April 2007
Response to David Parker’s comments on emissions trading
Auckland, New Zealand - Greenpeace today welcomed Energy Minister David Parker’s comments today that emissions trading needs to be across all greenhouse gases, and the whole economy.
“Climate change is a responsibility for all of us - but it is only fair that those who cause the problem should pay for it,” said Carmen Gravatt Greenpeace [...]
Campaign Against Torture
This month marks the third anniversary of the disclosure of the abuse of detainees by US forces at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Since the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, PHR has been a leader in the effort to oppose the Bush Administration’s detainee treatment and interrogation policies. PHR’s Campaign Against Torture, in partnership with [...]
Mystery of Disappearing Honeybees
The first alarm was sounded in autumn 2006. Honeybees are disappearing across the United States, with half of the States affected and beekeeper losing 30 to 90 percent of colonies; one beekeeper with 1 200 colonies expected 9 to survive the winter [1]. The problem began more than two years ago and has intensified in [...]
Every Drop Counts: Achieving greater water efficiency
Water is a precious and increasingly scarce resource in many parts of the world. The drought of 2004-2006 has raised awareness of the fragility of water resources in parts of the UK and helped push water issues up the political agenda. There is a growing awareness that there are areas where demand for water is [...]
Tell Philip Morris/Altria to Stop Interfering in Health Policy!
This week, Philip Morris/Altria shareholders and top decisionmakers will gather in New Jersey for the corporation’s annual shareholders’ meeting. It’s the event of the year for the tobacco giant to brag to the financial community and media. You can bet that Corporate Accountability International will be there!Before we challenge the decisionmakers in person, we need [...]
Kiwis of the Sea: New Zealand dolphins under threat
Population fragmentation. It doesn’t exactly pack the same punch as “extinction”. But for New Zealand’s South Island Hector’s dolphin and North Island Maui’s dolphin - one of the rarest marine dolphin species in the world - it could be catastrophic.
“Numbers of Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins are now so low that populations are starting to fragment,” [...]
Israeli administration imprisoning mothers and wives of political prisoners to pressure confessions
Kawthar Nofal told PNN that Israeli intelligence has taken to arresting the mothers and wivers of Palestinian political prisoners in order to extract confessions.
Nofal, known as Umm Said for her eldest son, said that the idea is to threaten the prisoners by harming their loved ones. Israeli intelligence wants information, and will take what they can get, real [...]
How to reduce Kyoto angst? Cut emissions
Auckland, New Zealand - The angst around New Zealand’s Kyoto liability is the inevitable consequence of delaying efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, Greenpeace said today.
Greenpeace Executive Director Bunny McDiarmid said that since we signed Kyoto New Zealand could have been steadily reducing emissions. But no policies were yet in place.
“Since Kyoto, we have [...]
Nuclear News
Workers at Sellafield, the nuclear plant at the centre of the missing
body parts scandal, were subjected to secret Cold War experiments in
which they were exposed to radiation, The Observer can reveal. One
experiment, described in a confidential memo, involved volunteers
drinking doses of caesium 134, a radioactive isotope that was
released in fatal quantities following the Chernobyl disaster. [...]
8 Palestinians, Including a Child, Killed in 24 Hours
In the past 24 hours, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have escalated attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). They have killed 8 Palestinians, including a child. Four of the victims were extra-judicially executed. PCHR strongly condemns this latest escalation and the reactivation of the policy of extra-judicial executions, which increases tension in the region and [...]
Improved Market Access Good for NZ Sustainability
Soil & Health is grateful for the efforts of New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) staff in supporting BioGro New Zealand’s drive for better access for New Zealand organic produce into the demanding Japanese market. It was announced on Friday that BioGro NZ Ltd received Recognised Foreign Certification Organisation (RFCO) status with Japan’s Ministry of [...]
Afghanistan: Taleban attacks against civilians increasing and systematic
As the Taleban’s spring offensive intensifies, civilians are increasingly facing suicide attacks, abductions and beheadings. The attacks on civilians by the Taleban are widespread and systematic and are used to instil fear and exert control over the local population, according to an Amnesty International report released today.
“Afghan civilians are bearing the brunt of this conflict. [...]
GM Maize 59122 Not Safe
Dismissing differences detected between GM and non-GM feed in safety tests appears to be common practice, and is
condoned by regulatory authorities. Prof. Joe Cummins and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Double-whammy GM maize gets positive opinion from European Food Safety Authority Maize 59122 is genetically modified for rootworm protection and herbicide tolerance, and has been developed by Dow [...]
Afghanistan: Civilians Bear Cost of Escalating Insurgent Attacks
(Kabul, April 16, 2007) - Civilian deaths from insurgent attacks in
Afghanistan increased dramatically over the past 15 months, and many
were the result of insurgents’ failure to respect the laws of war, Human
Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 116-page report, “The Human Cost: The Consequences of Insurgent
Attacks in Afghanistan,” describes how Afghan insurgent groups, [...]
EU: Put Rights at Heart of Central Asia Strategy
(New York, April 19, 2007) - With repressive governments ruling over
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and their neighbors, the European Union should
make respect for human rights an integral part of its new Central Asia
strategy, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today. EU
foreign ministers are scheduled to review a first-ever Central Asia strategy
at the General Affairs [...]
Kwila: extinct within 35 years, but NZ has no clue of imports
Auckland, New Zealand - The endangered tropical hardwood kwila faces extinction in the wild within 35 years, a Greenpeace report has found. Yet in New Zealand the Government doesn’t even track how much is coming into the country, let alone regulate it.
“At a press conference in Beijing, Greenpeace today released “Merbau’s Last Stand”(1), an investigative [...]
GE INFORMATION BULLETIN
GE implementation in the US is suffering a run of bad news. There
is ongoing fallout from last years’ rice contamination, including
the California Rice Commission rejecting field trials of GE rice,
and concerns from importers in Mexico and elsewhere about the
ability of US producers to keep experimental GE crops secure. The
USDA has been admonished twice by the [...]
Make Some Noise: Corinne Bailey Rae to release single from forthcoming album for Amnesty International
Corinne Bailey Rae is set to release the second single from the forthcoming Make Some Noise album for Amnesty International. Her version of John Lennon’s ‘I’m Losing You’, from Lennon’s 1980 album Double Fantasy, will be released on 23rd April.
The singer — who has been awarded platinum sales awards across the globe — originally performed [...]
EU-Andean Community: serious human rights concerns to address
(Brussels, 17 April) As the EU Presidency prepares to meet representatives of the Andean Community in Santo Domingo, Amnesty International urged it to raise a number of human rights issues that continue to affect the region, in particular Colombia and Peru. ( Letter available at http://www.amnesty-eu.org/)
In Colombia, human rights defenders continue to be threatened, attacked [...]
Pakistan/South Africa: Khalid Mehmood Rashid appears after 18 months of secret detention
Amnesty International today received information from Pakistan sources that Khalid Mehmood Rashid, who disappeared after being handed over by South African government officials to agents of the Pakistan Government on 6 November 2005, appeared before the “Federal Review Board” in the Supreme Court Building in Islamabad on 12 April 2007.
Although the authorities reportedly have been [...]
The Organic Label Will Mean: No Cloned Animals, Period USDA Advisory Panel Sends Clear Message
The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), an expert advisory panel to the USDA’s National Organic Program, has made it clear that organic agriculture should not allow the use of cloned animals or their offspring in the production of organic food. The NOSB voted at their spring meeting in Washington, DC to exclude cloned animals, their [...]
Carl Pope Addresses New Congressional Global Warming Panel
At the invitation of Chairman Ed Markey, Carl Pope today addressed the first hearing of the recently-created House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Pope joined a distinguished panel of security experts who addressed the threats to national security presented by global warming and our dangerous dependence on oil. Pope also outlined the [...]
Beyond the Central Dogma of Physics
The universe is one manifesting itself in multiplicities
that behave according to certain mathematical rules; but
this leads to paradox as soon as we think of the underlying
reality as if the multiplicities were real (see Quantum
World Coming series, Science in Society 22)
Ulrich Mohrhoff argues for the fundamental unity of nature
that avoids asking what he says are pseudo-questions
The [...]
Go Nuclear Over Bait and Switch
It looked as if the environmental community had scored a major victory in late February when it persuaded the buyers of pollution-causing company TXU to have their new acquisition scrap plans to build six of nine planned coal-fired power plants.
Yesterday, however, a Wall Street Journal article revealed the “bait and switch”: while TXU would build [...]
US Sen. Migden Unveils Legislation Requiring Labeling of Cloned Food Products
SACRAMENTO-Calling for protection of “consumers’ right to know”, State Senator Carole Migden today unveiled legislation which would require that milk and meat products from cloned animals that are intended for human consumption be clearly labeled.
The legislation, SB 63, was the focus of a State Capitol news conference today where Sen. Migden (D-San Francisco/Marin) posed the [...]
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