Global News Headlines 08/20

[greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org]

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Greenpeace Daily Environmental News Headlines
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Friday, August 20, 1999
Greenbase Unit
Greenpeace International
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 TOXICS 

(GREENPEACE)
1) Some plastics may be dangerous but experts unsure By Maggie Fox, Health
and Science Correspondent ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, Aug 19 (Reuters) Chemical
additives found in a range of consumer products from baby bottles to toys to
intravenous drip bags may well be dangerous to humans, a panel of experts
said on Thursday, but they said they needed more time to decide. Members of...

(GREENPEACE)
2) The Economist August 21, 1999, U.S. Edition SECTION: Food scares
HEADLINE: Fear and loathing BODY: How do you inform the public that they're
eating shit?" lamented one European Commission official this week. He meant
it literally.  In Europe's latest food scare, the French government admitted
last week that the run-off from septic tanks and waste water from...

(GREENPEACE)
3) Daily Star [Lebanon] Mediterranean faces ecological disaster, Greenpeace
warns Munira Khayyat Daily Star staff The Mediterranean Sea is facing
ecological disaster if the countries lining its shores do not stop polluting
its waters, Greenpeace warned Thursday.  "Lebanon is an accomplice in the
murder of the Mediterranean Sea," said Ghassan Geara, Lebanon campaigner for...

4) The Economist August 21, 1999, U.S. Edition HEADLINE: Mea copper, mea culpa
BODY: THERE is nothing new in the story of a mining company messing up the
environment of a poor country, nor of it being publicly castigated for
doing so. But it is at least unusual for said company to admit that it has
done wrong, that it should never have been involved and that it should maybe...

5) National Post August 20, 1999 NATIONAL EDITIONS SECTION: FINANCIAL POST;
Pg. C05 HEADLINE: Environmental group accuses Greenstone of poisoning river
system: Sold mine in June: Metal levels above normal in Nicaragua gold site
BYLINE: Keith Damsell BODY: Waste from a gold mine formerly owned by
troubled Greenstone Resources Ltd. has poisoned a river system in...

6) 08/20 Peregrine Falcon Off Endangered List By MATT KELLEY WASHINGTON
(AP) DDT and other pesticides once pushed the world's fastest bird to
near extinction in the United States. Now, the peregrine falcon has
recovered enough to be taken off the endangered species list.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt removed the peregrine from the
endangered list today in a ceremony...

 NUCLEAR POWER 

7) 08/20 Reactor Buried at Hanford By LINDA ASHTON RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) 
With a brief ceremony, authorities began burying a 1,000-ton reactor
taken from the largest nuclear power plant ever shut down in this
country. It will take several months to cover the empty, radioactive
reactor with desert soil and river rock in a trench 850 feet long,
150 feet wide and 45 feet deep. The...

8) 08/19 WSJ(8/20): Panel Urges More Funds To Push Energy Use Abroad By
John J. Fialka Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON
-- A presidential panel urged the government to triple its funding
for programs helping energy companies develop and promote new energy
technologies abroad. The head of the President's Committee of
Advisors on Science and Technology,...

9) Agency backs lower radiation limit for Nevada site By Patrick Connole
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on
Thursday proposed limits for radiation exposure at a planned nuclear waste
repository in Nevada, setting levels lower than nuclear regulators had. The
radiation standards are designed to protect public health and the...

 NUCLEAR WEAPONS & MILITARY 

(GREENPEACE)
10) Sacramento Bee August 19, 1999, METRO FINAL SECTION: EDITORIALS; Pg. B9
HEADLINE: NATO'S DEADLY LITTER SCATTERED AROUND KOSOVO BYLINE: Bill Mesler
BODY: They are about the size of a paper-towel holder, bright yellow with
orange lettering. A little white plastic umbrella is attached to one end,
giving it a harmless, toy-like appearance. But these little items are far...

11) 08/20 Report: Agent Orange in Panama DALLAS (AP) Secret U.S. tests of
Agent Orange in Panama during the Vietnam War may have exposed many
residents and military personnel to potentially lethal chemicals, The
Dallas Morning News reported today. Hundreds of barrels of the toxic
herbicide were shipped to Panama during the 1960s and 1970s, then
sprayed on jungles in an effort to...

12) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Indian PM plays down concerns over nuclear
weapons policy DATELINE: NEW DELHI, Aug 20  BODY: Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee on Friday played down concerns over India's nuclear weapons
programme, and stressed that New Delhi remained committed to nuclear
disarmament. Our stand is very clear that no nuclear weapon should be used...

13) AP Worldstream August 20, 1999 HEADLINE: Peace activist Macpherson dead at
86 DATELINE: TORONTO BODY: Politician, peace activist and prominent
feminist Kay Macpherson, who once spent time in a French prison for
protesting nuclear weapons, has died. She was 86.  Macpherson,
founder of the peace group The Voice of Women, died of lymphatic
cancer Thursday in Toronto. She,...

14) 08/20 MINISTERS `IN THE DARK OVER PORTON DOWN WORK' By Bob Roberts
and Ben Davies, PA News The Labour chairman of a Commons committee
today warned that ministers may still not know what is going on at
the secret chemical weapons centre at Porton Down. Speaking the day
after the police said they are investigating the death of an
ex-serviceman at the centre nearly 50 years...

 OCEANS 

(GREENPEACE)
15) Environment group says Mexico salt plan ``illegal'' MEXICO CITY, Aug 19
(Reuters) - A coalition of environmentalists on Thursday declared plans to
build the world's largest salt works near a delicate whale-breeding lagoon
"illegal" and said the owners were guilty of hundreds of environmental
violations. A new salt plant at Laguna San Ignacio is categorically and...

16) August 20, 1999 National General News Fraser closed to commercial sockeye
fishing all season  VANCOUVER (CP) - For the first time in British Columbia
history, the Fraser River will be closed to commercial sockeye salmon
fishing for an entire season, says the chairman of the Canadian section of
the Fraser River panel.  The joint Canadian-U.S. panel will announce today...

 ATMOSPHERE & ENERGY 

17) Reuters News Service Australia forest growers to  develop carbon rules
AUSTRALIA: August 20, 1999  MELBOURNE - Australia's two largest forest
growers said  yesterday they had reached an agreement to establish a common
system for accounting for the carbon stored in trees. State Forests of New
South Wales, owned by the state government, and Hancock Victorian...

18) REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Ship sulphur emissions affect climate change UK:
August 20, 1999 LONDON - Sulphur emissions from cargo ships are causing
ocean and coastal pollution and affecting scientific  understanding of
global climate change, researchers said.  Scientists at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pennsylvania and Duke University in North Carolina said in a...

19) The Christian Science Monitor August 20, 1999 SECTION: USA; Pg. 2 HEADLINE:
Breathing easy in smog capital BYLINE: Mark Sappenfield, Staff writer of The
Christian Science Monitor DATELINE: LOS ANGELES HIGHLIGHT: For the first
time since recording began in 1970s, a smog-free summer in Los Angeles.
BODY: In southern California, the buzz these days isn't about the "The Blair...

20) 08/20 GREEK HEATWAVE WARNING FOR HOLIDAYMAKERS By Karen Edwards,  PA
News Holidaymakers flying to Greece this weekend will step off the
plane and into a heatwave, warn officials. Greek hospitals and
emergency services are on alert for a second heatwave this month with
temperatures expected to top 40C (104F). The government has already
launched an emergency civil defence plan,...

21) Asiaweek August 20-27 1999 SECTION: THE NATIONS; Weather; Pg. 34 HEADLINE:
Gasp, Choke, Wheeze  HIGHLIGHT: Who will stop the slash-and-burn folly?
BODY: Amid the deluges elsewhere in Asia, two places that need rain the most
-Indonesia's Sumatra and West Kalimantan -- have been largely precipitation-
free as the dry season takes hold. Once again, vast tracts of land are...

 TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY 

(GREENPEACE)
22) Times Colonist (Victoria) August 20, 1999 Final News A4  Greenpeace urges
quick action on habitat BY Susan Danard Greenpeace is calling on the
province to protect B.C.'s remaining coastal rain forest to save endangered
salmon stocks.  In a report released Thursday, called Now or Never:
Endangered Salmon of the Great Bear Rainforest, Greenpeace says the cost of...

23) Asiaweek Aug 20-27, 1999 SECTION: THE NATIONS; Weather; Pg. 32 HEADLINE:
THE WRATH OF NATURE HIGHLIGHT: Greed and logging are responsible for the
destructive aftermath of this year's monsoon BODY: Meteorologists saw her
coming at least a year ago.  At her most benign, she was supposed to
mitigate the chaos left behind by her brother. But, in many of the countries...

24) FEATURE - Britain works up a thirst for organic beer By Matthew Green
TADCASTER, England, Aug 20 (Reuters) Saving the world may be the last thing
on most people's minds when they reach for a beer, but growing numbers of
Britons are unwinding with a planet-friendly tipple. Supermarkets say demand
for organic beer -- brewed from hops grown without pesticides or fertilisers...

25) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: French farmers launch crusade against
McDonald's BYLINE: Philippe Alfroy DATELINE: TOULOUSE, France, Aug 20 BODY:
Farmers in southwest France have launched an anti-American food crusade in a
bid to prevent the land of pate and truffles becoming another land of Big
Macs and Coca-Cola. The campaigners from this region of foie gras, truffles...

 GENETIC ENGINEERING 

26) Environment group taking UK to court on GM trial By Susan Cornwell LONDON,
Aug 20 (Reuters) -  Environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth said
on Friday it was taking the British government to court over the "rushed"
approval of an expansion of genetically modified (GM) crop trials. Friends
of the Earth said it would file papers with the High Court requesting a...

27) 08/20 Singapore sets up screening process for genetically... By DEAN
VISSER SINGAPORE (AP) -- Singapore has set up screening guidelines
for importing genetically modified agricultural products, officials
in the wealthy city-state announced Friday. The new rules take effect
immediately. They require scientific evaluation of such imports,
which have become a...

 OTHERS 

28) 08/20 Death toll passes 10,000 in Turkey as scope of quak... By PAUL
GEITNER  ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) Confronted  with an increasingly
shocking scale of death and devastation from a  monstrous quake,
authorities took their first steps Friday against contractors whose
shoddily made apartment buildings were blamed for many of the more
than 10,000 deaths. Flickers of...

29) ENS August 19 SPAIN PLANS EUROPE'S 1st ECO-TAX ON TOURISM  MINORCA, Spain,
August 19, 1999 (ENS) - One of Spain's major tourist destinations, the
island of Minorca, is to become the first place in Europe to experiment with
a so-called eco-tax on tourism. Levied on holiday makers, the tax will aim
to alleviate the effects of mass tourism on the environment.  The Balearic...

30) 08/20 Threat Of Disease Stalks Turkish Quake Zone By Steve Bryant
ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) - The greatest threat to the survivors of
Turkey's devastating earthquake are infectious diseases nurtured in
summer heat, broken drains and festering corpses, the prime minister
said Friday.  With more than 10,000 dead so far counted and thousands
more feared buried under...

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