Global News Headlines 06/30

[greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org]

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Greenpeace Daily Environmental News Headlines
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Wednesday, June 30, 1999
Greenbase Unit
Greenpeace International
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 TOXICS 

1) The Guardian (London) June 30 SECTION: Guardian Society Pages; Pg. 8
HEADLINE: Money's burning BODY: Earlier this month, Surrey county council
awarded a pounds 1bn waste disposal contract to the French water company
SITA. It was one of the largest contracts ever awarded by a UK council,
lasting 25 years and including the construction of two incinerators....

2) 06/30 France's Jospin to press for EU food safety agency PARIS
(Reuters) - Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced the creation of a
French environmental safety agency Wednesday and repeated the need
for an EU-wide body to deal with the parallel issue of food safety.
Jospin, echoing recent calls from French Health Minister Bernard
Kouchner and President Jacques...

3) Basel convention to promote waste reduction ENDS Daily - 29/06/99 Parties
to the Basel convention on the international movement of hazardous wastes
will be asked to expand its scope to encourage waste minimisation at source,
it was decided last week.  Officials at an "implementation" meeting in
Geneva agreed to propose an amendment at the fifth decision-making...

 NUCLEAR POWER 

(GREENPEACE)
4) BBC Summary of World Broadcasts July 1, 1999 HEADLINE: Caribbean states
concerned over plans to ship plutonium through the region SOURCE: BODY:
Excerpts from report by the Caribbean news agency Cana Castries, St Lucia,
28th June: The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) on
Monday [28th June] expressed concern over continued preparations for
the...

5) ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 29, 1999  ANCHOVIES SHUT DOWN
NUCLEAR PLANT  A school of anchovies shut down a North Carolina nuclear
power plant on Monday. Brunswick Unit 2, on the Atlantic coast near the
South Carolina border, shut itself down automatically after all four of its
water intake screens were clogged with the tiny fish, and its coolant pumps...

6) 06/29 GAO: Don't Protect Nuke Contractors By H. JOSEF HEBERT
WASHINGTON (AP) Lawmakers were urged Tuesday to stop shielding
contractors who operate nuclear weapons labs and other nuclear
facilities from civil penalties for safety violations. A report by
the General Accounting Office said that a third of the $1.8 million
in fines assessed contractors by the Energy...

7) Nuclear power industry works to allay Y2K fears By Deena Beasley LOS
ANGELES, June 29 (Reuters) - The nuclear power industry, aiming to allay
public fears of power outages and radiation leaks, has stepped up efforts to
make sure plants are not vulnerable to the year 2000 computer bug.  The U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will release on Wednesday a report on...

8) New Scientist, 26 June 1999, Four-minute warning  Rob Edwards DRINKING
COFFEE could protect people from radioactivity, according to scientists in
India who have found that mice given caffeine survive otherwise lethal doses
of radiation.  A team from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Bombay
injected 471 mice with varying amounts of  caffeine and then exposed them to...

9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur June 30, 1999 HEADLINE: Japanese parliament
approves funds for North Korean nuclear plant DATELINE: Tokyo BODY: Japan's
House of Councillors on Wednesday approved Tokyo's commitment to provide 1
billion dollars to an international consortium tasked with building two
nuclear reactors in North Korea. The upper house approval paves the way for...

10) Aust Senate report calls for halt to Jabiluka uranium mine BYLINE:
Catharine Munro BODY: JABILUKA ASX Codes: ERA DARWIN, June 30 AAP - A Senate
committee today called on the Commonwealth government to halt the
controversial Jabiluka uranium project surrounded by Kakadu National Park in
the Northern Territory. The committee inquiry into the approval process for...

11) Thyroid cancer 10 times higher in Chernobyl kids WASHINGTON, June 30
(Reuters) - The rate of thyroid cancer remains 10 times higher than normal
among young Ukrainian children 13 years after the accident at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant, researchers said on Wednesday. They reported 577 cases
of thyroid cancer in Ukrainian children between 1986, when the accident...

 NUCLEAR WEAPONS & MILITARY 

12) 06/30 Report: N. Korea Deploys Missiles TOKYO (AP) Japan's foreign
minister has warned lawmakers that North Korea has deployed over 10
Rodong ballistic missiles with a range of up to 800 miles, a
newspaper reported today. Masahiko Komura told a parliamentary
committee Tuesday that the communist nation has prepared at least 10
of the weapons for launch, the Nihon Keizai...

13) 06/30 Emissary Expects Kashmir Pullout Talks Within Days NEW DELHI
Reuters Indian and Pakistani military officials may meet soon to
prepare a schedule for withdrawing infiltrators from the Indian side
of Kashmir, former Pakistani diplomat Niaz Naik told BBC World
Service Radio. A former Foreign Secretary, Naik held talks Sunday
with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari...

14) Inter Press Service HEADLINE: INDIA-PAKISTAN: BORDER STAND-OFF BECOMES MORE
DANGEROUS Analysis By Praful Bidwai DATELINE: NEW DELHI, Jun. 30  BODY: One
month into a military battle across their border at Kargil, in the disputed
Jammu and Kashmir state, the stand-off between India and Pakistan is
becoming steadily more dangerous as the two exchange bellicose nuclear...

15) The Independent (London) June 30, 1999 SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 12 HEADLINE:
MOD SYSTEMS NOT READY FOR MILLENNIUM BYLINE: Steve Boggan BODY: ONE-THIRD of
Ministry of Defence computer systems that were declared free of the
millennium bug have failed  an independent audit with just six months to go
before the year 2000.  Between 7 and 10 per cent of the MoD's systems - up...

16) DAMAGE TO YUGOSLAV ENVIRONMENT "IMMENSE" UN TEAM REPORTS  NEW YORK, New
York, June 29, 1999 (ENS) - Throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,
the 11 weeks of NATO air strikes that ended June 10 have had "a devastating
impact" on the environment, industry, employment, essential services and
agriculture, a newly released United Nations report says. Land, air, rivers,...

 OCEANS 

17) Marine pollution by hormone chemicals studied ENDS Daily - 29/06/99 The
German environment agency is funding research to determine whether three
suspected endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are behind a decline in
harbour porpoises in the North and Baltic seas.  The three-year study by
scientists at the University of Kiel will focus on the organochlorine...

18) 06/30  DJ N.Korean Fishermen Sail In, Chased Out Of Disputed Waters
SEOUL (AP) Nine North Korean fishing boats briefly sailed into
contested waters of the Yellow Sea Wednesday, the first intrusion
since a recent bloody naval clash in the area, South Korean military
officials said. The North Korean fishing boats, unaccompanied by
warships, stayed about five and a half hours...

19) 06/30 Tide Turns Against Fishermen By ROBIN ESTRIN BOSTON (AP) In a
fisherman's world, it's typically like father, like son. But these
days, it's getting harder to pull a living from the sea, and many
fishermen hope their kids won't follow their footsteps. Nor do their
wives, who have gone so far as to launch a mentoring program to show
their children a different...

 ATMOSPHERE & ENERGY 

(GREENPEACE)
20) Toronto tilting at windmills to reduce smog By Luke McCann TORONTO, June
30 (Reuters) - Residents in Canada's largest city will soon have the
"green" option when choosing their power needs. They will be able to
choose between run-of-the-mill pollution-generating power or purchase
energy -- at a slighty higher price -- produced from new wind
turbines on Toronto's...

21) 06/30  Canadian Cos. Seek To Guide Emissions Trading Rules By Lynne
Olver TORONTO (Dow Jones)--Canadian government and industry groups
are grappling with what a domestic greenhouse gas emissions- trading
system could look like.   Utilities and energy companies, meanwhile,
have traded various credits and options in voluntary pilot projects,
but there's no 'real' or...

22) The Ottawa Citizen June 30, 1999, FINAL SECTION: News; A8 HEADLINE:
Pollution helps slow global warming: Chemicals in air deflect sun's heat,
new report claims BYLINE: Seth Borenstein DATELINE: WASHINGTON BODY:
WASHINGTON-- As the U.S. cleans its air dramatically, it will pay a price in
noticeably higher temperatures, according to a report released yesterday....

23) Inter Press Service HEADLINE: ENVIRONMENT: GLOBAL WARMING WORSE THAN
PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT BYLINE: Jim Lobe DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Jun. 30 BODY:
Global warming over the next century is likely to be worse than previously
estimated and the United States, which has yet to ratify an international
climate change treaty, can ill afford to ignore the problem, say two new...

24) Radio Free Europe:  World Health Report: Car Exhaust Worsening Air
Pollution In Europe By Ben Partridge  Second of two features on recent
reports by the World Health Organization on major threats to public health.
The second feature focuses on dangers from air pollution. London, 29 June
1999 (RFE/RL) -- European environmental, health and transport
ministers are...

 TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY 

(GREENPEACE)
25) Greenpeace activists convicted LONG BEACH, Calif., June 30 (UPI) Three
Greenpeace environmental activists have been convicted of sneaking aboard a
cargo ship trying to unload newsprint in the Long Beach Harbor last year. A
Long Beach Municipal Court jury found Patrick Finn of Seattle and Bernard
McLeod and Omi Hodwitz of British Columbia, Canada, guilty today of...

26) PANAMA:  MODERNIZATION ERODES BIRD HABITAT PANAMA CITY, (Jun. 28) IPS -
Is globalization killing Panama's birds? A recent protest by the residents
of the town of El Coco, in the central province of Cocle, indicates that for
many Panamanians, the answer is "yes." According to some experts, changes in
Panama's economy can be linked to the deaths of millions of native birds and...

27) The Ottawa Citizen June 30, 1999, FINAL SECTION: News; D20 HEADLINE: Boreal
forests at risk, Senate report warns BYLINE: David Gamble BODY: Canadians
take their trees for granted and immediate action is needed to protect the
country's shrinking boreal forest, says a Senate report.  But the senators
also believe that Canadians can have their forest and cut it too -- it's...

28) TASS HEADLINE: Forest fires spread in North Western Russia BYLINE: Denis
Pinchuk DATELINE: ST. PETERSBURG, June 30  BODY: Forest and peatbog fires
are raging in the territory of the Leningrad region.  The area swept by
fires doubled within one day, spreading to almost 200 hectares. As many as
80 units of fire fighting and engineering equipment are used in the
effort...

29) The Guardian (London) June 30, 1999 SECTION: Guardian Society Pages; Pg.
4 HEADLINE: Mating game; Roger Harrabin on how poverty and lack of
family planning for people in Madagascar are threatening the
country's rare animals BODY: Environmentalists are warning that the
massive efforts being taken to safeguard Madagascar's unique wildlife
are being undermined by the failure...

30) The San Francisco Chronicle JUNE 30, 1999 FINAL EDITION ECTION: BUSINESS;
Pg. B1 HEADLINE: Retired Timber Goes Back To Work; Companies find a bustling
market for recycled lumber BYLINE: Peter Sinton, Chronicle Senior Writer
BODY: You don't have to go to virgin forests to find old-growth timber.  You
can find it at the Port of Oakland, abandoned airfields in San  Francisco's...

31) QLD: Expert urges farmers to use sustainable methods BYLINE: Chris Herde
BODY: RURAL GOLD COAST, Qld, June 30 AAP - Sustainable biological management
was the only path available to the agricultural sector if it wanted to
survive into the new millennium, a US-based environmental consultant said
today. Dr Arden Andersen said current farming methods were non-sustainable,...

32) 06/29 WSJ(6/30): THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/NORTHWEST: Farmers Agree To
talk With Regulators By Janet I. Tu Staff Reporter of The Wall Street
Journal / Northwest Washington's agricultural interests have agreed
to a series of talks with state and federal agencies that could
drastically change farming in the state.   The talks, slated to begin
in September, will establish new...

33) REUTERS NEWS SERVICE, FAO meet eyes creation of animal feed  task force
ITALY: June 30, 1999 The United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organisation
(FAO) said on  Monday it will work towards speeding up the creation of a
task force for the adoption of a draft code of conduct on good animal
feeding.  The FAO, the body that sets international food standards, began...

 GENETIC ENGINEERING 

(GREENPEACE)
34) The Independent (London) June 30, 1999 SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 10 HEADLINE: US
WARNS EUROPE AGAINST SPARKING GM FOOD TRADE WAR BYLINE: Andrew Marshall In
Washington BODY: THE UNITED States warned Europe last night that
restrictions on genetically modified food could spark a trade war and block
progress on new world trade  talks. Europe's fear of GM foods is "the single...

35) 06/30  DJ Monsanto Sees Asia Warm To Bio-Crops For Food Security By
Joyce Teo SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Asia is warming to genetically
modified organisms in agriculture and will step up usage of such
technology over the next few years, said Charles Martin, vice
president for corporate communications at Monsanto Far East Ltd.  
While debate rages in Europe on the merits of...

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