The Canadian Prime Minister is considering approving Monsanto's genetically engineered wheat for planting and sale in Canada. If Mr. Martin approves GE wheat in Canada, it would be a disaster for Canadian farmers and pose huge risks to the environment. Please send a free fax to the Prime Minister, letting him know what you think about GE wheat.

http://www.wildcanada.net/greenpeace/faxengine.asp

Learn more about GE wheat:

http://www.greenpeace.ca/e/campaign/gmo/depth/wheat/index.php

Greenpeace has taken action to stop a suspected illegal shipment of Indonesian rainforest plywood from being imported into the EU. There is currently no law to stop the import of timber like this into the EU. The fact that this shipment can enter Europe, despite the desire of most countries in the European Union to combat this trade, shows how important it is to introduce new legislation and other measures to stop the import of illegally logged timber.

Please write to Poul Nielson, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, asking him to stop this illegal timber trade immediately.

http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=1317&s=for

SHOCKING REPORT REVEALS LOCAL TROOPS MAY BE VICTIMS OF AMERICA'S HIGH-TECH WEAPONS

By Juan Gonzalez

New York Daily News

April 2, 2004

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html

Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found.

They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

"I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach."

A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium.

Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The News revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers.

If so, the men -- Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone -- are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.

The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq last Easter, the unit's members have been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month.

"These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing that was funded by The News.

"Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposure," said Duracovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

While working at a military hospital in Delaware, he was one of the first doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He has since become a leading critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare.

Depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, has been used by the U.S. and British military for more than 15 years in some artillery shells and as armor plating for tanks. It is twice as heavy as lead.

Because of its density, "It is the superior heavy metal for armor to protect tanks and to penetrate armor," Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said.

The Army and Air Force fired at least 127 tons of depleted uranium shells in Iraq last year, Kilpatrick said. No figures have yet been released for how much the Marines fired.

Kilpatrick said about 1,000 G.I.s back from the war have been tested by the Pentagon for depleted uranium and only three have come up positive -- all as a result of shrapnel from DU shells.

But the test results for the New York guardsmen -- four of nine positives for DU -- suggest the potential for more extensive radiation exposure among coalition troops and Iraqi civilians.

Several Army studies in recent years have concluded that the low-level radiation emitted when shells containing DU explode poses no significant dangers. But some independent scientists and a few of the Army's own reports indicate otherwise.

As a result, depleted uranium weapons have sparked increasing controversy around the world. In January 2003, the European Parliament called for a moratorium on their use after reports of an unusual number of leukemia deaths among Italian soldiers who served in Kosovo, where DU weapons were used.

I keep getting weaker. What is happening to me?

The Army says that only soldiers wounded by depleted uranium shrapnel or who are inside tanks during an explosion face measurable radiation exposure.

But as far back as 1979, Leonard Dietz, a physicist at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory upstate, discovered that DU-contaminated dust could travel for long distances.

Dietz, who pioneered the technology to isolate uranium isotopes, accidentally discovered that air filters with which he was experimenting had collected radioactive dust from a National Lead Industries Plant that was producing DU 26 miles away. His discovery led to a shutdown of the plant.

"The contamination was so heavy that they had to remove the topsoil from 52 properties around the plant," Dietz said.

All humans have at least tiny amounts of natural uranium in their bodies because it is found in water and in the food supply, Dietz said. But natural uranium is quickly and harmlessly excreted by the body.

Uranium oxide dust, which lodges in the lungs once inhaled and is not very soluble, can emit radiation to the body for years.

"Anybody, civilian or soldier, who breathes these particles has a permanent dose, and it's not going to decrease very much over time," said Dietz, who retired in 1983 after 33 years as nuclear physicist. "In the long run ...veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a major problem."

Critics of DU have noted that the Army's view of its dangers has changed over time.

Before the 1991 Persian Gulf War, a 1990 Army report noted that depleted uranium is "linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage."

It was during the Gulf War that U.S. A-10 Warthog "tank buster" planes and Abrams tanks first used DU artillery on a mass scale. The Pentagon says it fired about 320 tons of DU in that war and that smaller amounts were also used in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

In the Gulf War, Army brass did not warn soldiers about any risks from exploding DU shells. An unknown number of G.I.s were exposed by shrapnel, inhalation or handling battlefield debris.

Some veterans groups blame DU contamination as a factor in Gulf War syndrome, the term for a host of ailments that afflicted thousands of vets from that war.

Under pressure from veterans groups, the Pentagon commissioned several new studies. One of those, published in 2000, concluded that DU, as a heavy metal, "could pose a chemical hazard" but that Gulf War veterans "did not experience intakes high enough to affect their health."

Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said Army followup studies of 70 DU-contaminated Gulf War veterans have not shown serious health effects.

"For any heavy metal, there is no such thing as safe," Kilpatrick said. "There is an issue of chemical toxicity, and for DU it is raised as radiological toxicity as well."

But he said "the overwhelming conclusion" from studies of those who work with uranium "show it has not produced any increase in cancers."

Several European studies, however, have linked DU to chromosome damage and birth defects in mice. Many scientists say we still don't know enough about the long-range effects of low-level radiation on the body to say any amount is safe.

Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, has called for identifying where DU was used and is urging a cleanup of all contaminated areas.

"A large number of American soldiers [in Iraq] may have had significant exposure to uranium oxide dust," said Dr. Thomas Fasey, a pathologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center and an expert on depleted uranium. "And the health impact is worrisome for the future."

As for the soldiers of the 442nd, they're sick, frustrated and confused. They say when they arrived in Iraq no one warned them about depleted uranium and no one gave them dust masks.

Experts behind News probe

As part of the investigation by the Daily News, Dr. Asaf Duracovic, a nuclear medicine expert who has conducted extensive research on depleted uranium, examined the nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police in late December and collected urine specimens from each.

Another member of his team, Prof. Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt who specializes in analyzing uranium isotopes, performed repeated tests on the samples over a week-long period. He used a state-of-the art procedure called multiple collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry.

Only about 100 laboratories worldwide have the same capability to identify and measure various uranium isotopes in minute quantities, Gerdes said.

Gerdes concluded that four of the men had depleted uranium in their bodies.

Depleted uranium, which does not occur in nature, is created as a waste product of uranium enrichment when some of the highly radioactive isotopes in natural uranium, U-235 and U-234, are extracted.

Several of the men, according to Duracovic, also had minute traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, that is produced only in a nuclear reaction process.

"These men were almost certainly exposed to radioactive weapons on the battlefield," Duracovic said.

He and Gerdes plan to issue a scientific paper on their study of the soldiers at the annual meeting of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine in Finland this year.

When DU shells explode, they permanently contaminate their target and the area immediately around it with low-level radioactivity.

All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P.


Informant: NHNE



PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

WHO 'SUPPRESSED' IRAQI DEPLETED URANIUM STUDY (2/24/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6812

URANIUM LEVELS IN AFGHANS' BLOOD ASTONISHINGLY HIGH (5/24/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5393

FAIR: CLUSTER BOMBS & DEPLETED URANIUM (5/6/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5257

UK TO AID IRAQ DU REMOVAL (4/25/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5186

U.S. REJECTS IRAQ DU CLEAN-UP (4/14/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5115

GULF WAR SYNDROME II (4/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5086

THE CASE AGAINST DEPLETED URANIUM BEING DANGEROUS (4/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5083

CONGRESSMAN MCDERMOTT DEPLETED URANIUM BILL HR 1483 (4/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5082

HOW U.S VETS HAVE BEEN REPEATEDLY ABUSED, IGNORED & MISTREATED (4/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5081

U.S. USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS IS 'ILLEGAL' (3/30/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4967

U.S. TO USE DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS IN IRAQ (3/16/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4762

U.S. STOCKING URANIUM-RICH BOMBS? (3/11/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4687

URANIUM MUNITIONS: THE WAR AGAINST OURSELVES (2/18/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4493

ANIMAL STUDY: CHEMICALS HARMED SOLDIERS IN GULF WAR (1/8/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4213

FORCED VACCINES HAUNT GULF VETS (11/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3931

GI GUINEA PIGS (10/30/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3885

DEPLETED URANIUM TOXICITY IN AFGHANISTAN (& IRAQ) (12/11/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2385

DEPLETED COVERAGE OF NATO'S DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS (1/14/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1035

TESTS SHOW GULF WAR VICTIMS HAVE URANIUM POISONING (9/2/2000):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/642

Action

We remain very concerned about the formal complaint the US has made at the WTO about EU policies “restricting” trade in GM food and agriculture. The WTO has finally convened a panel in the highly secretive dispute settlement mechanism, which will then rule on whether the EU’s policy on GM food imports is an illegal barrier to trade.

• Sign the global objection to the WTO GM dispute
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/global_trade/press_for_change/bite_back/index.html

• Email the Argentinean Ambassador to ask him to persuade the Government of Argentina to withdraw from the WTO complaint
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/global_trade/press_for_change/email_ambassador_argentina/index.html

• Email your friends and relatives to ask them to sign the objection online or download a multi-signature paper objection and ask them to sign
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/global_trade/resource/campaigners.html

• Add the Bite Back web action link to your email signature
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/global_trade/press_for_change/bite_back/index.html

• Add the Bite Back banner and/or the link to the web action to your website
http://www.bite-back.org/support/banners.htm

Further information
‘GM Trade War Looms’ briefing
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/wto_disputes_res_mech.pdf

GATS
In December last year, the Government published its response to the submissions to the DTI's consultation document "Liberalising trade in services - a new consultation on the World Trade Organisation General Agreement on Trade in Services negotiations".
You may have inputted to this consultation. We asked people to write submissions highlighting the lack of transparency and democracy in the GATS negotiations, and the fact that there has been a complete failure to properly assess past impacts of WTO agreements and thereby justify further liberalisation. Friends of the Earth thinks the DTI’s response to these highlighted issues doesn't adequately deal with our concerns.

• Email your MP
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/global_trade/press_for_change/gats_consultation/index.html

• Email the DTI
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/global_trade/press_for_change/gats_dti/index.html

Further information
DTI’s GATS consultation feedback
http://www.dti.gov.uk/ewt/gats2000.doc

Friends of the Earth comments on the DTI’s GATS consultation feedback:
http://community.foe.co.uk/resource/misc/foe_gats_response_email.pdf

News
• Robert Zoellick, US trade representative, told the Financial Times (11 January) that 'he firmly supported the developing countries in saying that investment and competition talks should be dropped, and that even talks on government procurement, which the US favours, may not be necessary'.

However caution is needed when countries talk about dropping the New Issues as they often refer just to dropping them from the current round of trade negotiations and not, critically, from further rounds or bilateral/regional trade agreements. Your email action to Patricia Hewitt at the end of October will have helped contribute to weakening the UK/EU position on New Issues but our fight to eject them completely from the WTO continues.

• Could it be that the letters you’ve sent to the Government in the last couple of years calling for fair trade rules not free trade may finally be hitting home? UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, has apparently recognised that all does not always end well for those experiencing the sharp end of WTO rules, saying the "negative consequences of trade liberalization need to be managed" (emphasis ours). So that’s the Government finally admitting that there are negative impacts of their trade policies – progress!

Best wishes,
Eve Mitchell

Corporate Globalisation & Trade Campaigner
Friends of the Earth

April 06, 2004

Last month the Federal Elections Commission voted 5-1 to consider rule changes that could drastically alter the legal status of many activist nonprofits, including environmental organizations.

If the proposal rules are approved, groups across the political spectrum may be forced to give up their core advocacy work or conform to stringent fundraising and financial reporting requirements usually reserved for political committees.

Further, the FEC could apply the rule change retroactively, in the middle of the election year, throwing the legality of nonprofit program, fundraising and reporting efforts into chaos.[1]

According to People For the American Way, "The chilling effect of the proposed rules on free speech cannot be overstated. Merely expressing an opinion about an officeholder's policies could turn a nonprofit group overnight into a federally regulated political committee with crippling fund-raising restrictions."[2]

The FEC is considering this change in response to pressure from a Republican political committee, "Americans for a Better Country."[3] The group was organized last year specifically to establish "an aggressive voter-mobilization and issue ad campaign to out-raise and out-spend ... the liberal groups whose stated mission is the defeat of George Bush."[4]

The proposed FEC rule change comes amidst continuing actions by the Bush Administration to suppress dissenting views, including a prosecution of Greenpeace in federal court.

As reported by BushGreenwatch, the Ashcroft Justice Department dredged up an obscure 1872 law against "sailor-mongering" to indict Greenpeace on federal felony charges after activists boarded a ship carrying illegal mahogany from Brazil to Miami and hung a banner reading, "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging." The case is considered a bellwether for the future of free speech and peaceful protest in the U.S.

Greenpeace filed for a dismissal of the case in December. A ruling is expected by April 9. Greenpeace has also filed a motion for a trial by jury should the case go to court, rather than having the case heard only by a judge, as requested by the Justice Department. "We want the public to hear the whole story," says Greenpeace's Nancy Hwa.

###

TAKE ACTION!
Send a comment opposing the rule change to the FEC. Comments should be addressed to Ms. Mai T. Dinh, Acting Assistant General Counsel, and must include the full name, electronic mail address, and postal service address of the commenter. The comments period ends on April 9: politicalcommitteestatus@fec.gov.


SOURCES:
[1] MoveOn.org action alert.
[2] People for the American Way FEC Working Group.
[3] Common Cause Press Release.
[4] "Conservative Spotlight: Americans for a Better Country," Human Events Online.


http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000089.php

U.K. Sunday Mirror

Scientists have discovered that a call lasting just two minutes can alter the natural electrical activity of a child's brain for up to an hour afterwards...

THE CHILD SCRAMBLER

THESE are the first images that show the shocking effect that using a mobile phone has on a child's brain.

Omega see also under: http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/cellphone_skull_penetration

Scientists have discovered that a call lasting just two minutes can alter the natural electrical activity of a child's brain for up to an hour afterwards.

And they also found for the first time how radio waves from mobile phones penetrate deep into the brain and not just around the ear.

The study by Spanish scientists has prompted leading medical experts to question whether it is safe for children to use mobile phones at all.

Doctors fear that disturbed brain activity in children could lead to psychiatric and behavioural problems or impair learning ability.

It was the first time that human guinea pigs were used to measure the effects of mobile phone radiation on children. The tests were carried out on an 11-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl called Jennifer.

Using a CATEEN scanner, linked to a machine measuring brain wave activity, researchers were able to create the images above.

The yellow coloured part of the scan on the right shows how radiation spreads through the centre of the brain and out to the ear on the other side of the skull. The scans found that disturbed brain wave activity lasted for up to an hour after the phone call ended.

Dr Gerald Hyland -- a Government adviser on mobiles -- says he finds the results "extremely disturbing".

"It makes one wonder whether children, whose brains are still developing, should be using mobile phones," he adds.

"The results show that children's brains are affected for long periods even after very short-term use.

"Their brain wave patterns are abnormal and stay like that for a long period.

"This could affect their mood and ability to learn in the classroom if they have been using a phone during break time, for instance.

"We don't know all the answers yet, but the alteration in brain waves could lead to things like a lack of concentration, memory loss, inability to learn and aggressive behaviour."

Previously it had been thought that interference with brain waves and brain chemistry stopped when a call ended.

The results of the study by the Spanish Neuro Diagnostic Research Institute in Marbella coincide with a new survey that shows 87 per cent of 11- to 16-year-olds own mobile phones and 40 per cent of them spend 15 minutes or more talking each day on them. And disturbingly, 70 per cent said they would not change the use of their phone even if advised to by the Government.

Dr Hyland plans to publish the latest findings in medical journal The Lancet next year.

He said: "This information shows there really isn't a safe amount of mobile phone use. We don't know what lasting damage is being done by this exposure.

"If I were a parent I would now be extremely wary about allowing my children to use a mobile even for a very short period. My advice would be to avoid mobiles."

Dr Michael Klieeisen, who conducted the study, said: "We were able to see in minute detail what was going on in the brain.

"We never expected to see this continuing activity in the brain. "We are worried that delicate balances that exist -- such as the immunity to infection and disease -- could be altered by interference with chemical balances in the brain."

A Department of Health spokesman said: "In children mobile phone use should be restricted to very short periods of time."

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P15S3.shtml

Source: http://www.rense.com/general51/two.htm

--------

Dramatic photographs from a recent Spanish study show radio waves from mobile phones penetrating deep into the brains of an adult, 10 year-old and five year-old child.
http://www.willthomas.net/Convergence/Weekly/Cell_Phone_Health_Children.htm

92 Volt per meter on the surface area of the brain
http://www.gigaherz.ch/419/

Children and cell phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/295280/

Children & Mobile Phone Use: Is there a risk?
http://www.acnem.org/articles/children_mobile_phone_use-maisch.htm

The Cell Phone Industry: Big Tobacco 2.0?
http://breakfornews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=121

Europäische und US-amerikanische Umweltverbände protestieren gegen eine mögliche Genehmigung von Pestizidtests an Menschen. Die US-Umweltbehörde Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - vergleichbar mit dem Bundesumweltministerium - prüft derzeit einen Antrag des deutschen Konzerns Bayer, solche Tests zuzulassen.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/4559.php
http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/4560.php

Nach Angaben von PRO WILDLIFE ist der größte Waldbestand Afrikas in Gefahr. Die neue Übergangsregierung in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo (DRC) will mit Hilfe der Weltbank bis Oktober 2004 die gesamten Waldflächen des Landes in Nutzungskategorien einteilen. Dies wäre der Startschuss für einen massiven Holzeinschlag von geplanten sechs bis zehn Millionen Kubikmeter Tropenholz pro Jahr.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/4521.php

Weltweit ist jede achte Vogelart in ihrem Bestand gefährdet. Ursachen sind nach den Erkenntnissen der Umweltschutzallianz Birdlife vor allem intensive Landwirtschaft sowie die Abholzung tropischer Regenwälder.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/4563.php

Österreichs Versicherungswirtschaft hält Gentechnik-Risiken für nicht versicherbar. Eine Umfrage von GLOBAL 2000 unter der österreichischen Versicherungswirtschaft zeigt auf, dass Gentechnik als unkalkulierbares Risiko angesehen werden muss und damit nicht versicherbar ist.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/4584.php

Secret email gives advice on denying climate change

Antony Barnett in New York
Sunday April 4, 2004
The Observer

George W. Bush's campaign workers have hit on an age-old political tactic to deal with the tricky subject of global warming - deny, and deny aggressively.

The Observer has obtained a remarkable email sent to the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen advising them what to say when questioned on the environment in the run-up to November's election. The advice: tell them everything's rosy.

It tells them how global warming has not been proved, air quality is 'getting better', the world's forests are 'spreading, not deadening', oil reserves are 'increasing, not decreasing', and the 'world's water is cleaner and reaching more people'.

The email - sent on 4 February - warns that Democrats will 'hit us hard' on the environment. 'In an effort to help your members fight back, as well as be aggressive on the issue, we have prepared the following set of talking points on where the environment really stands today,' it states.

The memo - headed 'From medi-scare to air-scare' - goes on: 'From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our nation's waters to the convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on the environment - Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming "Doomsday!" when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day.'

Among the memo's assertions are 'global warming is not a fact', 'links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy', and the US Environment Protection Agency is exaggerating when it says that at least 40 per cent of streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming.

It gives a list of alleged facts taken from contentious sources. For instance, to back its claim that air quality is improving it cites a report from Pacific Research Institute - an organisation that has received $130,000 from Exxon Mobil since 1998.

The memo also lifts details from the controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. On the Republicans' claims that deforestation is not a problem, it states: 'About a third of the world is still covered with forests, a level not changed much since World War II. The world's demand for paper can be permanently satisfied by the growth of trees in just five per cent of the world's forests.'

The memo's main source for the denial of global warming is Richard Lindzen, a climate-sceptic scientist who has consistently taken money from the fossil fuel industry. His opinion differs substantially from most climate scientists, who say that climate change is happening.

But probably the most influential voice behind the memo is Frank Luntz, a Republican Party strategist. In a leaked 2002 memo, Luntz said: 'The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.'

Luntz has been roundly criticised in Europe. Last month Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, attacked him for being too close to Exxon.

Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace condemned the messages given in the Republican email. He said: 'Bush's spin doctors have been taking their brief from dodgy scientists with an Alice in Wonderland view of the world's environment. They want us to think the air is getting cleaner and that global warming is a myth. This memo shows it is Exxon Mobil driving US policy, when it should be sound science.'

The memo has met some resistance from Republican moderates.

Republican Mike Castle, who heads a group of 69 moderate House members, senators and governors, says the strategy doesn't address the fact that pollution continues to be a health threat. 'If I tried to follow these talking points at a town hall meeting with my constituents, I'd be booed.'

Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, who left the Republican Party in 2001 to become an independent partly over its anti-green agenda, called the memo 'outlandish' and an attempt to deceive voters.

'They have a head-in-the-sand approach to it. They're just sloughing off the human health impacts - the premature deaths and asthma attacks caused by power plant pollution,' Jeffords said.

Republican House Conference director Greg Cist, who sent the email, said: 'It's up to our members if they want to use it or not. We're not stuffing it down their throats.'

He said the memo was spurred by concerns that environmental groups were using myths to try to make the Republicans look bad.

'We wanted to show how the environment has been improving,' Cist said. 'We wanted to provide the other side of the story.'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1185292,00.html


Informant: NHNE