Global News Headlines 09/16

[greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greenpeace Daily Environmental News Headlines
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, September 16, 1999
Greenbase Unit
Greenpeace International
------------------------------------------------------------------------

 ATMOSPHERE 

1) Europe faces resurgence of malaria, WHO says LONDON, Sept 
15 (Reuters) - A new report by the World Health  Organisation warns
that malaria is taking hold again in  Europe's mosquitoes, New
Scientist magazine said on  Wednesday. Drainage, drugs and
insecticides eradicated  malaria from Europe by the 1960s, but now
civil disorder ...

2) Bahamas Swept Underwater by Hurricane Floyd By Jacqueline 
Charles and Mimi Whitefield, The Miami Herald Sep. 
16--NASSAU, the Bahamas--What Bahamians will remember  about
Hurricane Floyd is the water -- the massive storm  surge that drove
the sea miles inland, stranding air  traffic controllers at Freeport
International Airport, ...

3) The Independent (London) September 16, 1999 SECTION: TITLE 
PAGE; Pg. 1 HEADLINE: 'TOO LATE TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING' ; 
ALARM AS THE WORLD'S LEADING ENVIRONMENTALIST ISSUES AN 
UNPRECEDENTED DOOMSDAY WARNING BYLINE: Michael Mccarthy 
Environment Correspondent BODY: THE KYOTO protocol, the 
international treaty to combat climate change, is failing, ...

 ENERGY 

4) 09/16 Spacecraft Could Use Human Waste For Fuel LONDON  (Reuters) -
Future spacecraft could find an alternative  energy supply in the
crew's human waste, New Scientist  magazine said Wednesday. U.S.
space agency NASA is  sponsoring a joint project to turn human waste
into a power  source for spaceships using a process that could also ...

5) Power and transport have to wait for clean fuel cell energy
By Paul Berrill LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Fuel cells 
which produce non- polluting energy -- seen as a potential 
panacea for both power generation and transport -- are 
technically advanced but still far from practical 
applications, experts say. "Fuel cell development in the ...

6) WSJ(9/16): Lobbying Stops U.S. Senate's Bid On Gas Rules 
By David Rogers Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal 
WASHINGTON -- Strong lobbying by the auto industry turned 
back efforts in the Senate to toughen fuel-economy 
standards for popular light trucks and sport-utility 
vehicles. The 55-40 vote came last night as the Republican ...

7) The Guardian (London) September 16, 1999 SECTION: Guardian 
Foreign Pages; Pg. 19 HEADLINE: Spilled crude lays waste to 
forest BODY: To reach the Shell oil spill (above) near the 
village of Otuegwe 1, you must swim through swamp forest 
after a five- mile tramp through cassava plantations. You 
smell it first, the stench of garage forecourts and rotting ...

8) The Toronto Star September 16, 1999, Edition 1 SECTION: 
BUSINESS HEADLINE: GREEN IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS BODY: Madhavi 
Acharya BUSINESS REPORTER If saving the planet isn't quite 
reason enough, there's another incentive for companies to 
cut pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, a U.S. energy 
expert says. It'll boost productivity and ultimately, ...

 FORESTS 

9) New Zealand kiwi ``free falling'' toward extinction By 
Stephen Wright WELLINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - New Zealand 
conservationists are warning that the country's national 
icon, the flightless, burrowing kiwi bird, could be 
virtually extinct in five to 10 years if rates of decline 
are not halted. Although New Zealand's kiwi population has ...

10) The Province Thursday, September 16, 1999 Final News A4 
Logging date set for Mayne Island BY Suzanne Fournier, 
Staff Reporter Logging is about to change the 
picture-postcard view that is all most tourists get of 
B.C.'s Gulf Islands. On the left side, as ferries glide 
through Active Pass toward Victoria, the lushly forested ...

11) INTERVIEW - Raytheon homes in on Brazil's Amazon By Noriko 
Yamaguchi SAO PAULO, Sept 16 (Reuters) - U.S. defence giant 
Raytheon Co. said it will help fight the shrinking of the 
rainforest in Brazil through its key role in setting up a 
$1.4 billion surveillance project on the health of the 
Amazon. Raytheon plans to invest $287 million in the ...

12) Wildfires rage above California's Big Sur coast MONTEREY, 
Calif., Sept 16 (Reuters) - Wildfires raging above 
California's rugged Big Sur coast have consumed more than 
10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of parched woodlands, forcing  the
evacuation of a resort community and threatening a  small group of
endangered California condor chicks. ...

 GENETIC ENGINEERING 

(GREENPEACE)
13) Global gene-food talks kickstart in Vienna By Julia 
Ferguson VIENNA, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Global negotiations 
have kicked off in Vienna to try to regulate the 
multi-billion-dollar trade in genetically altered foods and 
crops that can resist disease or produce higher yields. 
Sponsored by the United Nations, the closed-door conference...

(GREENPEACE)
14) Greenpeace says U.S. shipping GM maize to Russia VIENNA, 
Sept 16 (Reuters) - Environmental campaigners Greenpeace 
said on Thursday the United States was exporting genetically
modified maize to Russia even though Russian legislation 
requires special permits for such material. Greenpeace said 
samples from an early August shipment of maize from the ...

15) Trust first casualty in genetic food fight BYLINE: Gina 
Wilkinson BANGKOK, Sept 16 (AFP) - Harried Bangkok shoppers 
crowding busy supermarket checkouts are blissfully unaware 
they are about to become entangled in a genetic food fight 
of global proportions. Consumers in Asia and across the 
world are the main targets of an increasingly bitter war of ...

16) WORLD TRADE: Japan's food labels decision may fuel trade 
friction: Tokyo is not against genetically modified food, 
but is responding to consumer concerns, reports Michiyo 
Nakamoto: Financial Times ; 16-Sep-1999 Imported foods have 
often faced a struggle to gain acceptance with conservative 
Japanese consumers and to comply with stringent import ...

(GREENPEACE)
17) REUTERS NEWS SERVICE, Euro grain - EU keeps buying gm 
crops despite flap FRANCE: September 16, 1999 PARIS - Even 
as European activists decry genetically modified (GM) crops 
and demand GM-free groceries, the European Union still 
imports millions of tonnes of GM crops each year. 
Moreover, millions of European consumers each day eat food ...

 MILITARY 

18) Russia denies conducting subcritical nuclear test MOSCOW, 
Sept. 16 (Kyodo) -- Russia said Thursday it has not 
conducted any subcritical nuclear tests this year, 
responding to a U.S. media report that either a subcritical 
nuclear test or a small nuclear blast could have occurred 
at a northern remote military site earlier this year. The ...

19) 09/16 N.Korea Sanctions May Be Eased By GEORGE GEDDA  WASHINGTON (AP)
-- More than 46 years after the end of the  Korean War, the United
States is prepared to undertake its  first significant easing of
sanctions against North Korea,  administration officials say. The
officials said Wednesday  that President Clinton was ready to reach
out to North ...

20) 09/16 Indonesia commander says will leave E.Timor By Lewa  Pardomuan
DILI, East Timor (Reuters) - With an advance  party of an
international force expected in ravaged East  Timor on Saturday,
Indonesia's military commander in the  territory said his men would
begin leaving once foreign  troops arrived. "Once they get in, I will
pull out. I hope ...

21) The Washington Post September 16, 1999, Final Edition 
SECTION: A; Pg. A01 HEADLINE: U.S. Will Propose Payments to 
Sick Paducah Workers; $20 Million Fund Eyed For Radiation 
Cancers BYLINE: Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer 
BODY: The Clinton administration today will propose 
spending tens of millions of dollars to compensate ailing ...

22) Activists push Y2K nuclear pause By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON, 
Sept 16 (Reuters) - Environmentalists and arms control 
activists call it a modest proposal -- a kind of Year 2000 
insurance policy for the world. Power down the 433 nuclear 
reactors worldwide. De-alert the 5,000 nuclear-tipped 
missiles that the United States and Russia keep on ...

 NUCLEAR POWER 

23) FOCUS-Northeast Utilities to exit nuclear business By 
Matthew Lewis BERLIN, Conn., Sept 15 (Reuters) - Northeast 
Utilities <NU.N>, New England's biggest electric utility, 
said on Wednesday it will put its Millstone nuclear power 
plants up for auction and effectively exit the nuclear 
business. "The company has decided that to be a successful ...

24) Agence France Presse HEADLINE: Nuclear accident scale to 
apply to transport as well as power plants DATELINE: PARIS, 
Sept 16 BODY: A worldwide scale that measures the gravity 
of accidents at nuclear plants will shortly apply to 
incidents involving the transport of radioactive materials, 
French officials said Friday. The International Atomic ...

25) USA TODAY September 16, 1999, FIRST EDITION SECTION: NEWS; 
Pg. 14A HEADLINE: Workers, neighbors blame plant for 
illness, death They say they were lied to about dangers 
BYLINE: Guillermo X. Garcia DATELINE: PADUCAH, Ky. BODY: 
PADUCAH, Ky. -- Al Puckett's anger turns to tears as he 
recalls the decades-long culture of secrecy under which he ...

 OCEANS 

26) BusinessWorld September 16, 1999, SECTION: Pg. 7 HEADLINE: 
Frabelle to concentrate on international fishing BYLINE: 
Earl Warren B. Castillo BODY: Commercial fishing firm 
Frabelle Fishing Corp. (Frabelle) will start concentrating 
on its international fishing operations next year, a 
company official said. "Our thrust is to move out of ...

(GREENPEACE)
27) Environmental News Network, Russia abruptly halts beluga 
hunt, trade Thursday, September 16, 1999 By Margot Higgins 
The Russian government halted the first-ever international 
commercial trade of beluga whale meat Wednesday, putting a 
stop to the export of 200 metric tons of meat and blubber 
to Japan, said the International Fund for Animal Welfare ...

 TOXICS 

(GREENPEACE)
28) 09/16 PESTICIDE LEVELS IN FOOD `NO CAUSE FOR CONCERN' By  Amanda
Brown, Environment Correspondent, PA News Pesticide  residues in
fruit and vegetables sold in British  supermarkets are not a cause
for concern, food experts said  today. Their statement follows a
Government report  revealing traces of chemicals -some suspected of
causing ...

(GREENPEACE)
29) VENICE, Italy, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Environmental group 
Greenpeace said activists scaled a chimney at an Italian 
petrochemical plant on Wednesday to protest at alleged 
dumping of toxic waste in the Venice lagoon. Greenpeace 
Italy said 25 campaigners launched "Operation Deep Trouble" 
just before dawn, docking at the Porto Marghera plant in ...

30) Dioxin unlikely to harm Belgian health BRUSSELS, Sept 16 
(Reuters) - Belgian scientists have played down the 
long-term health effects of cancer-causing dioxins that 
were found in May to have entered the food chain through 
contaminated animal feed. "It is very unlikely that the 
isolated episode of contamination in Belgium will cause ...

31) 09/16 LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF CHEMICALS IN FOOD UNKNOWN By  Maxine
Frith, Health Correspondent, PA News Pesticides have  been linked to
cancer, fertility problems and toxic  poisoning as well as allergies,
birth defects and other  illnesses. And experts say many of the
effects of long-term  exposure to chemicals in food are not yet
known. They are ...

32) THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) September 16, 1999 SECTION: 
Pg. 17 HEADLINE: 'The seeds of trouble were sown before GM' 
Roger Highfield talks to the ecologist charged with 
overseeing crop trials who says conventional agriculture 
has much to answer for BYLINE: By ROGER HIGHFIELD BODY: THE 
ecologist occupying the hottest seat in science - chairing ...

33) The Guardian (London) September 16, 1999 SECTION: Guardian 
Features Pages; Pg. 14 HEADLINE: Toxic shock; For the first 
time, a government report will today name and shame 
products with unacceptable levels of pesticide residues. 
Joanna Blythman gets a sneak preview of the findings BODY: 
Char-grill a tuna loin from Morrisons and sit it on a bed of...

(GREENPEACE)
34) INDIA'S 30 YEAR ECO-CRUSADE SHUTS RAYON PLANT By 
Frederick Noronha BOMBAY, India, September 15, 1999 (ENS) 
- A rayon pulp factory, one of the biggest industrial units 
in the south Indian province of Kerala, has started to fire 
staff as it prepares to close down after a 30 year long 
conflict over the pollution it has caused. ...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: The above newsclips are to indicate the environment news of the day.
Whole news articles are copyright protected, so unfortunately Greenpeace
cannot distribute them publicly.