We need your immediate action to help stop Bush administration plans for oil and gas drilling in the incomparable Otero Mesa of New Mexico -- a vital part of our Greater Rockies BioGem.

Please go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction.asp?step=2&item=52158

and send a message telling the Bureau of Land Management to shelve its proposed plan for industrializing this unique and fragile wildland.

Located at the southern end of the Rockies, Otero Mesa boasts uninterrupted expanses of Chihuahuan desert grasslands, one of North America's most endangered ecosystems and crucial habitat for pronghorn antelope, mule deer and the black-tailed prairie dog.

All told, Otero Mesa is home to more than 20 species protected by the Endangered Species Act, including the Mexican spotted owl, the southwestern willow flycatcher, the Aplomado falcon and the black-footed ferret.

In its rush to let energy companies plunder America's Rocky Mountain landscapes, the Bush administration is about to finalize a plan that would permit oil and gas development throughout the Otero Mesa ecosystem. The resulting invasion of new roads, pipelines, transmission lines and hundreds of wells would devastate its irreplaceable wildlife habitat and wilderness characteristics.

The Bush administration is accepting public comments on its proposed development plan through June 28th.

Go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction.asp?step=2&item=52158

right now and tell the Bush administration not to sacrifice this magnificent piece of our natural heritage to oil and gas interests.

Sincerely,

John H. Adams
President
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)

Aus den Archiven:
http://www.oekotest.de/cgi/ot/otgp.cgi?doc=19899

von der Privat-Universität Witten-Herdecke

Omega: auch Prof. David gehört wie Prof. Juri Silny und Dr. Joachim Schüz u.a. in die Riege der wissenschaftlichen pro-mobilfunkfreundlichen Befürworter der gefährlichen gepulsten Mobilfunktechnik.

--------

Prof. Eduard David von der Uni Witten-Herdecke, der in Grenzwertkommissionen tätig ist, für Mobilfunkbetreiber forscht und die Mobilfunktechnik verharmlost, antwortete am 15. Juli 1999 in Schwäbisch Hall auf die Aufforderung: „Dann tun Sie etwas für die Menschen, senken Sie drastisch die Grenzwerte!“

Prof. David: „Wenn ich das tue, bin ich schon rausgeschmissen.“

Soviel zur Unabhängigkeit der Grenzwert-Kommissionen.

Aus dem Info-Flugblatt „Risiko Mobilfunk“ der Bürgerwelle
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/risikomobilfunk.pdf

Die Homepage von Prof. David (Universität Witten/Herdecke, Institut für Normale und Pathologische Physiologie, Zentrum für Elektropathologie) findet man unter: http://www.uni-wh.de/de/medi/elpath.htm?uni-wh

Weiter unter:
http://www.buergerwelle.de/d/doc/pranger/david.htm

Expertenanhörung am 09.06.2005 in Soltau
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/760128/

Zum Thema „unabhängige" Wissenschaftler siehe z.B. unter:
http://www.buergerwelle.de/body_newsletter_140604.html und
http://www.buergerwelle.de/d/doc/pranger/silny.htm
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/244388/

Strahlenforscher unter gewaltigem Druck der Wirtschaft
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/281014/

Betrug gehört zur Forschung
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/281021/

Manipulation der Wissenschaft: Klinische Tests mit Vorsicht genießen
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/244388/

Warum werden die Grenzwerte nicht gesenkt?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/281687/

Forscher und Forschungsergebnisse von der Industrie bezahlt
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/281056/

by Ivan Eland

AntiWar.Com

06/22/04

The 9/11 commission has merely confirmed what those without naiveté had suspected all along: the Bush administration lied and misled America into a needless imperial pet project that has killed thousands of innocent Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. military personnel.

The amazing part is that the administration continues to claim that its Goebbels-like 'big lie' propaganda is true after all, no matter how much evidence amasses to the contrary...

http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=2847

Scotsman [UK]

06/22/04

Detainees at the United States detention centre at Guantànamo Bay have provided little intelligence and their value has been exaggerated by the Bush administration, according to a newspaper investigation published yesterday. ... dozens of high-level military intelligence and law-enforcement officials told the New York Times that only a few of the 595 detainees had information about the workings of al-Qaeda. The number was put at between one and two dozen. ... A top-secret report compiled by the CIA in September 2002 found that most of the accused terrorists at Guantànamo were
low-level recruits or even innocent men picked up in the Afghanistan
war...

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=714472004


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Washington Times

06/22/04

Abu Ghraib prison scandal won the right yesterday to question top U.S. generals to bolster arguments that their clients were following orders in their treatment of inmates. ... The order, issued at pretrial hearings, compels Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Gen. John Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, to give depositions on polices and practices at the Abu Ghraib prison...

http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040621-103215-6621r.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

President George W. Bush has turned back years of U.S. efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons and has made the world a more dangerous place, one of the Senate's leading liberals said Tuesday...

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-22/s_25105.asp

Peter Dale Scott / Pacific News Service

The CIA, for one, has been using photographic documentation as part of its interrogation techniques for years, writes PNS contributor Peter Dale Scott. At least one Army official says the CIA helped set standards for treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85110:740526

Mercenaries

Spencer E. Ante and Stan Crock / Newsweek

The American public was shocked at news that privately owned companies were profiteering on the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The shock continued when other private frims were implicated in the torture of prisoners. The private war-for-profit contractor biz is hot, vast, and largely unregulated. Is it out of control?...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85102:740526

Raymond Whitaker, Andy McSmith and Andrew Johnson / Independent U.K.

A secret report from notorious Baghdad jail reveals beatings, rape and torture of captive Iraqi prisoners by US troops...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85096:740526

Michael Hann / The Guardian (UK)

Michael Hann examines the air of secrecy, manipulation and official silence surrounding the US media's treatment of George Bush's 'war on terror.' ...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85095:740526

Red Cross Accuses

Afsane Bassir Pour / Le Monde

The International Committee for the Red Cross has known for a long time that horrific abuses were taking place inside Iraqi prisons under the control of the US but Washington refused to respond to the concerns. Meanwhile, Washington's "persistent" refusal to respect the Geneva conventions on POWs has lead the ICRC to declare the detention facilities at Guantanamo "illegal" under world law...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85087:740526

Reuters

Returning troops have begun to reveal the extent of the abuses inside US military prisons in Iraq -- abuses that appear to rival in kind (if not in scale) the crimes of Saddam Hussein. "It was not just these six people," one soldier declared. The abuse of captives was long-standing and widely tolerated...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85081:740526

Luke Harding / The Guardian

While the focus has been on the abuse of men, there is growing evidence that US troops have humiliated and sexually abused women, girls and boys detained inside Abu Ghraib. This story contains links to other reports documenting US torture and abuse of detainees, many of whom are reportedly innocent of criminal activities...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85066:740526

Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research

While Al Qaeda is presented to public opinion as constituting a nuclear threat, the US Senate has provided a "green light" to the use of tactical nuclear weapons in conventional war theaters against "rogue states" and terrorist organizations. The Pentagon refers to these weapons as "harmless to civilians"...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85059:740526

Luke Harding / The Guardian

Iraq's Human Rights Minister Abdel Bassat Turki resigned last month in protest. In an interview with London's Guardian he explains his move was prompted by Paul Bremer's failure to halt rampant abuse in US military prisons. Turki said he informed Mr. Bremer last November -- and again in December. "He listened very well. But that was all he did," Turki stated...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85054:740526

UNICEF Alarmed

Report / UNICEF

Unsubstantiated but troubling claims that children are among the Iraqis detained under US military control have alarmed human rights organizations. Speaking from Geneva, UNICEF spokesman Damien Personnaz noted that any mistreatment, sexual abuse, exploitation or torture of children in detention is a violation of international law...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85053:740526

American Civil Liberties Union

The Bush Administration has indicated its willingness to violate international law by detaining individuals without charge or means of proving their innocence. The abuses in Iraq are only one example of the implications of such flawed policies. Contact the White House to insist that the US obey the rule of law...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85052:740526

Moveon.org

As America learns more about the prisoner abuse scandal, it's becoming clear that the path to the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib prison began at Donald Rumsfeld's office in the Pentagon. Rumsfeld must resign or be fired...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85049:740526

Did Bush know Cheney had given orders to down airliners on September 11? The commission staff wonders...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5251871/site/newsweek/


From Information Clearing House

700 Iraqi Civilians Killed by Americans in Fallujah Were Never Seen on U.S. TV, But We've Seen A Lot of the Kidnapped Mr. Johnson

Al Jazeera offered the tapes to the US, but none of our media and our “courageous” media moguls wanted to show these tapes. If they had, perhaps the American people could better understand why there is so much hatred and fear of America in Iraq—especially hatred for Bush and for the American military...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6356.htm

President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should take the witness stand at the trial of a U.S. soldier charged with abusing prisoners in Iraq, the soldier's lawyer said on Monday...

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5471810


From Information Clearing House

Death certificates by Iraqi doctor claim evidence of torture...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1243712,00.html


From Information Clearing House

Deckmäntelchen für Umweltzerstörer

Presseerklärung vom 21. Juni 2004

Kooperationsvertrag von Bayer und UN-Umweltprogramm UNEP

Der Bayer-Konzern unterzeichnet heute in Leverkusen einen Kooperationsvertrag mit der UN-Umweltorganisation UNEP. Über einen Zeitraum von drei Jahren will Bayer jährlich eine Million Euro für das UNEP-Programm „Jugend und Umwelt“ bereitstellen. Schwerpunkt der Zusammenarbeit soll die Region Asien-Pazifik sein.

Hierzu Philipp Mimkes von der Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren e.V.: „Bayer hat – wie jedes multinationale Unternehmen – kein „grünes Gewissen“ sondern Profitinteressen. Über seine Lobbyverbände bekämpfte der Konzern bislang jedes Umweltabkommen – vom Kyoto-Protokoll zum Klimaschutz bis hin zum neuen EU-Chemikalienrecht. Für den Umweltschutz bedeutet es einen großen Rückschlag, wenn sich Konzerne wie Bayer ein grünes Deckmäntelchen mit der Aufschrift „UNO“ umhängen dürfen.“ Mimkes erinnert daran, dass Bayer eine große Zahl hochgefährlicher Stoffe herstellt: Uralt-Pestizide auf Phosphorsäureester-Basis, hormonschädigende Substanzen wie Bisphenol A, Weichmacher, Phosgen, etc. „Die Unterstützung der UNEP ist für Bayer eine reine Werbemaßnahme – billiger und unverbindlicher ist ein gutes Firmen-Image nicht zu bekommen“, so Mimkes weiter.

Bereits vor vier Jahren gehörte Bayer zu den Unterzeichnern des UN Global Compact, in dem sich mehr als 100 Unternehmen zu Umweltschutz, Arbeitssicherheit und Menschenrechten bekennen. Doch auch beim Global Compact legt die UNO keine noch so niedrige Messlatte an: alle Unternehmen – vom Hersteller von Atomkraftwerken bis hin zu Ölkonzernen – dürfen teilnehmen. Nach der Unterzeichnung durch das jeweilige Unternehmen erfolgt keinerlei Überprüfung, alle Übereinkünfte sind unverbindlich.

„Besonders paradox ist der Asien-Schwerpunkt der Kooperation von Bayer und UNEP“, so Philipp Mimkes weiter. Bayer bemüht sich in Asien intensiv um Zulassungen für gentechnisch veränderten Reis. Doch die Einführung von Gen-Reis hätte dramatische Konsequenzen: Reis ist für 2,5 Milliarden Menschen das Hauptnahrungsmittel. Millionen Bauern, die bislang durch Tausch und Eigenzüchtungen ihr Saatgut selbst produzieren, würden in Abhängigkeit von multinationalen Konzernen geraten. Durch den bereits in der „grünen Revolution“ beobachteten Konzentrationsprozess würden Millionen Landwirte ihre Existenz verlieren und in die Elendsgebiete rund um die Metropolen abwandern.

Lokal angepasste Reissorten würden durch Hochertragssorten verdrängt, was zu erhöhten Schädlingsaufkommen, verstärktem Einsatz von Pestiziden und einer Verringerung der Artenvielfalt führt. Die Verdrängung lokaler Sorten kann langfristig zu großen Problemen bei der Bekämpfung von Reis-Krankheiten führen. Studien haben zudem nachgewiesen, dass Auskreuzungen von Gen-Reis auch naturbelassene Sorten kontaminieren. „Die UNEP sollte keine Partnerschaft mit einem Unternehmen eingehen, dessen Produkte die weltweite Ernährungssicherheit gefährden“, so der Sprecher der Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren.

Bayer rühmt sich des UN Engagements auf seiner homepage und in zahlreichen Werbebroschüren. Sogar im Bayer-Geschäftsbericht wurde ein Grußwort von Kofi Annan abgedruckt – mit Foto und UN-Logo. Der internationale Umweltverband Friends of the Earth beklagt daher eine „schleichende Übernahme der Vereinten Nationen durch die Privatwirtschaft“ und befürchtet, dass „auf Freiwilligkeit beruhende Abkommen die Verabschiedung bindender Regeln verhindern“.

Eine ausführliche Analyse der Zusammenarbeit von UNO und Bayer lesen Sie in unter „Der Ausverkauf der Vereinten Nationen“

Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren
CBGnetwork@aol.com
http://www.CBGnetwork.de
Tel: 0211-333 911
Fax 040 – 3603 741835


Beirat
Dr. Sigrid Müller, Pharmakologin, Bremen
Dr. Erika Abczynski, Kinderärztin, Dormagen
Eva Bulling-Schröter, ehem. MdB, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rochlitz, Chemiker, ehem. MdB, Burgwald
Dr. Janis Schmelzer, Historiker, Berlin
Wolfram Esche, Rechtsanwalt, Köln
Dorothee Sölle,Theologin, Hamburg (U 2003)
Prof. Dr. Anton Schneider, Baubiologe, Neubeuern
Prof. Jürgen Junginger, Designer, Krefeld

Soy testimonies---health effects of soy---(and I can vouch for this---my own daughter was diagnosed with abnormal thyroid after being on a soy heavy diet for several years.)
http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/soytest.htm



Soy Farmers' Dream Road May Hasten Amazon Ruin

BRAZIL: September 23, 2003

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Plans to pave a muddy road in the lower Amazon Basin should create a new soy boom in Brazil, but at a potentially high ecological price - exposing the world's richest tropical forest to destruction.

A roughly 625-mile stretch of dirt road links Brazil's soy-rich center-west, where most of its future agricultural growth will occur, to the lower Amazon River port of Santarem, the Atlantic and important export markets.

Torrential rains, however, make BR-163 and a few smaller roads virtually impassable from March through June, barring access for the soy belt to Europe and Asia via Santarem.

Conservationists fear that work to improve the road will hasten the ruin of the lower Amazon without government action to contain illegal logging and land invasions.

But President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is under pressure to fulfill campaign promises to create jobs and boost an economy that slipped into recession in the second quarter of 2003, while keeping a lid on fiscal spending.

The government has written the paving of BR-163 into its development plan as part of a program to stimulate exports.

A consortium of companies, including oil giant Petrobras and multinational grain broker Cargill, are so convinced the road would generate growth and profit that they are discussing funding the development of BR-163 out of their own pockets.

Jose Luiz Glaser, Cargill's director of soy in Brazil, pointed out that BR-163 had been in the government's development plans for many years but no improvement of the road has been carried out.

SOY EXPORT TERMINAL

"It is a project that will happen - but I think it will take three to six years," said Glaser, who added that the company is conducting a viability study on improving the road.

In April, Cargill opened a $20 million soy export terminal in Santarem with a capacity to move 800,000 tonnes of soy a year, most of which the company expects to come from the center-west - via BR-163.

Soy is the country's top farm export and should account for 10 percent of trade revenues in 2003. Brazil accounts for 25 percent of the world's soy after the United States, but should overtake its northern counterpart as the top soy producer in the next five to seven years at current growth rates.

Agriculture is one of the main engines of the Brazilian economy and, in future, most of the growth in the sector will come from the underdeveloped center-west savanna and other equatorial regions in the north and northeast.

Despite advantages such as seemingly endless, cheap, arable land and abundant water, Brazil's fertile center-west savanna has neither developed sufficient highways, integrated railways nor river barge systems like the United States and Europe.

"This road will be the spine of agricultural and economic development from the center-west to the Free Trade Zone in Manaus (upriver on the Amazon)," said Dilceu Dal'Basco, state representative in Mato Grosso, Brazil's top soy state.

The port is three days closer to Brazil's main soy markets in Europe and Asia than ports in the industrialized south. Freight costs from central Mato Grosso to Rotterdam would fall 20 percent, according to Transportation Ministry data.

"Agriculture would not be the only area to benefit," said Jony Lopes, coordinator of planning at the Transportation Ministry's infrastructure department.

He said goods coming from the Free Trade Zone in Manaus would halve travel time to the main markets in the south of Brazil and cut freight costs by 30 percent.

AMAZON EXPOSED

Deforestation of the Amazon, home to up to 30 percent of the planet's animal and plant species, jumped an alarming 40 percent last year, the Environmental Ministry said recently.

Even talk of paving the road, which often has potholes big enough to swallow cars, undermines the forest's survival.

"Just the possibility of the work spurs many of the poor to move on to the land along the road with the dream of being a soy farmer," said Roberto Smeraldi, who heads a group of international experts charged with advising Brazil and rich countries that fund Amazon conservation efforts.

Historically, when Brazil has faced the complex problem of creating economic growth to alleviate poverty while respecting the environment, the Amazon has remained an afterthought to the national agenda, said Violeta Loureiro, professor of sociology at the Federal University of Para.

"Soy is just another bulk commodity export," she said. "This is our history - exporting primary products like rubber, coffee and sugar that offer unreliable returns. Why not explore the medium term potential in the region's rich biodiversity?"

"The problem, which is not going away soon, is Brazil lacks the resources - the fiscal budget - to develop and protect these assets," Loureiro said.


Story by Reese Ewing

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22323/story.htm


Informant: Bea Bernhausen

Quelle: http://ecolog.twoday.net/stories/246455/

Cap Anamour hat über 30 Flüchtlinge aus Afrika, eventuell dem Sudan im Mittelmeer treibend gerettet. Wie ein Sprecher berichtete, scheint nun offenbar eine neue Flüchtlingswelle auf die EG zuzurollen.

Was aber die wenigsten Flüchtlinge wissen oder ahnen können, ist, dass sie es sehr schwer haben, an das europäische Festland, oder Festungsland zu kommen.

Entgegen den internationalen Bestimmungen scheinen staatliche Flottenverbände, darunter auch deutsche Marineverbände bereits auf offener See, also internationalen Gewässer die Flüchtlingsboote zur Umkehr zu zwingen, was nach Seerecht verboten ist.

Was geschieht mit den Schlauchbooten, den einfachen Holzkähnen, völlig überbesetzt, kein Trinkwassser, oft zu wenig Sprit, oder Motorschaden, und dann auf dem offenen Meer abgewiesen zu werden, oder schlimmer, umdrehen zu müssen.

Es ist oft eine Fahrt in den sicheren Tod, die Zahlen berichten von 4000 Todesfällen im Jahr, wieviele Opfer es wirklich gibt, ist unbekannt.

Wollen wir ein Europa, eine Verfassung die diesen inhumanen Umgang festschreibt? Was ist mit der christlichen Nächstenliebe, oder den Menschenrechten und dem internationalen Seerecht?

Die US Administration macht andere Fehler, im Irak, auf der Welt, wir kritisieren und vor unserer eigenen Haustüre, wo sich auch diesen Sommer wieder Millionen von Europäern mit vollgestopften Bäuchen an den Sonnenküsten des Mittelmeeres erholen, entspannen und genießen, und nicht weit entfernt verhungern, verdursten und sterben Flüchtlinge, die von unseren Beauftragten in den Tod geschickt werden!

Schreibt den EG- Abgeordneten, und auch Euren anderen politischen Vertretern, dass wir Bürger einen anderen Umgang mit Menschen und die Einhaltung internationalen Rechten fordern!

Bernd Schreiner
http://www.stoppschild.de

http://www.adbusters.org/jams/history/flash.html


Informant: vinski2004