Help protect the Great Barrier reef
Citizens' Initiative Omega | 31.08.2003 16:23 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Health | London | World
RE: "The cellular children" - Cell phone tower - No proof mental illness rooted in biology-Gross errors in psychiatric diagnoses - Biodefence Contravenes Biosafety - Frankenfood and the WTO - Save North America's most endangered forests - Iceland has resumed whaling - Help protect the Great Barrier reef - Bush Fails on Iraq - Costs of the surveillance state - Halliburton and Bechtel Win More Deals - The Niger Forgery
RE: "THE CELLULAR CHILDREN"
----------------------------
Iris, I fully agree, children of that age should not be using cellphones - period.
The most troubling part is, when they complain later of health symptoms related to the exposure to EMF from the phone, they will be diagnosed by their doctors in the following manner:
(1) Hearing loss and ear pain-will be called, ear infection.
(2) Ringing ears-will be named, tinnitus.
(3) Slow learning-will be named, attention deficit disorder.
(4) Headaches-will be named, migraine.
(5) Joint pain-will be named, fibromialgia.
(6) Lack of energy-will be named, chronic fatigue.
All will be treated with the selected drugs for the misdiagnosed illnesses. (Of course they will not be diagnosed as suffering from EMF sensitivity, because, according to the medical industry, that don't exist.)
As the children grow older and the symptoms become more prevalent and painful, and the prescribed drugs do not relieve the pain, and the children, now adults, keep on complaining, they will most likely be farther misdiagnosed by the Psychiatrist Industry, as PSYCHOTICS and again, treated with, trial, drugs for mental illness. And when the drugs show little or no effect, they may even end up in a mental institution, with a cellphone tower on the roof, or next door, or both, and be given more EMF by way of, what is called, shock treatment. They may even have a chip implant, Of course they will always be given access to a cellphone, so they can make contact with their doctor and family members. This keeps the Medical Industry in business so they are always there when we need them. And as far as the cellular phone industry is concerned - They are Just Someone Else's Children, and they are working within Government Guidelines. After all, it has been well established by government scientists, through very careful research, using a fake brain in a phantom head made of fiberglass. IF IT DON'T HEAT YOU IT WON'T HURT YOU.
Regards,
Robert Riedlinger
--------
CELL PHONE TOWER
-----------------------------
MY CHILDS SCHOOL AND SEVERAL OTHER CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IN MY COMMUNITY HAVE PLACED CELL PHONE TOWERS ON THE SCHOOL BUILDING. WE THE PARENTS ARE TRYING TO GET THE SCHOOL TO TAKE DOWN THE TOWERS.
WE ARE HAVING A VERY HARD TIME WITH THE SCHOOL. IT IS A CATHOLIC SCHOOL. WE [THE PARENTS] ARE PROTESTING BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THIS IS HARMFUL NOT ONLY TO OUR CHILDREN BUT TO THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY. WE NOTICED THAT THE TOWERS WERE PLACED ON THE ROOF OF THE SCHOOL AND THE TRANSMITTERS OUT SIDE OF TWO CLASSROOM WINDOWS SOMETHING IN MAY OF 2003.
THIS IS VERY DISTURBING - HOW CAN THE GOVERNMENT LET A THING LIKE THIS HAPPEN - I THINK WE KNOW THE ANSWER - A LOT OF THE PARENTS HAVE TAKEN THEIR CHILDREN OUT OF THIS SCHOOL AND A LOT OF US ARE JUST KEEPING THEM HOME FOR THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF SCHOOL.
CAN YOU GIVE US SOME ADVISE.
Message from Algera9
--------
Congratulation on your article re. gross errors in psychiatric diagnoses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Dr. Hoeller:
I totally agree with your opinions expressed in THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER article, printed below. In case you are not aware that electrohypersensitives (EHS) are frequently mislabelled by psychiatrists as psychotics/paranoid schizophrenics who are being delusional about the bioeffects they claim they suffer from excessive exposure to electromagnetic radiation,
I have pasted in below your article a statement I wrote on this some time ago. It is posted online at "Citizens Initiative Omega" (quickest via google) archives, dated 19/9/02. I know a number of EHS sufferers who have been involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities and most inappropriately and dangerously medicated. The suffering they endure from being wrongly medicated and incarcerated although mentally well is increased to excruciating levels by their being exposed to strong levels of e-equipment, flourescent lighting, etc., in these facilities. Can you do anything about this ghastly medical bungling for EHS patients?
Sincerely,
Imelda O'Connor
--- "www.MindFreedom.org"
wrote: > Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 14:03:39 -0700
To: "Freedom in Mental Health"
From: "www.MindFreedom.org"
Subject: _Seattle Post-Intelligencer_ Fast for
Freedom in Mental Health oped
Here's a really unique opinion piece in today's _Seattle Post-Intelligencer_ 29 August 24.
It covers the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health which is an ongoing hunger strike (Day 14) that claims the psychiatric drug industry is squeezing out freedom of choice in America, and globally.
More info on Fast check out
http://www.MindFreedom.org,
and there are other links at the end of this.
~~~~~~~~~
Friday, August 29, 2003
_The Seattle Post-Intelligencer_
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/137089_mentalhealth29.html
No proof mental illness rooted in biology
By KEITH HOELLER
GUEST COLUMNIST
What is "the mental health movement?" Its proponents claim that millions of Americans are afflicted with a mental illness, which is a disease "just like any other" and that the mentally ill suffer from a chemical imbalance in the brain that is corrected by psychiatric drugs.
Mental illness is said to be the cause of many of our society's social ills, such as suicide, murder, divorce, child abuse, sex offenses, depression and various addictions. If only mental illness could be cured, mental health supporters say, all of these ills could be prevented.
Because the mentally ill often are unaware of their disease, treatment must be forced on the mentally ill. All 50 states have laws that allow involuntary treatment if professionals deem they are a danger to self and others.
Psychiatrists, we are told, can now accurately diagnose mental illness and have safe and effective treatments. Psychiatry is considered a valid medical specialty, like cardiology, and the claims of the movement are based on scientific research.
The largest lay group is the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). The media routinely refer to NAMI as advocates for the mentally ill, although its membership consists almost entirely of family members and not the mentally ill themselves. NAMI ascribes to the "biological basis of mental illness," and endorses forced treatment of the mentally ill.
The movement's major source of funding is the highly profitable pharmaceutical industry, which funds the drug research; which funds psychiatric journals, and even the American Psychiatric Association itself; which funds advertising to doctors and the public; and even funds lay groups such as NAMI (at least $11 million) and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (at least $1 million).
Yet many professionals claim that the mental health movement is not a legitimate medical or scientific endeavor, let alone a civil rights movement, but a political ideology of intolerance and inhumanity. Numerous psychiatrists and psychologists have examined the psychiatric research literature and found it to range from smoke and mirrors to quackery.
Psychiatrists have yet to conclusively prove that a single mental illness has a biological or physical cause, or a genetic origin. Psychiatry has yet to develop a single physical test that can determine that an individual actually has a particular mental illness. Indeed, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders uses behavior, not physical symptoms, to diagnose mental illness, and it lacks both scientific reliability and validity.
On Aug. 16, eight members of MindFreedom (www.mindfreedom.org), an umbrella organization of mental patients who call themselves "psychiatric survivors," began a Fast for Freedom "to press for human rights and choice in psychiatry" and to "demand that the mental health industry produce even one study proving the common industry claim that 'mental illness is biologically-based.' "
Dr. James Scully of the American Psychiatric Association responded to the hunger strikers by claiming the evidence was so vast one need only look at "Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General" (1999) or a recent psychiatry textbook.
An expert panel for the strikers, made up of members (like myself) of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (www.icspp.org), quickly responded by pointing out that neither of these works contains any such conclusive proof. Actually, the surgeon general's report on mental health states that "the precise causes (etiology) of mental disorders are not known" and "there is no definitive lesion, laboratory test, or abnormality in brain tissue that can identify (a mental) illness." The Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry (1999) states: " ... Validation of the diagnostic categories as specific entities has not been established." In its reply to the fasters, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill did not cite any scientific evidence at all.
In 1784, a similar debate raged in Paris about the scientific validity of the latest psychiatric nostrum (hypnotism) and its inventor, Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, who claimed to have discovered a physical mechanism he called animal magnetism. The Academy of Sciences formed a panel, including American scientist Benjamin Franklin and French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, to assess the movement sweeping the city, and concluded that Mesmer's "cures" had no scientific basis. They were due entirely to the power of suggestion, now called the placebo effect. The Royal Society of Medicine issued a report with similar findings on Aug. 16, 1784.
Let us hope the Fast for Freedom has a positive outcome for all involved. If not, let us insist that the American Medical Association (or similar body) form a panel of objective, non-psychiatric scientists, without any ties to drug companies, to examine whether psychiatry should continue as a medical specialty or if it should join the historical ranks of alchemy, astrology and phrenology as a pseudoscience.
Dr. Keith Hoeller is editor of the "Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry" in Seattle. E-mail:
RKHoeller@aol.com
- end -
For the latest news release plus lots of updates, published media articles, commentary, fact sheets, latest actions you can take to support the fast, and how to become a member of MindFreedom, check: http://www.MindFreedom.org
For daily Fast photos, a lively public message board with hunger striker discussion, and more see: http://www.cinemaniastigma.com/pages/13/index.htm
For photos of a delegation of hunger strikers meeting with the President of the American Psychiatric Association: http://www.pagesforpeople.com/
For some of the latest published media articles on the fast: http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/hungerstrike22.shtml
For direct link to the lively public message board that you can post to, and dialogue with hunger strikers, see: http://b4.boards2go.com/boards/board.cgi?user=CineMania
For a sample of the debate going on about the "biological basis of mental illness" see:
http://psychrights.org/
For a "blog" started by a Fast supporter see: http://mindfreedom-fast.blogspot.com/
* * * PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL * * *
* * * APPROPRIATE PLACES * * *
* * * ON AND OFF THE INTERNET * * *
* * * ESPECIALLY TO JOURNALISTS! * * *
-----------------------------------------
Biodefence Contravenes Biosafety
------------------------------------------
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiodefenceContravenesBiosafety.php
--------
FRANKENFOOD AND THE WTO
--------------------------------------------
The world's governments will be gathering for the World Trade Organisation's 5th Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, from 10 to 14 September. Greenpeace is going to this meeting to push for trade rules that reflect the environmental, social and economic priorities of the world's citizens, not just the world's corporations.
We have launched a weblog to keep you updated on what is going on in Cancun this September, and we encourage you to read it, react to it, and take action by sending your comments to Cancun!
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/
Greenpeace's major focus in Cancun will be opposing the spread of genetically engineered food.
On 13 May the US government declared a global war on consumers, farmers and the environment when it filed a complaint in the World Trade Organisation against the European Union’s de facto moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). However, the fact is the moratorium was due to be lifted within months anyway.
So why the rush?
The real target of US aggression against GMO restrictions is the EU’s new comprehensive GMO labeling laws.
The WTO case is the first step in a worldwide campaign to promote Frankenfood, so people everywhere should be concerned.
To find out more, please join the more than 7000 people who have participated in our cyberaction here:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=859&s=gen
and
SAVE ONE OF NORTH AMERICA'S GREATEST AND MOST ENDANGERED FORESTS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Bush administration wants to let the chainsaws into Alaska's Tongass and Chugach forests. It is attempting to undermine the Roadless Rule that prevents access to pristine forest lands in the US and has already proposed that the Tongass be exempted from the Roadless Rule altogether.
To find out more and help out, visit:
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/6880/article/520.html
and
ICELAND HAS RESUMED WHALING
--------------------------------------------------
Icelandic whalers have begun the take of 38 minke whales announced by the Government of Iceland on 6 August as the start of a so called 'scientific' whaling program. The program will expand to take 250 whales, including sei and fin whales as well as minkes, in 2004. Three small fishing boats have been fitted with explosive harpoons and will hunt in August and September. All the meat from these whales will be sold. Please send a protest now to Iceland's largest embassies from:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=915&s=whl
and
HELP PROTECT THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
-------------------------------------------------------------
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is at risk. Last year the reef experienced its worst case of coral bleaching, with over 60 per cent being affected.
As the climate heats up so do the oceans, causing the organisms that give coral its colour and food to die.
The government of Australia's Queensland state now faces a key decision on the reef’s future - accepting or rejecting the second stage of Southern Pacific Petroleum’s Stuart Shale Oil project near Gladstone.
The development of a shale oil industry would more than double Australia’s greenhouse emissions - increasing climate change. This would be a disaster for the reef.
Please write now from:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=934&s=gen
--------
Bush Fails on Iraq
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1039
--------
To be an American
http://libertyforall.net/2003/archive/aug31/american.html
Ashcroft's summer Patriot Act tour
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0335/fiore.php
Free Iraq's market
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-29-03.html
Costs of the surveillance state
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1300
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp http://www.rationalreview.com/news/
--------
Blix Felt U.S. Intimidating Him Before Iraq War
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4571.htm
Wounded, Weary And Disappeared
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4570.htm
Halliburton and Bechtel Win More Deals
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/28/1062050603425.html
Poll: Iraq War Makes US Less Safe
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34313
The Niger Forgery
http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/pubarchive.php?globeintel+140
Letters on the death Dr. David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/corr-a28.shtml
Informant: George Paxinos
----------------------------
Iris, I fully agree, children of that age should not be using cellphones - period.
The most troubling part is, when they complain later of health symptoms related to the exposure to EMF from the phone, they will be diagnosed by their doctors in the following manner:
(1) Hearing loss and ear pain-will be called, ear infection.
(2) Ringing ears-will be named, tinnitus.
(3) Slow learning-will be named, attention deficit disorder.
(4) Headaches-will be named, migraine.
(5) Joint pain-will be named, fibromialgia.
(6) Lack of energy-will be named, chronic fatigue.
All will be treated with the selected drugs for the misdiagnosed illnesses. (Of course they will not be diagnosed as suffering from EMF sensitivity, because, according to the medical industry, that don't exist.)
As the children grow older and the symptoms become more prevalent and painful, and the prescribed drugs do not relieve the pain, and the children, now adults, keep on complaining, they will most likely be farther misdiagnosed by the Psychiatrist Industry, as PSYCHOTICS and again, treated with, trial, drugs for mental illness. And when the drugs show little or no effect, they may even end up in a mental institution, with a cellphone tower on the roof, or next door, or both, and be given more EMF by way of, what is called, shock treatment. They may even have a chip implant, Of course they will always be given access to a cellphone, so they can make contact with their doctor and family members. This keeps the Medical Industry in business so they are always there when we need them. And as far as the cellular phone industry is concerned - They are Just Someone Else's Children, and they are working within Government Guidelines. After all, it has been well established by government scientists, through very careful research, using a fake brain in a phantom head made of fiberglass. IF IT DON'T HEAT YOU IT WON'T HURT YOU.
Regards,
Robert Riedlinger
--------
CELL PHONE TOWER
-----------------------------
MY CHILDS SCHOOL AND SEVERAL OTHER CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IN MY COMMUNITY HAVE PLACED CELL PHONE TOWERS ON THE SCHOOL BUILDING. WE THE PARENTS ARE TRYING TO GET THE SCHOOL TO TAKE DOWN THE TOWERS.
WE ARE HAVING A VERY HARD TIME WITH THE SCHOOL. IT IS A CATHOLIC SCHOOL. WE [THE PARENTS] ARE PROTESTING BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THIS IS HARMFUL NOT ONLY TO OUR CHILDREN BUT TO THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY. WE NOTICED THAT THE TOWERS WERE PLACED ON THE ROOF OF THE SCHOOL AND THE TRANSMITTERS OUT SIDE OF TWO CLASSROOM WINDOWS SOMETHING IN MAY OF 2003.
THIS IS VERY DISTURBING - HOW CAN THE GOVERNMENT LET A THING LIKE THIS HAPPEN - I THINK WE KNOW THE ANSWER - A LOT OF THE PARENTS HAVE TAKEN THEIR CHILDREN OUT OF THIS SCHOOL AND A LOT OF US ARE JUST KEEPING THEM HOME FOR THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF SCHOOL.
CAN YOU GIVE US SOME ADVISE.
Message from Algera9
--------
Congratulation on your article re. gross errors in psychiatric diagnoses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Dr. Hoeller:
I totally agree with your opinions expressed in THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER article, printed below. In case you are not aware that electrohypersensitives (EHS) are frequently mislabelled by psychiatrists as psychotics/paranoid schizophrenics who are being delusional about the bioeffects they claim they suffer from excessive exposure to electromagnetic radiation,
I have pasted in below your article a statement I wrote on this some time ago. It is posted online at "Citizens Initiative Omega" (quickest via google) archives, dated 19/9/02. I know a number of EHS sufferers who have been involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities and most inappropriately and dangerously medicated. The suffering they endure from being wrongly medicated and incarcerated although mentally well is increased to excruciating levels by their being exposed to strong levels of e-equipment, flourescent lighting, etc., in these facilities. Can you do anything about this ghastly medical bungling for EHS patients?
Sincerely,
Imelda O'Connor
--- "www.MindFreedom.org"
wrote: > Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 14:03:39 -0700
To: "Freedom in Mental Health"
From: "www.MindFreedom.org"
Subject: _Seattle Post-Intelligencer_ Fast for
Freedom in Mental Health oped
Here's a really unique opinion piece in today's _Seattle Post-Intelligencer_ 29 August 24.
It covers the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health which is an ongoing hunger strike (Day 14) that claims the psychiatric drug industry is squeezing out freedom of choice in America, and globally.
More info on Fast check out
http://www.MindFreedom.org, and there are other links at the end of this.
~~~~~~~~~
Friday, August 29, 2003
_The Seattle Post-Intelligencer_
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/137089_mentalhealth29.html No proof mental illness rooted in biology
By KEITH HOELLER
GUEST COLUMNIST
What is "the mental health movement?" Its proponents claim that millions of Americans are afflicted with a mental illness, which is a disease "just like any other" and that the mentally ill suffer from a chemical imbalance in the brain that is corrected by psychiatric drugs.
Mental illness is said to be the cause of many of our society's social ills, such as suicide, murder, divorce, child abuse, sex offenses, depression and various addictions. If only mental illness could be cured, mental health supporters say, all of these ills could be prevented.
Because the mentally ill often are unaware of their disease, treatment must be forced on the mentally ill. All 50 states have laws that allow involuntary treatment if professionals deem they are a danger to self and others.
Psychiatrists, we are told, can now accurately diagnose mental illness and have safe and effective treatments. Psychiatry is considered a valid medical specialty, like cardiology, and the claims of the movement are based on scientific research.
The largest lay group is the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). The media routinely refer to NAMI as advocates for the mentally ill, although its membership consists almost entirely of family members and not the mentally ill themselves. NAMI ascribes to the "biological basis of mental illness," and endorses forced treatment of the mentally ill.
The movement's major source of funding is the highly profitable pharmaceutical industry, which funds the drug research; which funds psychiatric journals, and even the American Psychiatric Association itself; which funds advertising to doctors and the public; and even funds lay groups such as NAMI (at least $11 million) and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (at least $1 million).
Yet many professionals claim that the mental health movement is not a legitimate medical or scientific endeavor, let alone a civil rights movement, but a political ideology of intolerance and inhumanity. Numerous psychiatrists and psychologists have examined the psychiatric research literature and found it to range from smoke and mirrors to quackery.
Psychiatrists have yet to conclusively prove that a single mental illness has a biological or physical cause, or a genetic origin. Psychiatry has yet to develop a single physical test that can determine that an individual actually has a particular mental illness. Indeed, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders uses behavior, not physical symptoms, to diagnose mental illness, and it lacks both scientific reliability and validity.
On Aug. 16, eight members of MindFreedom (www.mindfreedom.org), an umbrella organization of mental patients who call themselves "psychiatric survivors," began a Fast for Freedom "to press for human rights and choice in psychiatry" and to "demand that the mental health industry produce even one study proving the common industry claim that 'mental illness is biologically-based.' "
Dr. James Scully of the American Psychiatric Association responded to the hunger strikers by claiming the evidence was so vast one need only look at "Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General" (1999) or a recent psychiatry textbook.
An expert panel for the strikers, made up of members (like myself) of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (www.icspp.org), quickly responded by pointing out that neither of these works contains any such conclusive proof. Actually, the surgeon general's report on mental health states that "the precise causes (etiology) of mental disorders are not known" and "there is no definitive lesion, laboratory test, or abnormality in brain tissue that can identify (a mental) illness." The Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry (1999) states: " ... Validation of the diagnostic categories as specific entities has not been established." In its reply to the fasters, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill did not cite any scientific evidence at all.
In 1784, a similar debate raged in Paris about the scientific validity of the latest psychiatric nostrum (hypnotism) and its inventor, Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, who claimed to have discovered a physical mechanism he called animal magnetism. The Academy of Sciences formed a panel, including American scientist Benjamin Franklin and French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, to assess the movement sweeping the city, and concluded that Mesmer's "cures" had no scientific basis. They were due entirely to the power of suggestion, now called the placebo effect. The Royal Society of Medicine issued a report with similar findings on Aug. 16, 1784.
Let us hope the Fast for Freedom has a positive outcome for all involved. If not, let us insist that the American Medical Association (or similar body) form a panel of objective, non-psychiatric scientists, without any ties to drug companies, to examine whether psychiatry should continue as a medical specialty or if it should join the historical ranks of alchemy, astrology and phrenology as a pseudoscience.
Dr. Keith Hoeller is editor of the "Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry" in Seattle. E-mail:
RKHoeller@aol.com - end -
For the latest news release plus lots of updates, published media articles, commentary, fact sheets, latest actions you can take to support the fast, and how to become a member of MindFreedom, check:
http://www.MindFreedom.org For daily Fast photos, a lively public message board with hunger striker discussion, and more see:
http://www.cinemaniastigma.com/pages/13/index.htm For photos of a delegation of hunger strikers meeting with the President of the American Psychiatric Association:
http://www.pagesforpeople.com/ For some of the latest published media articles on the fast:
http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/hungerstrike22.shtml For direct link to the lively public message board that you can post to, and dialogue with hunger strikers, see:
http://b4.boards2go.com/boards/board.cgi?user=CineMania For a sample of the debate going on about the "biological basis of mental illness" see:
http://psychrights.org/ For a "blog" started by a Fast supporter see:
http://mindfreedom-fast.blogspot.com/ * * * PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL * * *
* * * APPROPRIATE PLACES * * *
* * * ON AND OFF THE INTERNET * * *
* * * ESPECIALLY TO JOURNALISTS! * * *
-----------------------------------------
Biodefence Contravenes Biosafety
------------------------------------------
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiodefenceContravenesBiosafety.php --------
FRANKENFOOD AND THE WTO
--------------------------------------------
The world's governments will be gathering for the World Trade Organisation's 5th Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, from 10 to 14 September. Greenpeace is going to this meeting to push for trade rules that reflect the environmental, social and economic priorities of the world's citizens, not just the world's corporations.
We have launched a weblog to keep you updated on what is going on in Cancun this September, and we encourage you to read it, react to it, and take action by sending your comments to Cancun!
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/ Greenpeace's major focus in Cancun will be opposing the spread of genetically engineered food.
On 13 May the US government declared a global war on consumers, farmers and the environment when it filed a complaint in the World Trade Organisation against the European Union’s de facto moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). However, the fact is the moratorium was due to be lifted within months anyway.
So why the rush?
The real target of US aggression against GMO restrictions is the EU’s new comprehensive GMO labeling laws.
The WTO case is the first step in a worldwide campaign to promote Frankenfood, so people everywhere should be concerned.
To find out more, please join the more than 7000 people who have participated in our cyberaction here:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=859&s=gen and
SAVE ONE OF NORTH AMERICA'S GREATEST AND MOST ENDANGERED FORESTS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Bush administration wants to let the chainsaws into Alaska's Tongass and Chugach forests. It is attempting to undermine the Roadless Rule that prevents access to pristine forest lands in the US and has already proposed that the Tongass be exempted from the Roadless Rule altogether.
To find out more and help out, visit:
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/6880/article/520.html and
ICELAND HAS RESUMED WHALING
--------------------------------------------------
Icelandic whalers have begun the take of 38 minke whales announced by the Government of Iceland on 6 August as the start of a so called 'scientific' whaling program. The program will expand to take 250 whales, including sei and fin whales as well as minkes, in 2004. Three small fishing boats have been fitted with explosive harpoons and will hunt in August and September. All the meat from these whales will be sold. Please send a protest now to Iceland's largest embassies from:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=915&s=whl and
HELP PROTECT THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
-------------------------------------------------------------
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is at risk. Last year the reef experienced its worst case of coral bleaching, with over 60 per cent being affected.
As the climate heats up so do the oceans, causing the organisms that give coral its colour and food to die.
The government of Australia's Queensland state now faces a key decision on the reef’s future - accepting or rejecting the second stage of Southern Pacific Petroleum’s Stuart Shale Oil project near Gladstone.
The development of a shale oil industry would more than double Australia’s greenhouse emissions - increasing climate change. This would be a disaster for the reef.
Please write now from:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=934&s=gen --------
Bush Fails on Iraq
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1039 --------
To be an American
http://libertyforall.net/2003/archive/aug31/american.html Ashcroft's summer Patriot Act tour
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0335/fiore.php Free Iraq's market
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-29-03.html Costs of the surveillance state
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1300 Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://www.rationalreview.com/news/ --------
Blix Felt U.S. Intimidating Him Before Iraq War
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4571.htm Wounded, Weary And Disappeared
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4570.htm Halliburton and Bechtel Win More Deals
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/28/1062050603425.html Poll: Iraq War Makes US Less Safe
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34313 The Niger Forgery
http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/pubarchive.php?globeintel+140 Letters on the death Dr. David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/corr-a28.shtml Informant: George Paxinos
Citizens' Initiative Omega
Homepage:
http://www.grn.es/electropolucio/omega275.htm
