Global News Headlines 08/25

[greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org]

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Greenpeace Daily Environmental News Headlines
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Wednesday, August 25, 1999
Greenbase Unit
Greenpeace International
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 TOXICS 

(GREENPEACE)
1) 08/25 Three Greenpeace activists arrested during Danish p...
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) Three Greenpeace activists were arrested
Thursday after they had chained themselves to a Danish steel
company's wharf-side crane to protest emissions of dangerous dioxins.
The three were among 25 Greenpeace protesters from 16 countries
attempting to block shipments of scrap metal to...

2) Inter Press Service HEADLINE: ENVIRONMENT-PAPUA NEW GUINEA: NEW MINE
PROJECT STIRS OLD DOUBTS BYLINE: By Kevin Pamba DATELINE: PORT MORESBY, Aug.
25  BODY: Another environmental row is brewing in Papua New Guinea,
this time around plans for an $ 838 million nickel mine whose
tailings will be dumped into the sea along the country's northern
coast.  The furor comes...

3) 08/24 Virgin Islands-Chemical Weapons CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin
Islands (AP) The U.S. military may excavate land on a former chemical
weapons storage site in the U.S. Virgin Islands to probe for any
chemical traces, the Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday. Officials
said the weapons were stored on Water Island, an islet off St.
Thomas, from  1948 to 1950 as part...

4) 08/25 EU Vets Says Belgium Should Continue Beef Tests BRUSSELS
(Reuters) - European Commission veterinary experts Wednesday decided
Belgium should continue testing its beef exports for signs of dioxin
contamination until the end of September, EU officials said. The
ruling from the Standing Veterinary Committee extends a previous
deadline of end-August and comes...

5) 08/25 WSJE: EU Widens Probe Of Sludge Use In Feed By Brandon
Mitchener Staff Reporter BRUSSELS -- The European Commission is
widening its probe of the use of sewage in European animal feed after
the Netherlands nnounced that treated septic sludge had been added to
local animal feed as recently as last week. A commission spokesman
said the European Union executive body...

6) DJ.Com Online August 24, 1999 Farmworkers face threat of pesticide
poisoning MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) While few  farmworkers report pesticide
overexposure, some working southern  Oregon's pear crop say handling the
fruit gives them have intense muscle pain and makes them break out in boils.
From Jan. 1, 1996, to Dec. 31, 1998, the Oregon Health Division received...

 NUCLEAR POWER 

7) FED: Committee recommends approval of Lucas Heights reactor BODY: LUCAS
PARLY 005 CANBERRA, Aug 25 AAP - A new nuclear reactor should be built at
Sydney's Lucas Heights, a federal parliamentary inquiry found today. The new
reactor will replace the existing facility which is more than 40 years old
and will be decommissioned in 2005.  Presenting the report to parliament,...

8) FED: Lucas Heights report flawed, say senators BODY: LUCAS SENATE PARLY
020 CANBERRA, Aug 25 AAP - A report which recommends a $300 million
new nuclear  reactor be built at Sydney's Lucas Heights was today
criticised for being deliberately misleading. The Parliamentary
Public Works Committee report today recommended the reactor should be
built, replacing the existing...

9) 08/25 N Korean Nuclear Reactor Proj To Be Accelerated - S Korea SEOUL
(AP) Work on building two Western nuclear reactors in North Korea
under a 1994 accord will be accelerated to ally North Korean
complaints that the project is behind schedule, a South Korean
official said Wednesday. "Ground-leveling and other basic work has
almost been done, so I think main work can...

10) BBC Summary of World Broadcasts August  26, 1999, Thursday HEADLINE: South
official says USA should help with cost shortfall for North's reactor BODY:
1] H3.- NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA  Excerpts from report in English by the
South Korean news agency Yonhap Seoul, 25th August: The United States
should assume a leadership role in covering the shortfall in funding
for the...

11) French Greens renew drive for nuclear power curbs By Christopher Noble
PARIS, Aug 25 (Reuters) - France's Green Party has renewed its demand for a
national referendum on nuclear power and repeated its threat to quit the
government if a new generation of nuclear plants is authorised without
debate. The jab from the often combative Greens comes amid a rising wave of...

12) 08/25 0910  Nuclear Reactor Shuts Down in Japan TOKYO (AP) -- A
nuclear reactor in southwestern Japan automatically shut down
Wednesday after monitors detected an irregularity, the plant's
operator said. There was no danger of radioactivity leaking out, said
Hirokazu Terashima, a spokesman for Kyushu Electric Power Co. No one
in the plant was hurt in the emergency...

 NUCLEAR WEAPONS & MILITARY 

13) 08/25 US: Nkorea relations may improve By SID BALMAN Jr. WASHINGTON,
Aug. 25 (UPI) Amid signs North Korea has suspended plans for the test
of a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States,
Washington and Pyongyang are dispatching senior diplomats to Germany
next month for talks on easing U.S. economic and diplomatic
sanctions. The  U.S. is still...

14) Newsweek August 30, 1999, U.S. Edition SECTION:  NATION; Espionage; Pg. 31
HEADLINE: The Nuclear Spy Case Suffers a Meltdown BYLINE: Daniel Klaidman
HIGHLIGHT: Did investigators unfairly single out a Chinese-American
scientist as a suspected agent of Beijing? BODY: Warren Rudman had finally
heard enough. Earlier this year, President Clinton asked the former...

15) France concerned about U.S. anti-missile advances PARIS, Aug 25  (Reuters)
France voiced concern on Wednesday over U.S. advances in developing anti-
missile defences, saying such systems were bound to re-launch an arms
race and could call into question U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons pacts.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret said that development of...

16) Jane's Defence Weekly August 25, 1999 SECTION: HEADLINES; Vol. 32; No. 8
HEADLINE: IN BRIEF - Nuclear contamination in Sea of Japan BODY: Professor
Vladimir Soyfer, head of the research unit of the Institute of Chemistry of
the Russian  Academy of Science Far East section, has warned of a spread of
radioactive contamination growth in Chazma Bay in the Sea of Japan....

17) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Pakistani premier blames India for arms race
DATELINE: ISLAMABAD, Aug 25  BODY: Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on
Wednesday said India had fuelled an arms race in South Asia and called for
a peaceful resolution of disputes dividing the two countries. We want peace
and prosperity in the region: let us sit down and solve disputes amicably,"...

 OCEANS 

(GREENPEACE)
18) The Times (London) August 25, 1999 SECTION: Overseas news HEADLINE:
Court move to curb Tokyo's appetite for tuna BYLINE: Robert Whymant BODY:
Robert Whymant on a groundbreaking fight to save endangered species AN
INTERNATIONAL court will decide this week whether Japan should curb its
insatiable appetite for southern bluefin tuna, the high-grade tuna so prized...

19) The Times (London) August  25, 1999, Wednesday SECTION: Home news HEADLINE:
Sperm  whale  spotted in Channel BYLINE: Simon de Bruxelles  BODY: MARINE
BIOLOGISTS are trying to relocate the first sperm whale recorded making its
way up the English Channel in an attempt to discover why it ventured into
such relatively shallow waters. The whale was spotted alongside  a...

 ATMOSPHERE & ENERGY 

20) 08/25 War and Oil By SUSAN SEVAREID HEGLIG, Sudan (AP) Beneath the
sandy, red soil where northern desert melts into southern greenery
rests the potential for developing this impoverished nation -- and
for inflaming its 16-year-old civil war. Sudan is ready to
commercially exploit its oil reserves for the first time. And in a
country of many deep divisions and...

21) 08/25  DJ Green Grp Advocates Worldwide Phaseout Of Coal Burning
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Coal's percentage share of world energy use
has declined markedly since its peak early in the 20th Century, and
pressing environmental concerns on the eve of the new millennium
warrant a global phaseout of the fuel, the Worldwatch Institute said
in a report released...

22) DROUGHT EVAPORATES WATER SUPPLY FOR HONG KONG, SHENZHEN, CANTON  By Hu Pan
SHENZHEN, China, August 24, 1999 (ENS) - At the same time that flood waters
along the Yangtze River in central China have killed 800 and displaced
millions this summer, the drying up of the East River in southern China's
Guangdong Province has led to a serious water shortage problem in the Pearl...

23) Active storm season threatens U.S. oil patch By Marguerita Choy NEW YORK,
Aug 25 (Reuters) - A more active than usual 1999 hurricane season is
threatening the U.S. oil and gas sector, much of which is clustered in the
vulnerable Gulf of Mexico, according to analysts and meteorologists.  "Just
when it was interesting how inactive it was...we got what we expected this...

24) 08/25 ASEAN environmental officials discuss haze SINGAPORE (AP)
Senior officials of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on
Wednesday began a two-day closed-door meeting on the haze that
Indonesian forest fires has spewed into neighboring countries in
recent weeks. They will be joined on Thursday by ASEAN environment
ministers, who are expected to hold a joint...

25) The Times (London) August  25, 1999, Wednesday SECTION: Business HEADLINE:
Alaska lists demands for big BP asset sales BYLINE: Carl Mortished,
international business editor BODY: BP Amoco could be heading for a
multibillion-dollar asset sale in Alaska after the state Governor demanded
that it shed substantial producing acreage on Alaska's North Slope as the...

26) FOCUS-Colombia Indians vow to fight on against U.S. oil By Karl Penhaul
BOGOTA, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Colombia's U'wa Indians have vowed to drive a
U.S. oil company off all their ancestral lands in the latest round of a
fight that has pitted ancient spiritual beliefs against the country's energy
needs for the next millennium. Last week, the government granted the 7,000...

 TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY 

27) 08/25 Wildfires Rage In California, Nevada SONORA, Calif. (Reuters)
Wildfires raged through dry Sierra Nevada timberland Wednesday,
blackening thousands of acres in California and forcing some Nevada
ranchers -- along with animals from a local shelter -- to evacuate.
Officials at California's Stanislaus National Forest about 120 miles
east f San Francisco said a major...

28) August 25, 1999 Bill would protect endangered species  TORONTO (CP) - The
new federal environment minister wants to save Canada's endangered species
by making it a criminal offence to destroy the forests, wetlands and lakes
where they live, even if they are on private property, the Globe and Mail
reported today.  David Anderson outlined the tough new federal proposal in a...

29) California Officials Propose Tougher Timber-Harvesting Rules By Lee
Quarnstrom, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Aug. 25--Santa Cruz County's
effort to enact logging regulations that are tougher than state requirements
might not be such an uphill battle this time around. Environmentally minded
county supervisors have been frustrated for years in attempts to coax the...

30) BusinessWorld August 25, 1999 SECTION: Pg. 11 HEADLINE: Alarm raised over
illegal logging in Mindanao BYLINE: Norman P. Aquino BODY: Senator Gregorio
Honasan yesterday named at least four firms allegedly engaged in illegal
logging  activities in Cagayan de Oro and Lanao del Sur. In a resolution,
the solon asked the Senate environment committee to investigate the firms'...

 GENETIC ENGINEERING 

(GREENPEACE)
31) The Independent (London) August 25, 1999 SECTION: FOREIGN NEWS; Pg. 13
HEADLINE: FRANCE'S FARMERS CAUSE A STINK OVER FAST FOOD BYLINE: John
Lichfield In Paris BODY: THE PEASANTS are revolting. Heaps of manure pile up
outside McDonald's restaurants all over France;  stacks of rotting fruit
barricades supermarket car-parks. In the Roquefort area of south-west...

(GREENPEACE)
32) The Christian Science Monitor August 25, 1999 SECTION: WORLD; Pg. 1
HEADLINE: Brazilians boil over ban on altered beans BYLINE: Jack Epstein,
Special to The Christian Science Monitor DATELINE: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
HIGHLIGHT: Monsanto is appealing a ruling on transgenic seeds as the global
debate BODY: When Humberto  Falco, a soybean farmer from the southern...

33) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Deutsche Bank tells investors to ditch
genetic crop shares DATELINE: LONDON, Aug 24  BODY: A major European bank
has advised leading investors to sell shares in top companies developing
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) because of their negative image, The
Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. In a series of reports into the...

34) The Christian Science Monitor August 25, 1999 SECTION: WORLD; Pg. 7
HEADLINE: Japanese press for labels on their tampered tofu BYLINE: Takehiko
Nomura, Special To The Christian Science Monitor DATELINE: TOKYO BODY: In a
move that could trigger a major trade dispute with the United States, Japan
bowed to growing pressure from consumer groups and will mandate labeling of...

35) BBC Online Thursday, June 24, 1999 UK  Sci/Tech GM plants to produce
medicinal honey  Honey bee could help with vaccination programmes A spoonful
of honey could one day replace bitter pills or painful injections.
Scientists in Holland are using the nectar of genetically modified plants to
produce honey containing drugs and vaccines. It follows the discovery that...

36) French minister hits U.S. agribusiness at Green meet By Frederic Niel
LORIENT, France, Aug 25 (Reuters) French Farm Minister Jean Glavany attacked
U.S. corporations on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to monopolise the
world's food supply and jeopardising French agricultural independence.
Agriculture is at a historic turning point, the change from of quantity to...

 OTHERS 

37) 08/25 19 Green Grps Urge President Clinton To Veto Tax Bill
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) Calling the massive tax bill passed by
Congress "decidedly anti- environmental," 19 environmental groups
signed an Aug. 25 letter urging President Clinton to veto the
measure. The tax bill passed this month by Congress not only fails to
encourage sustainable development, but further...

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