Global News Headlines 01/21

[greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org]

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Greenpeace Daily Environmental News Headlines
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Thursday, January 21, 1999
Greenbase Unit
Greenpeace International
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 TOXICS 

1) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Factory owner arrested in Taiwan for
dumping thousands tonnes toxic waste DATELINE: TAIPEI, Jan 21 BODY: Taiwan
police raided a factory in the southern county of Kaohsiung here Thursday
and arrested the owner on charges of dumping thousands of tonnes of toxic
waste.    Lin Jui-ho, 47, was shown on television been led away shouting "I
was set...

2) AP Worldstream January 21, 1999 HEADLINE: Pollution crimps sex change in
Gulf of Thailand fish DATELINE: BANGKOK, Thailand BODY: The natural sex
change that grouper fish normally undergo is being crimped by  pollution
from factories on the Gulf of Thailand, a Thai marine scientist said
Thursday. ''Our research has shown that natural sexual metamorphosis among...

3) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: EU warns Belgium over controversial
incinerator DATELINE: BRUSSELS, Jan 21 BODY: The European Commission on
Thursday warned Belgium it could face legal proceedings over a controversial
waste incinerator on the outskirts of Brussels. The threat follows
complaints that the Flanders regional authorities did not comply with EU...

 NUCLEAR POWER 

(GREENPEACE)
4) Irish Times 20 January 1999 Minister says Britain must keep Sellafield cuts
pledge By Kevin O'Sullivan, Environmental and Food Science Correspondent
The Government has accused Britain of threatening to renege on a commitment
to dramatically reduce Sellafield's radioactive discharges. The charge was
made by the Minister of State for nuclear safety, Mr Joe Jacob, at the...

5) 01/20 BYERS TELLS GERMANS N-WASTE WILL BE SENT BACK IF CONTRA By
Karen Edwards, PA News German nuclear fuel stored at Sellafield will
be shipped back if Germany pulls out of a 1.2 billion reprocessing
contract, the Government said tonight. Trade and Industry minister
Stephen Byers told German ministers that the 650 tonnes of waste
currently at Sellafield in...

6) France faces huge nuclear costs in future PARIS, Jan 20 (Reuters) Nuclear
energy, which largely freed France from dependence on oil imports, will have
a huge cost for future generations unless the industry sets funds aside now,
the state audit office said on Wednesday. In its annual report, the Cour des
Comptes put at 666 billion francs ($118 billion) the cost of processing and...

7) (AP) Jan 21, 1999 HEADLINE: Ukraine considers suspending shipments of
nuclear waste to Russia DATELINE: KIEV, Ukraine BODY: Ukraine's state
nuclear energy company may send nuclear waste to countries other than Russia
because a Siberian governor is refusing to accept Ukraine's spent nuclear
fuel, a news report said Thursday. Krasnoyarsk regional Gov. Alexander Lebed...

8) AMERISCAN: JANUARY 20, 1999 WARD VALLEY OPPONENTS FROM U.S. AND MEXICO
FORM ALLIANCE Indigenous, environmental, social justice, labor and human
rights groups and Mexican government officials worried about radioactive
contamination of the Colorado River and the international border region will
host three days of events January 21 to 23, to demonstrate opposition to a...

9) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Nuclear industry to complete Y2K checks by
August: ministry DATELINE: MOSCOW, Jan 21 BODY: Russia's atomic industry
expects to complete systems safety checks this summer to ensure the country
avoids potential nuclear mishaps linked to the "millennium bug" computer
problem, ITAR-TASS said Thursday. Specialists would complete the technical...

10) BBC Summary of World Broadcasts Jan 22, 1999, HEADLINE: Russia may build
two more reactors under Iran nuclear power deal, says official SOURCE:
BODY: Excerpts from report in English by Russian news agency RIA Moscow,
20th January, RIA Novosti correspondent Oleg Lebedev: Russia is
preparing a proposal for building in Iran another three nuclear power
units, RIA Novosti...

11) BBC Summary of World Broadcasts January 22, 1999, HEADLINE: Concerns over
standards at N-plants SOURCE: 'Nezavisimaya Gazeta', Moscow, 14 Jan 99 p2
BODY: 41] A fatal accident at a Russian nuclear power station on 12th
January comes against the background of deteriorating performance standards
in the  nuclear power sector, according to the 'Nezavisimaya Gazeta'...

12) BBC Summary of World Broadcasts Jan 22, 1999, HEADLINE: Welding faults in
Chernobyl cooling system SOURCE: Ukrainian Radio Second Programme, Kiev, 15
Jan 99 BODY: Forty-six defects were discovered at the No 3 generating set of
the Chernobyl nuclear power station during a check of nearly 200 joint welds
in the regular and emergency cooling systems, according to the information...

13) FED: Hill blames ALP for cost of defending Jabiluka BODY: CANBERRA, Jan 21
AAP - The federal government today attacked the ALP and extreme green groups
over the $1 million cost of preventing Kakadu from being listed by the
United Nations as world heritage in danger. The government this week began
its international campaign to stop the UN environment organisation UNESCO...

 NUCLEAR WEAPONS & MILITARY 

(GREENPEACE)
14) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: exiles BODY: By GiffJohnson MAJURO, Jan 21
(AFP) Exiled Rongelap Islanders are planning to return home in March after a
14-year absence, to officially kick off a US-funded nuclear
rehabilitation of their Pacific home.  Rongelap was engulfed in a
snow storm of radioactive fallout from the "Bravo" hydrogen bomb test
at Bikini Atoll in 1954, but its...

15) DISARMAMENT: CLIMATE FAVORABLE FOR BAN ON FISSILE ... GENEVA, (Jan. 19) IPS
The annual session of the Conference on  Disarmament opened in Geneva amid a
climate favorable to negotiations on a treaty banning the production of
fissile material for nuclear weapons. A broad majority of the 61 Conference
member countries are in favor of discussing the so-called "Cut-Off" treaty,...

16) Press watchdog asks Moscow to drop treason case PARIS, Jan 20 (Reuters)
The international press freedom watchdog Reporters without Borders (RsF) on
Wednesday urged Russia to release a naval officer charged with treason,
saying he was a journalist protected by a European convention. Pacific Fleet
Captain Grigory Pasko, who also edited a local military newspaper and worked...

17) 01/21 WE'LL NOT KEEP YOUR NUCLEAR WASTE, GERMANY TOLD By Amanda
Brown, Environment Correspondent, PA News. The Government has warned
Germany that its spent nuclear fuel in store at Sellafield will be
sent back, after the cancellation of contracts with the Cumbrian
reprocessing plant, it was disclosed today. Trade and Industry
Secretary Stephen Byers has also told...

18) 01/21 Ethnically targeted weapons may not be far off By Patricia
Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Biological and genetic weapons designed to
kill specific ethnic or racial groups are no longer the stuff of
science fiction, British researchers said Thursday. A designer plague
that would only kill Serbs or a toxin engineered to affect Israelis
or Kurds does not exist yet but advances...

19) Airman in Anthrax Vaccine Dispute By The Associated Press, January 21, 1999
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) -- An Air Force airman faces a possible
court-martial for refusing an anthrax vaccine that some servicemen fear may
be linked to Gulf War illnesses. The Pentagon has ordered the shot for all
1.5 million active- duty service members and 1 million  reservists.
Airman...

 OCEANS 

20) Northwest Pollock Catchers Try Unusual Cooperative Method By Ross Anderson,
The Seattle Times  Jan. 20--Nine Northwest companies today began fishing for
Bering Sea pollock under a highly unusual "cooperative," in which the
companies  divide a public resource worth more than $200 million on world
markets.  The private cooperative is designed to end the frantic "race for...

21) Iran's Caviar Exports on Decline  TEHRAN (Jan. 20) XINHUA - Iran's caviar
exports have been on  decline in recent years due to a government policy to
cut sturgeon  fishing to save the species from possible extinction,an
Iranian  official said on Wednesday. Khodakaram Jalai, Managing Director of
Iran's Fisheries Organization ,  said Iran exported 111 tonnes of caviar in...

 ATMOSPHERE & ENERGY 

22) The Toronto Star Jan 21, 1999 Edition 1 SECTION: BUSINESS HEADLINE: CLIMATE
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS BODY: HOW WE use energy, and what we pay for it, has huge
implications for our economy and also for us as consumers. So how we deal
with the issue of climate change and the curbing of greenhouse-gas emissions
will have an important impact. But it will also create economic opportunity,...

23) The Christian Science Monitor January 21, 1999, SECTION: USA; Pg. 5
HEADLINE: Newest item on black market: refrigerator coolants BYLINE: James
Blair, Special to The Christian Science Monitor DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
HIGHLIGHT: US border agents struggle to curb smuggling of ozone- depleting
CFCs.BODY: It sneaks in through dusty border checkpoints in boxes marked...

24) The Bureau of National Affairs, No. 13 January 21, 1999 ISSN 1521-9402
News  Climate Change Clinton Proposes Fund to Help Cut Greenhouse Gases, Air
Pollutants A fund designed to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and
conventional air pollutants concurrently will be part of the president's
fiscal 2000 budget proposal, the White  House announced Jan. 20. President...

25) 01/20 Alaska to hold areawide Cook Inlet lease sale By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) Alaska will offer 2.8 million acres in
the Cook Inlet region for oil and gas leasing in two months,
officials said Wednesday. The sale, scheduled for April 21, will be
the first areawide lease sale ever held in the Cook Inlet region of
south-central Alaska, state...

26) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Laos, World Bank and developers to approve
dam resettlement plan BYLINE: Frederik Balfour DATELINE: VIENTIANE, Jan 21
BODY: A 1.2 billion dollar hydropower project seen as crucial for one of
Asia's poorest countries cleared a major hurdle on Thursday when affected
communities in Laos supported a resettlement plan. Local officials expressed...

 TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY

27) EUROPEAN BIODIVERSITY SHRINKING By Susanna Jacona Salafia ROME, Italy,
January 19, 1999 (ENS) - The diversity of living creatures is in grave
danger in Europe, a situation revealed by the latest report of the European
Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC) an independent Dutch organization
working in the field of nature conservation to link policy makers and...

28) Charleston, W.Va.-Area Logging Firm Complains about Federal  Officials By
Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette, W.Va. Jan. 20--Allegheny Wood Products
President John Crites says federal environmental officials are treating him
unfairly in their probe of his logging in Blackwater Canyon. Crites says
that his company is not harming  protected animal species, a violation of...

29) ECUADOR-PERU: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WANT WIDER "FREE ... QUITO, (Jan. 19) IPS
- Indigenous communities living along the  border between Ecuador and Peru
have requested that the "free  movement zone" between the two countries, set
up in a treaty last  fall, be extended to cover the Amazonia area. At
present, the zone is restricted to a band along the coastal and mountain...

 GENETIC ENGINEERING 

30) UK peers call for faster EU genetic crop approval LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters)
The European Union should speed up approval procedures for genetically-
modified crops, a committee of Britain's House of Lords said on Thursday. In
a report, the upper chamber's European Communities Committee said proposed
revisions to the EU's regulation of such crops were welcome, but should go...

31) Deutsche Presse-Agentur Jan 21, 1999 HEADLINE: FAO calls for balanced
approach to biotechnology DATELINE: Rome BODY: Biotechnology is a powerful
tool to feed an increasing world population, but its "positive and negative
potential" should be carefully evaluated, the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) said Thursday. All concerns must be clearly balanced,...

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