Earths.net

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

"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:

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.projectcensored.org

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

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/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-12-03.html

"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:

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.socialistscholar.org

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

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

"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:

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

EPA seeks to dismiss utility lawsuit over mercury - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10496

Student protestors target Citigroup in 12 countries - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10484

US companies eye new nuclear plants after over 25 years - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10489

Schwab stops trading UK animal test lab shares - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10498

New method to predict plutonium stability - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10505

Gulf War vets have more health problems than colleagues - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10502

FEATURE - Fuel cells promise clean power for cars, tomorrow - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10488

UPDATE - Spain's Balearics approve tourist eco-tax - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10491

UPDATE - UN climate talks chief offers new global warming plan - NETHERLANDS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10485

INTERVIEW - Mexico environment minister promises swift changes - MEXICO http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10497

"Go Veg", animal activists tell starving Kenyans - KENYA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10500

UPDATE - Japanese whalers bring home haul amid protests - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10494

UPDATE - Italy police seize more Monsanto seed in raid - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10499

UPDATE - Italy govt Vatican Radio radiation row subsides - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10504

WWF - India seeks law to stop whale shark trade - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10486

German power industry gets extension for CHP deal - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10493

Chirac tells Powell of French concern over Kyoto - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10501

UPDATE - All calm as German nuke train reaches French plant - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10492

US envoy says spat with EU over climate is a plus - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10495

No chance of Czech nuclear plant meltdown - report - CZECH REPUBLIC http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10490

Web site to let Canadians check local air quality - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10487

4/11/01
5:04:36 PM

Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE

http://www.OceanFutures.com

1. TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY The Missouri River is the country's most endangered waterway, says American Rivers, which yesterday released its annual list of rivers in trouble. The group says that several species face extinction along the Missouri because of six dams run by feds to control the river for the benefit of a small amount of barge traffic. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will take public comments on a new operation plan for the river this summer. In all, American Rivers this year listed 13 endangered rivers, including the Canning River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Eel River in California, and the Hudson River in New York. The group said that nearly half of the rivers on the list were threatened by the impacts of energy production (yep, a clever news hook these days).

straight to the source: Kansas City Star, Michael Mansur, 10 Apr 2001 <http://www.kcstar.com:80/item/pages/printer.pat,local/3acc95c6.410,.html>

straight to the report: America's Most Endangered Rivers report, American Rivers <http://americanrivers.org/mostendangered/2001report.htm>

2. WHOA, CANADA Canada's environmental record ranks second-worst in the world compared to 28 other industrialized nations, according to a study by a professor at the University of Victoria. Sweden came out No. 1, while the U.S. brought up the rear in the study, which ranked per-capita measurements of greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy consumption, logging, and generation of nuclear waste, among other factors. The researcher, David Boyd, said the study revealed that "Canadians talk the talk of environmental protection, but we don't walk the walk." But some conservative critics say the study's per-capita methodology was misleading and weighted the results against heavily industrialized countries like Canada with small population bases.

do good: Take action to help Canadian critters <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/species.stm#Canada>

do good: Take action for clean energy in Canada <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.stm#canada>

3. MARKEY MARK AND THE BUSHIE BUNCH President Bush is asking Congress to effectively suspend a part of the Endangered Species Act that lets citizens sue the government if they think the feds are not moving quickly enough to add species to the protected list. In the past, environmentalists have used the right to sue to win protections for dozens of species in trouble. Yesterday, they described the move by Bush -- contained in his budget proposal -- as "an invitation to extinction." Under Bush's plan, citizens could still sue, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could not spend any money enforcing the results of the suits, essentially making them meaningless. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said, "If American citizens can't sue to assure the federal government protects endangered species and their critical habitats, who will? The animals?"

straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jennifer A. Dlouhy, 11 Apr 2001 <http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/18132_budget11.shtml>

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Glen Martin, 11 Apr 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/200 1/04/11/MN235748.DTL>

catch it only in Grist Magazine: Extinction is forever -- music video by Zed, last of his species <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/zed/zed-fun.stm>

4. EMISSIONARY POSITION The U.S. EPA on Monday asked the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the agency's decision in December to order power plants to reduce their mercury emissions. Some environmentalists, eager for good news, rushed to cheer the move, saying it indicated that the Bush administration was going to move forward with a national standard for mercury emissions. But an EPA spokesperson said yesterday that the court request was merely a procedural move and did not represent "a definitive decision on mercury." Indeed, the EPA motion filed with the court doesn't defend the Clinton-era decision on mercury, but says instead that power-plant operators were premature to file suit because a mercury standard has not yet been formalized.

straight to the source: Washington Post, Associated Press, 11 Apr 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1500-2001Apr10.html>

straight to the source: USA Today, Traci Watson, 11 Apr 2001 <http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010411/3223457s.htm>

5. WEEPING AND A-WHALIN' Drawing the ire of environmentalists, Japanese whaling ships returned to harbor this morning with a catch of 440 minke whales after five months at sea. The catch was within the limit for minkes set by the International Whaling Commission. Japan says that research is the main reason for the harpooning, but greenies dispute that. Greenpeace says the catch will earn $33 million on the wholesale market and the whale meat will end up in pricey Tokyo restaurants. Last year, Japan provoked international outcry by expanding its whale hunt to include Bryde's and sperm whales, in addition to minkes. A Japanese official said the country will try to convince the IWC this summer to increase the amount of permissible whaling.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Midoriko Morita, 11 Apr 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010411/tCB00a1774.html>

do good: Take action to end Japanese whaling <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/oceans.stm#whaling>

6. WAY COOL The second-largest air-conditioner manufacturer in the U.S., Goodman Manufacturing, is asking the Bush administration not to roll back a rule approved by former President Clinton requiring new air conditioners to be 30 percent more efficient than the current minimum standard. The industry trade association, the (beautifully named) Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, wants the administration to cut the efficiency increase to 20 percent. But Ben Campbell, executive vice president of Goodman (which owns Amana, among other brands), says the 30 percent increase would be "a very cost-effective way to reduce harmful air emissions and energy requirements, which as we know from California and other places is a critical issue now." Twenty-four House Democrats have also asked the administration to stand by the new standard, but an Energy Department staffer said officials were looking at ways to rescind it.

straight to the source: New York Times, Matthew L. Wald, 11 Apr 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/11/politics/11STAN.html>

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

Dear Christie ... 10 Reasons to stay the course -- in a confidential memo, President Bush tells EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman what's on his mind -- satire in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho040901.stm>

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

Cabbage patch kid -- one man taxes his way to a healthy relationship with the earth -- in our Out on Limb column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb101900.stm>

4/11/01
5:00:04 PM

Bush Proposal Imperils Part Of Species Act / Citizens could sue, but U.S. would not pay for enforcement

Glen Martin, SF Chronicle Environment Writer

The Bush administration wants to undermine a key provision of the Endangered Species Act that allows citizens to sue the federal government to hasten the protection of imperiled species.

The provision has been a favorite tool of environmental groups, which have been using it with increasing regularity to prod the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list endangered species under the 1973 act and designate habitat essential for their survival. Changes sought by the Bush administration, contained in the proposed budget for the Department of Interior, would eliminate all federal funding to enforce court orders stemming from citizen suits. Citizens could still sue, but their suits would be ineffective. Conservatives hailed the move, saying it would correct the act's excessive elements.

"This provision does not prevent anyone from suing over critical habitat designations or endangered species," said Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, who chairs the Western Caucus, a group of conservative western lawmakers who often oppose environmental regulations. "What it does do is prevent the extreme environmentalists from suing the Fish and Wildlife Service into a box and bleeding its resources dry." If the change is approved by Congress, money could be spent on Endangered Species Act enforcement in only two ways: complying with court orders and lawsuits already in effect, or listing species designated by the secretary of the interior, who will draft a new set of criteria. Interior Secretary Gail Norton is not known as an enthusiastic supporter of the Endangered Species Act. Opponents of the act consider it intrusive and an encumbrance on private property rights, since the presence of endangered species on a property can affect development, agriculture, mining and logging. More than 1,200 species are listed as endangered or threatened under the act, and there is a backlog of 250 candidate species, all of which must be reviewed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. As of March 1, the service was involved in 75 lawsuits covering more than 400 species. It also has received 86 notices of intent to sue involving another 640 species. For the past several years, the agency has claimed it is constrained from pursing its mandate of protecting wildlife resources because of the financial burden imposed by the suits.

But Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, openly scorned the Bush administration proposal. "They're crazy," he said of administration officials. "These guys are looking after their powerful clients, not Mr. and Mrs. America. By clients I mean the oil, mining and timber industries and agricultural water users." Miller, who will sponsor a reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act in Congress later this spring, said the act as it currently stands has some problems. "For example, the act has been used a proxy for stopping growth, and that's not what it's about," he said. "It's about protecting endangered species, and it should specifically address that." Still, said Miller, "I don't think they can get rid of citizen suits. They don't have the votes for it. There's always the danger that this could show up as a rider on an appropriations bill, but I don't know if the courts would uphold it."

Michael Sherwood, a staff attorney for Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund in San Francisco, said the administration is trying "to blame the courts and the environmentalists, when it is not a problem created by either." The courts, said Sherwood, have been simply telling the Fish and Wildlife Service to obey the law as stipulated by the Endangered Species Act. "Fish and Wildlife has avoided listing species and designating critical habitat for a long time, and now their violations are catching up with them," he said. "What Fish and Wildlife should be doing is going to Congress and asking for the money they need to obey the law." But administration officials and their allies say the act inhibits both private enterprise and the recovery of endangered species.

"The citizen groups oftentimes abuse the system," said Charli Coon, a former counsel on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and now an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "These citizen suits are a back-door way of regulation because they can get the court to make the decision rather than the agency."

Brent Plater, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, an organization that has forced Fish and Wildlife through the courts to list several species and designate more than 33 million acres as critical habitat, said the move by the administration could cause lasting damage even if it is ultimately unsuccessful.

"The tragedy here is that because these species are so close to extinction, these kinds of delays take up critical amounts of time," he said. "Every day we delay increases the possibility of extinctions. That's part of their strategy -- if something goes extinct, it is no longer an administrative burden."

How Plan Would Affect Endangered Species Act

-- What would the provision do? It specifies two ways money could be spent enforcing section 4 of the Endangered Species Act: Complying with court orders and lawsuits already in effect and listing species that Interior Secretary Gail Norton designates, using a new set of priorities she would develop.

-- What would change? Although citizens still could sue, the Fish and Wildlife Service could not spend any money enforcing the results of the suit, effectively making them meaningless.

-- How many species are listed as endangered? More than 1,200 species are designated as endangered or threatened. A backlog of nearly 250 candidate species are awaiting review by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

-- How many suits are pending? As of March 1, the Fish and Wildlife Service was engaged in 75 active lawsuits covering more than 400 species, and it has received 86 more notices of intent to sue regarding another 640 species, according to the Interior Department.

Chronicle news services contributed to this report. / E-mail Glen Martin at glenmartin@sfchronicle.com.

4/11/01
4:54:49 PM

Navy Sonar Killing Whales and Dolphins

This is an urgent appeal for help. Please pass it along to anyone who may be able to assist us by taking action to STOP LFAS Worldwide! And remember, the clock is ticking. We only have until May 18th!

The U.S. Navy is preparing to deploy a low frequency active sonar system that seriously threatens the marine environment, including endangered whales and other species.

As human beings we take the ability to navigate from visual cues for granted. For marine life living in the deep oceans, light's equivalent is sound. In the ocean waters, where the surroundings are dark and silent - marine life will listen and by this means interpret an environment. A setting. A distance. Another species. A possible mate. An ominous shoreline. A calf calling out to it's mother. These magnificent interpreters of sound are able to detect minute objects at significant distances. The approach of an enemy is detected. Or the distant singing of a remote acquaintance is perceived.

This world of navigated sounds is vanishing. And as a result, marine life is dying. We are witnesses to the acoustic dirge. And we can hear it daily, if we are willing to listen. But there isn't much time to simply listen. We must act now! We have, roughly, four weeks. And then a decision will be made about whether to allow deployment of the Navy's proposed SURTASS LFA Sonar.

Acoustic pollution has been escalating through the advancement of technology with a casual disregard to the needs of these aquatic beings. Engine noises contribute to this noisy clatter in the oceans. And that is a part of the problem. Big cities create a rumble, which is disruptive to the ocean environment. All factors combine. But now, there is an immensely powerful military device, which could shatter and destroy the remaining silence.

A new, devastating, highly controversial and intensely powerful technology signals the escalation of acoustic weaponry and acoustic markets in this underwater towed array with 18 speakers. Large corporations stand to profit immensely as nations co-invest in the an underwater Star Wars technology which blasts acoustic scatter beams in all directions until they echo back to a convergence point. Pressure waves form. Invasive sound patterns disrupt breathing and normal singing between whales and dolphins. And hundreds of miles from the source, the decibel level is sustained at potentially harmful volumes.

The rationale in the mind of the US Navy is that we need defenses. The Navy says it seeks to protect "American Interests." Those interests are defined in accordance to the perceived threat of silent submarines.

Let the Navy know that "American Interests" do not justify the indiscriminate killing of massive numbers of seals, dolphins, sea lions, whales, and walruses and the devastation of the eco-marine environment out of a "cold-war" mentality of exaggerated fear. Other intense sonar technologies have resulted in dire numbers of stranded whales in at least seven massive stranding incidents in recent years. The Navy says this new technology won't kill. And yet, this technology is SURTASS LFA Sonar - and it is the most widely renown and widely opposed of all the invasive acoustic technologies in the history of the planet. And your appointed officials at National Marine Fisheries Service may soon issue a letter of authorization which will allow this acoustic pollution to be introduced to 80% of the world's oceans. If the US approval goes through, it's expected that other countries will follow.

There are three hearings scheduled in the next three weeks and after that, NMFS will continue to receive comments until May 18th, 20001. And then the comment period will end and the decision will be made. So now is an important moment.

The hearings on LFAS in Los Angeles on April 26, Honolulu on April 28, and Silver Springs MD on May 3. Please see <A HREF="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bay_area_activist/message/9068"> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bay_area_activist/message/9068</A> for details.

Unfortunately, the US agency in charge for the LFAS hearing will NOT accept comments submitted by email or the Internet. Comments can be faxed to 301-713-0376.

4/11/01
4:48:22 PM

Public Citizen

Rep. Barton's Electricity Bill Bad for Consumers, Bad for Public Health

Plan Would Exempt Power Plants From Certain Emissions Standards

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- Draft legislation being circulated by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) will significantly erode public health and environmental standards by allowing new power plants to be exempt from certain emissions standards, Public Citizen said today.

The bill, which Barton reportedly will introduce next week, calls for suspending nitrogen oxides (NOx) standards for the operation of existing power plants. The plan also would allow a state governor during an electricity emergency to request the Environmental Protection Agency to waive for up to two years certain NOx emissions standards for new plants. Further, Barton's bill would allow a state's governor, upon declaring an emergency, to allow existing natural gas-fired power plants to exceed certain emissions limits for up to six months.

Nitrogen oxides are formed in high-temperature combustion processes, such as those found in automobiles and power plants. NOx emissions play a major role in the formation of ozone, which leads to global warming and contributes to the formation of acid rain. Exposure to NOx can negatively affect the respiratory system, particulary of children and the elderly.

"Instead of punishing profiteering power companies for creating this energy 'crisis,' Joe Barton's draft legislation rewards them," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "Consumers should be outraged that Barton's bill will make it easier for these greedy companies to further pollute our environment while they rake in profits."

While Barton's proposal to gut environmental laws to build plants won't do anything to solve the electricity crisis, it will directly benefit his most generous campaign contributors. Nearly two-fifths of Barton's PAC contributions in the 1999-2000 election cycle - more than $210,000 - came from the energy industry, according to information from the Federal Election Commission.

"Joe Barton should know better than to reduce NOx emission standards," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office. "With two Texas metropolitan areas [Houston and Dallas-Forth Worth] already out of compliance with minimum standards to ensure safe air, and three more areas on the verge [San Antonio, Austin and Longview/Marshall/Tyler], gutting environmental standards will only make matters worse -- not just in Texas, but throughout the country."

In writing his bill, Barton misidentified the cause of California's electricity crisis. Although he has said that the Golden State's power problems are caused by a shortage of power plants, in fact, the problems stem from deregulation's removal of public accountability from the power generation market, Hauter said.

State and federal investigations have pointed to manipulated prices and intentional power plant shutdowns as primary factors causing skyrocketing prices. A growing bipartisan group of Western governors and lawmakers has urged the federal government to enact temporary, region-wide wholesale price caps as the most effective short-term method for controlling the cost of electricity. Barton, however, has rejected this bipartisan approach, as has the electric utility industry.

Experience has shown that an overabundance of power is not the solution to deregulation troubles. Montana, where the electricity market was deregulated in 1997, has such an abundance of power that the state exports 40 to 60 percent of the power it produces. Still, electricity prices there have risen more than 400 percent since 1997, and nearly 1,000 Montana workers have been laid off because some of the state's largest employers have been forced to purchase overpriced electricity from the state's deregulated wholesale market.

The electric utility industry already is the source of 27 percent of nitrogen oxides emissions in the United States.

"It's time to clean the plants up - not allow more unwanted deadly exposure to pollutants," Hauter said. "Barton should not use energy deregulation failures as an excuse to reward his political contributors."

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

For more information, please visit www.citizen.org

4/11/01
4:44:01 PM

Utne Reader

ZAPAPALOOZA: ON TOUR WITH MEXICO'S REBEL ROAD SHOW by Rick Mercier, In These Times -- Seven years after stunning the world with their daring uprising, a delegation of Zapatista rebels came out of hiding in the Lacandon Jungle and traveled to the concrete jungle of Mexico City to try to resolve the simmering conflict in Chiapas.

GLOBAL CONCENTRATION: THE MEDIA OWNERSHIP CHART The Media Channel -- The Media Channel offers an expansive and colorful map tracking the global domination of the world's six largest media entities. It will keep you up to date on who owns what and how media consolidation translates into a more dismal tomorrow.

@149ST: SAVING NEW YORK'S SUBWAY GRAFFITI Web site review by Carey Biron -- Created as an archive for New York City subway graffiti, @149st offers not only a plethora of information detailing the general history of graffiti, a full-color gallery of art from various locales during the past 30 years, but also an emotional celebration of this ephemeral and organic art form.

Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch

4/11/01
4:36:21 PM

ALARA stands for "As Low As Reasonably Achievable".

It's definition is in part 20 of the U.S. code of Federal Regulation of the U. S. NRC for exposure to radiation. All ALARA means is that, depending on the amount of money that any nuclear industry wishes to spend on protection of the environment and people, and depending on available technology, that is what they can use! So if you say, as a nuclear producer, "I only intend to spend $10 on keeping emissions as low as reasonably achievable, and that's all the technology that is available" its OKAY!

Dr. John W. Gofman[http://www.ratical.org] has stated in front of federal judges in U.S. Federal courts that this constitutes "planned deaths":

Question by the court: "What does ALARA..."

Answer: "It permits deaths."

Question: "Permits human deaths?"

Answer: "Yes, because ALARA does not say -- see, the only way you could avoid deaths from the nuclear fuel cycle is to have zero releases. ALARA says keep the releases as low as you can reasonably achieve with the economics that you want to spend on it, and the equipment that you have available and so forth. So it is a planned emission of radioactivity, and that in effect means planned deaths." -- Dr. John Gofman, in conversation with the court, October 2nd, 1978, Jeannine Honicker versus the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Federal Court, Nashville, Tennessee, seeking an injunction to shut down the nuclear fuel cycle.

The judge found out that he had no jurisdiction and that it had to go instead in front of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission/NRC judges. The petition was denied. (It can be found in "Shut Down: Nuclear Power on Trial: Experts Testify in Federal Court" ISBN 0-913990-21-3, published in 1979 in the U. S. by The Book Publishing Company, 156 Drakes Lane, Summertown, Tennessee, 38483.)

http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/chernobyl.html

4/11/01
4:34:39 PM

This Week at TomPaine.com

http://www.TomPaine.com

THE CHEATING OF AMERICA How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions

THE CHEATING OF AMERICA, Charles Lewis and Bill Allison's new book, reports that thousands of wealthy individuals and corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes each year. The IRS estimates the cost of tax avoidance and evasion is $195 billion a year, or more than $1,600 per taxpayer. That's nearly $2 trillion a decade. In other words, some Americans, by cheating on their taxes, are giving themselves a bigger tax cut than even the Bush administration is proposing for the rest of us. Audits and criminal prosecutions of tax evaders are decreasing.

How serious are our public officials about upholding the current tax laws for all Americans?

SEE THIS WEEK'S NEW YORK TIMES 'OP AD'...

http://www.TomPaine.com/opad

...AND READ OUR 'OP AD' FEATURES...

EQUAL UNDER THE LAW? by Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity

http://www.publicintegrity.org/

In making his case for tax cuts, President Bush said, "No one should pay more than a third of the money they earn in federal income taxes." Actually, this is not a problem for 99 percent of the American people. In fact, in 1996 less than two-tenths of 1 percent of filers with incomes over $200,000 paid more than 30 percent of their adjusted gross incomes in taxes. More than 1,000 taxpayers in that group, including 101 millionaires, paid absolutely nothing in income taxes. In other words, the millionaire next door might be a tax cheat.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/04/10/2.html

THE BILLIONAIRE WHO BOUGHT A BANK -- AND PAID NO TAXES

An adaptation from the book by Charles Lewis and Bill Allison

In 1991, multimillionaire George Kaiser made the deal that boosted his net worth to more than $1 billion, securing his position among the Forbes 400 richest Americans. That year he claimed losses of $2 million and paid no federal income taxes. An IRS audit found that Mr. Kaiser had used the tax code to legally eliminate his tax liability.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/04/09/index.html

CHRYSLER OPTED OUT OF TAXES

An excerpt from the book by Charles Lewis and Bill Allison

"The U.S. tax system puts global companies at a decisive disadvantage," John Loffredo, the vice president and chief tax counsel for Chrysler, told Congress in 1999. For the record, Chrysler's effective federal tax rate through the 1990s was a mere 18 percent. But now Chrysler is a German corporation, and all the company's future foreign profits -- earned by selling Jeeps and Chrysler minivans overseas -- will escape U.S. taxation.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/04/09/1.html

PERFECTLY LEGAL by Bill Allison, senior editor at the Center for Public Integrity

It's easy to forget that Bill Clinton, the man who pardoned tax fugitive Marc Rich, was once incensed over millionaires who renounced their citizenship in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes. In 1995, Clinton proposed legislation that would have imposed a 55 percent tax on the assets of any millionaire who renounced his U.S. citizenship. The subsequent law has never been invoked.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/04/10/1.html

TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH: A Question of Morality

by Robert Apfel

In a democratic society in which the discrepancies between rich, middle class, and poor have grown so dramatically, is it immoral for a government to take steps that will serve to enhance these differences?

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

SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS: NEW NAME, SAME GAME

by Thomas Paine Cronin

Every year, the U.S. military's School of the Americas trains our neighbors' soldiers to the tune of $20 million taxpayer dollars. It's an investment in rape, torture, assassination and massacre -- and it's time to shut the school down.

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/04/09/index.html

A MISGUIDED U.S. TRADE POLICY

A TomPaine.commentary by Brian Tokar

The government called its seizure of Vermont sheep a victory for precaution, but where is their commitment to precaution from the far more serious threats -- pesticides, chemical food additives, and genetically engineered foods?

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/04/10/index.html

REDRAWING THE MAP

by Rob Richie and Steven Hill

With legislative redistricting underway, we are reminded that most of us no longer choose our representatives -- instead, the politicians choose us. Is this how twenty-first century democracy operates?

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/04/10/1.html

4/11/01
4:30:36 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

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

New York City to tidy up garbage truck emissions - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10482

UPDATE - Bush seeks more funds to keep out animal diseases - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10468

Morley to pressure big UK companies on environment - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10480

British animal rights group ends bank protest - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10476

UN climate report clarifies "sinks" - Swedish leak - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10474

Spain's Gamesa wins $70 mln contract - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10469

Ireland to pay for new FMD measures at UK ports - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10479

ANALYSIS - Kyoto to be only tiny economic brake to 2010 - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10473

Emissions trading cuts Kyoto economy impact - study - NETHERLANDS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10483

Japan power plant to be fueled by plastic waste - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10466

EU determined on climate deal with or without US - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10478

German nuclear activists disrupt train to France - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10472

Railway appeal poses key test for HK environment plans - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10467

Canada seeks ways to identify, trace GM crops - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10477

Canada should use summit to oppose Alaska oil plan - WWF - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10470

Modern legalities may fell ancient cedar - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10475

One Kozloduy reactor switched off, no radiation - BULGARIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10481

Rothschild meets Australia demand for ethical funds - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10471

4/11/01
4:28:48 PM

AlterNet Headlines Brief summaries of leading stories from AlterNet -- the independent news and syndication service -- for April 11, 2001.

THE TOP TEN CENSORED STORIES OF 2000 AlterNet Staff >From army spinmeisters working at CNN to sweatshop-like conditions in Silicon Valley, this year's Top Ten Censored Stories highlight some huge stories that the mainstream media missed.

THE MORAL CALCULUS OF AIDS Tamara Straus, AlterNet If money and drugs are not forthcoming soon, AIDS will cause a plague in Africa not seen since the Black Death of the 14th century. Where is morality in the new global economy?

ATTENTION CEOS! A HANDY GUIDE TO BUYING DUBYA Geov Parrish, AlterNet Have you ever wondered how much more money your stockholders could make if only you could buy the President of the United States? Well now you can!!

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10696

AMY RAY DOES IT HER WAY Brooke Shelby Biggs, Girlfriends Former Indigo Girl Amy Ray talks about her new album, Stag: a tangle of genres that includes folk, rockabilly, punk and riot grrl righteousness.

FTAA PROTESTERS VS. CANADIAN BORDER PATROL Darryl Leroux, AlterNet The Mohawks of Akwesasne, a community straddling the US/Canada border, have pledged to help FTAA protesters -- barred from Quebec -- slip through border control.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10690

SELLING MLK'S DREAM Julianne Malveaux, AlterNet A telecommunications firm has bought the rights to use Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech in its latest ads. How did this supreme moment of conscience become priced, auctioned, and sold?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10708

BARBRA STORMS CAPITOL HILL David Corn, AlterNet The big political news of the week: Barbra Streisand is upset with Republicans and disappointed by Democrats.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10697

RAISE, DON'T END, THE ESTATE TAX Roy Ulrich, AlterNet The repeal of the estate tax is Bush's payback to the super-rich. But, even as it is, the estate tax hasn't accomplished its mission very well. Raise it, don't end it, argues Roy Ulrich.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10715

THE ECSTASY THERAPIST Mike Miliard, Boston Phoenix Richard Doblin, PhD, is committed to proving what he knows: that ecstasy and other psychedelic drugs are therapeutic powerhouses.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10721

THE STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT UNDER GEORGE W. Mary O'Brien, Eugene Weekly As the approach of Earth Day should remind us, we can't afford to let Bush wreak local, national, and worldwide environmental havoc for the next four years.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10710

SOLOMON: A CHINESE SPY PLANE ON LONG ISLAND? Norman Solomon, AlterNet What would happen if a Chinese spy plane collided with an American fighter jet over Long Island? Chances are we wouldn't get the same knee-jerk reflexes from the media.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10711

RALLIES "DEMAND RIGHT OF RETURN" FOR PALESTINIAN REFUGEES Suzy Abu-Nie, AlterNet Thousands of activists marched in New York and cities across the globe Saturday, April 7, demanding that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their homeland.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10704

* Off-Site Recommended Reads:

THE ORGANIZATION KID David Brooks, Atlantic Monthly According to David Brooks, the young men and women of America's future elite work incessantly, rarely question authority and like to be at the top of the heap. But are they really that programmed?

http://www.theatlantic.com/cgi-bin/o/issues/2001/04/brooks-p1.htm

TEN REASONS: A RESPONSE TO DAVID HOROWITZ Ernest Allen Jr and Robert Chrisman, BRC-News David Horowitz's arguments against reparations for slavery are both historically inaccurate and an attack on black Americans, argue two eminent African-American scholars.

http://www.umass.edu/afroam/hor.html

4/11/01
4:23:55 PM

ENS

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-10-06.html

"We Cover the Earth For You"

BUSH BUDGET SLASHES ENVIRONMENTAL, ENERGY EFFICIENCY

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, April 10, 2001 (ENS) - Though you cannot tell from the glowing reviews provided by White House Cabinet members, President George W. Bush's first federal budget would slash funding for environmental programs, energy conservation and agricultural preservation. The budget met praise from industry and Congressional Republicans, but was roundly condemned by environmental and public interest groups, as well as Congressional Democrats.

For full text and graphics visit:

FIGHT ARCTIC DRILLING AT SUMMIT, EX PM TELLS CANADA

WHITEHORSE, Yukon Territory, Canada, April 10, 2001 (ENS) - A former Canadian prime minister wants Canada to use the forthcoming Summit of the Americas to categorically state its opposition to American plans for oil and gas development in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

For full text and graphics, visit:

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

NEW ZEALAND'S AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS PROMISED HELP

By Peter Isaac

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, April 10, 2001 (ENS) - Prime Minister Helen Clark has agreed to improve services for Vietnam veterans who claim their health has been damaged by Agent Orange. The toxic herbicide is central to another conflict today as well, between people living near a plant where agricultural herbicides were made and the company that produced them.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-03.html

TOURISTS UNWILLING WITNESSES TO CARIBBEAN WHALE KILLS

By Donald Sutherland

CASTRIES, ST. LUCIA, April 10, 2001 (ENS) - Off the northern coast of the popular tourist island of St. Lucia, a struggling killer whale was hauled onto an unmarked fishing trawler in February. A few days later, tourists on a St. Lucia whale watching trip were confronted by fishermen trying to harpoon a sperm whale.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-10-02.html

AUDIT REVEALS AUSTRALIA'S MOST SERIOUS GREEN ISSUE

CANBERRA, Australia, April 10, 2001 (ENS) - Australians use 65 percent more water today than they did in the 1980s, according to a nationwide audit of the country's land and water resources.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-10-11.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 10, 2001

Koch Pleads Guilty to Covering Up Benzene Emissions

EPA, NWF Oppose Power Plant Lawsuit on Mercury

Smart Growth Bill Reintroduced in Congress

Pennsylvania Launches West Nile Virus Surveillance Program

Alaskan Land Trusts Receive Wetlands Conservation Grants

Scientists Survey Maui's Endangered Forest Birds

Test Exposes Bacterial Pollution Culprits

Website Provides Environmental Information for All Zipcodes

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-10-09.html

4/11/01
4:17:20 PM

Here's a handy reference guide courtesy of Ocean Futures :

Questions and answers: LFA and Marine Mammals

Overview What is LFA? How powerful is the sound level generated by LFA? What are some of the other forms of sonar technology used by the Navy? What are the decibel levels produced by natural noise sources and by whales? Are there examples of artificially generated acoustic levels from military tests affecting marine mammals? What is the decibel level known to affect humans? What is the decibel level and range the Navy uses in LFA tests? What were the environmental conditions, decibel level and range during exercises performed by the Navy on March 15, 2000?

Overview According to the U.S. Navy final environmental impact statement (January 2001), LFA sonar technology is employed in the ocean including "areas necessary to prevent 180 dB sound pressure level (SPL) or greater within 22 kilometers (or 12 nautical miles) of land, in offshore biologically important areas during biologically important seasons and in areas necessary to prevent greater than 145 dB at known recreational and commercial dive sites." The sonar operational areas are inhabited by marine animals, including birds, fish, sea turtles and marine mammals." This complex technology incorporates a variety of underwater testing parameters such as depth, contour of the ocean bottom, water temperature sonar pulses or "pings", the number of pings and time duration, single sonar arrays, multiple arrays and towed versus stationary sonar devices.

What is LFA? LFA, or low frequency active sonar, involves transmitting high-volume low frequency sound pulses over a long range underwater. According to the Navy, it would function much like a floodlight, using sound waves to scan the ocean for quiet enemy submarines at enormous geographic distance

The Natural Resources Defense Council reports that LFA is a sound system so powerful that a single sound source transmitter generates sound at levels of 215 decibels. An entire array can produce sound at 230 dB, flooding hundreds of square miles of ocean with noise. When comparing these figures with other data, far lower levels of military sonar causes biological disturbances in whales - as low as just 120 dB.

How powerful is the sound level generated by LFA? LFA is measured in decibels. The decibel scale expresses sound in increasing orders of magnitude, making 170 dB ten times the sound intensity of 160 dB (thus 180 dB is 100 times the intensity of 160dB.) In this way, it can use very small numbers to compare sounds of radically different intensities, from a quiet breeze to a nuclear explosion.

What are some of the other forms of sonar technology used by the Navy?

Tactical sonar - 235 decibels, at mid-range frequencies of 3,500 to 7,500 hertz.

Low-frequency active sonar (LFAs) - 215 - 230 decibels

Acoustic thermometry of ocean climate (ATOC) - noise to approx 195 decibels

Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) - 235 decibels (4)

What are the decibel levels produced by natural noise sources and by whales?

Noise Source Noise Source Levels Lightening Strike on Water Surface 260 dB (max) Seafloor Volcanic Eruption 255+ dB (max) Fin Whale 160-186 dB Humpback Whale 175-190 dB Bowhead Whale 158-189 dB Blue Whale 188 dB (max) Southern Right Whale 172-187 dB Gray Whale 185 dB (max) measured at range zero.

Source: SURTASS LFA Environmental Impact Statement

Are there examples of artificially generated acoustic levels from military tests affecting marine mammals? (2): Bowhead whales show avoidance at 120 dB as do gray whales in the migratory path of sound at this level Humpback whales exhibit cessation in "singing" above 155 dB Sperm and pilot whales stop singing when exposed to 220 dB

What is the decibel level known to affect humans? According to the Navy's own study, scientists briefly exposed a 32-year-old Navy diver to LFA sonar at a level of 160 decibels -- a fraction of the intensity at which the LFA system is designed to operate. After 12 minutes, the diver experienced severe symptoms, including dizziness and drowsiness. After being hospitalized, he relapsed, suffering memory dysfunction and seizure. Two years later he was being treated with anti-depressant and anti-seizure medications.

What is the decibel level and range the Navy uses in LFA tests? At the test source, 215dB are produced from a single array (up to 235 for multiple arrays) (2.1.1 and response to Comment 2-1.1 (Page 10-47) of the Navy FEIS). The sound field designed as the LFA mitigation zone is greater than or equal to 180dB within 22 km (12nm) of any coastline and in the offshore biologically important areas that exist outside the 22km zone during the biologically important season for that area. (2.3.2.1 Navy FEIS.)

What were the environmental conditions, decibel level and range during exercises performed by the Navy on March 15, 2000?

According to data posted on MARMAM, the US Navy, in a detailed acoustic analysis, has found certain environmental conditions existed when Navy ships transiting through the Bahamas last March used active sonar systems at the same time over a dozen whales beached themselves on islands nearby. The use of Navy sonar systems under these environmental conditions may have affected whales in the area, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service says in a Nov. 15 press release.

The findings could have implications for the Navy's use of active sonar, which it frequently employs in training operations worldwide.

The US Navy and the US fisheries service released information from a detailed US Navy analysis of a computer model that confirmed the presence of a "surface duct" in the New Providence Channel at the time the whales stranded. Surface ducts affect how sound travels. The analysis examined the acoustic field that was created by several ships' sonar systems last March and included a thorough look at the environmental conditions that affect sound travel, according to the fisheries service. Five ships and one submarine using sonar were transiting through the channel at the time. The ships were using sonar at a power output of 235 decibels, at mid-range frequencies of 3,500 to 7,500 hertz.

You can take action on the LFA issue by:

Join us in being a "voice for the ocean!" Click http://www.oceanfutures.com to become an Ocean Futures member now - it's easy and it's free. Send your ACTION E-LETTER now from that site..

Let your voice be heard now! Write to your Navy and your local governmental representatives. Ask them to end the Navy's Active Sonar program.

Unfortunately, the US agency in charge for the LFAS hearing will NOT accept comments submitted by email or the Internet. Comments should be mailed to: Donna Wieting, Chief; Marine Mammal Conservation Division; Office of Protected Resources; National Marine Fisheries Service; 1315 East-West Highway; Silver Spring, MD 20910-3226.

Alternatively, you can send your comments to Ms. Wieting by fax: +1-301-713-0376.

And join the: Stop LFAS Worldwide Interactive Newsletter.

This newletter is a very valuable source, produced by a grass-roots group, which began about two and a half years ago in protest over the introduction of SURTASS LFAS sound pressure waves into the ocean waters off Hawaii. Stop LFAS Worldwide is an organisation to bring public awareness internationally to save our oceans and our planet from this acoustic mayhem.

It is an Internet Communication Network for those who are trying to learn more about the acoustic testing and who are concerned with the damage it might cause to marine life, swimmers and divers.

THE GOAL IS TO STOP LFAS AND OTHER HARMFUL WAVE-SOURCES WORLDWIDE !

More and more groups are standing shoulder to shoulder on this matter of acoustic harm, and it is very important to bring the topic to the attention of all people!

Taxpayers in NATO countries: YOUR MONEY IS USED TO CREATE THESE DEVELISH TOOLS ! CITIZENS OF THE WORLD: YOUR GOVERNMENTS ARE NOT PROTECTING YOU ! SAVE OUR SOULS, our oceans and our planet from this acoustic mayhem !

Low Frequency Active Sonar is in the process of being deployed worldwide by the US Navy and NATO to supposedly detect enemy submarines. Recently, the use of high intensity sonars has been associated with massive strandings of cetacean in the Bahamas. Several species stranded and each of those who died were discovered through necropsies to have experienced trauma which damaged their ears and eyes where membranes had ruptured and there was bleeding. This tragic incident coincided with acoustic testing in March of 2000.

In direct contrast to these unnerving events, the Stop LFAS Worldwide Network was involved in litigation in Federal Court. The group filed the paperwork on February 29th along with 10 other plaintiffs all represented by Attorney, Lanny Sinkin. In the midst of the litigation efforts while trying to compile further information about these latest strandings, the Stop LFAS Worldwide Network, founded by Benedick Howard and Cheryl Magill, was recognized by the Earth Society Foundation & received an Earth Day Award, which is both a global honor and responsibility.

While the US Navy has not disclosed actual sound levels, we know through published articles that NATO has been using sound applications called Time Reversed Acoustics which use a playback method to make the underwater sound so focused and so powerful that it can kill and maim whales, dolphins and sea life. It would be useless to compare this sound to another man-made non-explosive noise in another medium because the attenuation of this disruptive force continues many hundreds of miles. And now with Time Reversed Mirroring techniques being employed, the combined background chaos serves as a greater method of focusing the noise at a distance. This is "sound" but it is most useful to think of it as "power."

It has been stated by the US Navy that they wish to use Low Frequency Active Sonar in 80% of the world's oceans. So this involves just about all of us from everywhere!

REALIZE ! The whales that died in the Bahamas had eyes bleeding, and ears bleeding from trauma after being exposed to just ordinary sonar within a channel.

IMAGINE ! The LFAS technology would have impact each time it is used on hundreds of miles of ocean and will be deployed in 80% of the world's oceans, if YOU don't STOP it.

WAKE UP ! The main site address of the the group used to be: http://www.dreamweaving.com/lfas.html and it remains an excellent site! The pages of Links have grown to hundreds of links and people tend to go there for the latest updates.

For many of the Internet Links begin on "Listen to LFAS Viewpoints." To get there, go to: http://angelfire.com/ca/fishattorney/lfaslinks.html

Since that free site now has ads on it, people could also go to the officious site of the group, which is: http://manyrooms.com

You will find that the information and resources are extensive.

Further information is available at http://listen.to/lfas (viewpoints). If you would like to learn more about the stoplfas group, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stoplfas and http://go.to/stoplfas

To subscribe to the weekly update send blank mail to: stoplfas-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

If this is too much information for you, please rest assured that the most important items also from this source will be broadcasted through the WILD_SEAS list.

4/11/01
4:11:38 PM

Network to Stop LFAS Worldwide

Please distribute as wide as possible ! Be informed about the Stop LFAS Worldwide Network and become proactive yourself !

The Stop LFAS Worldwide Network is an unincorporated association of individuals and affiliated organizations who have dedicated their time and energies to preventing deployment of Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) by any nation, including the United States.

Network associates live in many different nations, with most associates living in the United States. The Stop LFAS Worldwide E-mail list was started during Phase III testing of LFAS off the coast of Hawaii in 1998.

The purpose of the Stop LFAS Worldwide Network is to create public awareness internationally of the threat to the marine environment posed by LFAS and to organize citizens internationally to save our oceans and our planet from that threat, which also damages people, who are diving.

The Network takes the position that LFAS is especially harmful to the deep diving marine mammals in the SOFAR layer and that acoustic pollution wastes natural and monetary resources.

The Network opposes an escalation of active acoustic devices and acoustic weapons technology in our oceans as being harmful to marine life and to human coastal communities.

The Network provides regular updates on developments related to LFAS, including research findings, strandings, cover ups, and military disinformation. These updates are sent to associates, non-associated subscribers to the Network newsletter, governments of the world, the UN and the media.

The Network maintains web site locations accessible to the general public containing information related to LFAS, such as http://manyrooms.com and http://angelfire.com/ca/fishattorney/lfaslinks.html.

These sites provide links to hundreds of other related sites and links to archived radio interviews, such as those found at

http://angelfire.com/ca/fishattorney/lfaslinks.html

The Network coordinates with cetacean protection groups and environmental organizations as an information resource. The coordinators and/or associates have participated in eight separate international radio broadcasts discussing LFAS, all of which were simultaneously transmitted across the Internet and reached an international audience.

Associates include scientists, authors, journalists, musicians and wildlife photographers. There are health therapists who use natural settings in their healing strategies and naturalists who draw spiritual benefit from undisturbed natural surroundings.

Associates also include groups which focus on animal rights, & aquarium management as well as spiritual groups that have integrated prayers for quiet oceans into their meditations.

Associates participated in Navy workshops discussing LFAS, conducted and participated in the litigation filed to challenge the US Navy's Phase III testing program off the Island of Hawaii, appeared at public hearings conducted by the Navy as part of the EIS process, and filed comments on the draft EIS issued for deployment of SURTASS LFA.

Associates participated with marine mammal experts from other organizations in a California Coastal Commission workshop on LFAS.

Low Frequency Active Sonar Defined

Low frequency active sonar is a device using multiple, high intensity sound sources to broadcast a low frequency signal into the ocean. That signal bounces off objects in the water and returns to a listening device. The listening device analyzes the signal to determine the nature of the object and the location of the object. Many nations and NATO are developing such devices to locate submarines.

High intensity, low frequency sound can cause harm to marine life. Cetaceans are particularly vulnerable because they rely upon sound for many of their daily activities. High intensity, low frequency sound can make a whale deaf; can cause a whale's lung tissue to shear; can disrupt mating, feeding, and singing behaviors; and may cause long term harm to the recovery of endangered and threatened species.

The use of low frequency active sonar devices is becoming wide spread at the same time the evidence of serious harm to marine life is emerging. In 1996, Curvier's Beaked Whales stranded along the Grecian coast at the same time a NATO fleet broadcast using low frequency active sonar. Dr. Alexandros Frantzis analyzed the strandings and concluded that the probability that sonar caused the strandings was 99.9%. A later NATO study concluded that the strandings could not have been caused by a natural source.

In March 2000, the U.S. Navy conducted a test of active sonar off the Bahamas at the same time as a naval fleet passed by broadcasting sonar from six different ships. Seventeen cetaceans stranded and nine died. Blood in the eyes, blood in the brains, and damage to lung tissue appeared in the necropsies of the cetaceans. The cause of this disaster is still under investigation.

These are only some of the examples strongly suggesting that high intensity sonars are a threat to marine life. The time has come to support a moratorium on any further use of high intensity, low frequency sonar. The military can use sophisticated passive technology to find submarines and avoid threatening the long term health of marine life and the marine environment.

4/11/01
4:04:52 PM

Federal Register notice of proposed rule making concerning SURTASS LFAS

I have a web page for the Federal Register notice of proposed rule making concerning SURTASS LFAS at this URL:

http://manyrooms.net/lfaproposedrule.htm

And, yes, this is the posting which I said was expected any day. With completion of the Final EIS and this notification, SURTASS LFA Sonar finally has several key elements in place which will be needed to attain approval to deploy. If this were a chess game, which it somewhat is in an unfortunate sort of way, then I supose that a strategic "next move" on our part would be a good thing to have in mind right about now. You'll forgive me for being somewhat obscure as to what that might be. We just received the notice on the day before Earth Day and at this point people are still reading and interpretting this long document.

There are, of course, some interim measures we could ask people to take, and one would be to submit comments in the manner described in the Federal Register Notice. Another is to tell a friend about the LFAS issue and the significance it has to them personally. Bookmark the URL and send copies to others. In fact, I am encouraging people to address small groups by inviting friends to some tear or coffee or over to their homes to discuss these proposed extreme measures of blasting away at all the marine life in 80% of the world's oceans. The greatest challenge is making more people aware and in getting them prepared to respond.

In my mind, the proposal to use SURTASS LFAS is an unconscionable act and those who now pursue this goal are absolute extremists. Never in the history of the world has such harmful acoustic power been introduced excepting possibly one incident in a location formerly known as Jericho. We who oppose such radical assaults on marine life and urge precaution are the conservatives on this issue. While I don't often coach polarities, we must remain charged on this point. We who oppose LFAS are asking everyone to be conservative towards the marine environment. We want to conserve the acoustic functionability of the oceans. We want to conserve all opportunities for peace.

Jean, I hope you will continue to inform your readers about LFAS and about this acoustic anarchy. I look forward to bringing to your readers more specific suggestions in the near future.

Thank you, as always.

Cheryl A. Magill

4/11/01
1:55:53 PM

NRDC Blasts Proposal Allowing Deployment of Controversial Navy Sonar Program

WASHINGTON -- A rule proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would allow the U.S. Navy to deploy a powerful new global sonar system drew protest from NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council) today. The environmental group says the sound generated by the system is so intense that it could harm marine life that depends on hearing for survival. The group called for further study before deployment.

"Whales and other marine species rely on hearing at least as much as people rely on sight," said Joel Reynolds, director of NRDC's Marine Mammal Protection Project. "We are very concerned that the rule the fisheries service has proposed may not protect this essential piece of the ocean environment."

The system, known as LFA for the "low frequency active" sonar it employs, functions much like a floodlight, scanning the ocean at enormous distances for enemy submarines. It is so powerful that a single source can illuminate hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean at one time. At close range, the noise it produces is millions of times more intense than the Navy considers safe for human divers and billions of times more intense than the level known to disturb large whales. Before NRDC uncovered the program in 1995, the Navy had been testing LFA without the fisheries service's approval.

The fisheries service decided to proceed despite unanswered questions about a mass stranding of whales in the Bahamas last March. A fisheries service-Navy investigation already has established that the strandings were caused by a Navy battle group's active sonar system. That system used mid-frequency sound, which generally does not travel as far as LFA. Last month a marine scientist stated in a letter to the Navy that a number of species stranded in the Bahamas had virtually disappeared from the area.

"The Bahamas strandings confirm just how serious the risks of active sonar can be," said Michael Jasny, an NRDC consultant. "It's astonishing that the fisheries service would propose a rule for a system of such extraordinary reach before its own investigation is completed."

The release of fisheries service's proposed rule opens a 45-day period for public comment that closes May 3. The agency then will decide whether to finalize it. The Navy received more than a thousand comments from concerned parties on its own environmental analysis of LFA, and environmentalists believe that the response to the fisheries service's proposal will be at least as strong.

"The National Marine Fisheries Service has a fundamental responsibility under federal law to ensure the health and safety of marine mammals," Reynolds said. "We will be examining its decision very closely."

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 400,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

For more information, contact Joel Reynolds at (323) 934-6900 or Michael Jasny at (323) 934-2138 Natural Resources Defense Council (323) 934-6900

http://www.nrdc.org

4/11/01
1:52:01 PM

LFAS

The following is taken from an analysis of the U.S. Navy's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which concludes that Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) is safe. This analysis is entitled "Why the Navy's Conclusions about the Safety of LFAS are Scientifically Flawed" and states (only brief excerpts below) that;

- The Navy's Scientific Research program never tested the full source level of LFAS on marine mammals. CLIP The Navy has not followed the advice of their own hired scientists and has inappropriately extrapolated to conclude that LFAS is safe to deploy at levels of at least 5,000 times more acoustic intensity and 70 times more pressure than test levels.

- Even at the lower LFAS test levels a number of negative effects were documented...

- Published accounts of whale strandings correlated with Naval maneuvers (Nature 1991 and 1998) suggest that beaked whales are especially vulnerable to high intensity sonar.

This analysis also mentions an existing alternative to the LFAS technology: "the Navy has developed passive sonar systems, the Advanced Deployable System (ADS), that can detect silent submarines and not harm marine life."

And in the references, we also find:

8. Loud underwater sounds also, of course, affect fish and other marine life. Studies show harmful effects of even moderate noise on hearing in fish and the viability of fish eggs exposed to noisy environments was significantly reduced.

See also: Researchers Fear Navy's Sonar May Harm Whales at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/10/science/10WHAL.html

based on the 60 Minutes "Who Killed the Whales" report.

4/10/01
4:30:02 PM

Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE

1. A TOAD IN THE COAL MINE Global warming may be contributing to the decline of the western toad and other amphibians, according to a study published last week in Nature. The western toad has been dying off from a fungal-like infection of its eggs. Previous studies had shown that the eggs are susceptible to infection because of higher exposure to ultraviolet light. Now, researchers have shown that the eggs are experiencing more exposure because they are being deposited in shallower water that lets more light through -- and the researchers have begun to link the shallower water to weather changes brought about by global warming. The study by scientists from Penn State and Oregon State is the first to connect die-offs of North American amphibians to global warming.

straight to the source: Washington Post, William Souder, 09 Apr 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57606-2001Apr8.html>

straight to the source: New York Times, Henry Fountain, 10 Apr 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/10/science/10OBSER-2.html>

2. CARBON COPYCAT George W. drifts from the script on the set of "Global Warming Survivor," but comes to his senses just in time to make the coal industry proud. Catch the fastest flip-flop in the West with Zed, last of his species in: "Carbon Copycat."

catch it only in Grist Magazine: Zed, the comic adventures of the last of his species <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/zed/zed041001.stm>

3. THE UNKINDEST CUTS President Bush unveiled a budget yesterday for the next fiscal year that would slash spending on the environment and break a campaign promise he made to protect rainforests. In a campaign speech last August attacking then-Vice President Al Gore for a weak commitment on the issue, Bush pledged to set aside $100 million a year to forgive developing countries some of their debt to the U.S. if they agree to conserve rainforest land -- but his proposed budget would provide only $13 million for the program, all of it diverted from the U.S. Agency for International Development. At the Energy Department, the proposed budget would make deep cuts in renewable energy (about a 50 percent reduction!), conservation, and fuel-efficiency programs. Money for cleaning up waste from producing nuclear weapons would be greatly reduced, while money for nuclear bomb-making would be boosted. The Interior Department budget would be cut 3.5 percent, and funding would be shifted to energy exploration; the U.S. EPA budget would be cut by 6.4 percent.

straight to the source: New York Times, Mathew Wald and Douglas Jehl, 10 Apr 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/10/politics/10WRAP.html>

do good: Take action to keep funding for renewable energy <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.stm#renewable>

4. SORRY STATES The Bush administration wants to shift significant responsibility for enforcing federal environmental laws from the U.S. EPA to the states. The fiscal year 2002 budget proposed by the White House would eliminate funding for 9 percent of the federal enforcement staff and instead provide states with money for enforcement grants and environmental assessments. EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman said yesterday that states are better positioned to clamp down on pollution. But many environmental groups think the shift would result in less enforcement and more pollution. Some states have a checkered record of enforcement, letting slide even egregious pollution problems. Meanwhile, Koch Industries, one of the country's largest petroleum companies, agreed yesterday to pay $20 million in fines for concealing air-quality violations -- the fifth-largest settlement ever reached in a federal environmental crimes case.

straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin and Michael Grunwald, 10 Apr 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62130-2001Apr9.html>

straight to the source: Washington Post, Dan Eggen, 10 Apr 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62480-2001Apr9.html>

5. GONE WITH THE FLOW Severe drought is forcing dam operators in the Northwest to choose electricity generation over salmon. Under an emergency order issued last week that is expected to last much of the year, the Bonneville Power Administration is using what water remains to spin turbines to generate power on the Columbia and Snake rivers, overriding Endangered Species Act requirements to spill water over the tops of dams to help young salmon migrate downstream. Brian Gorman of the National Marine Fisheries Service says the shift will increase salmon mortality by about 15 percent, while some environmentalists say the figure could be as high as 95 percent. Yesterday, the BPA predicted a 250 percent increase in power rates unless energy conservation efforts took off and aluminum smelters idled themselves for two years.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Kim Murphy, 10 Apr 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010410/t000030626.html>

straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Scott Sunde, 10 Apr 2001 <http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/17961_power10.shtml>

6. SONAR OR LATER It is highly likely that Sonar transmissions from U.S. Navy ships caused an unprecedented number of whales and a dolphin to strand themselves in shallow waters off northern Bahama islands last March, according to a task force from the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service. But the Navy is still hoping to get a permit from the NMFS for a new sonar system to detect submarines in 80 percent of the world's oceans. The Navy says the system would use low-frequency sonar waves, as opposed to the higher-frequency waves that have been shown to cause a reaction in whales. But the Natural Resources Defense Council says the system still hasn't been adequately tested. Ken Balcomb, a marine mammalogist, says low frequencies can create the same damage in whales' air cavities as higher frequencies, leading to hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones.

straight to the source: New York Times, Rachel X. Weissman, 10 Apr 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/10/science/10WHAL.html>

do good: Take action and stand up for dolphins and whales <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/species.stm#sonar>

catch it only in Grist Magazine: The customer-is-always-right whale -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha031901.stm>

Electric boogie -- really fun facts about electricity -- in our Counter Culture section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/counter/counter031601.stm>

What would Dubya do? -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha040201.stm>

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

4/10/01
11:01:10 AM

Please call Secretary Ann Veneman of USDA at: 202-720-2791 & Fax her at: 202-720-2166 [http://www.usda.gov] to register your protests to food being both irradiated and disingenuously labeled. Please Call and/or Fax by Wednesday April 11th. If you read or hear this after that day please STILL call, write and/or fax her, often there are last minute extensions.

Administration Proposal to Serve Irradiated Beef to School Children Poses Cancer, Genetic and Other Risks, Warns Samuel S.Epstein, M.D.

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Administration Proposal to Serve Irradiated Beef to School Children Poses Cancer, Genetic and Other Risks, Warns Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.

CHICAGO, April 6, 2001. The recent proposal by the Bush Administration to allow irradiated ground beef into the National School-Lunch Program will endanger the health of tens of millions of school children and should be withdrawn immediately.

"The government's assertion that irradiated food is safe for human consumption does not even pass the laugh test," states Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., emeritus professor of environmental medicine at University of Illinois School of Public Health, Chicago. "Exposing America's school children to the hazards of irradiated food is reckless negligence, compounded by the absence of any warning to parents".

Irradiated meat is a very different product than natural meat. This is hardly surprising as the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approved irradiation dosage of 450,000 rads is approximately 150 million times greater than that of a chest x-ray. Apart from high levels of benzene, new chemicals known as "unique radiolytic products" were identified in irradiated meat in U.S. Army tests in 1977 and recognized as carcinogenic. Later tests identified other chemicals shown to induce genetic toxicity.

In sharp contrast to FDA's claims of safety, based on grossly inadequate testing which fails to meet the agency's minimal standards and which were explicitly rebutted by its own expert committees, there is well-documented scientific evidence that eating irradiated meat poses grave risks of cancer and genetic damage. Irradiated meat is also highly susceptible to cross-contamination with food poisoning bacteria.

Nevertheless, the meat and irradiation industries, with FDA's complicity, are lobbying aggressively to sanitize the agency's weak labeling requirements for irradiated meat and other food by eliminating the word "irradiated" in favor of "electronic (or cold) pasteurization". This euphemistic absurdity would circumvent consumer's fundamental right-to-know.

Furthermore, irradiation masks grossly unsanitary conditions in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. Irradiation is thus a major disincentive to decades-long overdue basic sanitary practices essential for the prevention of Salmonella, E.coli O157:h7, and other pathogenic food poisoning. While irradiation kills most bacteria in meat, pork and poultry, it does nothing to prevent gross fecal and other contamination.

Warnings on the hazards of irradiated food were endorsed in a recent publication, in the world's leading peer-reviewed public health journal, by a wide range of national and international experts including:

Dr. Neal Barnard, President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, D.C.; Dr. John Gofman, Emeritus Professor, Molecular and Radiation Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California; Dr. Jay M. Gould, Director, Radiation and Public Health Project, U.S.A.; Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Professor of Pathology, University of Liverpool, U.K.; Dr. David Kriebel, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts; Dr. Marvin Legator, Professor of Preventive Medicine, University of Texas, Galveston, Texas; Dr. E. Lichter, Professor of Community Medicine, University of Illinois Medical School, Chicago, Illinois; Dr. William Lijinsky, former Director, Chemical Carcinogenesis, Frederick Cancer Research Center, Maryland; Dr. Sheldon Margen, Emeritus Professor of Public Health Nutrition, University of California, Berkeley, California; Dr. Vicente Navarro, Professor of Health and Public Policy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, Professor of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain; Dr. Herbert Needleman, Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Dr. Robert Rinehart, Emeritus Professor of Biology, San Diego State University, California; Dr. George Tritsch, Cancer Research Scientist, Roswell Park Memorial Institute, New York State Department of Health, New York; Dr. Quentin Young, past President, American Public Health Association, Chicago, Illinois

CONTACT: Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., emeritus professor environmental and occupational medicine, University of Illinois School of Public Health, Chicago, and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition

Web site: http://www.preventcancer.com

4/10/01
10:56:32 AM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-01.html

"We Cover the Earth For You"

STARLINK COLORS ROUNDUP CORN DISAGREEMENT

By Dan Zinkand

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, April 9, 2001 (ENS) - While the Iowa Corn Growers Association (ICGA) and Monsanto disagree about safeguards that do - or do not - exist for channeling Roundup Ready hybrids grown this year, they agree on two things.

For full text and graphics visit:

NEW YORK GOVERNOR EXPLORES NAVY DAMAGE ON VIEQUES

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico, April 9, 2001 (ENS) - At the invitation of Governor Sila Maria Calderon of Puerto Rico, New York Governor George Pataki today led a delegation of New Yorkers to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as part of his effort to permanently end U.S. Navy bombing on the island.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-02.html

WORLD'S RICHEST NATIONS URGE GREEN TAXES

PARIS, France, April 9, 2001 (ENS) - Industrialized countries should launch a coordinated program to remove environmentally damaging subsidies and introduce environmental taxes, according to a new report by an organization that represents the world's richest nations.

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-03.html

NORWAY'S LONE WOLF "MARTIN," ONE THAT GOT AWAY

OSLO, Norway, April 9, 2001 (ENS) - A lone wolf has escaped death after hunters on skis, snowmobiles and in helicopters missed an April 6 deadline set by Norway's government, which ordered the cull of 10 wolves in February.

For full text and graphics, visit:

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

BRITISH COLUMBIA DAMS SHORTLISTED FOR DECOMMISSIONING

VANCOUVER, Canada, April 9, 2001 (ENS) - Two British Columbia organizations have produced a shortlist of dams ripe for decommissioning or dismantling. The shortlist appears in "River Recovery - Restoring Rivers Through Dam Decommissioning," a report published today by the Outdoor Recreation Council (ORC) of B.C. and the B.C. Institute of Technology (BCIT).

For full text and graphics, visit:

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

UK LEASES ITS SEA BED TO 18 OFFSHORE WIND FARMERS

LONDON, United Kingdom, April 9, 2001 (ENS) - More than a million United Kingdom households are a step closer to getting their electricity from wind power, after 18 offshore wind farm developers were granted leases to build on the sea bed.

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-10.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 9, 2001

PG&E Bankruptcy Called No Threat to Nuclear Plants

Utility's Bankruptcy Offers Environmental Opportunity

Scotchgard Compound Widespread in Environment

Water Reclamation Project Approved for California County

$437,000 Supports Environmental Land Use Planning

California Governor Announces $388 Million for Local Parks

Kodiak Celebrates Whale Migration with 10 Day Festival

High Arsenic Levels in Water Near Bush Ranch

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-09.html ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-01.html

"We Cover the Earth For You"

STARLINK COLORS ROUNDUP CORN DISAGREEMENT

By Dan Zinkand

For full text and graphics visit:

NEW YORK GOVERNOR EXPLORES NAVY DAMAGE ON VIEQUES

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-02.html

WORLD'S RICHEST NATIONS URGE GREEN TAXES

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-03.html

NORWAY'S LONE WOLF "MARTIN," ONE THAT GOT AWAY

For full text and graphics, visit:

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

BRITISH COLUMBIA DAMS SHORTLISTED FOR DECOMMISSIONING

For full text and graphics, visit:

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

UK LEASES ITS SEA BED TO 18 OFFSHORE WIND FARMERS

For full text and graphics, visit:

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-10.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 9, 2001

PG&E Bankruptcy Called No Threat to Nuclear Plants

Utility's Bankruptcy Offers Environmental Opportunity

Scotchgard Compound Widespread in Environment

Water Reclamation Project Approved for California County

$437,000 Supports Environmental Land Use Planning

California Governor Announces $388 Million for Local Parks

Kodiak Celebrates Whale Migration with 10 Day Festival

High Arsenic Levels in Water Near Bush Ranch

For full text and graphics visit:

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

4/10/01
10:52:53 AM

Planet Ark World Environment News

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

UPDATE - Bush budget cuts solar, renewable energy programs - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10455

UPDATE - Bush would cut environment funding by $2.3 billion - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10459

Bush budget seeks to expand electricity tax credit - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10465

Annan hopes US will change mind on greenhouse gas - UNITED NATIONS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10461

UK animal rights protesters occupy bank's offices - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10460

UPDATE - Toyota plans summer roll-out of fuel-cell test car - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10456

Japan, EU concerned over US stance on Kyoto pact - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10463

Global warming could hit food production - FAO - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10462

UPDATE - Small protest ahead of German nuke waste train - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10451

German Greens draw battle line in CHP talks - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10453

German nuke waste train to skirt Paris-activists - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10452

UPDATE - EU says support rising for climate deal without US - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10458

Costa Rica's eco-coffees not being recognized globally - COSTA RICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10454

UPDATE - EU says China to back climate pact without US - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10464

Ancient Canadian cedar falls victim to legal fears - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10457

4/9/01
7:08:53 PM

FAIR

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Media analysis, critiques and news reports

ACTION ALERT:

Boston Globe's Double Standard on Free Speech?

April 9, 2001

Conservative activist David Horowitz has generated significant media attention lately over his advertisement "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks-- and Racist, Too." Horowitz has approached college newspapers across the country to buy space for the ad. Most papers have refused the ad, while at Brown University some students went so far as to steal the newspapers that published the ad.

Many media outlets have understandably defended Horowitz on free speech grounds. The Boston Globe, for example, wrote this editorial on March 20: "The ideas against slavery reparations contained in an advertisement placed in student newspapers around the country may well be insulting to minorities on campus. But they are only ideas. Far more dangerous than offensive ideas is their censorship, because censorship knows no ideology and will eventually muzzle the views of the minorities as well."

But the Globe does not necessarily practice what it preaches. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman report in their April 3 "Focus on the Corporation" column that Forest Ethics, a group that advocates for the protection of ancient rainforests and endangered forests in the U.S. and Canada, was refused ad space in the Boston Globe.

The group wanted to publish an ad criticizing Staples, the office supply company, for using paper derived from old growth forests. According to Forest Ethics, it was told that the Globe would not publish an ad that mentioned Staples by name. Mokhiber and Weissman were told by a Globe ad manager that the paper was not comfortable with how Forest Ethics "expressed" its views.

At the end of its free speech editorial, the Globe lectured the offended students that "the only effective antidote to offensive speech is more speech." So what is the lesson that readers should learn about the Globe's own censorious ad policy?

ACTION: Contact Boston Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas to find out why the Forest Ethics advertisement was refused. Ask whether the Globe's refusal to run this ad critical of a specific corporation conflicts with its editorial stance defending free speech.

CONTACT:

Jack Thomas, Ombudsman

Boston Globe

mailto:ombud@globe.com

Phone: (617) 929-3022

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.

Read the Mokhiber-Weissman column : http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2001/000068.html

Read the Boston Globe editorial:

http://www.fair.org/activism/boston-globe-editorial.html

Forest Ethics:

http://www.forestethics.org/staples/

Feel free to respond to FAIR

We can't reply to everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate documented example of media bias or censorship. And please send copies ofyour email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to us at: fair@fair.org

4/9/01
6:45:10 PM

A Solution from the Nature Connect List

Information contact: Dr. Michael J. Cohen 360-378-6313

Earth Day 2001: Environmental Psychologists Offer a Remedy for Ecozombies

An antidote found in nature reverses destructive relationships by enabling people and the environment to restore each other.

Friday Harbor WA, March 29, 2001: "Anybody, including ecozombies, can successfully rehabilitate ecozombies," says Dr. Michael J. Cohen, a Greenwich University ecopsychologist who has produced nature connected education and counseling programs since 1959.

Cohen says "The environment and most of us needlessly suffer because we have become nature-disconnected Ecozombies and don't know it." His newly developed Natural Systems Thinking Process is an outdoor science that helps anybody remedy personal or environmental disorders by sensuously connecting their thinking to nature. Uniquely, it enables people and the environment to restore each other.

Cohen's website at www.53senses.com links to free ecozombie antidote Earthday activities, courses and degree programs. He may be contacted at 360-378-6313

An Ecozombie is a person who has become environmentally desensitized to the point that it psychologically deadens them. Cohen says, "An ecozombie's apathy and limited consciousness makes them relate irresponsibly to ecosystem and human life. Opportunities to help restore life in balance breeze right through their mentality. Too often that describes our society and most of us."

Using Cohen's guide book "Reconnecting With Nature" (Ecopress), James Rowe, Director of the Outward Bound School in Costa Rica says, "We dramatically increased our program's effectiveness by adding the Natural Systems Thinking Process to it. It enables our participants to connect with their sensory origins in nature and use that peaceful power to improve their relationships with self, society and the environment. "

Cohen says, "Self-improvement, education and healing have always been more successful when they include contact with nature."

The Institute of Global Education, a special NGO consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, today issued a Proclamation from Dr. Cohen who directs itsDepartment of Integrated Ecology and Project NatureConnect. The Proclamation declares Earthday, April 22, 2001, to be the official start of Ecozombie Rehabilitation Year.

The Institute's distance learning degree programs and courses attract students and mid-career professionals from a wide variety of interests. Each adds nature reconnecting skills to their means of helping people and the environment survive the destructiveness of our nature disconnected lives. This improves their effectiveness, marketability, and credibility.

Dr. Cohen may be contacted at 360-378-6313, <nature@pacificrim.net> or

http://www.ecopsych.com.

A free 800 word article for newsletters or magazines is available at:

http://www.ecopsych.com/zombstory.html

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS may be found at

http://www.ecopsych.com/zombrlsfaq.html.html

4/9/01
6:36:03 PM

Earth Day 2001 / Join in the Earth Car Free Day!

Dear friends,

Welcome to Earth Month! This month, tens of thousands of Earth Day events will be held in nearly every country on Earth. Wherever you are on 22 April, we hope you will join your brothers and sisters worldwide in celebrating our planet and calling for sustainability!

Every action taken for Earth Day is important. We want to hear from you!

If you do not have access to the web, please email your event plans to us at worldwide@earthday.net

TAKE ACTION ON 19 APRIL -- EARTH CAR FREE DAY!

Join people across the world in a huge protest against air pollution and a call for sustainable transportation! The world's first Earth Car Free Day will be on 19 April 2001, the Thursday before Earth Day (22 April).

The aim of the event is to draw global attention to the 700 million cars that travel the world's roadways and fuel traffic congestion, pollution, disease, and global warming.

Pledge to stay out of cars on 19 April by going to www.carfreeday.com and signing in.

Earth Car Free Day is a totally voluntary, grassroots movement. It enables us, the citizens, to take the battle against global warming and foul air into our own hands.

Right around the world, people will be staying out of cars, riding bicycles, walking, or participating in open-air festivals on streets blocked from cars as part of this event.

Car free day activities are being held across the planet in countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Moldova, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, the U.S., and the UK.

Participate simply by staying out of cars, or by organizing a car free day activity:

If you have to take your car, invite your neighbors and co-workers along.

Join or start a car-share club.

Organize a walk or bike to school or work program.

Start a petition to your local government to support car free day initiatives.

For more information on these and other car free day projects, please visit

http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/EarthCFD/general/kits.htm

Under the long-term leadership and commitment of The Commons, the idea of a car free day has begun to make headway in cities around the world. On 19 April, people and groups will come together to bicycle, walk, skate, take the bus and demonstrate that there are many good alternatives to solo-driver cars in cities.

Help us demand clean air and sustainable transportation by staying out of cars on 19 April! And be sure to register your involvement at

http://www.carfreeday.com

Each of you is an agent of change and a valuable part of Earth Day Network. If you haven't yet told us what you will be doing for Earth Day 2001, please let us know so we can share your plans with the world! Register your plans at www.earthday.net or email them to worldwide@earthday.net.

You are important to Earth Day and we look forward to hearing from you!

For the Earth,

Earth Day Network Worldwide Team:

Serryn Janson

Vickery J. Prongay

Helen Couture Rodriguez

Sierra James

Leigh-Anne Havemann

4/9/01
6:31:52 PM

CHINA UNDER THE THREAT OF U.S. AGGRESSION

The International Action Center denounces U.S. spy-plane flights in and near Chinese air space and U.S. threats since the plane landed in China as acts of aggression and blatant attacks on Chinese sovereignty.

The IAC, as a leading organization in the U.S. anti-war movement, calls on that movement to be on the alert for further dangerous U.S. moves against China and be prepared to raise its voice in protest against them.

Instead of offering an immediate apology for spying in Chinese coastal waters and most likely causing the death of a Chinese pilot and the loss of a Chinese jet, the U.S. government has gone on the offensive. The Bush administration has demanded the unconditional release of the spies and the equipment.

This plane was flying 7,000 miles off the coast of the continental United States when it collided with a Chinese jet. What would be the response to a Chinese spy plane conducting electronic surveillance and reconnaissance off the coast of Long Island or Virginia?

Washington allows no country to conduct such flights off the U.S. coast. But the Pentagon regularly conducts such spy missions against other countries.

The Peoples Republic of China has every right to protect its borders under those circumstances.

The U.S. government says the Chinese cannot board the spy plane, which it considers U.S. territory. Yet when a Cuban defector flew an advanced MiG plane to Florida, even though it was not engaged in spying, U.S. specialists disassembled the plane.

This latest incident is no isolated event, but is part of a chain of growing U.S. open hostility toward China. It must be viewed in light of U.S. threats to arm the Taiwan regime with a new generation of high-tech weapons, in violation of past agreements with China.

Another link in this chain was the attempt to make a scapegoat of the Chinese-American scientist, Wen Ho Lee, for alleged spying on behalf of Peoples China. Another was the calculated U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia. Another is the constant maneuvers of the U.S. 7th Fleet of aircraft carriers, jet bombers and destroyers in the Straits of Taiwan.

All these aggressive acts feed into the Pentagon campaign to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build a so-called Missile Defense Shield. Most governments recognize the MDS as being not a defensive weapon at all.

They oppose it as a highly threatening military escalation. It is an enormously expensive program built to allow a nuclear first-strike, which will only benefit the corporate merchants of death.

Since the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949 U.S. governments have varied their strategy with regard to China.

Sometimes they used open military hostility, but for the past period they focused on economic contacts. But these strategies were all aimed at trying to penetrate the Chinese economy and gain control of it.

Now this policy may be shifting back to military hostility in order to insure the super profits of the giant military contractors who benefit from the Missile Defense Shield and the new weapons for Taiwan.

A sign of possible change in this direction is the new U.S. ambassador to China, retired Admiral Joseph Prueher, a former U.S. commander in the Pacific. For the past 100 years the Navy has always been the U.S.'s "Big Stick" in the Pacific, imposing U.S. power up and down the coast of Asia.

The IAC calls on the anti-war movement in the U.S. to mobilize to demand that the Pentagon end its spy flights in the Pacific, that Washington apologize for the death of the Chinese pilot and send no new weapons to Taiwan.

International Action Center

39 West 14th Street Room 206

New York, NY 10011

email: iacenter@iacenter.org

web: http://www.iacenter.org

CHECK OUR SITE http://www.mumia2000.org

phone: 212 633-6646 fax: 212 633-2889

To make a tax-deductible donation, go to http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org

4/9/01
6:29:19 PM

Bush is Creating a Market for Star Wars

http://commondreams.org/views01/0330-06.htm

Published Friday, March 30, 2001 in the Toronto Star

Bush is Creating a Market for Star Wars

by Gordon Barthos

George Bush can't claim a mandate to rock the geopolitical boat, much less capsize it.

He barely got elected last fall. He lost the popular vote.

And after 10 weeks his approval rating is sliding fast.

Yet Bush has startled friends and foes alike with the sheer abrasiveness of his attitudes toward Russia, China and North Korea, and his indifference to world opinion on issues like global warming.

The Ugly American President George W. Bush is seen during a press conference in the White House Briefing Room on March 29, 2001. Bush has decided to walk away from the Kyoto agreement on pollution because it isn't in America's "economic interest." (Win McNamee/Reuters)

Last week Bush discovered that the Russians have spies, and gave 50 of them the heave-ho. He's been cool to meeting Vladimir Putin to talk arms control. His officials call the Russians "a nation of proliferators;" they complain about Moscow selling Iran weapons; they meet Chechen separatists.

Eyeing China, they talk about the need to "fight and win a nuclear war," with Asia as the likeliest battleground. They see China as a "competitor," not a strategic partner, and lambaste it for selling Iraq technology. They talk of selling Taiwan powerful anti-missile defences.

Meanwhile, Bush has undercut South Korea's bid to get North Korea to shelve its missile program, as it has its nuclear program, in exchange for trade and aid.

The Bush White House calls this "clarity, realism, decisiveness." Critics call it folly.

As the wreckage piles up, Republican think tanks crank out alarmist studies to demonstrate that the continental United States is open to attack and intimidation.

Has the world suddenly gone on a war footing? Hardly. But the Cold War era people around Bush - Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld, to name two - are truly ambitious patriots.

They know that the U.S. is undefeatable, and has been for a decade or more. They dream of making it invulnerable as well. They don't want even to be threatened by pipsqueak powers.

They are convinced that Ballistic Missile Defence can deliver that invulnerability. Ronald Reagan dreamed up Star Wars in 1983 as a hedge against Soviet attack. When the Soviets went away, Iraq became the new threat. Once Iraq was humbled, North Korea stood in as the villain.

There's no prize for spotting a trend here. If the Bush administration doesn't play its cards carefully, North Korea will go cuddly and there won't be a half-credible enemy left to shield against.

Most Americans support the idea of a Fortress North America. But as the U.S. economy slows and Bush has to trim his $1.6 trillion tax cut or slash federal health, education and social services, people may think twice about sinking $100 billion into a missile shield, absent a clear and present danger.

However, if Washington can make a persuasive case that the U.S. is surrounded by hostile countries, Star Wars would be an easier sell. This has implications for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's government, indeed for all U.S. allies.

We've been lobbied by Washington to keep an "open mind" about missile defence, at least until Bush rolls out his plans later this year.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials are working overtime to persuade us that (1) missile defence can work; (2) that its deployment is both necessary and inevitable; and (3) that allies must sign on, or kiss off defence co-operation.

Flawed though these premises are, the Chrétien government is choosing not to question them. It should.

The Bush administration seems bent on creating sufficient friction to make the world a truly interesting place. Not one in which Canadians can feel safer.

That's a stiff price to pay for Republican daydreams.

Realistically, do the Americans face a potential threat? Yes. A small one. Though a regime would be crazy to lob a missile their way. But working with players like the Russians and Chinese, the U.S. could easily contain bad actors.

However Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and friends would have to settle for America being the unbeatable nation, and not the invulnerable one.

The question for Chrétien is this: Why should Canada be stampeded into supporting a go-alone U.S. program driven by a new global alarmism, and which will leave the world more dangerous than before? Rather than be cowed by Republican demagoguery, the Chrétien government should try to remember what the world looked like before all this began.

Russia was a weak, struggling democracy, tilting West and trying to salvage a shred of dignity as a faded power. China just wanted to turn a buck. North Korea was a starving beggar, seeking to come in from the cold. Iran was struggling with its own internal demons.

Iraq was a broken reed. Who, exactly, are we worried about?

Gordon Barthos writes The Star's editorials on foreign affairs.

More at: http://www.commondreams.org

Please support http://www.antiwar.com and http://www.space4peace.org.

4/9/01
6:27:03 PM

NESARA

http://www.nesara.com

The National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act

Ad Placed In USA Today

The NESARA Institute placed a quarter-page, black-and-white regional advertisement in the print edition of USA Today on Friday, March 23, 2001. The ad appeared in the following distribution regions: Dallas - Denver - Kansas City - Minneapolis - Nashville

NESARA

The National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act

A Practical Solution to America's Problems

Had enough bad news lately? A dip in the economy, layoffs and cutbacks, uncontrollable public and private debt, a government insensitive to your problems, insufficient progress on environmental issues, unfair distribution of taxes, a continuing adverse balance of trade, high paying industrial jobs transferred overseas, troubled outlook for the future, the rich getting richer while the poor struggle to make ends meet.

Imagine Legislation That:

- Terminates or drastically reduces mortgage debt

- Reduces urban sprawl by restoring inner cities as vital economic areas

- Promotes universal home ownership

- Restores high-paying productive jobs

- Provides a secure future for all

- Restores financial privacy

- Increases benefits to senior citizens

- Eliminates inflation

- Replaces the income tax with a fair tax

- Provides $500 billion for new public works projects

- Eliminates bank failures

- Improves the balance of trade

- Eliminates trillions of dollars of public and private debt

- Enables single parents to support their families

- Returns control of the currency to the people

- Provides new banking rules that are equitable and fair to all

- Benefits Americans with an unprecedented economic boom

- Doubles the average standard of living

Too good to be true? No more than warm summer days, cool nights, good friends and chocolate. The solutions proposed in NESARA, The National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act, have been available to politicians in Washington for 10 years. Some members of Congress say privately that they will endorse the plan just as soon as the public demonstrates adequate support. Okay, let's take them at their word with a plan as simple as 1-2-3.

1. Study the details of this straightforward plan at http://www.nesara.com

2. Contact your public servants in Washington and ask them where they stand on NESARA's various proposals.

3. Support public discussions of NESARA, on the world wide web and through the national media.

The good news

There are practical solutions for those bad news problems. Check it out! For more information, contact the NESARA Institute, a non-profit corporation, on the web at

http://www.nesara.com

4/9/01
6:08:12 PM

Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE