Global News Headlines 01/17

[greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org]

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Greenpeace Daily Environmental News Headlines
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Sunday, January 17, 1999
Greenbase Unit
Greenpeace International
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 TOXICS 

1) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Beijing plans 45 million dollar garbage-
burning power station DATELINE: BEIJING, Jan 17 BODY: Beijing is planning to
invest 45 million dollars in the country's first garbage-burning power plant
in an attempt to fill the city's insatiable demand for electricity in an
environmentally-friendly way, reports said Sunday. The plant, located in the...

2) Aberdeen Press and Journal January 16, 1999 SECTION: Environment:
Pollution, Pg.3 HEADLINE: Landfill site could be 'biggest in Europe' BODY: A
LANDFILL site due to open in April will help to relieve the serious shortage
of refuse-dumping facilities in the North-east. The operators of the
Stoneyhill tip -  between Hatton and Cruden Bay - claim further proposed...

3) SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) Jan 17, 1999 SECTION: Pg. 16 HEADLINE: Christopher
Booker's Notebook: Pilots challenge pesticide cover-up BYLINE:Christopher
Booker BODY: AN unexpected new challenge has emerged to the cover-up by
governments and pharmaceutical firms of the extraordinary dangers posed to
human health by nerve-gas-related organo-phosphorus (OP) chemicals. In...

 NUCLEAR POWER 

4) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Two German ministers oppose any transport of
radioactive waste DATELINE: BONN, Jan 16 BODY: Two heads of German regional
governments which are home to storage centres for radioactive waste have
expressed their opposition to  waste  transports, one day after Germany
vowed to repatriate reprocessed waste from France. The head of the Rhine...

5) France ups ante in nuke waste row with Germany By Gerard Bon PARIS, Jan
17 (Reuters) France raised the stakes in a looming nuclear waste row
with Germany on Sunday by saying official agreements called for the
payment of damages, disputed by Bonn, if it breaks reprocessing
contracts. Jean Syrota, head of the reprocessing firm Cogema, said
the accompanying agreements were...

6) SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) Jan 17, 1999 Pg. 16 HEADLINE: Christopher Booker's
Notebook: EU aid pays for rape of the environment BYLINE: Christopher Booker
BODY: AMID all the recent furore over EU fraud, one significant thread in
this pitiful saga has gone unnoticed. This is the connection between EU
corruption and the startling fact that nearly a third of Britain's pounds...

7) Aberdeen Press and Journal Jan 16, 1999 SECTION: Environment: Pollution,
Pg.10 HEADLINE: New GBP 17m plant to deal with Dounreay waste BODY:
PREPARATIONS are well under way on the major task of safely disposing of the
hundreds of tonnes of radioactive sodium used to cool Dounreay's prototype
fast reactor. A GBP 17million specialist treatment plant has been built to...

8) Bridgman, Mich., Nuclear Power Plant Closing Extended By Julie A. Swidwa,
South Bend Tribune, Ind.  Jan. 16--BRIDGMAN, Mich.--A shutdown that already
has cost the Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant nearly $100 million could stretch
to the end of the year, American Electric Power Co. officials announced
Thursday.  Cook plant officials were targeting late March as the date to end...

9) The New York Times Jan 17, 1999 Late Edition - Final SECTION: 14CN; Page
6; Column 5; Connecticut Weekly Desk HEADLINE: Just Whose Millstone
Is It? BYLINE: JOHN RATHER BODY: INFLUENTIAL groups and public
officials on the East End of Long Island are stepping up a determined
campaign to close the Millstone nuclear power plant in Connecticut,
even as its operators await...

10) Fed govt kicks off campaign on Kakadu heritage listing BYLINE: Melissa
Langerman BODY: CANBERRA, Jan 17 AAP - The Australian federal government
today began an international campaign to stop Kakadu being laced on the
World Heritage endangered list, accusing the United Nations of unfairly
targeting Australia. The government has just four months to prepare a report...

 NUCLEAR WEAPONS & MILITARY 

11) U.S. rejects N. Korean request for nuke redress GENEVA, Jan. 17 (Kyodo) The
United States on Saturday rejected North Korea's request for compensation in
return for allowing inspections of an alleged underground nuclear facility,
U.S. officials said. The officials said, however, North Korea did not
specify a compensation figure on the opening day of a two-day meeting,...

12) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Russia facing massive "millennium bug"
problem, says official DATELINE: MOSCOW, Jan 17  BODY: Russia faces huge
problems ensuring its missile systems will not be affected by the so-called
"millennium bug" computer problem, ITAR-TASS on Sunday quoted a senior
official as saying. Alexander Krupnov, head of the State Committee for...

13) 01/17 West To Seek Talks Soon On Nuclear Bomb Material By Stephanie
Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) The United States and its Western allies
will press for new talks soon on halting production of bomb-making
nuclear material when U.N. disarmament discussions resume this week,
diplomats said on Sunday. They said China and Russia would join the
three Western nuclear powers --Britain,...

 OCEANS 

14) Argentina cleans oil spill from German, Liberian ship collision DATELINE:
BODY: BUENOS AIRES, Jan 16 (AFP) Cleanup crews worked feverishly Saturday to
control a large oil spill in the Rio de la Plata estuary caused by the
collision of a German cargo ship and a Liberian oil tanker, officials said
here. The German vessel "SEA Parana" and a Liberian-flagged Shell Oil tanker...

 ATMOSPHERE & ENERGY 

15) The Times (London) Jan 16, 1999 SECTION: Features HEADLINE: Living on the
edge BYLINE: Nick Nuttall BODY: Violent weather and high sea levels, made
worse by global warming, are causing the coastline of Britain to erode at an
alarming rate. And there seems no solution, says Nick Nuttall When Tony
Oliver bought a Georgian farmhouse with an extraordinary view, the North Sea...

16) 01/17 AWSJ: Thai Officials Face Crisis In Solving Water Short By Nick
Cumming-Bruce Staff Reporter BANGKOK - North of the city, patches of
brilliant green rice paddy hold the promise of a rewarding harvest,
but the cracked- mud walls of parched irrigation canals expose a
grimmer prospect. Thailand is facing a water shortage, and no one can
agree on what to do...

17) The Associated Press January 16, 1999 DATELINE: BATON ROUGE, La.  BODY:
Industry shouldn't be allowed to build or expand in Louisiana's capital and
four surrounding parishes because ozone levels are too high, says the
latest environmental justice  complaint against the state.  The Associated
Press State & Local Wire It is the seventh time Louisiana activists have...

18) The Calgary Sun Jan 16, 1999 Final EDITION SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg. 47
HEADLINE: SUNCOR STALLED FEDS REVIEWING MEGAPROJECT BYLINE: AMBER RIDER,
CALGARY SUN BODY: Ottawa's environmental concerns threaten to delay plans
for a multi-billion-dollar oilsands expansion that could help eliminate
Alberta's current electricity  shortfall. The Alberta Energy and Utilities...

19) NSW: Sunracers showing the way to a clean, green future BYLINE: Pascal
Adolphe BODY: SYDNEY, Jan 17 AAP - Sydney turned on the sunshine as the
formula ones of solar technology today set off on the "green grand prix" -
the Citipower Sunrace 99. NSW Environment Minister Pam Allan flagged away a
field of solar and electric cars on the first leg of the 1,790km race which...

 TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY 

20) ZIMBABWE: CARVING TREES INTO EXTINCTION MUTARE, (Jan. 14) AIA/GIN - Several
species of hardwood in the forests surrounding Zimbabwe's eastern border
city of Mutare are threatened with extinction due to excessive curio carving
to supply South Africa, environmentalists warn. Cross-border traders, who in
the past used to carry crotchet work such as bed covers, table cloths and...

21) Scientists Find Serious Holes in Endangered...WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 /U.S.
Newswire/ A major scientific analysis of habitat conservation plans for
endangered species confirms conservationists' concerns about the plans and
highlights the need for improved protection of endangered species. The
American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the National Center for...

22) Forest Protection Gains Great Economic Benefits SHENYANG (Jan. 17) XINHUA
The ecological and production environments in northeast China's Liaoning
Province have improved greatly since the provincial government took concrete
measures to  protect local forest resources. Officials with the Liaoning
Provincial Bureau of Forestry said that the forest coverage rate has doubled...

23) Business Times (Malaysia) Jan 16, 1999 SECTION: Nation; Pg. 2 HEADLINE:
Malaysia sees need for timber certification deal with UK: Lim BODY:
MALAYSIA, which has established a timber certification  arrangement with the
Netherlands, may need to work out a similar deal with the UK. According to
the Primary Industries Ministry, the interest to have timber products...

24) Vancouver Sun Saturday, Jan 16, 1999 Final Business D4 MacBlo acquires
ownership of three N.B. mills: Company is also in negotiations to buy out
the fourth partner, Eagle Board Trust, which represents 8 Maritimes Indian
bands. BY Gordon Hamilton, Sun Forestry Reporter MacMillan Bloedel has
purchased the interests of three  of its four partners in a New Brunswick...

25) VIC: Logging protest to continue despite arrests BODY: MELBOURNE, Jan 17
AAP - An anti-logging protest in the Otway Ranges state forest, south-west
of Melbourne, would continue despite a total of five arrests in the past
week, organisers said today. We are determined to protect the remaining
native forest in the Otways," said Simon Birrell, spokesman for the Otway...

 GENETIC ENGINEERING 

26) 01/17 GENE RESEARCHERS TO GET #15M BOOST By John von Radowitz,
Science Correspondent, PA News British scientists are to get 15
million from the Government to help them take the lead in the race to
find new genes. The money, distributed by the Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), will support a small
number of specialist research teams....

 OTHERS 

27) AP Worldstream January 16, 1999 HEADLINE: Report: Calamity offers economic
opportunities BYLINE: DAVID BRISCOE DATELINE: WASHINGTON BODY: Disaster
looms on several fronts in the Worldwatch Institute's millennial-ending look
at the planet, but researchers see a possible economic boom for governments
and companies that commit to heading off social and environmental  collapse....

28) The Times (London) Jan 16, 1999 SECTION: Home news HEADLINE: Y2K: the end
of the world as we know it BYLINE: Gillian Harris BODY: Families fearing
disaster in 2000 are piling up food and fuel, writes Gillian Harris with
pictures by John Paul. AT MIDNIGHT on December 31, Angela Perron will be in
a remote farmhouse in northeast Scotland, checking her portable generator,...

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