The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was set up five years ago to oversee world trade and resolve disputes. It meets annually and from November 30 to December 3 this year 134 trade ministers, their entourages and various multinational corporation lobbyists are meeting in Seattle, USA to thrash out further 'liberalisation' of global trade.

The WTO already has the power to overrule much of the legislation in its member states that its dispute panel regards as 'barriers to trade'. This could get worse if an agreement on investment is reached. It has swept aside environmental, social justice, health services and labour laws in many countries. The WTO is unelected, unaccountable and very nearly a form of world government by corporations. The USA itself, though one of the main proponents, has been forced to water down several pieces of social and environmental legislation and would have faced punitive trade tariffs from the WTO if it had not. This threat applies to all member states.

Decisions at the WTO are supposed to be reached by consensus, however, powerful countries such as the US, Japan and EU members dominate. According to the World Development Movement (WDM), during the previous round of negotiations key decisions were taken behind closed doors with Third World representatives left in the coffee bar, dependent on western journalists for information.

It seems that the only policy objective accepted by the WTO is the expansion of corporate hunting grounds by opening up markets and the universal application of free trade rules. Its rhetoric is that of 'levelling the playing field' in world trade, presumably so the powerful can play on equal terms with the weak. Economic globalisation is creating an imbalance that in the words of the UN Development Programme, "If left unchecked, will produce a world gargantuan in its excesses and grotesque in its human and economic inequalities." The effects on the environment and its wildlife (which we are part of and dependent upon) of such rapacious free trade are appalling. Just look at the deforestation, desertification and pollution in the third world and our own brown field sites, social breakdown problems, etc.

The effects of the WTO on just the USA so far include the weakening of their Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow the import of tuna from countries using fishing methods that kill dolphins. The Endangered Species Act is under review after countries using unsafe shrimp nets which kill sea turtles won a WTO ruling allowing them to carry on using them. The US had to rewrite its pollution rules because Venezuela successfully challenged its Clean Air Act as biased against foreign producers of gasoline.

China has just joined the WTO, opening vast untapped markets to multinationals potentially causing much greater unemployment there. The millions living on farmland in china could be adversely affected along with environmental damage.

Potential upcoming agreements at the next WTO meeting are the Global Free Logging Agreement (proposed by the USA) and the elimination of import taxes on forest products.

The EU has proposed that the WTO should set up rules for a Foreign Investment Agreement - where an investor or company from one country can set up shop in any country of their choice. This proposal would give multinationals even more power, just like its predecessor the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Strong opposition halted MAI, which proposed extensive rules to protect multinationals.

The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights is being proposed by the US and EU, which would allow corporations to patent all plants and animals, despite existing international laws that protect natural resources. The USA is seeking to overturn the EU ban on hormone treated beef imports and the labelling of 'GM free' foods.

In the US, groups ranging from pensioners (grey panthers), trade unions, consumer lobby groups, the Direct Action Network and environmental groups are organising protests and strikes. They hope to stop the conference (the US police say: "we have pepper spray!") In the UK, it is hoped smaller protests will take place around the country. Raising awareness is badly needed here, as only 4% in 1000 know the role of the WTO. In other countries, protests are already taking place, even in the third world.

It appears business and political establishments are taking 'note' of the hostility in 'civil society' to the concept of world trade on environmental and social grounds. A propaganda campaign is underway to bolster the WTO. This needs to be countered by protests, letter writing and boycotting products we believe are bad for us and the environment, and avoiding certain branded goods, and buying organic and 'fair trade' goods wherever possible.

Hopefully, we can get the WTO reformed to oversee fair not free trade and national and local legislation given priority over WTO decisions. We need regulation of multinational corporations, and to develop a system of justice that looks after the most vulnerable in society and ensures environmental conservation so we, and our children can enjoy it.

Ray Duff

Professor Richard Doll Falls into Plutonium Trap

By Richard Bramhall

Professor Sir Richard Doll is well known for using his considerable reputation as an epidemiologist to promote entrenched industrial and political interests. This August, he made headlines with an intervention on the issue of Seascale, the settlement next to Sellafield, where children contract leukaemia at about ten times the average national rate.

The Seascale leukaemia excess is no chance fluctuation. It has persisted from the mid 1950s, and its significance is now undisputed. Such phenomena (and there are many others) are an embarrassment to the nuclear industry because they undermine the official view of radiation hazards, according to which, radiation doses from routine emissions are too low to account for the enhanced rates of disease. And if the official version of radiation biology is wrong, the whole nuclear house of cards comes tumbling down.

In order to retain credibility, the nuclear industry needs to find another explanation for the leukaemia. Professor Leo Kinlen thinks he has found one. Kinlen's hypothesis is that leukaemia is caused by a 'virus', and that its awkward tendency to cluster near nuclear sites is due to migrant workers transmitting the virus to isolated rural communities to whom it is new and who therefore have no natural immunity Doll, supports Kinlen's 'population mixing' idea. He argues that: "[although] Kinlen's hypothesis awaits laboratory proof….. meanwhile it should, I suggest, be accepted as a reasonable explanation of the Seascale findings."

These words are from Doll's keynote address to an international conference on the health effects of low doses of radiation in 1997. In the same address, he supported the National Radiological Protection Board's widely criticised view of radiation hazard.

As a direct result, this summer's message in the national news media was (to quote The Independent's front page): "Found: the cause of leukaemia". But, as the text revealed, no 'cause' had been found at all. The only new element was a study in which Heather Dickinson and Louise Parker of the Children's Cancer Unit at Newcastle University had used a computer programme to quantify rates of population mixing and to correlate them with the incidence of some childhood leukaemias. This model, in fact, predicted only about half of the cases found, and revealed that risks were highest among the children of incomers - not the locals who, according to Kinlen's original hypothesis, should have been most at risk.

Undeterred, Doll wrote a foreword to Dickinson and Parker's paper as it appeared in the British Journal of Cancer. After a lengthy attack on the notion that leukaemia was due to radiation, he plumped for the 'virus', concluding again that: "...the time may now have come when Kinlen's hypothesis can be regarded as established."

His assurance was met by a chorus of raspberries from independent researchers and campaigners. The Newbury Leukaemia Study Group highlighted Dickinson and Parker's caveats that population mixing seems to be just one cause, not the only one, and that "other factors cannot be excluded".

Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) pointed out that "No leukaemias were recorded until several years after the start of military plutonium operations in West Cumbria in the early I950s, despite the significant influx of almost 8,000 construction workers in the 1940s."

CORE also detailed BNFL's funding links with Newcastle University and with the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, of which Doll was a Director, and added that some small Cumbrian villages close to the Irish Sea and where there has been little or no 'population mixing', have significantly high rates of childhood leukaemia.

The Irish Sea is heavily contaminated with particles of plutonium and uranium that migrate inland and are retained in human lymph nodes after inhalation. The lymphatic system is recognised as a critical organ for leukaemogenesis, and post-mortem analysis of nuclear workers and members of the Cumbrian public has shown extremely high concentrations of plutonium in tracheo-bronchial lymph nodes. But Doll is uninterested in such evidence. Expounding the idea that radiation doses to the Seascale leukaemia victims were "too small" to cause the disease, his editorial claims: "…measurements of Plutonium and Cs-137 in the bodies of exposed people... showed that the models that had been used to estimate the doses people received had, for the most part, over-estimated them."

But examination of this paper and earlier published versions of the same research shows that the embarrassing tracheo-bronchial lymph node data has been cut out. The crucial evidence contradicting the 'virus' theory is nowhere to be seen.

Doll has apparently not done his research.
If he had, he would know that the 'virus' theory is
an outrageous cover-up of the truth.

Richard Bramhall is a co-ordinator of the
Low Level Radiation Campaign, based in Wales.

Climate Change - the New Saviour of Nuclear Power?

By Bridget Woodman

Faced with world-wide stagnation, and possibly decline, the nuclear industry is spinning itself a new image; as an environmental saviour prepared to rush to the aid of a planet threatened by human-induced climate change. Like its previous attempts at propaganda, though, this is based on false assumptions and shaky premises.

Technocrats have tended to view nuclear power in narrow terms, rather than taking into account its broader social and environmental costs. So, while they have recognised the industry's problems with safety or nuclear waste management, they have also taken the view that technical solutions will ultimately be found if enough money and expertise are directed at them. This technocratic philosophy seems to underlie the recent UK Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering report on nuclear power's role in the climate debate. The report recognises the safety, waste and proliferation problems inherent in nuclear technology, but despite this, concludes that energy effi-ciency and renewables may not be able to make a sufficient reduction in carbon dioxide emissions quickly enough. So, a decision should "be taken early enough to enable nuclear to play its full, long-term role in national energy policy This is likely to mean early in the next [UK government] administration if a damaging decline in the role of nuclear is to be avoided."

In both the UK and internationally, the industry will use the Royal Society's and similar reports to argue that efforts to reduce carbon emissions would best be met by the introduction of a carbon tax to target the use of fossil fuels and encourage the use of nuclear and renewables. The industry's ultimate aim here is to achieve a specific mention of nuclear power in the Kyoto Protocol, thereby achieving a degree of credibility for the technology and achieving official recognition of its claims to 'sustainability'

In the UK, the industry is also calling for broader changes to the regulatory environment to make the nuclear option less unattractive to investors:
"The fate of nuclear lies in the hands of the policy makers.
What is required to make new build an attractive option is:
- a benign view from government and a more positive perception of the industry by the public;
- a streamlining of our planning laws; and the introduction of a carbon tax or tradable permit regime…"

The argument that nuclear power is the solution to climate change is a chimera. The idea that phasing out one damaging energy-production method (fossil-fuel burning) by increasing the use of another even more virulent one (nuclear power) is an absurdity in itself. But the industry, naturally, disagrees. In the context of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, it sees itself playing a role in the various 'flexible mechanisms' agreed as emission reduction strategies in the Kyoto Protocol - in particular the Clean Development Mechanism. Under the Mechanism, 'developed' countries are to help finance sustainable energy projects in 'developing' countries, and can claim 'carbon credits' for doing so. This assumes, however, that governments or companies in developed countries would be willing to undertake the risks of new nuclear construction abroad, when they are unwilling to do so in their own countries, and raises a number of questions: who would bear the liability in the case of an accident? Who would own the plutonium produced by the reactors? Who would bear the risks of cost overruns? Whatever the industry's claims to be relatively carbon-free (which in themselves are deceptive) these other issues cannot be forgotten in devising strategies to reduce emissions.

There is an additional irony in the industry aligning itself with renewable energy technologies, traditionally the poor relation of government research and development (R&D) programmes, in its appeals for a carbon tax. Billions have been, and continue to be, spent on nuclear R&D, with little progress on its problems or its economic performance, while comparatively little has been spent on the development of renewables and energy efficiency.

In spite of the enduring differences in R&D allocations, renewables are being developed rapidly and costs are coming down; wind was the fastest growing energy source in 1998. In the UK, its price is lower than estimates of the cost of electricity from a new nuclear station and is falling rapidly towards the wholesale price of electricity; Even the Royal Society admits that "applying existing technologies to improving the end-use efficiency of domestic installations and industrial processes in the UK could reduce energy consumption in these sectors by 20 per cent to 25 per cent respectively, in cost-effective ways".

The nuclear industry is facing a decline as a result of its environmental and economic problems. While technocrats may hope to reverse this decline, policy-makers should focus on the explicit requirement in the Kyoto Protocol to pursue "advanced and innovative environmentally sound technologies". To consider a revival in the nuclear industry would be a dangerous distraction from the real issues of climate change.

Bridget Woodman is an independent consultant for the
Climate Change Action Network UK.

Contact CAN on tel. 0171 233 8233, or email: canuk@gn.apc.org

WHEN IS A 'LOCAL' REALLY A 'LOCAL'

Here is an interesting plea from Janine Allis-Smith of CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment).

Janine sent this to me after having studied the rather dubious report by Newcastle University on childhood leukaemias around Sellafield.

"Here in Cumbria we talk about 'locals' and 'off-comers'. Having looked at the Newcastle University childhood leukaemia report and their research into the Kinlen population mixing hypothesis, can anyone give me the reference to the report, which must have been crucial to this hypothesis - When is a 'local' really a local?

According to Newcastle University:

Parents are 'off-comers' when they are both 'off-comers' or 'local' if they are both 'local', but if only one of them is an 'off-comer', then they are both 'local'.

When does an 'off-comer' become a 'local'? Is it the amount of time he has lived in the area, or is it, according to Newcastle, the minute he marries a 'local', who, in fact, could really be an 'off comer', first having been married to a different 'local'?

What about the statistical probability that a 'local' father cited on the birth certificate, is not the biological 'local' father, but oil industry worker Jock, 'off-comer' from Inverness, who was 'local' for a bit when married to Fiona, daughter of 'famous for generations' Cumberland Sausage King Charlie, but who dumped and divorced him when he started spreading it about a bit.

And all this 'mixing' and carrying on is supposed to cause all these leukaemias and has nothing to do with radiation?

Any ideas about cat fleas? I rescued a kitten from the Sellafield site; it had got a bit 'hot' and was going to be destroyed. Can I let it sit on our vicar; his mother came from South Africa?"

Barrie Botley

WHICH? Long Life Light Bulb

Which? October 1999 issue has reviewed Low-energy, long life light bulbs.

Which? raises various interesting points, and yes, these light bulbs will save energy and will save you money.

1. Ordinary incandescent bulbs are inefficient (that's why they are so hot) and only last about a year. Compact fluorescent lamps can last 10 times longer and use only a fifth of the electricity, saving £35 - £55 over the lifetime of the bulb.

2. If you use a light for two to three hours or more a day it could be worth replacing with a low energy bulb. However, the lifetime is dependent on how often the bulb is switched on. Using them for less than three or four hours at a time may shorten their life span.

3. Best savings could be made by using low energy bulbs in the living room or hallway (but not outside because low temperatures make them less efficient.)

4. The modern bulbs are silent, weigh less and are often instant start, although it can still take a few minutes for them to reach full brightness.

The Which? report analyses all problem areas and recommends the best bulbs. Which? is available in your local Library.
If you want to subscribe - the Which? phone number is 0800 252 100.

Penny Wright

National Cycle Route Network latest:

Signs point the way as trains play silly buffers

National Route 1 signs have been erected from Ottenden Quay almost to Sittingbourne. The route through Faversham to Seasalter is nearly finalised where it will join with the Whitstable to Canterbury Route.

Some parts of the route through Medway are bitty - on the road, then on the pavement and back on the road again.

The Cavell Way Homezone in Sittingbourne is nearly ready to send a party to see for themselves examples of existing schemes in Holland and possibly Germany.

Ground is in danger of being lost with Connex again. This one will affect us all and no doubt people in wheelchairs and mums with prams.

Connex is upgrading its trains. The new project called Genesis, will provide racks outside stations as Connex's way of dealing with cyclists who want to take their bikes on trains. If you want this changed lobby your MP, MEP, councillors and the local media.

We're told that rumours are circulating among Connex's drivers that a new rolling stock is being introduced into the area so bicycles will be COMPLETEY BANNED from the trains. Definitely not a good thing! Particularly as John Prescott is urging greater use of public transport and alternatives to car use!

GOVERNMENT GM DEAL:  BUSINESS AS USUAL

NATIONAL FRIENDS of the EARTH press release: Friday 5 November 1999

Friends of the Earth is "bitterly disappointed" with Michael Meacher's announcement today extending the voluntary agreement on GM crops with the biotechnology industry body SCIMAC. Despite Government spin the 'deal' falls short of the measures needed to protect the environment from GM pollution or inspire public confidence in the Government's handling of this issue. For example, winter oilseed rape is still being grown at over 20 locations throughout the UK - including 3 farm scale trials - without any legal consent [1].

Despite the 'deal': the discredited farm scale trials will continue - and on a massively increased scale - with inadequate protection from the risks that they pose to neighbouring farmers and the environment; the biotech companies will still be given commercial licences. This will mean that companies will have full legal permission to proceed with commercialisation of GM crops whatever the outcome of the trials or the concerns of the public.

Liana Stupples, Campaigns Director at Friends of the Earth, said:

Last month FOE drew up "five tests" for the Government to meet to help satisfy public concern on this issue.

1. Call a minimum 5-year moratorium to enable the need for GM food and crops to be publicly debated, key research on food safety to be carried out and to develop a regulatory system which genuinely involves the general public.

2. Abandon the farm-scale trials because of the risk of cross-pollination with neighbouring crops and wild relatives of the crop.

3. Suspend any proposal to put GM seeds on to the National Seed List - for example the seed listing of AgrEvo's GM maize intended for February.

4. Abstain or vote against any applications to market GM foods at an EU level.

5. Introduce a new law which places strict liability for any harm caused by GM crops or food on biotechnology companies.

Note [1]: On 17 September 1999 the Government and AgrEvo conceded FOE's legal challenge to the planting of GM winter oilseed rape, but have refused to dig them up!

Shepway FOE Monthly Meeting
Kings Head Pub, High Street, Hythe, 7.30 pm

EDITORIAL

As another year draws to a close, we can look back with satisfaction at minor successes in some of our campaigns.

The Genetically Modified Food campaign has had a good deal of success beginning with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announcement last December of its plans to prosecute Monsanto for releasing GM oilseed rape into the British countryside. In February of this year, the HSE prosecution led to a £17,000 fine for the company. In May, the British Medical Association called for an import ban on GM food and a moratorium on commercial planting. Friends of the Earth called for a five-year freeze on the growing and testing of GM crops. Christian Aid also urged a freeze on crop technology development saying, "GM giants will force the world into famine."

In October, Monsanto announced it had suspended research into the Terminator gene (quite an amazing fete, considering a spokesperson from the company had declared on a Radio 5 phone-in programme that the said gene did not exist, and was just propaganda being spread by environmental groups!). The Terminator gene allows the creation of crops bearing sterile seeds, thus preventing farmers who grow it from saving the seeds to plant on the following year - another cunning plan to make more money for the company. Monsanto has, in a very short space of time, gone from the most profitable agrochemical corporation in the world to a company whose stock price has slumped dramatically. There are rumours that the company could be broken up or sold off by the end of the year.

FOE forced the government into a humiliating climb-down with a legal case aimed at stopping the farm-scale growing of a major GM crop. FOE accused the Government of bending the rules to expand the amount of testing of GM oilseed rape up to 5,000 hectares. AgrEvo, the company involved, had consent to grow a smaller area of spring oilseed rape but wanted to expand this area to grow winter oilseed rape. Instead of the company applying for new consent, as is legally required, the Government suggested simply changing a previous consent. Environment Minister Michael Meacher conceded that the Government's decision was unlawful. (The Government is not contesting FOE's application for a judicial review of the decision - but the plants are still in the ground and AgrEvo has said the trials will continue - see article on page 7).

The Government has called for a one-year 'voluntary' so-called moratorium on commercial growing, which they may extend for a further three years. This may seem like a victory but as Liana Stupples, Campaigns Director of FOE said: "The Government has announced more policy shifts in this area than Mr Blair has had GM hot dinners. The latest spin about an extended moratorium may not be the good news it appears. The devil is in the detail. The public are rightly concerned about the possible threat GM crops pose to health and environment." So, the fight will continue into the next millennium!

On a more positive note, we have had a victory with one of our other campaigns. Some of you may remember the 'Save our Downs' campaign which was started in 1997, by a coalition of local and national groups, including FOE, The Ramblers Association, CPRE and several other organisations. Some of our members attended a 'Downs Day Walk' at Stanmer Park in Brighton on June 1, 1997. The campaign was to save the increasing threat of destruction, particularly by unsympathetic farming methods, to the South Downs. We called for the area to be granted National Parks status. In September, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced that two new National Parks are going to be established in the south east of England: the South Downs and the New Forest.

On a final note - I wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (or should it be New Century?)

Moira Stuart