Propose Endangered Species Act Reforms

Yates Petroleum Sues BLM Over Colorado Leases

Knowles Urges Stay of Order Suspending Tongass Logging

Ohio Conserves Woodland Watershed

Spring Cleaning Is For the Birds

Easter No Holiday for Throwaway Pets

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-09.html

4/12/01
1:50:36 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Doing environmental research? Search our news archives at: http://www.planetark.org/searchhome.cfm

US chemical pollution up 5 pct in latest year - EPA - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10503