[alternet-l] Alternet 57

[Adrian Harris]

THE ALTERNET NEWS - ISSUE # 57

This issue:

HOT SITES/
KYOTO RALLY /
MAY DAY REPORTS /
SUPERWEEDS WARNING /
CHEMICAL COLUMBIA/
FOOD WARS/
BLOCKADE THE BOMB/
WORLD BANK DEVELOPMENT PORTAL /
SCHNEWS ANNUAL /
GOOD FOOD /
EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA /
JOBS/
QUOTE/UNQUOTE/
DIARY/

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Back issues are on-line at: 
---> http://www.gn.apc.org/activities/alternet

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HOT SITES

E-Mail petitions are a popular and easy way to promote a campaign, but
seldom reach their intended targets. The Petition Site aims to help
organisations create free  online petitions. Two hot petitions on the site
include stopping EBay's Wolf Hunt auctions and pushing for a Moratorium for
Genetically Modified (GM) Foods ---> http://www.care2.com/go/redirect/2/1769"

Protest Net has a calendar of events, activist's handbook, action alerts,
and a newsletter.  It tends to focus on America, but still has lots of
useful material wherever you are:

---> http://www.protest.net

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KYOTO RALLY

Stop Bush wrecking the planet! Join the Campaign against Climate Change at
the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square (Bond Street Tube), on Saturday May 5th,
from 11.00 a.m.
Supported by Christian Ecology, Friends of the Earth, Globalise Resistance,
the Green Party, London People and Planet. Picnic against the 'Toxic Texan'!
More info: philthornhill at yahoo.com 020 8533 7274 

---> http://www.campaignagainstclimatechange.net/

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MAY DAY REPORTS
Undercurrents have interviews and videos of the May Day demo in Real Video
format. If you'd just like an old fashioned text and picture style report,
Urban75 have the low down:

---> http://www.urban75.org/mayday01/index.html 
Undercurrents: ---> http://www.undercurrents.org/mayday/

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SUPERWEEDS WARNING

Top Canadian scientists claim that there is a "high probability" that our
food could be contaminated as a result of the "arrogance" of biotechnology
researchers and regulators.

In a letter to the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee they warn that
modified traits can spread by "spillage of seed or dispersion of seed by
the wind." The fear is that sloppy agricultural practices could result in
the resistance being passed to weeds, creating superweeds.

Full report in the Globe and Mail (Toronto):

--->
http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/D/2001050
3/wfood?tf=RT/fullstory_Tech.htmlcf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutralslug=
wfood&date=20010503&archive=RTGAMsite=Technology

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CHEMICAL COLUMBIA 

Vast stretches of southern Colombia now look like desert - crops withered 
away, the ground parched and brown, vegetation burnt by chemicals. Plan
Colombia, the anti-drugs plan financed by $1.3 billion of American aid,
aims to stop cocaine production by destroying every plant that grows in
this fragile Amazonian ecosystem. 

It's not just drug plants that are being destroyed: Fields of plantain,
almost a mile from the nearest drug field, are withered and brown.

The campaign has been going since the end of last year but the $80m to help
coca farmers switch to legal crops has not arrived. "What are we supposed
to do?" asks Cecilia Amaya, who heads a peasant association. "The promised
help has not arrived, and we suspect it will never arrive. Corrupt
politicians have already pocketed it."

The US Environmental Protection Agency says glyphosate-based products
should be handled with caution and could cause vomiting, swelling of the
lungs, pneumonia, mental confusion and tissue damage. But in Colombia the
chemical is being sprayed on people tending their fields and is leaching
into the local drinking water.

"We are getting cases every week of some mild poisoning and the eye, skin
and breathing problems which occur after the planes have passed over and
dropped their loads," said a nurse at San Francisco Hospital in Puerto Asis.

Meanwhile Plan Colombia is failing to stop the drugs being grown.
Large-scale plantations are being replaced by an explosion of new coca
crops in small plots behind peasant shacks, protected from the crop dusting
planes.

Full story:
--->
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news_briefs/fr010426_03
.shtml

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FOOD WARS

Discussions at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's Codex Committee
collapsed after US delegates insisted on the removal of all references to
the precautionary principle.

The Committee is concerned with risk management relating to food and human
health.

The US called for sections of the international food code to be removed
entirely, while the EU wanted to enshrine the precautionary principle in
international legislation. 

One delegate expressed the view that Codex seemed to have become the latest
battleground for trade negotiators, rather than health practitioners. 

The US has long opposed the use of the precautionary principle as
'unscientific and arbitrary', in particular when used by the EU to ban US
hormone-treated beef and to control approvals of GM products.

Documents of the meeting can be found at: 
---> http://www.codexalimentarius.net/ccgp16/GP01_01e.htm

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BLOCKADE THE BOMB

Anti-nuclear activists aim to blockade the Atomic Weapons Establishment at
Aldermaston in Berkshire, where components for the UK's Trident nuclear
warheads are made, on 14th May

The blockade, which will begin at 7 a.m., is jointly organised by London
Region CND, Trident Ploughshares, the Student CND Network and Aldermaston
Women's Camp.

The blockade fits into the Trident Ploughshares camp at Aldermaston, which
will run from 10th to 15th May. On Saturday 12th May there will be a march
through Reading, beginning at 11.30 from the railway station, and ending
with a mock trial outside Reading Magistrates Court at noon. On Sunday 13th
May there will be an interfaith vigil at the main gate of the Aldermaston
site at 2.30 p.m.

A Trident Ploughshares spokesperson said: "Both the authorities and the
public are now beginning to accept that we are not a flash-in-the-pan
campaign but one which is serious and determined in its intention to disarm
Britain's horrifying and illegal weapons of mass destruction."


---> http://www.tridentploughshares.org/ 

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WORLD BANK DEVELOPMENT PORTAL

Imagine a supersite on all development issues giving all perspectives on
130 development topics. That's the concept behind the World Bank's new
Development Gateway Internet plan. A new briefing from Bretton Woods
Project claims that Gateway will appear neutral and comprehensive but will
in fact privilege powerful voices and will prevent proper coverage of
important cross-cutting topics such as gender and climate change.

The Gateway will inevitably present a view of the world through official
development eyes, presenting the "expert" opinions of government officials,
private businesses and civil society groups. Groups in South Africa and
Latin America have already decided not co-operate with it.

Bretton Woods Project seeks to collaborate with other groups on how to
respond to Gateway and move forward to a better way. 

A Tower of Babel on the Internet? The World Bank's Development Gateway: 
---> http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/knowledgebank/

Or e-mail: gdg at brettonwoodsproject.org for a copy (specify format if you do
not want it in Word 2000). 
Spanish version coming soon.

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SCHNEWS ANNUAL 

The SchNEWS Yearbook 2001 is full of good stuff:
SchNEWS issues 251 to 300, articles from Squall, campaigns, news and
activities World-wide, how-to articles, pictures, cartoons and subverts,
plus a newly updated extensive contacts list.
Packed into 290 pages! How do they do it?

Send a cheque to SchNEWS for £8.50  (including p&p) and be one of the first
to get one.
Cheques made payable to:
'Justice', PO Box 2600, Brighton BN2 2DX

---> http://www.newscientist.com/nl/1125/washed.html

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GOOD FOOD

Local and organic food in public sector catering -  RISC Conference Centre,
Reading 
May 23 2001 - Organised by East Anglia Food Link.

The conference will examine the practicalities and impact of setting up
locally sourced and organic meals systems for state schools and the public
sector.  It is possible to combine sourcing healthy, local and organic food
with the strengthening of links between farmers and consumers - Find out how!
Cost:  
Unwaged: £15 
Individual/non-profit making organisations: £35 
Profit making and Public Sector: £65

Contact Clive Peckham on eafl at gn.apc.org 

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EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

SIYAFUNDA: PARTNERS IN LEARNING
Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way,London WC1
Saturday 19 May, 9.30am  5.15 pm

This conference will examine changes in education in South Africa since
1994, paying particular attention to the strategies formulated to address
social justice and the eradication of the apartheid past. It will look to
future developments and specifically at forms of partnerships that are
emerging in the country to address quality education and social
transformation, and the different partnerships being developed between
South Africa and the United Kingdom.


Conference fee (includes coffee, tea and lunch):

Corporates: £50
Individuals: £20 
Students: £10

Please make cheques payable to ‘CCETSA’ and send to 

Canon Collins Educational Trust for Southern Africa (CCETSA)
Unit 22 The Ivories, 6 Northampton Street, London N1 2HY
Tel: 020 7354 1462
Fax 020 7359 4875 
Email: ccetsa at gn.apc.org
Web:  www.canoncollins.org.uk

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JOBS

PEACE BRIGADES INTERNATIONAL
An international peace and human rights organisation requires
EXPERIENCED FINANCE WORKER
£20,035 (pounds sterling) pro rata for 21 hrs pw (London-based)
Accounting and computer spreadsheet skills essential. Voluntary sector
experience desirable.
For further information and an application pack, you may choose one of the
following options:
* Download the application pack from our web site: www.peacebrigades.org 
* To receive the application pack by email, please email your request to:
pbiio at gn.apc.org 
* To receive an application pack by post, please contact us with your full
postal address:

Peace Brigades International 
5 Caledonian Rd 
London N1 9DX

Tel: +44 (0)20 7713 0392 
Fax: +44 (0)20 7837 2290

Closing date: 5pm, 23 May 2001 
Interviews: 31 May 2001

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QUOTE/UNQUOTE

"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity."

Frank Leahy

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DIARY DATES:

MAY

9th: Green Drinks. 6 'til late, at The Ram Page pub (Basement Room) 32 
Great Queen Street London WC2 
Tube: Holborn or Covent Garden. 
---> http://www.greendrinks.org

Biological Weapons and the New Genetics Avoiding the Threat School of
Oriental and African Studies, Russell Square, London 10.00am to 4.30pm,
Friday 18th May 2001
Organised by Genewatch
http://www.genewatch.org/ 

JUNE
28th: Eco-design for competitive advantage. 1st regional conference for
manufacturing companies
London
For full conference programme and registration form see 

http://www.cfsd.org.uk/events/eco-d2001/index.html

More Diary Dates on GreenNet:

---> http://webboard.gn.apc.org:8086/default

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