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| Newsletter | March 2001 |
Problems, problems, problems.
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...reprofiling of the hills concerned is an operation undertaken by a Crown agency on Crown land and for the benefit of a Crown agency. -- Keith Holland, Rushmoor Head of Planning
The massive environmental destruction that is taking place to the west of the main runway (deforestation, reprofiling of hills) is well known (BVEJ newsletters passim). Less well known is the consultation process that took place towards the end of last year. If you were not aware of it we are not surprised as it was a very private affair between MoD (Defence Agency) and Rushmoor, airfield protesters and other interested parties were strictly off limits.
The work that is taking place is allegedly 'heathland management'. That others may benefit, ie it gives safety clearance for the airfield and enables lengthening of the runway to allow heavier aircraft is merely fortuitous, a happy coincidence. The work is for a Crown agency, by a Crown agency, on Crown land, ie Crown immunity applies and the public can go hang.
A closer inspection and it all begins to unravel. The consultation document and accompanying map, circular 18/84 reprofiling of hills and associated engineering work, shows the takeoff surface. TAG mouthpiece Sir Donald Spiers in a letter to the Farnborough News (Friday 2 February 2001) claimed the work was for safety reasons: 'The reasons for the MoD cutting down the trees near the flight path ... is of course to increase clearance and to improve safety.' English Nature (Catherine Chatters) whilst falling over backwards to support the work, nevertheless bemoan the fact that they had no input to the work until the work had started. There are no plans for biodiversity monitoring or long-term management, this is now being considered as an afterthought. Massive deforestation, ripping the tops off hills, is not 'heathland management'. Under EU law MoD has no Crown Immunity, other than for siting of nuclear missiles.
The cleared trees are being burnt. The smoke and pollution has been causing a local hazard. Burning of the trees is releasing greenhouse gases.
Catherine Chatters (English Nature) should hang her head in shame. As at Newbury (see merrick, Battle for the Trees, godhaven ink, 1996) English Nature have not only failed to protect our natural heritage, they have fallen over backwards to aid and abet the developers.
Rushmoor councillors Smith, Mathews and Dawson have attacked Patrick Kirby for scaremongering and causing panic in the local community. These councillors must think the local community are as thick as they are, that we do not notice aircraft flying over our heads, or that we are not aware of the dangers.
In a letter to the Farnborough News (Friday 2 February 2001) Sir Donald Spiers tried to claim there were no plans for expansion at Farnborough and in effect called Caroline Lucas a liar: 'I actually chaired the TAG briefing for the local MEP and can assure your readers that at no stage did I, or any representative of TAG, suggest that aircraft movements were expected to increase by a factor of five to 75,000 per annum' (BVEJ newsletter #0007 December 2000). Donald Spiers lacks any credibility. Last year Spiers tried to claim in a local radio interview that there was no local opposition to the airfield, and that support far outweighed the opposition. Fortunately the interviewer was well briefed and corrected him on both counts, 1200 letters of objection, only 200 in support. Spiers comments run counter to those made by TAG elsewhere on the desire to expand and not be limited to 25,000 movements. Spiers is also expecting us to believe that a greed-driven, Arab-owned, foreign-based company will not choose to maximise its return on capital investment, that it will not choose to maximise revenue by increasing movements and tonnage, that unlike every other airport in the world Farnborough will not expand.
It should be noted that the 28,000 movements for which TAG have been granted planning permission does not include MoD or those operated on behalf of the Crown. Add in these extras and we are looking at well in excess of 30,000 annual movements.
Fara (lighthouse in Spanish), Farnborough Aerodrome Residents Association, now has a web site. 01252 654920/651537
The Daily Telegraph (26 Jan 2001) had a report by Charles Clover on Jonathan Porritt berating the government for not doing 'enough' (ie bugger all) for the environment, with a special on aviation and its ludicrous tax-free regime.
Julia Welchman and Jenny Craven (two campaigners who have done more on their own than all the campaigners in Farnborough added together) were featured on Get Me the Manager (BBC1 1900 Friday 2 February 2001). They staged a 'go-slow' through the Heathrow tunnels. To coincide, John Peel did a nice write up in the Radio Times.
The Channel 4 programme Powerhouse (noon Tuesday 6 February 2001 and noon Friday 9 February 2001) was presented by Caroline Lucas. She featured the environmental costs of aviation with a look at the problems facing Farnborough.
Farnborough has been mentioned several times in the last few months by SchNEWS
Organophosphates used as aircraft lubricants are finding their way into the cabin as toxic fumes. Passengers are at risk, but even more at risk are the crew from the accumulative effect of low level doses.
Organophosphates cause neurological damage. Sooner or later there will be a major crash due to brain damaged crew.
Last year at Farnborough a plane had to make an emergence landing on take-off, executing a tight turn over the college in order to do so, due to fumes leaking into the cockpit.
Currently the MoD Police (aka MoD Plod) can only deal with squaddies other armed forces personnel and defence contractors. The Armed Forces Bill will create a national go anywhere do anything military police force. Currently the 35,000-strong force are prohibited from intervention within the wider community.
Let's assume that BVFoE were about to exposes something dastardly involving MoD, that the 'heathland management' to the west of the Farnborough Airfield was nothing to do with heathland management and everything to do with aiding and abetting a commercial airfield operator, and were about to release this as a scoop to the local press. MoD Plod could raid the BVFoE office (aka Rick's place) and seize all their computer equipment. An unlikely scenario? Unfortunately not, it has already happened. MoD has seized files belonging to ex-Army personnel exposing nasty things in Northern Ireland, tried to set up a well respected officer who had served in the Balkans just because his ethnic origins were from that region.
Under the proposed legislation, officers would have powers to stop and search and assist in the breaking up of large demonstrations such as anti-globalisation protests and GM crop trashing.
What next, the Transport Police allowed free reign?
Even for those familiar with the work taking place on the hills to the west of Farnborough Airport under the guise of 'heathland management' it still comes as a shock to see what is actually going on.
The first big shock comes when travelling on the Pyestock road just before the Basingstoke Canal is crossed. There, straight ahead, is acres and acres of bare ground, scalped clean of any vegetation, devoid of any living thing.
On the route from Farnborough skirting around the airfield, road construction and a new entrance to the airfield is passed. Who is paying for this, TAG or the long suffering public? As the canal is approached, more road works and a round-a-bout across the canal. Rushmoor gave the go-ahead for this work. It means the loss of heathland but so what.
The view is of hundreds of acres of scorched earth. The view from the Pyestock road is bad enough but that is but one small part. Most of the devastation is hidden from the Aldershot-Fleet road by a small screen of trees and shrubs. The area has to be walked to appreciate the full extent of the devastation that has taken place. Huge earth movers have been at work, bumps levelled out, hollows filled in. The only equivalent is the massive earth moving that takes along the route of a motorway. Deforestation was bad enough, but at least the stumps would have been left, the rotting pine needles, the ground flora, brushwood. Nothing has been left.
This work has been carried out as 'heathland management'. It is difficult to imagine anything worse other than perhaps military helicopters spraying the whole area with Agent Orange. To English Nature, who not only did not oppose this scorched earth policy but wholeheartedly endorsed it, it is the best thing since sliced bread.
What of the nationally important reptile population, the rare insects and spiders? Presumably all crushed to death and buried beneath tonnes of soil and sand. Reptiles were only removed from one small part of the affected area, and then without any prior consultation. This 'heathland management' project was to improve the habitat for heathland birds. Is their ideal habitat bare sand and gravel with nothing living within hundreds of acres?
The few paths that are left, have been turned in the heavy rain into rivers of sand and silt. The landscaped area already has erosion scars.
The Basingstoke Canal running past the end of the runway has had all its trees and shrubs ripped out, including at least one lovely specimen of a tree at least a couple of hundred years old. The secluded Eelmoor Flash which had reeds at the back, then shrubs, then trees has had everything ripped out and destroyed. The water-fowl have gone. All that is left is churned up mud and broken branches.
From the towpath Eelmoor Flash was a favourite spot for fishermen. There were plenty of fish, all the fish have gone. The fishermen were not consulted on the work. One solitary fisherman said insofar as fishing is concerned, the spot 'is now fucked'.
A couple of tonnes of timber have been extracted from the canal, thousands of tonnes from the hills. The small stuff was burnt causing a pollution problem for Fleet and adding to greenhouse gases.
The scalping of the hills covers a far wider area than clearance for the airfield would require. It looks as though clearance is for a second runway running parallel to the existing main runway. Aircraft are already coming in much closer. The wide cleared area will enable aircraft to turn on takeoff over Church Crookham.
Words alone, even pictures, can not fully describe or do justice to the environmental destruction that has taken place. It has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Please visit the area and see for yourselves what has taken place. Tell your friends.
The damaged area includes two SSSIs, and the silt run-off could potentially damage another. The damaged area is part of the proposed Thames Basin SPA.
Mid-February a sign was seen on the towpath advising anyone passing by, MoD Conservation Work in Progress.
We must take our legal safeguards seriously, or we face the wiping out of endangered species through the creeping loss of habitats. -- Margot Wallstrom, EU environment commissioner
The EU is to take the UK to the European Court of Justice for failing to comply with the EU habitats directive. Under this directive planning permission for development can only be granted for protected areas and/or where endangered species are put at risk where 'there are imperative reasons and an overriding case to do so'.
The UK is being accused of putting the interest of developers first. The EU has said the UK is failing to enforce the directive and granting exemptions to anyone who asks. If we look at Rushmoor, it is not even necessary to request an exemption, planning permission is automatic.
EU environment commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, believes that planning consent should only be granted as an exemption when there was no alternative to the development, exemptions should not be the norm.
The EU is taking the UK to court because it has not altered its bad behaviour since being formally warned last March that it was in breach of EU law. Revised DETR rules state that sites should not be destroyed unless there were reasons of overriding public interest, which included social or economic justifications.
It is not just to the Third World we need to look to see sweatshop labour, we have it on our doorsteps.
We have all seen the notices pinned up on lamp posts: Work from home, earn hundreds of pounds a week. Most are scams, far from earning hundreds of pounds, workers end up out of pocket.
Typical scams are money demanded up front for registration, material, information and nothing received. Premium rate phone lines to elicit further information.
Even when the scheme is bona fide, that is not outright fraud or theft, workers often find they are paid at the rate of pence per hour once they have costed in materials, heat and light and the costs of 'quality control'.
A Private Members Bill to outlaw these scams fell at the first hurdle.
The government has granted arms export licences to enable the refurbishment of artillery in Morocco. Morocco illegally occupies Western Sahara and has done so ever since the Spanish pulled out in 1975 and granted independence. Morocco is pursuing a policy of brutal suppression. Morocco even claims sovereignty over the Canary Islands!
The comparisons are with Turkey's repression in occupied Kurdistan and northern Cyprus and Indonesia's occupation of East Timor. In all cases the UK has been only too happy to supply arms to repressive regimes.
The US and Sweden have parliamentary scrutiny of arms exports, the UK does not. Four parliamentary select committees have called for parliamentary scrutiny of arms exports. Robin (wot's ethics) Cook has refused to grant parliamentary scrutiny of arms exports.
In opposition New Labour stated it would be a scandal if the recommendations of the Scott Inquiry into the arms-to-Iraq affair were not implemented. Lord Justice Scott has recently stated that it is a scandal that New Labour has not implemented his recommendations on arms sales.
Robin (wot's ethics) Cook's ethical foreign policy has once again been exposed as gross hypocrisy.
New Labour, same old lies.
In South Africa the ANC government is embroiled in an arms kickback scandal. South Africa has purchased Hawk trainers from BAE Systems, fighter aircraft from Sweden and corvettes from Germany. The leaders of South Africa are going the way of all African states, western stooges who get rich on the backs of the poor.
There has to be a ban on arms sales to countries where there is a poor human rights record, where there is internal conflict and civil unrest and to countries that are bread-basket cases.
My colleagues and I are totally committed to a business strategy that generates profits while contributing to the well-being of the planet and its people. We see no alternative. -- Mark Moody-Stewart, Shell chairman
We have already seen the damage that Shell's activities can have on wildlife, such as at Dureji Wildlife Sanctuary. We find it quite outrageous that they are now planning to plunder one of our most precious national parks - in Kirthar - home to some of our most endangered species. Shell's project is illegal. Our law clearly prohibits any kind of mining or exploration activity in these areas. But now this massive corporation is using its influence, and contacts with ex-Shell employees now in Government, to trash our wildlife laws. We call on British investors with money in Shell to ask this company how it can defend its actions. -- Farhan Anwar, Executive Member of Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment
Shell claims that it cares about poor people and the environment, yet its massive profits are being used to open up and plunder some of the world's most precious and sensitive areas. -- Craig Bennett, FoE habitats campaigner
Internationally listed Kirthar National Park in Sindh province in Pakistan was established in 1974. It is habitat for many endangered species including the Sindh ibex, desert wolves, leopards, striped hyenas, rare wild sheep and the imperial eagle. The park stretches over 740,000 acres of forests and valleys, is the essential water supply for the 14 million inhabitants of Karachi. Within the park lies Rannikot Fort, c 3500 BC.
Shell are planning illegal oil exploration in the Kirthar National Park.
Corruption is a byword in Pakistan.
Kirthar National Park is protected under Pakistan law. Mohammed Mian Soomro (governor of Sindh province, until last year a director of Shell-Pakistan) has amended local wildlife laws to enable pipeline construction in the park. Final permission for oil drilling will have to be given by by Pakistan's Federal oil minister, Usman Aminuddin (former executive of Shell subsidiary, Burshane).
Nine environmental organisations in Pakistan have petitioned the Sindh High Court. Mineral and gas exploration is illegal in the Kirthar National Park under the Sindh Wildlife Protection Ordinance.
Dureji Wildlife Sanctuary in the Pakistan province of Baluchistan has been damaged by Shell. Roads have given increased access to poachers and damaged the fragile mountain environment. Seismic testing has disturbed wildlife. One rig was constructed in the Hamilag range in the heart of an environmentally sensitive area, contrary to an Environmental Impact Assessment. Dureji is important for Sindh ibex and rare mountain sheep. As a result of the damage Dureji has been downgraded from a Wildlife Sanctuary to a Game Reserve.
Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment and several other local green organisations in Pakistan are calling on the world to help them in their fight against Shell. Actions include shareholder action, including pressure on major shareholders, boycott of Shell, and writing to the Pakistani ambassador.
The world cannot afford to burn known carbon reserves if it is to avoid a global climate catastrophe. All future oil exploration, whether in environmentally sensitive areas or not, should cease.
Protesters in Nigeria have occupied three of Shells oil pumping stations forcing them to close. In a statement on Monday, the protesters called for the provision of amenities such as schools and roads, as well as jobs for local people. Despite huge revenues being gained from oil production, indigenous people see none of the benefits. Many villages close to oil wells still have no electricity, clinics or other basic services. The protests are reported to be costing the oil company 40,000 barrels a day. Not that Shell will notice this much as they have just announced record profits up 85 percent from last year. Shell are said to be holding talks with representatives from the community.
[courtesy SchNEWS 292 Friday 9 February 2001]
Shell have recently been awarded the World Environment Center's Seventeenth Annual Gold Medal for International Corporate Environmental Achievement. The judges for the competition chose Shell because of 'their clear commitment to sustainable development'. Come again, we must be missing something here. Even if you believe, as Shell alleges, that they are cleaning up their appalling environmental and human rights record, they are still an oil company that is continuing to make vast amounts of money on destroying the climate.
Shell made a record œ9 billion profit last year. This was surpassed by BP Amoco who announced a record œ9.7 billion, double that of the previous year.
The World Economic Forum (see Schnews 233) in the Swiss ski resort of Davos recently took place in 'fortress-like' conditions. In a temporary suspension of democratic rights, hundreds of armed police 'effectively privatised' the area, turning up to 1000 people away from the border who were not 'normal-looking' or carried suspicious reading material. After deeming them abnormal and unworthy of entry into the chic resort, police had hoped to spray these folk with horseshit, but were scuppered when local farmers refused to provide manure.
Messages submitted worldwide to a Swiss website were laser-beamed onto the mountain which overlooks Davos. These included suspiciously non-commercial, environment and people-based propaganda, submitted by people probably not wearing suits.
Meanwhile in Brazil a counter-conference called the World Social Forum pissed all over Davos by bringing together 12,000 people from 120 countries. Militant farmers from all around the globe then went on to join Brazilian peasants from the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Rio Grande, storming a Monsanto biotech research station. They trashed GM corn and soybeans and took over the research centre setting up beds and hammocks.
Another 5000 protesters marched through Madrid to coincide with the WEF, demonstrating against Davos, and the opening up of borders for profit but not for people. White monkey activists dressed in white overalls with helmets and balloons for protection scaled 15 storey buildings, hanging huge banners against immigration laws and capitalism. The police tried to detain 70 white monkeys but had to return them to the crowd after the sound system truck stopped in the road along with 5000 demonstrators and refused to move on.
[courtesy SchNEWS 292 Friday 9 February 2001, also see BVEJ newsletter #0009 February 2001]
The IMF-imposed policies, carried out by the Ecuadorian government in exchange for more loans, have resulted in more than 50% of Ecuador's national budget going to pay off the foreign debt, have burdened the country with the highest rate of inflation in Latin America, the highest levels of corruption, the most advanced rates of deforestation and environmental degradation, and the worst example of maldistribution of wealth on the continent ... and this disaster, the result of your policies, is repeating itself throughout the Third World in which you have intervened to 'help us rise out of poverty'. -- Ivonne Yanez, Accion Ecologica
Ecuador is currently under a state of emergency after thousands of protestors took to the streets to demand the government withdraw sweeping price rises across the country. Thanks to yet another one of those structural adjustment programmes so beloved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the price of cooking fuel has doubled, petrol prices have risen sharply and bus fares have increased by 75%.
However, the government has stated that their economic policy was not negotiatable 'as it constitutes the fundamental backbone of the stabilisation plan for dollarisation and the predictions of growth', as agreed with the IMF.
Freedom of association has been suspended, and the army is arresting anyone leading the protests. Once again it is the indigenous people of Ecuador - who make up around forty five per cent of the population - that are leading the protests. Obviously they aren't listening to the UK's Development Minister Clare Short who reckons complaints against organisations like the IMF are from those 'sitting predominately in the wealthy parts of the world.'
Large areas of the country have been paralysed by blockades and 5,000 people are in the University of Eucador with the police and army firing thousands of bullets and tear gas at them.
Just over a year ago, over one a half million Indians marched on the capital against the privatisation of the water supply and the dollarisation of the economy. Their protests toppled the president. Vice president Gustavo Noboa took over promising that the water of Ecuador would never be sold off to multinationals, small farmers would be forgiven their debts to the government and fuel prices would be frozen for 2 years.
However, at the same time the army was given a huge pay rise with the help of US 'aid' and the promises and signed accords were forgotten. Since then the currency has been dollarised, trade unions banned in the mines and oil fields (all of which are 100% USA owned) the price of petrol was raised by 200%. For poor farmers who depend on getting their produce to market that increases have been devastating. The US is also busy building 11 new military bases in the country under the cover of 'fighting the war on drugs'.
The Ecuadorian government have warned that 'all subversive agents who are responsible for formenting destabilisation will be arrested for disturbing the peace.'
Surely the ones destabilising the economy and formenting unrest are the IMF? SchNEWS reckons it's about time they were shut down, their policies locked up and the key thrown away.
[courtesy SchNEWS 292 Friday 9 February 2001]
Imagine witnessing devastating plague and sitting on a cure for fear of incurring shareholders revolt. -- Ben Jackson, Action for Southern Africa
With AIDS sweeping through Africa like the plague, the world's most powerful drug companies are showing the usual corporate compassion by taking the South African government to court to stop cheap drugs being used to help people with HIV.
In 1997 former President Nelson Mandela passed a law which gave the country the right to buy huge amounts of generic drugs and sell them cheaply to help people with HIV. The law also gives South Africa the right to 'compulsorily license' HIV drugs - allowing a drug to be produced more cheaply by someone other than the patent holder, if it's in the public interest.
The response of the pharmaceutical industry, the US and EU governments was swift and deadly. The US threatened trade sanctions, and the European Commission argued the law broke World Trade Organisation rules. Meanwhile 40 pharmaceutical companies took legal action to declare the law unconstitutional.
This has meant, in the words of the South African's health minister 'pioneering legislation has, to date, been crippled by legal challenges, cynically mounted by multinational companies, in order to preserve their narrow self-interest in exorbitant financial profit'.
25 million people are currently infected by the HIV virus in sub-Saharan Africa, yet only 25,000 Africans (0.1 per cent of those infected) receive the drugs which are available in the West to help prolong lives.
The big drug firms are scared that if they turn a blind eye to cheap drugs in South Africa it will set a dangerous precedent and hit their future balance sheets. Yet just 1 per cent of drug revenues comes from the entire African continent.
One of the most blatant examples of a company profiteering from AIDS is Pfizer. Pfizer manufactures fluconazole which is used to treat two common infections associated with HIV which are often fatal if left untreated. Fluconazole costs over 10 times more in South Africa than high-quality equivalents available from countries like Thailand and India. The result of Pfizer's profiteering is that many hospitals in the country have insufficient stocks of fluconazole, and many people suffer or die because they cannot afford the private sector price for the drug.
The Treatment Action Campaign is currently preparing legal action against the company.
We cannot allow global trade rules to be used to put the commercial interests of drug companies over the public health interests of millions in Southern Africa. -- Ben Jackson, Action for Southern Africa.
The South African government has come under fire because they have signed up to the World Trade Organisations TRIPS - Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. This allows owners of 'intellectual property' to control the exploitation of their inventions worldwide, determining the price at which they can be sold and the royalties they receive. Brazil meanwhile - which has not yet fully implemented the WTO TRIPs agreement - has cut the cost of anti-retroviral treatments by 72 per cent since 1996 by using locally made versions in a national treatment scheme. In Sao Paulo AIDS deaths have fallen by 53 per cent since 1995.
Still, what do the drug companies care? Well, another one of those companies taking part in the legal action is GlaxoSmithKline who recently became the world's biggest drugs group. It's mission statement says how it 'is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.' But that is, of course only if you've got the cash.
[courtesy SchNEWS 290 Friday 19 January 2001]
Oxfam has joined the growing list of organisations criticising the attitude of the big drug companies towards the world's poor. In particular Oxfam has singled out GlaxoSmithKline. Oxfam has described the action of the big companies and their backers in the West as waging war on Third World countries. The stance taken by Oxfam has the backing of many institutional investors who are embarrassed by the greed of GlaxoSmithKline.
GlaxoSmithKline speak of piracy. This is double standards and hypocrisy. The pirates are GlaxoSmithKline who are engaging in biopiracy in developing countries. [BVEJ newsletters passim for biopiracy and intellectual property rights]
Brazil, Thailand and India are the three countries being targeted.
The experience of South Africa and several other countries illustrates what we can expect if GATS comes into force, global corporations will be able to overrule democratically elected governments. TRIPs needs amendment, if not abolition. Further grounds for the abolition of WTO. [BVEJ newsletters #0007 December 2000 and #0009 February 2001]
Drugs companies across southern England have been targeted for their involvement with Huntingdon Death Sciences. [BVEJ newsletter #0009 February 2001]
Read The Constant Gardener by John le Carre (Hodder & Stoughton, 2000).
... when people ask me why I am not in love with Turkey, I have to explain that I cannot separate its two sides. Behind the smiling face of western Turkey lies the masked face of the torturer - and the suffering faces of Kurdistan. -- Justin Huggler
I was kicked and given electric shocks. For days they gave me electric shocks to my fingertips, toes and genitals ... they raped me a thousand times. -- Nazli Top, tortured and raped whilst pregnant at Istanbul police headquarters
We know from the number of Turkish women that we treat at the Medical Foundation that rape and sexual assault of young women is commonplace in Turkish prisons. -- Helen Bamber, Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture
Turkey's political prisoners remain on hunger strike in protest against their removal to isolated cells containing 1-3 people with no access to lawyers or medical treatment. The move comes as an attempt by the Turkish authorities to break up the solidarity and self-regulation of political prisoners. The hunger strikers have now been holding their fast for around 85 days and many are in a critical condition.
In recent weeks 4 police have been killed and around 30 injured through retaliation attacks to the storming of 20 prisons on 20 December in which 30 prisoners were killed.
The Turkish government has imposed a censor on the press, with all reporting relating to the situation of the detainees prohibited, whilst 5 branches of Turkey's Human Rights Association have been closed with members detained.
Four activists were arrested whilst laying a wreath outside the Istanbul offices of the Democratic Left Party, they are currently held in prison awaiting trial which could result in 1 year sentences.
Thirteen Kurdish school children are being put on trial. Their 'crime' is to have been part of a group of 25 children and a few adults who gathered around a bonfire in the occupied town of Viransehir shouting Kurdish slogans. They face 2-3 years in gaol.
The children's families are from the Kurdish village of Derik, destroyed by Turkish security thugs in 1990.
Women who complained of being raped by the police go on trial for insulting the officers.
Fatma Polattas was 19 when a police officer raped her with his truncheon. A rarity in Turkey, the case has gone to court, but it is Fatma who is in the dock, for daring to accuse the police, not those who raped her. Fatma is one of five women on trial. Their 'crime' is for having the courage to speak out at a conference on sexual abuse and rape. They are charged with insulting Turkish security forces and the 'moral integrity' of the Turkish state.
Police surrounded the conference and arrested participants and organisers. The police told them; 'You said what you wanted - slander against Turkey. There will be a trial and you will be judged.' Those arrested face 1-30 years in gaol.
One man who was arrested for speaking of the rape of his daughter faces 18 years in gaol:
They don't want people to talk about torture in Turkey because of relationships with Europe. If there was justice in Turkey, they would not have convicted my daughter before the trial of the men who raped her.
It is routine to rape and torture prisoners as part of the interrogation process.
These cases are not an abnormality, they are the norm for Turkey.
Turkey is a member of Nato, a prime candidate for EU membership.
Next time someone is thinking of holidaying in Turkey, tell them to look beyond the glossy brochures to the masked face of the torturer, the suffering faces of Kurdistan.
As we reported last month (BVEJ newsletter #0009 January 2001) Pay as You Go phones offer best value for money and contract phones are a rip-off. Best value: Virgin Mobile or BT Cellnet (only if use is limited to weekends). It seems the networks agree with us. Having flogged 5-6 million cellphones over the Christmas period (most of which were Pay as You Go) One2One, and the rest are expected to follow, are going to phase out Pay as You Go and force users onto rip-off contract phones.
Will the toothless watchdog Oftel stand by and do nothing?
Campaigners are asking that the Orange flotation be boycotted as a protest against the failure of Orange to abide by government recommendations on the siting of mobile base stations. Not that any canny investor should need any encouragement to avoid Orange. The boom times are gone, the bottom has fallen out of the market, share prices are falling. Orange has failed to mention in its prospectus the impact on growth of tighter planning controls on the siting of base stations. The 3G (next generation of phones) are already seen as a dodo.
Sell, sell, sell is the City watchword on dotcoms, biotech, internet and other highly overrated hightech hype. Telecoms is now seen to be in the same category, especially as most telecoms companies only rose on the skirt tails of internet stocks. The failure of France to auction off all of its 3G licences shows the bubble has finally burst.
In the US, Verizon Horizon (45% owned by Vodaphone) is being sued by the same legal team who took on the tobacco industry and won.
Planners have rejected a mobile phone mast in Fleet. Planners have rejected a mobile phone mast in Guildford. Planners in Rushmoor refused to consider legitimate health fears of residents in Aldershot and granted permission for mobile communication microwave links.
Stop press: As we predicted the Orange flotation proved to be a massive flop.
Monsatan share price was in free fall, no one would touch them with a barge-pole. Monsatan shares are now starting to rise, analysts are recommending buy. What has turned around Monsatan's fortunes is the BSE crisis. Monsatan GM soya that was forced off the supermarkets shelves is coming in through the back door as animal feed. If we cannot use diseased animal remains then let's use GM soya. [see BVEJ newsletters passim on GM in animal feed]
Pressure has to be put on all the main stores to not use GM animal feed.
Three senior Aventis CropScience executives have been fired for the cock-up that led to GM maize getting into the food chain. Aventis StarLink maize, developed to resist insects, found its way into food in Taco Bell restaurants. Aventis has had to set aside $100 million for compensation claims. StarLink causes diarrhoea and and allergic reactions.
Corporate Watch have produced briefings for anti-GM campaigners on the two major global grain companies, Cargill, and ADM.
The EU moratorium on GM is about to end.
It is clear from these calculations that the GE industry is making false promises about Golden Rice. It is nonsense to think anyone would or could eat this much rice, and there is still no proof that it can provide any significant vitamin benefits anyway. -- Von Hernandez, Greenpeace Campaigner in the Philippines
The European markets have resoundingly rejected GE products, consumers worldwide don't want them in their food, and the industry is desperate for alternative markets. Golden Rice has been presented as a quick fix for a global problem. It isn't, and the cash-driven propaganda about the product is swamping attempts to enforce existing effective solutions, and carry out further work on other sustainable, reliable methods to address the problem. -- Von Hernandez, Greenpeace Campaigner in the Philippines
GM food has been pushed off the supermarket shelves, the Balkans have refused dumped GM food as food aid, the Americans are waking up to the dangers, GM animal feed is moving up the political agenda.
Having failed with 'it will feed the starving third world', medicinal and dietary substitutes are now being promoted as the biotech companies get increasingly desperate to off-load their unwanted products.
It is claimed vitamin A enhanced rice would save thousands of children from blindness and millions of malnourished people from vitamin A deficiency (VAD) related diseases. Syngenta (formed from Zeneca), one of the world's leading GM companies and pesticide producers that owns many patents on the Golden Rice, claims one month of a delay in marketing Golden Rice would cause 50,000 children to go blind.
A simple calculation based on the product developers' own figures show an adult would have to eat at least 12 times the normal intake of 300 grams to get the daily recommended amount of provitamin A. An adult would have to eat at least 3.7 kilograms of dry weight rice, which results in about nine kilograms of cooked rice, to satisfy their daily need of vitamin A from Golden Rice. A normal daily intake of 300 grams of rice would, at best, provide 8% of the vitamin A needed daily. A breast feeding woman would have to eat at least 6.3 kilograms in dry weight, converting to nearly 18 kilograms of cooked rice per day.
The Rockefeller Foundation, the main sponsors of Golden Rice, have said that the biotech industry has 'gone too far' in its promotion of the product. While upholding its principal support for the project, Rockefeller Foundation President Gordon Conway has said in a letter to Greenpeace: 'the public relations uses of Golden Rice have gone too far. The industry's advertisements and the media in general seem to forget that it is a research product that needs considerable further development before it will be available to farmers and consumers.'
As with hunger, promoting Golden Rice does not address the underlying causes of vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which is mainly poverty and lack of access to a more diverse diet. For the short-term, measures such as supplementation (such as pills) and food fortification are cheap and effective. The long term solution is to promote the use and access to food naturally rich in provitamin A, such as red palm oil, to work on the root causes of poverty and to ensure access to a diverse and healthy diet.
In a recent letter to the New York Times, Dr Marion Nestle noted that 'conversion of beta carotene to vitamin A, and transport in the body to the tissues that use vitamin A, require diets adequate in fat and protein. People whose diets lack these nutrients or who have intestinal diarrhoea diseases - common in developing countries - can not obtain Vitamin A from Golden Rice.'
[see also BVEJ newsletter #0008 January 2001]
George W Bush seems determined to prove true Ralph Nader's gibe that he is a corporation dressed up as a human being.
George Bush Oil President Dick Cheney Oil Vice President Don Evans Oil Commerce Secretary Condulezza Rice Chevron National Security Adviser John Ashcroft Monsatan, drugs Attorney General Donald Rumsfeld Monsatan Defence Secretary Ann Veneman Monsatan Agriculture Secretary Paul O'Neill Aluminium Treasury Secretary Gale Norton Lead Interior Secretary
When in the Senate, John Ashcroft was the biggest recipient of campaign funds from Monsatan.
The biggest single contributor to Bush funds was Kenneth Lay, chief executive of Enron. Enron is the only company to have ever been criticised by Amnesty International for human rights abuses. Enron has been responsible for the energy meltdown in California and the first to profit from it. Enron is pushing for a relaxation of the tough Californian environmental legislation.
A green light for Hastings will destroy the credibility of the Government's many promises not to build damaging roads. -- Lilli Matson, head of transport, CPRE
Environmentalists are gearing themselves up for what is likely to be the biggest roads battle since Newbury and is seen as a test of Labour's roads programme and commitment to the environment.
The Hastings Bypass will cut through part of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Coombe Haven, a species rich marshy river valley, SSSI and Sussex nature reserve, will be cut in half.
The Hastings Bypass drives a coach and horses through the government's road building programme, it will also open the route for further damaging road schemes along the south coast.
[BVEJ newsletter #0009 February 2001]
Wealth and money is not the key to happiness. A study of several hundred American and Korean students put money at the bottom of the list.
The students were asked to list their most satisfying experiences over the last week, month and term, and then to relate these to ten emotional and physical factors. Being true to one's self, being competent, having self-respect and the respect of others, having closer bonds with other people, all came out at the top of the list.
People are happiest when they feel that they are in charge of their own lives, when they are in regular contact with people who care about them, when they exude self-respect not self-doubt, and when they feel they are doing well, not being incompetent or ineffective.
In Hamlet, Polonius tells his son:
This above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
At last it's happening. Just as the neo-liberals on both sides of the Atlantic proclaim universal victory, a composite radical opposition movement is beginning to emerge. It's confused, it's contradictory and it looks like nothing we've ever seen before. But for the first time in 14 years of campaigning, I feel that I've witnessed something unstoppable. -- George Monbiot
As noticed by us and reported upon by George Monbiot (The Guardian, Thursday 8 February 2001) there is a whiff of political dissent in the air. Not yet of the scale of the Civil Rights and Vietnam Protests in the US in the 1960s but something is definitely going on.
It seemed to start a couple of summers ago, riots in the City, mass trashing of GM crops in Oxfordshire, followed by the Seattle riots. Last year saw the Mayday riots in Parliament Square in London. Also last year over 1,000 people turned up in Central London for a meeting on GATS organised by WDM (BVEJ newsletter #0007 December 2000). Last month 1,300 people turned up in Hammersmith for a meeting on globalisation, over 1,200 people turned up to a planning meeting in Guildford to oppose an incinerator (BVEJ newsletter #0009 February 2001).
The only people who don't seem to have noticed what is going on are the mainstream media. If either of the sleaze-ridden main parties report a trivial tax change the media will engage in a collective orgasm, anything of importance happening in the real world, affecting real people (especially if corporate interest are affected) go unreported, they don't exist. One of the worst examples of this is the programme the Westminster Hour (Sunday nights BBC Radio 4) which reports on the trivia and mindless drivel of Westminster as though this garbage is somehow the real world affecting the lives of real people.
As George Monbiot has reported, people as never before are prepared to turn up to political meetings and be counted, to make their voices heard. They are a disparate group, car workers, steel workers, transport workers, greens, anarchists and socialists. All willing to stand shoulder to shoulder, all with a common purpose. They all recognise a common enemy,the global corporations who are crushing everything that stands in their path of global domination.
But the unprecedented solidarity between these disparate groups is beginning, I feel, to develop into a programme in its own right: a grassroots reorganisation of the political process, propelling democratic renewal from below.
Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, Tom Clancy's Net Force, Severn House, 1998
The prose is pretty awful, the plot crap, it reads like a film script, but what is interesting is the visual imagery of the virtual reality.
Net Force is the first of the Net Force concept. Tom Clancy doesn't write novels, he creates concepts. We suppose we should think ourselves lucky there isn't a secondary marketing effort to go with it.
What is interesting about Net Force is the VR visual imagery. Not the level of a William Gibson or Bruce Sterling but interesting nevertheless. Instead of tapping away at a key board or manipulating a mouse, the web is traversed through virtual reality. As you traverse the net you adopt a persona, you could be a hiker following a trail or a biker on a Harley Davidson rattling down a data highway passing slow moving trucks (representing gigabytes of data). Other peoples personas are translated into your universe, you would appear as a boat if they were travelling a river, data hold ups are represented as traffic jams, crashes a multiple car pile up.
VR to one side it is impossible to tell Net Force from the other Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik creation, Op-Center.
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