Komputer for Alle 1998 #6/1998 CD 6 (Gul).iso/web/ffa/wwwenv~1.org/arrs/digest/news37~9.htm/text0003.txt

Text File | 1998-04-03 | 107.0 KB | 2,411 lines

>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997
'Linseed loophole' mocks conservation rules

WHEN Clinton Marston, who farms at Syresham, Northants, read two stories in
The Telegraph last week, he might have been forgiven for reaching for his
shotgun.

These reported how two Sussex farmers had exploited a loophole in EU laws to
make a mockery of conservation rules by ploughing up large areas of chalk
downland that included rare flowers and butterflies. Although Derek
Robinson, a member of the Government's
Farming and Wildlife advisory group, had been given ú25,000 of taxpayers'
money to seed 250 acres with downland flora, he had now discovered he could
get EU subsidies of ú180 an acre by covering his fields with useless blue
linseed instead.

Justin Harmer went even further, ploughing up a 40-acre Site of Special
Scientific Interest (SSSI) containing a mass of rare orchids and 33 species
of butterfly, because under EU rules this is perfectly legal. The "linseed
loophole" overrides the law that SSSIs must
remain untouched.

Mr Marston found these stories particularly interesting because, for the
past year, he has been locked in a bizarre battle with the officials over
some boggy fields he added to his farm in 1995.

Having paid ú82,000 for 26 acres, he then had a letter from the DoE's
"European Wildlife Department" telling him they had been made subject to an
order designating them an SSSI. It would now be a criminal offence for him
to use them for any purpose whatever. In other words, they were worthless -
and even more remarkable was that the officials gave not a single specific
reason why his fields should be an SSSI, apart from claiming they were of
"national importance".

Having vainly spent more than ú10,000 fighting a public inquiry, at which
English Nature still could not name a single plant worthy of such draconian
protection, Mr Marston has lost well over ú100,000 for no purpose at all,
although English Nature now permits him to graze a few Highland cattle on
part of the land.

As a keen conservationist who has planted 40,000 trees, Mr Marston is
totally baffled by this episode, hardly improved by learning that these
Sussex farmers are not only encouraged by Brussels to destroy fields of far
greater natural importance but rewarded with ú50,000 of EU money into the
bargain. Of England's 3,800 SSSIs no fewer than 1,927 were damaged by 1994,
nearly 500 permanently, and Brussels is obviously doing all it can to let
this continue.

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:32 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] Sharp fall in numbers of endangered grouse
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997

Sharp fall in numbers of endangered grouse
By Greg Neale


ONE of moorland Britain's most endangered birds, the black grouse, is
suffering a rapid decline in numbers, a survey says.

Figures to be released this week show there are now just 500 black grouse
cocks left in England, a halving of the population in eight years. In Wales,
there are only 150 male birds left.

Across Britain, numbers have fallen from 10,000 to 6,350 since 1972. The
survey was carried out by English Nature, the Game Conservancy and the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds, who are launching a plan to halt the
bird's decline in Durham and Northumberland.

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:33 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] Never Mind The Ballots - Reclaim The Streets!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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[In the interests of fairness, I am posting this account of the demo, in
addition to the one that appeared in the Telegraph - DJK]

>From The Urban75 web site (http://194.112.40.4/Urban75/news.html)

Never Mind The Ballots - Reclaim The Streets!

The RTS crew took to the streets again, this time taking out Trafalgar
Square and turning into into a car-free party zone. Marching up from
Kennington, South London, the march took in     such sights as the Houses of
Parliament and a close encounter with Downing Street,     illuminated by
orange smoke flares, before successfully thwarting the police and getting the
sound system kicking in the Square.

Despite a wholly peaceful crowd, there was a huge police presence, ominously
clad in black
boiler suits, steel toecapped boots and - most disturbingly - face masks
(why would the
police want to hide their faces?).

While ravers danced happily on the steps of the National Gallery to the
banging choons   coming from the McSpotlight sound system, a police
helicopter hovered expensively
overhead while riot police adopted a wholly inappropriate aggressive stance
and sealed off
the area.

It came as no suprise to learn that there were outbreaks of trouble and
several arrests all of
which left us wondering exactly who the police were supposed to be
'protecting' and why they
needed to be dressed in full riot gear. Provocation perhaps?

UPDATE: Six people from the McSpotlight Sound System have been (incredibly!)
arrested for
conspiracy to murder after they drove their van through the police lines to
get into Trafalgar
Square.

If you witnessed the lorry driving through the police lines please get in
touch with RTS at the
numbers below. It is vital that we give all the help we can to these people.

Information line: 0171 281 4621 - Legal Defence Line: 0181 533 7116 Pirate
Radio station
87.8 FM


Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:36 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] Eco Friendly Nuclear Missiles!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Found this on the Urban75 site as well. Thought you might enjoy.

Eco Friendly Nuclear Missiles!

This is almost too ridiculous to be true. Because of a new Government ban on
chlorofluorocarbons, the US Air Force has had to refit all its nuclear
missiles with new     eco-friendly cooling systems that don't use CFC's.

So if you ever see a nuclear missile heading your way, rest assured - it's
making the
environment that little bit safer for us all!

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:37 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] Riot police clear Trafalgar Square after demo
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997

Riot police clear Trafalgar Square after demo

RIOT police charged protesters last night after a demonstration in which
thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to support striking dockers and
environmental causes.

Crowd trouble in Whitehall, on the route of the Social Justice March, and
confrontational scenes later between riot police and protesters in the
square ruined the "party atmosphere" that the organisers had intended for
the event.

Police cleared Whitehall shortly after 3pm when marchers who split from the
main group tried to climb the security gates that seal off Downing Street.
An orange smoke bomb was thrown into the street, distress flares were let
off and cans and bottles were thrown. Violence flared again after more than
30 mounted officers in riot gear forced the demonstrators back into
Trafalgar Square.

Meanwhile, the main body of protesters assembled in the square to listen to
speeches in support of the sacked Liverpool dockers. At the same time, the
anti-roads direct action group Reclaim the Streets -  joined by other groups
including Public Nuisance (slogan: They want
to fight - we want to dance) - celebrated in carnival atmosphere to the
techno-strains of sound system Desert Storm.

But after a second sound system was driven in a truck past police lines and
parked in front of the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square,
police, who had seemed content to watch the antics of protesters, moved in.
Vans, some of them bearing the name of a Banbury- based rental firm, were
driven up to all exits of the square and parked two-deep; parallel with
lines of riot police.

By around 5pm the police had up to 1,000 riot officers in place. People
wishing to pass through the cordon from the square were allowed to do so,
but the atmosphere turned more and more threatening as the riot police
refused to admit people wishing to return. Police lines then fanned out to
push the remaining protesters further from the central area.

Splinter groups from the demonstration were directed south of theThames over
Westminster and Waterloo bridges, and there were several minor scuffles as
they made their way away from the square.

But about 1,500 protesters refused to leave and riot police, including some
on horseback, moved in, prompting further scuffles and several hand-to-hand
clashes. After further action involving baton-charges, the area was finally
cleared shortly after 9pm.

Scotland Yard said last night that 29 people were arrested, including four
for conspiracy to commit murder after a vehicle was allegedly driven at
police lines.

Police said that the violence did not appear to have involved the striking
Liverpool dockers, many of whom brought their families with them for the
march, during which a petition was handed in to Downing Street.

Jim Davis, a dockers' shop steward, said: "As far as we are concerned, we
were here to make a protest over our dismissal, certainly not to get
involved in any violence. There are children here."

Superintendent Jo Kaye, in charge of the march, said: "Police found
themselves in a situation where everybody's safety was threatened by
irresponsible and violent behaviour and that is why mounted police were
brought in.

"The sacked dockers wanted a carnival atmosphere especially as children were
involved in the march. I think on the whole they achieved that. It was a
small section of the crowd that caused the trouble outside Downing Street."

Home Secretary Michael Howard said in a statement that he congratulated
police on "the swift action they took to deal with the situation". The
statement added: "I am delighted that the Government has provided the police
with the necessary powers to deal with lawlessness of this kind."

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:50 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [CA] Designer chromosomes developed by Vancouver firm
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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>From The Vancouver Sun - Saturday, April 12th, 1997

City firm creates designer chromosomes
By Magaret Munro - Sun Science Reporter

A Vancouver company says it is creating artificial chromosomes designed to
turn mice, rabbits, goats and other animals into drug factories.

"There is no other company in the world producing mammalian artificial
chromosomes," said Henry Geraedts, president of Chromos Molecular Systems
Inc., which is putting the final touches to its production facility on the
University of B.C. Endowment Lands.

Chromosomes are microscopic structures inside cells that carry genes, which
control the growth and function of cells and organisms.

Geraedts said artificial chromosomes may also be capable of genetic repair
jobs in people suffering from genetic disorders, which can cause cystic
fibrosis, Huntingdon's disease and some forms of cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

"The application for gene therapy is quite a while away. We're talking well
into '98," Gertaedts said, as he ran through a polished slide presentation
aimed at potential investers and partners.

In the interim, he said, the company will get down to business producing
MACS, short for mammalian artificial chromosomes,  for use in drug-producing
cells and animals.

For example, rabbits might be programmed to produce insulin in their milk.

The insulin could then be extracted from the milk.

"The engineering of MAC's is what this lab is all about, to produce them by
the millions for ourselves and our partners," said Gersaedts, gesturing
toward the expansive new lab complete with a computerized chromosome sorting
machine worth about $500,000 U.S.

Geraedts said about 15 labs around the world are working on artificial
chromosomes but no other company has moved into production.

The UBC lab opened in January and will have its full complement of 10
scientists and technicians by May. It already has six technicians and
scientists.

The artificial chromosomes are like tiny box cars that carry genes into
cells. Geraedts saidthe idea is to load them with "genes of choice" - such
as  genes that prompt production of growth hormone or the blood-clotting
agent Factor 8. Carrying space can be added to MAC's as needed, like extra
cars on a train.

Once the artificial chromosomes are introduced into cells, they act as
production platforms, Geraedts explained. The new genes instruct the cells
to produce large quantities of the desired compounds.

He said the artificial chromosomes reproduce like other chromosomes and are
passed on as cells multiply and divide. They should also pass from one
generation from one generation of animal to the next, though company
scientists have yet to prove it.

Despite its presence at UBC, Chromos does not have a high local profile. Dr
John Hobbs at UBC's Biotechnology Lab said there is considerable interest
and potential in artificial chromosomes "but I must say it's not a firm I'm
familiar with." His comment was echoed by many people in the local
biotechnology sector who have never heard of Chromos.

Geraedts said both the company's founding scientists work outside Canada,
and it was a business decision to put the lab in Vancouver.

The founders are Gyula Hadlaczky, who continues to do research in Hungary,
and Aladar Szalay, formerly of the University of Edmonton and now at Loma
Linda University in California.

Hadlaczky leads a 15-member team in Hungary that collaborates with the
Vancouver lab.

Others involved with the company include Larry Kedes, director of the
genetic medicine institute at the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles, who chairs the company's scientific advisory board.

Also on the board are Dr Robert Church, former associate dean of medicine at
the University of Calgary. Dr William Cochrane, former president of both the
University of Calgary and the pharmacutical company Connaught Laboratories
Ltd., is chair of Chromos' board of directors.

For years, researchers have been trying to get genes into cells using
disabled viruses and tiny molecular capsules.

These so-called vectors can only carry a small amount of genetic material.
And there is often no way of telling where the genes will land or if they
will "express" themselves and produce the desired proteins.

The same problems have bedeviled several costly and ambitious attempts to
install new genes in the cells of human volunteers suffering from genetic
diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Scientists have been unable to come up
with a transport mechanism to deliver the genetic cargo to the right place.

"MAC's bring a level of control that's been missing," said Geraedts.

Kedes said that with artificial chromosomes "you can bring a in a lot of
regulatory and control features that are misssing from DNA and genes brought
in by viruses or other vectors."

Geraedts and Kedes said the other big advantage of the artificial
chromosomes is carrying capacity. "These chromosomes are capable of handling
tens of thousands of copies of a gene," Kedes said. Which means MAC's, at
least in theory, can program cells to produce a lot more theraputic proteins.

He said Chromos scientists have demonstrated artificial chromosomescan
produce large amounts of test proteins. The next step, Kedes said, is to do
the same with a pharmacutically valuable protein, such a s insulin or growth
hormone.

Geraedts said the company, which has two patents on its technology and
several more pending, will soon announce partnerships with various academic
groups and private sector companies. He wouldn't name any of the prospective
partners.

He said the MAC's first application will be to mass produce, in cell
cultures, theraputic drugs for the pharmacutical industry.

By year end, Geraedts says the company hopes to be producing MAC's that can
be "installed" in animal embryos by Chromos' industry partners.

He mentioned rabbits, cows or goats has possible recipients.

He said a mouse programmed with artificial chromosomes, and capable of
passing chromosomes onto its offspring, is being created by the company's
scientists in Hungary.

Geraedts said the team hopes to have the altered mouse in hand by the fall.
In theory, he said, the artificial chromosomes will replicate every time the
animal's cells divide. So the MAC's will end up in every cell in the
creature's body.

Geraedts said it should be possible to create "transgenic" animals that will
produce desired proteins in their milk. The milk would be harvested and the
protein removed for use in drugs and theraputics.

Several companies around the world already have created transgenic goats and
sheep for use as pharacutical factories.



Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:54 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [US] DEC buys muskrat-trimmed hats
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

[Not sure how old this story is - it only appeared in today's paper]

>From The Vancouver Sun - Saturday, April 12th, 1997

The New York state department of environmental conservation's decision to
buy new winter hats for 275 fish and game offices has angered animal-rights
activists. The hats, reports the newsletter  'Dispatches', are made in
Canada and trimmed with muskrat fur.

"The public feels the DEC's job is to protect animals," said Marion Stark of
the Fund for Animals. "The animals really suffer terribly in the traps. It's
unnecessary and cruel."

The fish and game officers are unhappy with the choice of muskrat, too. It's
"kind of cheesy looking," said an officer who would have prefered beaver,
which is more expensive.

"We looked at beaver because it's the state animal," said DEC official Gary
Sheffer, "but muskrat was an affordable option."

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 09:46:04 -0400
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [US] Biotech Firm Might Sponsor Classes at Wildlife Refuge Site
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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from WashingtonPost.com:
----------------------------------------

Biotech Firm Might Sponsor Classes at Wildlife Refuge Site

Environmental Group Hopes to Form Venture

By Eric L. Wee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 13 1997; Page V01
The Washington Post

A major biotechnology company and a local environmental
group are talking about teaming up to provide scientific
education courses for schoolchildren on a
soon-to-be-formed national wildlife refuge in
Woodbridge.

Late last month, senior executives from American Type
Culture Collection took a three-hour tour of the
580-acre site with the head of Woodbridge Foundation
Inc., a group that has been trying to lease buildings on
the property for environmental education programs.

Although company representatives say any alliance is
from a sure thing, officials from Woodbridge Foundation
are more enthusiastic.

James Waggener, head of Woodbridge Foundation, said he
got a strong, positive response from his corporate
guests. He said the American Type executives shared his
vision of holding environmental education courses on the
refuge. He also said the potential sponsors indicated
they might be willing to help renovate dilapidated
buildings on the property for lab and classroom space.

That has been a major worry for U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service officials who will take control of the property
from the Department of Defense in the coming months.
They have estimated that it might cost about $500,000 a
year to operate and maintain the 1950s-era buildings on
the former military base.

If the two groups team up, American Type would be the
foundation's first major corporate sponsor. The
environmental group has been scrambling for just such a
benefactor to put it on sturdier financial footing. The
group already has a tentative agreement with George
Mason University.

"I'm just delighted," said Waggener, adding that the
discussion is still in the preliminary stages. "They've
expressed an interest and agreed in principal with us.
They have the necessary administrative, technical,
scientific and financial resources to provide us a very
hopeful picture for an early and successful start for
this project. . . . There is a very real prospect of
substantial cooperation with one of the new major forces
in the county."

But a spokeswoman for American Type played down the
discussions with Waggener's group. Kaye Sloan Breen,
vice president of public affairs, said the refuge
group's plan is interesting but is just one of many
projects the company is considering in Prince William
County. She said her company also is talking with the
Prince William Symphony, Prince William Hospital and
others to see how it can contribute to the county.

American Type plans to move from Rockville to a new $12
million lab just west of Manassas later this year. The
company is one of the world's largest keepers of
research microorganisms, housing 45,000 types of cells,
bacteria, fungi, yeasts and viruses. Breen said the
company is looking for ways to increase the public's
scientific knowledge through programs such as the one
proposed at the refuge.

"We want to be a good corporate citizen," Breen said.
"We're talking to a lot of groups."

The site that Waggener hopes to use was formerly a
secret Army radio transmission and electromagnetic
research facility. But with the end of the Cold War, the
Defense Department decided to let the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service take over the undisturbed land, where
more than 200 species of birds have made their home.

Woodbridge Foundation is battling to make its education
programs a reality. Waggener had planned to start
environmental courses this summer. Schoolchildren could
learn first-hand about wetlands and wildlife, he said,
and college and postgraduate students could use the site
for biological research.

But just recently, Fish and Wildlife officials put on
hold Waggener's lease to use the buildings in the middle
of the site for classroom and laboratory space.

Officials said they did so because they received a
proposal from another group that would give 50 acres of
the refuge to a developer for the expansion of a golf
course.

The main advantage to that plan is the hundreds of
thousands of dollars the developer would give the rest
of the refuge to use. Fish and Wildlife officials have
said such money would be helpful at a time when the
service is strapped for cash.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing to hold
public hearings this month to get input on what should
be done and will make a decision in the coming months.

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 00:19:57 +0800 (SST)
>From: vadivu <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: (MY) Successful breeding of rhinoceros hornbill at zoo
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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> The Star Online

   Sunday, April 13, 1997


                   Nature
                   Birds of the same feather
                   By Yvonne Oh

                   With a loud and resonating Honk!, a Buceros rhinocerous
                   called attention to himself as it sat up on a high
                   branch in its cage.

                   His beady red eyes stared hard at the keeper who dared
                   encroach his territory. Leaving a bowl of chopped fruits
                   and vegetables, the keeper closed the cage door.

                   After a few minutes assessing the situation, old Red
                   Eyes decided it was safe and swooped down for his
                   morning meal.

                   Cutting an imposing figure, Buceros rhinocerous, or the
                   rhinoceros hornbill, is one of the larger species of
                   hornbills (about 42cm tall) to be found in the world.
                   The bird's name is derived from the upward curving
                   casque on top of its bill.

                   The casque is an appendage that is hornlike and is
                   either hollow or filled with a spongy cellular tissue.
                   The rhinoceros hornbill's "roar", a very loud resonating
                   gr-Honk, is amplified by its hollow casque.

                   Both the casque and bill are brightly coloured in
                   yellow, orange and red, which stands out in contrast to
                   the bird's glossy black torso feathers.

                   One distinguishing feature between females and males is
                   a black line on the bill.

                   Their distinct tail feathers - the only hornbill species
                   to have white feathers with a black band - were once
                   prized by the Iban people who used the feathers for
                   decorating ceremonial garments. In the Gawai Kenyalang
                   celebrations, an elaborately carved figure of the bird
                   is at the centre of ceremony.

                   The significant role of this beautiful bird makes it one
                   of the hornbills that make Sarawak the Land of the
                   Hornbills.

                   However, these days the keepers at the Bird Section of
                   the zoo are more keen on the fact that this particular
                   rhinoceros hornbill is a proud father of a geeky-looking
                   hornbill chick.

                   According to supervisor at the Bird Section, M. Ganesan,
                   this was the first time a rhinoceros hornbill has
                   successfully been bred at the zoo.

                   "We have handraised wrinkled chicks before but not the
                   rhinoceros hornbill," Ganesan said.

                   "Hornbills are quite difficult to breed. They're very
                   fussy and need their privacy," he said, adding, "That's
                   why we cover the cages with canvas so they don't see
                   us.'

                   The zoo has four species of hornbills: the greater, the
                   wrinkled, the rhinoceros and the wreathed. There are 13
                   species of hornbills in South-East Asia.

                   The rhinoceros hornbill is a protected species under the
                   Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
                   (CITES). Trade in the bird is only allowed with official
                   permits.

                   There are no figures on the number of rhinoceros
                   hornbills there are in the wild.

                   As captive breeding is difficult, Zoo Negara keepers
                   were quite excited when this pair of rhinoceros
                   hornbills started displaying nesting behaviour,
                   indicating that they might have mated sometime late
                   October. The zoo has had the birds since the end of
                   1989.

                   So as not to disturb the nesting birds, the keepers kept
                   away from the hornbills' cage as much as possible.

                   "We don't even maintain the cages because we want to
                   keep disturbance to a minimum," Ganesan said. The birds
                   had two nesting boxes to choose from, one which had a
                   viewing-glass which keepers could use to peep into the
                   box.

                   The wrinkled hornbill was the first to have been
                   successfully bred as well as hand-reared at the zoo.

                   In the wild, hornbills would search out a hollow in a
                   tree and use that as a nest. Sometimes sticks and
                   rubbish would be used to line the floor of the nest-hole
                   so that the female hornbill can easily reach the opening
                   when she's inside.

                   Once the nest-hole has been prepared, the female
                   hornbill will seal herself inside using a mixture of
                   droppings and regurgitated food. The male hornbill will
                   help her from the outside, patting on the mixture with
                   his bill as a trowel.

                   The nesting female at the zoo was sealed in on Oct 30,
                   said Ganesan. "We also noticed that the male was digging
                   the ground for worms to feed the female so we increased
                   their amount of food," he said.

                   Through a narrow slit - less than a half inch wide and
                   about three inches long - the male will pass food to the
                   female. She will also toss out her droppings through
                   this slit.

                   Her confinement will last until the chick is ready to
                   fly, which is usually about two months. The female
                   hornbill usually emerges very fat and dirty, so stiff
                   that she can hardly fly.

                   If anything should happen to the male while the female
                   is imprisoned, other hornbills can take over the task of
                   feeding her. Otherwise she will starve to death, her
                   instincts not allowing her to abandon her chick.

                   After two and a half months, cheeping sounds from the
                   nesting box indicated that the egg had been successfully
                   hatched. Ganesan said that mice was added to the diet to
                   give the birds, especially the chick, more protein.

                   In the wild, the hornbills will eat fruits as well as
                   insects or small lizards that are slow-moving enough.

                   The chick hatches completely naked and defenceless. In
                   two months, it will grow its full black and white
                   plumage. Then it is ready to come out of the nest.

                   While the chick is still in the nesting box, there's
                   very little the keepers can do. "Sometimes if they nest
                   in the box with the (viewing) glass and we can look in
                   and see how the mother and chick are doing," Ganesan
                   said.

                   However the birds had chosen another box and the keepers
                   had to just wait and see.

                   After about five months, mother hornbill and chick
                   emerged from the box, allowing keepers to get their
                   first glimpse of the zoo's latest addition. Looking
                   geeky, the shy chick follows its parents about the cage.

                   Its first step out into the world will be a large one,
                   as it is expected to be able to fly the minute it leaves
                   the nest.

                   At the moment, keepers cannot determine if the chick is
                   male or female. "The male has red eyes and the female
                   has white eyes," Ganesan said.

                   "Right now the chick has brown eyes. It will be a while
                   before we can tell."

                   Visitors to the zoo will have to be patient about seeing
                   this new zoo baby as it will not go on display until it
                   can feed itself.

                   For the moment, Junior is happily testing its wings in
                   the world-outside-the-nesting-box, albeit within a cage,
                   and chasing tired but proud mum and dad whenever it is
                   hungry.



Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 00:20:21 +0800 (SST)
>From: vadivu <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (MY) Mutilated dolphin found on beach
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


> The Star Online

                   Sunday, April 13, 1997

                   Mutilated dolphin found on beach

                   KOTA KINABALU: A five-metre-long dolphin, believed to
                   have been slaughtered by fishermen, was washed up on the
                   beach of Tuaran, about 25km from here, three days ago.

                   Workers of Mimpian Jadi Golf and Beach Resort found the
                   dead mammal on Thursday and alerted the Fisheries
                   Department which removed it yesterday.

                   Believed to belong to the largest of the dolphin class
                   termed ''pilot whales,'' the mammal was badly lacerated
                   and had an open wound.

                   A rope was found attached to the tail of the dolphin
                   whose underside had been cut open.

                   Fisheries officials believed fishermen might have caught
                   the dolphin in the deep sea and cut it for certain parts
                   which they thought were edible.

                   Dolphins have frequently been spotted off Sandakan in
                   the east coast.

                   Last year, a mutilated whale shark was found on a beach
                   in Kota Kinabalu.


Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 12:59:42 -0400 (EDT)
>From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Fwd: Campus May Be Monkey Cloning Center
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

In a message dated 97-04-13 12:05:14 EDT, [e-mail] writes:

 << Subj:Campus May Be Monkey Cloning Center
  Date:97-04-13 12:05:14 EDT
  From:[e-mail]

 .c The Associated Press

       By WILLIAM McCALL
       HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) - Thousands of monkeys play and fight,
 chase one another and chatter away inside eight corrals in the
 rolling hills of suburban Portland.
       The Oregon Regional Primate Research Center must rely on the
 walled corrals, each about the size of a football field, to build
 communities of monkeys for experiments.
       But the arrival of Dolly, the cloned sheep in Scotland, and
 monkey twins cloned from embryos at the center could make monkey
 corrals obsolete.
       If cloning technology proves practical, the center could produce
 monkeys on demand, or tailor them for specific experiments.
       ``It is within the realm of possibility that the primate center
 here could subcontract cloning work, or a biotechnology company
 could work in collaboration with the primate center,'' said Don
 Wolf, lead researcher on the monkey cloning project.
       Producing monkeys that are genetically identical in every
 respect would allow scientists to speed up experiments on new drugs
 or medical treatments.
       ``The immediate practical benefit is that it reduces the number
 of animals required for research. It could have a huge impact on
 the cost of research using nonhuman primates, which is frightfully
 expensive,'' Wolf said.
       In addition, research on the basic biochemistry that makes
 cloning work could lead to ways to unlock the secrets of cell
 regeneration, allowing victims of spinal injuries to regrow nerve
 cells, or reverse degeneration in the eye caused by various
 diseases, such as diabetes.
       ``It could be possible for paralyzed people to walk again, for
 blind people to see again,'' said Ronald Green, director of the
 Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
       Wolf, a medical biochemist, created a media stir recently at the
 250-acre primate center, hidden among trees in a valley better
 known for sprouting big computer-company campuses.
       Wolf's announcement that he had cloned two monkeys from embryos
 brought more than 70 requests for interviews by media from 16
 countries. After the publicity and a brief protest by animal rights
 activists, work has returned to normal at the center.
       There was a basic difference between the results in Scotland and
 here.
       In the Scottish experiment, Dolly the sheep was created by
 cloning a mature, highly specialized adult cell taken from the
 udder of another sheep that already was six years old.
       At the primate center here, the rhesus monkey twins - Neti and
 Ditto - were created by cloning an egg cell just before it began to
 expand and specialize and develop into a living creature.
       Every cell in the body of every living creature has all the DNA
 it needs to create an exact duplicate of itself. But most of that
 DNA gets switched off as an animal grows and the cells specialize
 into the brain, the heart, skin and bone.
       There was no way of working backward, of forcing the DNA to
 switch on every gene and start over to create an identical copy of
 itself, until Scottish embryologist Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly.
       ``This is quite a powerful tool,'' said Richard Stouffer, a
 biochemist and Wolf's research partner. ``I think it's the future
 of primate research. I don't think this place will ever be the
 same.''
       The Oregon experiments were an outgrowth of Wolf's work on
 in-vitro fertilization at Oregon Health Sciences University, the
 state's medical school, and the primate center.
       The center, one of seven scattered across the country, has been
 providing monkeys for research since Congress established the
 regional system nearly 40 years ago.
       Now its director, Susan Smith, hopes public attention to cloning
 will build interest in biological research by the National
 Institutes of Health, similar to the way the lunar landing program
 built support for NASA.
       ``Events like this capture the public imagination,'' Smith said.
       Still, researchers are wary about public reaction after
 President Clinton ordered a ban on federal funds for human cloning
 research.
       ``Clinton's response is a bit of a knee-jerk response,'' Wolf
 said. ``It's certainly appropriate to begin starting a dialogue on
 cloning technology, but cloning a human being is still a long, long
 way away.''
       But it may be difficult to overcome a public perception about
 cloning already colored by frightening books and movies, such as
 ``Jurassic Park,'' said Green, the Dartmouth ethicist.
       ``The public has a lot of science fiction in its head, and it is
 fiction,'' he said.
       Facts about the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center:
       Formally dedicated in 1962 as one of seven U.S. centers in the
 Regional Primate Research Centers Program established by Congress
 in 1959.
       250-acre campus has eight monkey corrals about the size of
 football fields or larger.
       Four veterinarians and 44 laboratory animal support staff,
 including specialists in psychological well-being, care for four
 species of 2,200 nonhuman primates.
       Facilities supported by the National Center for Research
 Resources of the National Institutes of Health, with scientific
 projects supported primarily by NIH grants.
       Affiliated with Oregon Health Sciences University. Most of the
 staff of 50 scientists have faculty appointments at the OHSU School
 of Medicine, with support staff of about 130.
       Research focuses on reproductive biology and behavior,
 neurobiology, and pathobiology and immunology. >>


---------------------
Forwarded message:
 >From:[e-mail]
Date: 97-04-13 12:05:14 EDT

<HTML><PRE><I>.c The Associated Press</I></PRE></HTML>

      By WILLIAM McCALL
      HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) - Thousands of monkeys play and fight,
chase one another and chatter away inside eight corrals in the
rolling hills of suburban Portland.
      The Oregon Regional Primate Research Center must rely on the
walled corrals, each about the size of a football field, to build
communities of monkeys for experiments.
      But the arrival of Dolly, the cloned sheep in Scotland, and
monkey twins cloned from embryos at the center could make monkey
corrals obsolete.
      If cloning technology proves practical, the center could produce
monkeys on demand, or tailor them for specific experiments.
      ``It is within the realm of possibility that the primate center
here could subcontract cloning work, or a biotechnology company
could work in collaboration with the primate center,'' said Don
Wolf, lead researcher on the monkey cloning project.
      Producing monkeys that are genetically identical in every
respect would allow scientists to speed up experiments on new drugs
or medical treatments.
      ``The immediate practical benefit is that it reduces the number
of animals required for research. It could have a huge impact on
the cost of research using nonhuman primates, which is frightfully
expensive,'' Wolf said.
      In addition, research on the basic biochemistry that makes
cloning work could lead to ways to unlock the secrets of cell
regeneration, allowing victims of spinal injuries to regrow nerve
cells, or reverse degeneration in the eye caused by various
diseases, such as diabetes.
      ``It could be possible for paralyzed people to walk again, for
blind people to see again,'' said Ronald Green, director of the
Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
      Wolf, a medical biochemist, created a media stir recently at the
250-acre primate center, hidden among trees in a valley better
known for sprouting big computer-company campuses.
      Wolf's announcement that he had cloned two monkeys from embryos
brought more than 70 requests for interviews by media from 16
countries. After the publicity and a brief protest by animal rights
activists, work has returned to normal at the center.
      There was a basic difference between the results in Scotland and
here.
      In the Scottish experiment, Dolly the sheep was created by
cloning a mature, highly specialized adult cell taken from the
udder of another sheep that already was six years old.
      At the primate center here, the rhesus monkey twins - Neti and
Ditto - were created by cloning an egg cell just before it began to
expand and specialize and develop into a living creature.
      Every cell in the body of every living creature has all the DNA
it needs to create an exact duplicate of itself. But most of that
DNA gets switched off as an animal grows and the cells specialize
into the brain, the heart, skin and bone.
      There was no way of working backward, of forcing the DNA to
switch on every gene and start over to create an identical copy of
itself, until Scottish embryologist Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly.
      ``This is quite a powerful tool,'' said Richard Stouffer, a
biochemist and Wolf's research partner. ``I think it's the future
of primate research. I don't think this place will ever be the
same.''
      The Oregon experiments were an outgrowth of Wolf's work on
in-vitro fertilization at Oregon Health Sciences University, the
state's medical school, and the primate center.
      The center, one of seven scattered across the country, has been
providing monkeys for research since Congress established the
regional system nearly 40 years ago.
      Now its director, Susan Smith, hopes public attention to cloning
will build interest in biological research by the National
Institutes of Health, similar to the way the lunar landing program
built support for NASA.
      ``Events like this capture the public imagination,'' Smith said.
      Still, researchers are wary about public reaction after
President Clinton ordered a ban on federal funds for human cloning
research.
      ``Clinton's response is a bit of a knee-jerk response,'' Wolf
said. ``It's certainly appropriate to begin starting a dialogue on
cloning technology, but cloning a human being is still a long, long
way away.''
      But it may be difficult to overcome a public perception about
cloning already colored by frightening books and movies, such as
``Jurassic Park,'' said Green, the Dartmouth ethicist.
      ``The public has a lot of science fiction in its head, and it is
fiction,'' he said.
      Facts about the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center:
      Formally dedicated in 1962 as one of seven U.S. centers in the
Regional Primate Research Centers Program established by Congress
in 1959.
      250-acre campus has eight monkey corrals about the size of
football fields or larger.
      Four veterinarians and 44 laboratory animal support staff,
including specialists in psychological well-being, care for four
species of 2,200 nonhuman primates.
      Facilities supported by the National Center for Research
Resources of the National Institutes of Health, with scientific
projects supported primarily by NIH grants.
      Affiliated with Oregon Health Sciences University. Most of the
staff of 50 scientists have faculty appointments at the OHSU School
of Medicine, with support staff of about 130.
      Research focuses on reproductive biology and behavior,
neurobiology, and pathobiology and immunology.
      AP-NY-04-13-97 1202EDT
      <HTML><PRE><I><FONT COLOR="#000000 SIZE=2>Copyright 1997 The Associated
Press.  The information
contained in the AP news report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without
prior written authority of The Associated Press.<FONT COLOR="#000000
SIZE=3></I></PRE></HTML>


To edit your profile, go to keyword NewsProfiles.
For all of today's news, go to keyword News.

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 14:25:37 -0400
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: BioTech Global Days of Action Update
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

from McLibel e-mail list:
-------------------------------------
Subject: BioTech Global Days of Action Update
Date: Apr 13, 1997
>From: Ronnie Cummins <[e-mail]>


     Global Days of Action Against Biotechnology & Cloning
               Campaign Progress Report

April 11, 1997   by Ronnie Cummins, Pure Food Campaign USA
[phone]   Fax [phone] email: <[e-mail]>
world wide web: <http://www.geocities.com/athens/1527>

As of April 10, activists from 24 nations have committed themselves to
organize actions and press events against genetic engineering and cloning
during the week of April 20-27. A number of groups have planned actions as
well for the week of April 14-20. These countries and contact persons
include the following:

(1) United States--anti-biotech events in New York, Washington, D.C.,
Burlington, Vt., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Duluth,
Milwaukee, Madison, Detroit, Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio, Tucson, Norwalk,
Ct., Albuquerque, Boulder, and Iowa City; with anti-biotech activities also
being incorporated into Earth Day Week activities in other cities as well.
Among some of the most newsworthy events will be grain dumps and street
protests in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.
on April 21 and April 23 and teach-ins in Albuquerque April 20 and New York
City on April 27. Contact: Pure Food Campaign (Ronnie Cummins) Tel. (218)
226-4164 Fax. [phone] e-mail: <[e-mail]>
<http://www.geocities.com/athens/1527>

USA April Events Contacts:

New York City (Mitchell Cohen Tel. [phone]); (Andy Zimmerman Tel.
914-478-8639); (Asha Golliher Tel. [phone]); (Greg Todd 718-858-8803).
NYC Events Planned: April 23 at 7:30 p.m. Forum on Biotechnology and Gene
Foods at Broooklyn Society for Ethical Culture 53 Prospect Park West with
Dr. Michael Hansen from the Consumers Union and Mitchell Cohen from
Brooklyn Greens. Also in NYC on April 27 there will be an all-day teach-in
sponsored by the Learning Alliance starting at 10 a.m. at 324 Lafayette St.
7th Floor with speakers including Vandana Shiva, Debra Harry, Kristen
Dawkins, and Ronnie Cummins. After the teach-in there will be a street
protest at Monsanto's headquarters.

Washington, D.C. (Foundation on Economic Trends Tel. [phone]). Protest
against biotech foods and cloning on April 22.

Chicago street protest noon
April 21 (Jane Alexander Tel. [phone]).

Los Angeles (Steve Urow Tel. [phone]) Student forum and press conference
at noon April 21 at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. Grain dump and press
conference at Ralph's Supermarket at Barrington & Olympic Streets in West
L.A.
on April 23 at noon.

San Francisco (Michael Phillips Tel. [phone]), street action and
press conference at the Marina Safeway in S.F. on April 21 at noon.

Minneapolis-St. Paul (Pat Kerrigan Tel. [phone]), protest and press
event at headquarters of Pillsbury Corporation in downtown Minneapolis at
noon April 23, followed by a forum that evening at First Universalist
Church (Dupont Ave. S. And 34th Street).

Duluth, Mn. (Jan Conley 715-392-5782) Protest, free food, and literature
distribution on the Duluth Lakewalk near Leif Ericson Park noon April 26.

Milwaukee (Louise Quigley Tel. [phone] or Frances Bartelt Tel.
414-332-3576) protest in front of FDA offices at 2675 N. Mayfair Road April
22
at 5:30 p.m.

Madison (John Peck Tel. [phone]), protest and press event on steps of
the
Memorial Union at Univ. of Wisconsin noon April 25.

Detroit (Key Halverson Tel. [phone]).

Atlanta (Anne Melfi Tel. [phone]).

Austin (Neil Carmen Tel. [phone]).

Tucson (Gwen Cadenhead Tel. [phone]).

Norwalk, Ct.
(Lela Florel Tel. [phone]) grain dump and press conference at Pathmark
supermarket in Norwalk at noon on April 22.

Albuquerque (Robin Seydel Tel.
505-265-4631), citywide teach-in on biotechnology with featured speaker
Brian Tokar on April 20 starting at 11:30 a.m at Silver Street entrance of
La Montanita Co-op, Carlisle & Amherst Streets.

Iowa City (Teresa Carbrey Tel. [phone]) citywide teach-in April 22
featuring Beth Fitzgerald from Greenpeace.

Burlington, Vermont--teach-in and protest at the University of Vermont
April 22
(Alice Stokes 802-864-4665).

Boulder, Colorado April 24 forum on genetic engineering with featured
speech by
Vandana Shiva at the University of Colorado.

(2) Canada--protest action planned at the GATT Codex Alimentarius labeling
meeting in Ottawa April 14 at 10 a.m. on Parliament Hill.  Also press
conference planned the following week for Prince Edward Island and
leafletting in Peterborough, Ontario. Contact: Council of Canadians (Dave
Robinson) Tel. [phone] Fax. [phone] e-mail <[e-mail]>
Also contact: Campaign to Ban Genetically Engineered Food (Richard Wolfson)
e-mail: <[e-mail]>

(3) U.K.--continuous actions planned April 18-27 in London and a dozen
other cities by Women's Environmental Network and other groups. National
Conference of anti-biotech activists in Herefordshire April 18-20. Protests
against Monsanto and other biotech corporations April 21-22. Lobbying of
government and legislators April 23-24. Nationwide leafletting of
supermarkets on April 25-27. Contact: Women's Environmental Network
(Ricarda Steinbrecher or Zoe Elsord) Tel. [phone]  Fax.
[phone] e-mail <[e-mail]>

(4) India--actions planned in April. Contact: Research Foundation for
Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy (Vandana Shiva) Tel.
[phone]  Fax. [phone] e-mail <[e-mail]>

(5) Malaysia--actions planned by Third World Network and Consumers
Association of Penang. Contact: Third World Network (Martin Khor) Tel.
[phone]  Fax. [phone] e-mail <[e-mail]>

(6) Philippines--actions (still tentative) planned by Center for
Alternative Development Initiatives. Contact CADI (Nicky Perlas) Tel.
[phone] Fax. [phone] e-mail: <[e-mail]>

(7) France--actions planned in Paris by Ecoropa and other groups. Contact:
Ecoropa (Etienne Vernet) Tel. [phone] Fax. [phone]
e-mail: <[e-mail]>

(8) Austria --actions planned by Global 2000 including an important
national referendum on biotech foods April 14. Contact: Global 2000 (Daniel
Hausknost) Tel. [phone] Fax. [phone] e-mail
<[e-mail]>

(9) Netherlands--protest action planned by ASEED, the
Amsterdam-headquartered European youth network on April 18 in Amsterdam.
Leafletting by Natuurwetpartij (e-mail <[e-mail]>) across
the country. Contact: ASEED (Stephanie Howard or Rod Harbinson) Tel.
[phone]  Fax. [phone] e-mail: <[e-mail]>

(10) Spain--Actions planned by AEDENAT, the Ecological Association for the
Defense of Nature. Simultaneous street actions and petition gathering in
front of government buildings in Madrid, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga, Sevilla,
Valladolid, Zaragoza, Oviedo, Logrono, Santander, and Burgos. Motions to be
introduced in more than 500 city councils and provincial parliaments, and
public speeches and forums in Gijon (Asturias), Marbella (Malaga), Daganzo
(Madrid), Almeria (University), Ecija (Sevilla), and other cities. Contact:
AEDENAT (Ramon Duran) Tel. [phone]  Fax. [phone] e-mail:
<[e-mail]> <http://nodo50.ix.apc.org/aedenat/home.htm>

(11) Australia--activities planned by Australian GeneEthics Network and
Australian Consumers Association. Protest at Monsanto's headquarters in
Melbourne at noon April 23. International videoconference on biotech
sponsored by Consumers Association in Sydney April 16. Contact: GeneEthics
Network (Bob Phelps) Tel. [phone]  Fax. [phone]  e-mail:
<[e-mail]>
Australian Consumers Association (Carole Renouf) Tel. [phone] Fax.
[phone]  e-mail: <[e-mail]>

(12) Japan--actions planned by Network for Safe and Secure Food and
Environment and Consumers Union. Public protest in Tokyo April 23. Seminars
and forums in a number of Japanese cities April 25-30. Contact: NESSFE
(Mika Iba) Tel.+ 813-3327-6444  Fax. [phone] e-mail: <[e-mail]>
Consumers Union of Japan (Setsuko Yasuda) Tel. [phone]  Fax
[phone]

(13) Sweden--actions planned, including a protest at the American Embassy.
For further information contact Martin Frid Tel & Fax. [phone] e-mail
<[e-mail]>

(14) Norway--actions planned including a march by small farmers and
anti-biotech activists in Oslo April 22. Contact: GATT WTO Campaign (Helge
Christie) Tel. & Fax. [phone] e-mail: <[e-mail]>

(15) Belgium--actions planned. Contact: Pesticide Action Network Belgium
(Catherine Wattiez) Tel. [phone]  Fax. [phone] e-mail
<[e-mail]>
Also contact: CPAQ (Patrick Vander Linden) Tel. [phone] Fax.
[phone] e-mail <[e-mail]>
Also contact: BRABANT Ecologie (Christian Jacques) Tel. and Fax
[phone] e-mail <[e-mail] (Taty Lauwers)

(16) Denmark--Protest march by Danish environmental organization Ecotopia
starting at Monsanto's headquarters in Copenhagen during Global Action
Week. Contact Ecotopia (Svenning) Tel. [phone]

(17) Germany--actions planned in Bonn, Munich, Dusseldorf (April 26)
Bochum, and Cologne (Teach-in on Genetic Engineering April 26, march to
proposed location of Bio-Genetic Center April 27). Contact Gen-Ethisches
Network (Werner Reisberger) Tel.+ 49-234-540-294  Fax. [phone]
e-mail: <[e-mail]> Also contact AntiGen in Cologne-Kalk
(Christiane Niesel) Tel. [phone]

(18) Switzerland--action planned for Basel April 21 at Novartis corporate
office. Contact: No Patents on Life (Florianne Koechlin) Tel.
[phone] Fax. [phone]  e-mail <[e-mail]>

(19) Poland--actions planned. Contact Krakow Green Federation (Darek Szwed)
e-mail <[e-mail]>

(20) Hungary--actions planned. Contact Daniel Swartz and Ada Amon e-mail
<[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]>

(21) New Zealand--ongoing actions. Contact Natural Food Commission (Guy
Hatchard) Tel. [phone]  Fax. [phone] e-mail <[e-mail]>

(22) Georgia--activities planned. Contact: Georgia Greens and Biological
Farming Association "Elkana" (Mariam Jordjadze or Keti Nemsadze) Fax
[phone] e-mail <[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]>

(23) Ethiopia--activities planned in conjunction with a meeting on plant
genetic resources and food security. Contact: Institute for Sustainable
Development (Sue Edwards and Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher) e-mail
<[e-mail]>

(24) Brazil--activities planned. Contact: IDEC (Brazilian Institute for
Consumer Protection) (Marilena Lazzarini Tel. [phone] Fax.
[phone]  e-mail: <[e-mail]>
*     *     *

A number of activists have requested a sample press release to make
available to media in their respective countries. The Foundation on
Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. have prepared the following one-page
press release as a model or prototype. Groups may simply substitute the
name of their group, location, time, and event description (and substitute
appropriate polling information and quotes from their spokesperson) in
place of the USA information included in this prototype.
 _________________________________________________________
FIRST GLOBAL PROTESTS OF THE BIOTECH AGE SCHEDULED FOR 25 U.S. CITIES
AND
23 OTHER NATIONS FOR APRIL 20-27

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs) TAKE TO THE STREETS TO VOICE
OPPOSITION TO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS, ANIMAL AND HUMAN
CLONING AND
PATENTS ON LIFE

UNPRECEDENTED "GLOBAL DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST BIOTECH" MARK THE
BEGINNING OF
A NEW ERA OF ACTIVISM

 ________________________________________________________


(Washington, D.C.) : The Foundation on Economic Trends announced today the
first global protests of the Biotech Age--with demonstrations, picket
lines, and press conferences scheduled for 25 U.S. cities and 23 other
nations. U.S. cities where anti-biotech actions will take place on the week
of April 20-27 include New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta, Austin, Tucson,
Albuquerque, and Iowa City. Anti-biotech actions are also scheduled during
Earth Day week activities on scores of college campuses.

NGO's in 23 other nations will also be taking to the streets to protest
animal and human cloning, genetically engineered foods and patents on life.
Protests and press conferences are scheduled for the United Kingdom,
Canada, India, Malaysia, The Philippines, France, Germany, The Netherlands,
Spain, Austria, Sweden, Australia, Japan, Italy, Norway, Belgium,
Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, New Zealand, Ethiopia, and Georgia.

The global protests are a response to the recent introduction of
genetically engineered foods onto the world market, last month's revelation
of the first cloning of a mammal and the quickened pace of patents on
transgenic plants, animals and human genes.

The first genetically engineered food crops--Monsanto's controversial
herbicide-resistant soybeans and Ciba Geigy's gene spliced corn were
introduced to Europe and other world markets in November of last year and
ignited a storm of controversy among angry consumers demanding labeling.
According to a recent poll 93% of Americans want all genetically engineered
foods clearly labeled and many consumers say they will not buy foods that
are genetically engineered.

The cloning of a sheep in Scotland last month has raised further concerns
among citizens in countries around the world and led to calls for
legislation to ban all animal and human cloning. A Feb. 26 Time/CNN poll
found 93% of Americans opposed to human cloning and 66% opposed to animal
cloning.

The increased pace of patents on transgenic animals and human genes has
raised similar concerns.  In 1995 more than 200 American religious
leaders--Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu--publicly
announced their  opposition to the patenting of transgenic animals and
human genes and vowed to mobilize support within the nation\'d5s religious
denominations and congregations.

Commenting on the unprecedented international campaign, biotech critic
Jeremy Rifkin said "Civilization stands at the cusp of a frightening new
era of cloning, genetic engineering, and eugenics. The time has arrived for
concerned citizens the world over to stand up and make their voices
heard--to launch a new global movement dedicated to defending and
preserving the Earth's rich genetic heritage. The first global protests
against biotech mark a new era of international activism" Rifkin concluded.
###
 __________________________________________________________

A Campaign Request:

Please email or fax specific information on the events planned in your area
or country if you have not already done so. This will help the Pure Food
Campaign as we talk to media and activists around the world. Also please
keep track of the media who contact you in your country, and let us know
about the success of your activities. Please have someone take photos of
your events and send us a copy as well. Feel free to call or contact us if
you want advice or information on what types of events are taking place
across the world. For additional background information on the issues, you
may wish to access our world wide web site
<http://www.geocities.com/athens/1527> which in turn is linked to other web
sites around the world such as Greenpeace and the Third World Network. We
congratulate you all for your hard work and creativity in making these
first Global Days of Action Against Genetic Engineering and Gene-Foods a
tremendous success.

Regards and Solidarity,

Ronnie Cummins for the Pure Food Campaign <[e-mail]>

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 13:50:54 -0500
>From: Horgan <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Anti-hunting calls needed
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Ted Nugent, bowhunter, has a toll free # to call for hunting products.
The originating # will show up on his bill however.  The number is:
1-800-343-HUNT
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 15:11:23 -0400
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (US) RFI: Dog/Animal Bite Protocol
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

(from private e-mail)
Please send any responses to:
"Harry Hoffman, MD" <[e-mail]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Can anyone on the list please furnish me a good Animal Bite Protocol?

I'm particularly interested in current thinking regarding antibiotic
coverage and recommendations for dealing with the Rabies issue with
both domestic (known owner, pet available) and unknown (stray) dogs.
In our area, the County basically takes care of that with a filing
of bite report, but that isn't very reassuring Friday at 10pm with
bite from a stray despite its rarity.  Most of you realize this is
a common injury for Postal workers.

Incidentally, there is an interesting UK page debating the limited
effectiveness of prophylactic antibiotics in animal bites at:

http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band16/b16-2.html

Thanks in advance.

Harry Hoffman, MD, MPH
Occupational Medicine
Sacramento/Tahoe






Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 12:54:50 -0700
>From: Andrew Gach <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Blurring the Line
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Controversy Erupts Over Organ Removals

By GINA KOLATA, New York Times reporter

A prosecutor in Cleveland has accused a nationally renowned
medical center there of seeking to hasten the deaths of terminally ill
patients to obtain their organs for transplant. Officials at the medical
center vehemently deny the charges. Even so, some medical experts fear
that the dispute will make an already skittish public even more
reluctant to donate organs.

A proposal by the Cleveland Clinic Hospital was to allow doctors to
take organs from patients within minutes after their hearts had stopped
beating. Virtually all donors today are in a different category: their
hearts are beating while their brains have all but ceased to function.
But many ethicists say it should also be permissible to take organs from
patients whose hearts have stopped -- the traditional definition of
death.

In the last few years, many hospitals have begun using such donors. One
recent study of 500 hospitals by Dr. Bethany Spielman, a lawyer and
ethicist at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, found
that nearly a third were using donors whose hearts had stopped beating
in addition to those who were deemed brain-dead.

At issue is one of the most delicate areas of medicine. Organ
procurement has always made the public nervous, and studies have
shown that many people will not sign donor cards because they are afraid
that doctors will speed their deaths to get their organs. So, ethicists
say,transplant doctors have tried to reassure the public, steering clear
of murky areas.

But the Cleveland Clinic walked right into an area murky enough that
Carmen Marino, the first assistant prosecutor for Cuyahoga County,
declared that its proposal was a matter "of grave concern." Under the
draft proposal, which has not been carried out, organs would be taken
from people who were not brain dead but who were gravely ill, with no
chance of recovery, and kept alive only by a respirator.

With the consent of family members, the doctors would turn off the
respirator while the patient was in an operating room. Within minutes
after the heart stopped beating, surgeons would remove the patient's
kidneys, pancreas and liver. The patients would receive two drugs that
would not benefit them but would help preserve their organs: heparin,
which prevents blood clotting, and regitine, which widens blood vessels
so the organs would be well supplied with blood.

The idea was that some good would come out of the act of turning off a
respirator, that the families might be comforted by knowing that another
person's life might be saved, clinic officials said.

Those who have raised the alarm in the Cleveland case contend that the
two drugs, regitine in particular, would hasten death, and that
therefore the transplant surgeons would be killing patients to get their
organs. Experts disagree about whether the drugs would speed death.

The imbroglio began when Dr. Mary Ellen Waithe, the director of
advanced studies in bioethics at Cleveland State University, and her
student Peggy Rickard Bishop Bargholt began providing Marino with
information that Ms. Bargholt had found while she was working at the
clinic.

Marino said Dr. Waithe and Ms. Bargholt had tried other avenues first,
submitting an article to The Journal of the American Medical
Association, which, he said, rejected it. Jeff Molter, a spokesman for
the journal, said it did not comment on whether it had accepted or
rejected papers. Dr.Waithe and Ms. Bargholt also wrote to the Ohio
attorney general, who referred the case to Marino's office.

          Marino, whose jurisdiction includes Cleveland, said a draft of
the clinic's proposal revealed what the doctors really wanted. "The
ultimate motive for declaring death comes into play -- to harvest
organs," he said. He provided the manuscript of the medical paper, which
said the proposed program in Cleveland "may cross the line between
permitting and inducing death."

Marino said he would insist that his office approve any protocols before
the clinic tried to take organs from donors whose hearts had stopped
beating.

 Dr. Waithe said she could not comment in detail because she had signed
an exclusivity agreement with the CBS News program "60 Minutes,"
which is to broadcast a report on the dispute Sunday night. But she said
she thought that the doctors at the clinic would be murdering patients
to get their organs. The patients were about to die, Dr. Waithe said,
but "suppose your mother was dying of breast cancer and you knew she was
going to die soon but you didn't know when." And then, she said,
suppose that "you put a pillow over her face," and so hastened her
death. With the use of regitine, she said, "that is exactly what this
is."

          The head of the ethics department at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr.
George  Agich, and his recently retired predecessor, Dr. George Canoti,
said they were outraged that Ms. Bargholt and Dr. Waithe had never
spoken to them about their concerns and had never told them that they
were providing documents to the county prosecutor.

Canoti said, "I'm the first to say that if we did something bad we
should own up to it." But, he added, "I can't see any major ethical
problems" with the proposal. No one was planning to to kill patients or
accelerate their deaths to get organs, he said.

Agich said that "the clinic has been very baffled" and that the
criticisms "are now tarnishing the whole organ procurement program and
the donation effort."

But would the drugs have hastened the deaths of patients? And, if so,
are doctors who use them essentially killing patients to get their
organs?

Dr. Michael DeVita, an expert in critical-care medicine and the chairman
of the ethics committee at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center,
says regitine does lower blood pressure and so, he said, "it can
certainly hasten death."

When doctors take dying patients off of life supports, DeVita said, they
can "use medicines for the patient's comfort that may as a consequence
also hasten death." But, he said, "drugs given exclusively to hasten
death nd not for a patient's comfort are considered active euthanasia."
Regitine could fall into that category, he said. So, he added, "that's
specifically why we don't use it at Pittsburgh."

But Dr. Hans Sollinger, the chairman of the division of transplantation
at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and the president of
the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, vehemently disagrees. In
recent years, Dr. Sollinger said he had taken organs from 12 donors
whose hearts had stopped beating, giving them regitine and heparin. He
also said he had given drugs to the thousands of brain-dead patients to
preserve their donated organs. And yet, he said, "we have never seen a
significant drop in blood pressure and I have, in thousands of cases,
never seen a cardiac arrest, never seen a significant cardiac
arrhythmia."

Dr. Norman Fost, the director of the ethics program at the University of
Wisconsin and a visiting professor this year at Princeton University,
said it was "flat-out wrong" to say the drugs speed death.

"The immediate cause of death is the removal of ventilator support,"
Fost said. The donors in question are not brain dead, he said, since "it
takes the brain a day or two to be completely dead."

But he said death "is a philosophical, a legal, a religious concept,"
not a medical concept. In medicine, Fost said, a patient is dead when a
licensed doctor declares the patient dead. In Wisconsin, with organ
donors whose hearts have stopped, that moment is defined as five
minutes after the heart stops. In other medical centers, it is two
minutes or three minutes or, sometimes, six minutes after there is no
heart beat.

But such definitions, according to some ethicists, are part of the
problem. Dr. Spielman, the ethicist at Southern Illinois University,
said her survey showed that there was no uniformity in hospitals'
policies for such donors. Some hospitals, she said, did not even have a
policy.

Dr. Arthur Caplan, the director of the Center for Bioethics at the
University of Pennsylvania, described the situation this way: "There's a
real danger here. If you scare people about fuzzing the line between
life and death, if you frighten people into thinking that doctors kill
patients to obtain organs, you will devastate the system. The whole
system depends on altruism, and altruism depends on clear standards that
everyone agrees to. You can't innovate in this area, institution by
institution, doctor by doctor."

Already, said Debbie May-Johnson, a spokeswoman for Life Banc, the
Cleveland area's organ depository, news reports about the controversy
appears to be having devastating effects. Normally, there are three
organ donations every four days in the area. But since The Cleveland
Plain Dealer reported the accusations by Marino on April 3, there has
been a single donation, and it came on Friday.

============================================================

The fact that transplant surgeries and follow up care may bring in more
than $100,000 each is never mentioned in the utterances of bioethicist
and the reporting of the science writers.  Is it too far fetched to
raise the specter that eagerness over netting a sizeable sum of money
may tempt the hospital staff to bend the rules?

In all other areas of human endeavor, the matter of conflict of interest
would be raised - but as we all now, scientist and doctors are above
such things - aren't they?

Andy
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 16:30:22 -0400
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (US) Tourism endangers Thailand's turtles
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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from CNN web page:
------------------------------
                     Tourism endangers Thailand's turtles

                     April 13, 1997
                    Web posted at: 2:09 p.m. EDT (1809 GMT)

                     PHUKET, Thailand (Reuter) -- The beaches of Phuket
                     in Thailand have become one of the most popular
                     tourist destinations in the region, but the island
                     is paying a price for its popularity. The
                     intrusion is causing the island's wild turtles,
                     which have for so long been a feature of the area,
                     to disappear.

                      Many young turtles are unable
                                         to make the arduous journey
                     from their hatchery in the sand dunes to the sea.
                     It may only be a few meters, but many of them
                     never survive that journey -- they are picked off
                     by birds before they enter the water.

                     Of those that do make it, there are hungry schools
                     of fish waiting in the shallows for the chance to
                     plunder. Phuket was once one of the most popular
                     places for turtles to lay their eggs. But now, the
                     crowds of beach-goers seem to have changed that.
                     The local turtle population has dwindled by 90
                     percent.

                     Phuket's Marine Biological
                     Center is trying to turn the
                     tide. Phensri Boonrueng oversees a local operation
                     that releases young turtles into the sea each
                     year. He says the operation reduces the chances of
                     the turtles perishing before they even reach their
                     natural habitat.

                     Even then, the odds for survival are apparently
                     very low; Boonrueng puts it at about 1 percent.

                     The pressures of fishing and pollution from
                     tourist resorts have compounded the problem.
                     Environmentalists fear that the turtles could
                     become extinct if there are no comprehensive
                     measures taken to protect them.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 17:44:05 -0400
>From: Vegetarian Resource Center <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Yellowstone Bison Herd Cut in Half Over Winter
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April 13, 1997


Yellowstone Bison Herd Cut in Half Over Winter



By JAMES BROOKE

GARDINER, Mont. -- As spring unfolds across Yellowstone
National Park, biologists calculate that less than half of the
park's bison survived the herd's worst winter since 1902, the
year that Congress ordered Yellowstone to rescue bison from
extinction.

With ice like concrete covering winter forage, about 850 of the
shaggy giants starved or froze to death in the park. An
additional 1,080 lumbered out of the park, to be shot by
Montana officials worried that the bison could spread disease to
cattle.

"Got to kill the buffalo for the holy cow," chanted members of the
Bison Action Group at a recent protest in Bozeman. "Got to
shoot the buffalo, pow, pow, pow."

Emotions over the shootings have run high, often trampling the
facts as thoroughly as bison stampeding across the plains.
Ranchers and the federal Agriculture Department want to make
sure cattle in states on Yellowstone's border are not
contaminated. American Indians and environmentalists say
there are alternatives to shooting the bison. And many rural
Westerners criticize the Interior Department's herd and range
manangement.

This tourist village at the park's northern entrance has become
the epicenter of the bison battles. One morning in March, as 150
American Indians and their white allies gathered in "a circle of
life" to pray for the bison, gunfire could be heard from a mile
away as Montana officials shot 14 bison approaching grazing
cattle.

Two weeks later, a woman burst into a public meeting in
Gardiner and tried to dump a 5-gallon bucket of rotting bison
innards on a panel of public officials, including Agriculture
Secretary Dan Glickman, the state's two senators, Conrad
Burns and Max Baucus, and the governor, Marc Racicot.

Park rangers have placed black mourning tape over the bison
image on their gold badges. Some environmentalists have
called for a summer tourism boycott. And a billboard in Billings
reads, "Grown in Yellowstone, slaughtered in Montana."

By contrast, Burns, a Republican, drew wild applause at a
recent meeting of the Montana Farm Forum when he referred to
Michael Finley, the park superintendent, as "this jughead we've
got running Yellowstone Park." Burns represents a state where
agriculture is the No. 1 industry and cows outnumber people
3-to-1.

Finley works for the Interior Department, an agency that features
the bison in its seal. Every year, Yellowstone is visited by about
3 million people, many of them attracted by the chance to see
bison grazing by roadways. The park has received thousands of
letters and telephone calls in recent months from people
concerned about the fate of the bison.

Two factors have brought about the current situation:
overpopulation of bison in the park, and the park's status as the
last major reservoir in the United States of brucellosis, a
disease that crops up in humans as undulant fever.

While some environmentalists portray Yellowstone's herd as the
last wild bison herd in the United States, it is in reality the
nation's only unmanaged herd. Hunting keeps in check the
nation's two other wild -- or unfenced -- bison herds, one in
Alaska and one in Utah.

In the effort to save bison from extinction, Yellowstone officials
brought bison bulls here from Texas, plowed up native grasses
and planted hay, and, for half a century, ran a "Buffalo Ranch,"
complete with corrals and salt licks. As the bison population
grew, rangers distributed the animals around the park by truck,
castrated bulls, sold excess animals and sent some animals to
a National Park Service slaughterhouse.

In 1967, culling was stopped on the theory that "natural
regulation" -- starvation and disease -- would keep the herd in
check. Yellowstone's bison herd then increased tenfold in 30
years, hitting about 3,500 last fall.

Bison are so fecund that the national herd increases by 25 to 30
percent a year, according to the National Bison Association, a
trade group. With about 250,000 bison in the United States
today -- most are on buffalo ranches -- Yellowstone's herd of
about 1,500 accounts for less than 1 percent of the total.

Many range professionals argue that the park cannot support
more than 1,000 bison.

"If we ran our ranch and overgrazed it the way Yellowstone is
run, we would have picketers at our mailbox," said Wally
McRae, a cattle rancher who is spokesman for a Montana
environmental group, the Northern Plains Resources Council.

Indeed, other Western parks with bison herds routinely reduce
their numbers through hunting or fall auctions. Last year, Custer
State Park in South Dakota covered one-third of its annual
operating expenses by holding a bison auction that netted
$665,000.

If free of brucellosis, the roughly 2,000 bison that have died
around Yellowstone since January could have fetched at least
$2 million at auctions.

Yellowstone officials say their park is too important a part of the
Rocky Mountain ecosystem to be run like a ranch. They add that
Yellowstone, almost half the size of Massachusetts and 31 times
the size of Custer State Park, is far too large to fence.

But by clinging to "natural regulation" as the best form of bison
control, Yellowstone officials ignore history. For centuries, bison
control was carried out by American Indian hunters.

"Indians were the major and most effective predator of bison in
North America," said Alston Chase, a Montana naturalist and
author of "Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of
America's First National Park." (1986)

Michael Fox, a Gros Ventre Indian and the newly elected
president of the Intertribal Bison Cooperative, agrees. His group
represents 30 American Indian tribes with buffalo herds. "They
are trying to make the park a natural system," Fox said, from the
Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana. "Well, in
the 1960s, they removed the presence of man that had been the
natural regulator for thousands of years. That's when everything
got out of whack."

Shoshone Indians, the Wyoming descendants of the tribe that
hunted in Yellowstone in the 1800s, have proposed renewing
traditional bison hunts to control the park population. Park
officials have declined, citing rules that limit hunting to problem
grizzly bears.

Although 41 bison were accidentally killed by Montana motorists
this winter, the annual spillover of Yellowstone bison seeking
winter range would probably have been ignored if about 10
percent of the herd did not carry brucellosis.

In animals, the disease causes spontaneous abortions. Some
scientists believe cattle could acquire the disease by licking or
sniffing the afterbirth of such an abortion from an infected bison
cow.

Humans, in turn, generally acquire undulant fever by drinking
milk. Generally a lifelong affliction, undulant fever causes
stiffness of joints, similar to a recurring flu.

Brucellosis, which once cost American stock growers about
$300 million a year in lost calves and milk, now infects fewer
than 30 cattle herds, costing ranchers about $1 million a year in
losses. Today, the Agriculture Department certifies 36 states as
brucellosis free, including the three states of Yellowstone Park --
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

With brucellosis infecting Yellowstone's elk, moose and grizzly
bears as well as its bison, the department has threatened to
withdraw certification from the three states. In recent weeks,
Alabama, Colorado, Oregon and Texas have threatened to
demand blood tests and quarantines for cattle from the
Yellowstone border states.

Among Montana ranchers, the fear is real. "The buffalo just blast
through the fences," said Wade Peck, who runs about 500 head
of cattle on Royal Teton Ranch, only four miles north of the park.
"Who is going to want to buy bulls who have been exposed to
brucellosis?"

Although dairy cows at Yellowstone's "Buffalo Ranch" probably
first infected park bison with brucellosis around 1915, park
officials say they do not know if bison can transmit brucellosis
back to cows.

Of the disease in Yellowstone animals, John D. Varley, the
park's lead biologist, said, "You can't clean up one species, like
bison, and then put them back and expect them to be disease
free."

Believing that there is no short-term solution to the problem, the
Interior Department has chosen to finance research on a
vaccine and to pay for the continuation of an environmental
impact study.

American Indian tribes have come up with a pragmatic proposal
to treat the symptom, if not the cause.

Fox, of the Intertribal Bison Cooperative, proposes building a $2
million quarantine center on land at Fort Belknap to hold all
bison that test negative for brucellosis after capture outside of
Yellowstone. To avoid any possible contamination of tribal
cattle, 1,280 acres would be encircled by two 8-foot high
game-proof fences and a third fence, of barbed wire.

"All the government agencies involved are going to spend a
ridiculous amount of money, anyhow, doing nothing," Fox said.
Noting the signs of spring here, he added, "We are hoping to
get in on the Montana construction season -- instead of waiting
until everybody starts screaming again next winter."

Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:34:28 -0500 (CDT)
>From: [e-mail] (Barbara Stagno)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: World Week at Rockefeller U.
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

WORLD WEEK FOR ANIMALS IN LABORATORIES
DEMONSTRATION AND CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

Wednesday, April 23,
4:30 to 6:45 pm
Rockefeller University
66th Street and York Ave.
New York City, NY

Speakers:
Peter Wood, PETA
Dr Ray Greek, PCRM & MRMC
Dr. Peggy Larson, DVM
Cleveland Amory, FFA
and others

One year ago, In Defense of Animals initiated a campaign to expose
Rockefeller University vivisectors Alan D. Miller and Victor J. Wilson,
whose invasive cat-brain experiments have gone on ad infinitum at a
cost of millions of dollars and hundreds of animal lives.

IDA's campaign has been very successful in focusing the spotlight on
these hideous experiments, and forcing the university to acknowledge
the public's disapproval of this institutionalized animal cruelty and
misuse of tax dollars. Since September, 1996, we have held weekly
protests outside the university each Friday afternoon.

IDA recently learned that Victor Wilson is scheduled to retire. We are
awaiting the university's decision as to the future of Miller's
research at ROckefeller University. If Miller is permitted to continue
these experiments, Wilson's retirement will have little impact, since
the same experiments will continue under MIller.

IT IS MORE CRUCIAL THAN EVER BEFORE THAT WE PUT PRESSURE ON THE
UNIVERSITY TO ELIMINATE MILLER FROM THE FACULTY AND PERMANENTLY
END THE
BRAIN-MAPPING EXPERIMENTS ON CATS.

Please, everyone, make an attempt to be there on the 23rd. Even if you
must come late, it will be worthwhile. Most speakers won't start until
5 pm.

Unseen they suffer
Unheard they cry
In agony they linger
In loneliness they die.

Let their cries be heard!!

For more information:
[phone]   or
[phone]
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 21:56:39 -0400
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (CH) Japanese Peacocks Grace U.N. Lawns
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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from AP Wire page:
-----------------------------
 04/11/1997 15:40 EST

 Japanese Peacocks Grace U.N. Lawns

 By ERICA BULMAN
 Associated Press Writer

 GENEVA (AP) -- Devoured as treats by local foxes or squashed under diplomats'
 cars, the United Nations' resident peacocks were facing extinction until
five new
 birds arrived Friday.

 Dozens of the brightly plumed birds have graced the 62-acre park
surrounding the
 U.N. complex in Geneva ever since the land was donated to the city nearly
100 years
 ago.

 Former owner Gustave Revilliod bequeathed the land on the condition there
should
 always be peacocks living on it. When the city donated the land to the
League of
 Nations, the U.N.'s predecessor, the stipulation stood.

 The preening peacocks are a must for picture-taking tourists visiting the
vast U.N.
 complex, although the birds' screams and their abrupt landings on the U.N.
cafeteria
 terrace don't make them very popular with U.N. bureaucrats.

 The park is off-limits to dogs and all other domestic animals, but a set
of codes
 posted at all gates of the world's largest conference center warns it is
``forbidden to
 provoke the peafowl.''

 But despite its protected status, the peacock population had dwindled to a
mere
 three males, dashing hopes for any offspring.

 ``The foxes ate all the females,'' said Dario Colombo, the U.N. gardener
for the past
 28 years. ``The foxes aren't generally picky. They've been eating the
males for years.''

 Close to 50 peacocks have been killed in the past 80 years. Victims
include a prize
 specimen donated by the late Shah of Iran and a peahen offered as part of
a couple
 by Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi in 1981.

 Others had come to an undignified end in the U.N. parking lot, Colombo said.

 The five new birds, which landed at Geneva airport Friday, were a gift
from Japan's
 privately owned Izu National History Park. If offered to help after
reading reports last
 November about the U.N. plight.

 The new arrivals -- one male and four females -- will be quarantined in a
cage in the
 park for four weeks before being released.
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 22:04:38 -0400
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (BR) Cats in Court to Protect Brazil Pad
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

(one Brazil court ruled that animals have no legal rights)
from AP Wire page:
--------------------------
04/11/1997 18:58 EST

 Cats in Court to Protect Brazil Pad

 SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Cats may have the luxury of nine lives, but do
they have the
 right to live them in a posh penthouse?

 In the weeks to come, five judges of Brazil's Superior Justice Tribunal
must decide
 whether three of them can continue to romp around the 5,800-square-foot
apartment
 bequeathed to them by their late owner.

 When Luci Carmen Bianchi died in 1995, her will stipulated that her cats
Puppy,
 Laika and Branquinho have all the creature comforts they were accustomed
to while
 she was alive -- including her apartment in Porto Alegre, 700 miles south
of Sao
 Paulo.

 A local court sided with disgruntled family members who challenged the
will, saying
 ``animals do not have legal rights or obligations.'' But Mrs. Bianchi's
brother,
 Altamiro, was on the cats' side. He appealed.

 ``All I want is for my sister's will to be respected, at least while the
animals are still
 alive,'' he said in a telephone interview Friday.

 The court said no date had been set for the case to be heard.

 In the meantime, the cats are living with Altamiro.
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 22:15:36 -0400
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (CA-US)B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

"hunting" whales
from AP Wire page:
----------------------------
B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again

 SEATTLE (AP) -- Commercial whalers in Japan and Norway are getting behind a
 group of British Columbia Indians and other indigenous groups as part of a
 worldwide effort to revive whaling.

 Leaders of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Indians told The Seattle Times they plan to
hunt gray
 whales off the west coast of Vancouver Island for the first time in 70
years.

 ``It is our intention to go whaling again,'' said Tom Happynook, a chief
of Huu-ay-aht
 Nation, one of 14 native nations that make up the Nuu-Chah-Nulth. ``We
want to
 bring back respect to the whaling people and whaling countries.''

 The proposed hunt -- which could take place as early as next fall -- is
allied with
 efforts by commercial whalers in Japan and Norway who hope to promote what
they
 call ``community-based whaling'' among indigenous people for cultural,
dietary or
 economic reasons.

 In Washington state, the Makah Indians are waiting for permission for a
similar hunt
 from an international commission that meets in October.

 Gray whales usually swim past Vancouver Island in April or May, heading north
 toward the Arctic Ocean, then return in September or October on their way
to Mexico.

 In its initial hunt, Happynook said Indian whalers would likely kill one
gray whale,
 dividing the meat and blubber among tribal members, and selling the bones to
 artists or others.

 The Nuu-Chah-Nulth people have not ruled out eventually engaging in
commercial
 whaling, Happynook said.

 Environmentalists and animal-rights activists, who promised a protest,
fear the
 Japanese and Norwegian whalers are using the aboriginal approach as a
stalking
 horse for reviving commercial whaling worldwide.

 ``There is a surprising amount of pressure to increase whaling around the
world that
 I never would have expected,'' said Jim Darling, a biologist who heads the
West
 Coast Whale Research Association in Torfino, British Columbia.

 ``The precedent of starting these local coastal whaling operations is a
good way to
 accomplish that.''

 Tribes like the Inupiat of Alaska, Greenland Eskimos and the Makah say their
 traditional dependence on the giant mammals warrants them an exemption from a
 worldwide ban on whale-killing. But whalers from Japan and Norway argue
that they,
 too, have hunted whales for generations and are deserving of ``aboriginal
status.''

 Japanese and Norwegian whaling interests have joined with aboriginal
groups to
 form the World Council of Whalers. Last month the group opened an office
in Port
 Alberni on Vancouver Island with Happynook as the council chairman, the Times
 reported in Sunday's editions.

 The group has plans to promote aboriginal whaling in Russia, Indonesia and
the
 tiny Caribbean island of St. Vincent, as well as among the Indians of
Vancouver
 Island, Happynook said.

 ``This new organization will provide an informed, international voice in
support of
 communities engaged or interested in sustainable whaling, as well as
working to
 protect whalers' livelihoods, health and cultural integrity,'' the group
said.

 Leaders of the Makah Tribe at Neah Bay say they have rejected offers of
support from
 Japan.

 ``Japan wanted to give us money, to help us buy boats, to show us how to
kill the
 whales, everything,'' said Ben Johnson, president of the Makah Whaling
 Commission. ``We said no because we knew it would be very controversial,
and we
 want to do everything by the book.''

 The Clinton administration has promised to support the Makah whale-hunt
when the
 39-nation International Whaling Commission meets in Monaco in October.

 But that support would evaporate if the Makah decided to sell the whale
meat or
 affiliate with large-scale commercial whalers, according to past
statements of
 James Baker, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
 and head of the U.S. whaling delegation.

 The arguments that Japanese and Norwegian whalers deserve aboriginal status
 have been ignored because both countries sanction a commercial whale
industry,
 said Scott Smullen, Baker's spokesman.

 Commercial whaling is largely blamed for driving many whale species to the
brink of
 extinction at the turn of the century.

 The Nuu-Chah-Nulth have been asserting their traditional whaling rights in
 negotiations with the Canadian government over sovereignty and fishing
rights.

 Canada is not a member of the international whaling body, but its
government would
 not permit Canadian Indians to hunt whales except for ``food or social or
ceremonial
 purposes,'' said Diane Lake, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of
 Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver.
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 22:52:21 -0400 (EDT)
>From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>


---------------------
Forwarded message:
 >From:[e-mail]
Date: 97-04-13 18:48:31 EDT

<HTML><PRE><I>.c The Associated Press</I></PRE></HTML>

      SEATTLE (AP) - Commercial whalers in Japan and Norway are
getting behind a group of British Columbia Indians and other
indigenous groups as part of a worldwide effort to revive whaling.
      Leaders of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Indians told The Seattle Times
they plan to hunt gray whales off the west coast of Vancouver
Island for the first time in 70 years.
      ``It is our intention to go whaling again,'' said Tom Happynook,
a chief of Huu-ay-aht Nation, one of 14 native nations that make up
the Nuu-Chah-Nulth. ``We want to bring back respect to the whaling
people and whaling countries.''
      The proposed hunt - which could take place as early as next fall
- is allied with efforts by commercial whalers in Japan and Norway
who hope to promote what they call ``community-based whaling''
among indigenous people for cultural, dietary or economic reasons.
      In Washington state, the Makah Indians are waiting for
permission for a similar hunt from an international commission that
meets in October.
      Gray whales usually swim past Vancouver Island in April or May,
heading north toward the Arctic Ocean, then return in September or
October on their way to Mexico.
      In its initial hunt, Happynook said Indian whalers would likely
kill one gray whale, dividing the meat and blubber among tribal
members, and selling the bones to artists or others.
      The Nuu-Chah-Nulth people have not ruled out eventually engaging
in commercial whaling, Happynook said.
      Environmentalists and animal-rights activists, who promised a
protest, fear the Japanese and Norwegian whalers are using the
aboriginal approach as a stalking horse for reviving commercial
whaling worldwide.
      ``There is a surprising amount of pressure to increase whaling
around the world that I never would have expected,'' said Jim
Darling, a biologist who heads the West Coast Whale Research
Association in Torfino, British Columbia.
      ``The precedent of starting these local coastal whaling
operations is a good way to accomplish that.''
      Tribes like the Inupiat of Alaska, Greenland Eskimos and the
Makah say their traditional dependence on the giant mammals
warrants them an exemption from a worldwide ban on whale-killing.
But whalers from Japan and Norway argue that they, too, have hunted
whales for generations and are deserving of ``aboriginal status.''
      Japanese and Norwegian whaling interests have joined with
aboriginal groups to form the World Council of Whalers. Last month
the group opened an office in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island with
Happynook as the council chairman, the Times reported in Sunday's
editions.
      The group has plans to promote aboriginal whaling in Russia,
Indonesia and the tiny Caribbean island of St. Vincent, as well as
among the Indians of Vancouver Island, Happynook said.
      ``This new organization will provide an informed, international
voice in support of communities engaged or interested in
sustainable whaling, as well as working to protect whalers'
livelihoods, health and cultural integrity,'' the group said.
      Leaders of the Makah Tribe at Neah Bay say they have rejected
offers of support from Japan.
      ``Japan wanted to give us money, to help us buy boats, to show
us how to kill the whales, everything,'' said Ben Johnson,
president of the Makah Whaling Commission. ``We said no because we
knew it would be very controversial, and we want to do everything
by the book.''
      The Clinton administration has promised to support the Makah
whale-hunt when the 39-nation International Whaling Commission
meets in Monaco in October.
      But that support would evaporate if the Makah decided to sell
the whale meat or affiliate with large-scale commercial whalers,
according to past statements of James Baker, administrator of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and head of the
U.S. whaling delegation.
      The arguments that Japanese and Norwegian whalers deserve
aboriginal status have been ignored because both countries sanction
a commercial whale industry, said Scott Smullen, Baker's spokesman.
      Commercial whaling is largely blamed for driving many whale
species to the brink of extinction at the turn of the century.
      The Nuu-Chah-Nulth have been asserting their traditional whaling
rights in negotiations with the Canadian government over
sovereignty and fishing rights.
      Canada is not a member of the international whaling body, but
its government would not permit Canadian Indians to hunt whales
except for ``food or social or ceremonial purposes,'' said Diane
Lake, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Fisheries and
Oceans in Vancouver.
      AP-NY-04-13-97 1845EDT
      <HTML><PRE><I><FONT COLOR="#000000 SIZE=2>Copyright 1997 The Associated
Press.  The information
contained in the AP news report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without
prior written authority of The Associated Press.<FONT COLOR="#000000
SIZE=3></I></PRE></HTML>


To edit your profile, go to keyword NewsProfiles.
For all of today's news, go to keyword News.

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:35:47 +0800
>From: jwed <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (CHINA) "Wise-users" gain influence
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

China Daily
Date: 04/14/97
Author: Cao Min


WWF aids nation's wildlife

THE Ministry of Forestry plans to expand the range of co-operative projects
with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) in the field of nature
conservation, especially protecting China's biodiversity.

At an opening ceremony at WWF's China Programme Office over the weekend,
Vice-Minister of Forestry Liu Yuhe said China will strengthen bilateral and
multilateral co-operation with all organizations and institutions including
WWF International.

"The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the development of the
natural environment and takes environmental conservation as a basic State
policy," Liu said.

The country took the lead in the world in formulating a national agenda for
the 21st century and other actions plans.

Liu added that as a developing country with 1.2 billion people, China is
still facing great challenges, one of which is the shortage of funds and
technology.

Since 1979, WWF started its fruitful co-operation with China, such as giant
panda protection, conservation and wise use of wetlands, and conservation
and wise utilization of tropical rain forests.

The two sides have also signed two five-year co-operation frameworks since
1990, Liu said.

At the meeting, Director-General of WWF International Claude Martin said
that China's development paths is of great importance not only to its
citizens but also to the rest of the world.

"How China chooses to use its natural resources including land, forests and
water will determine the sustainability of China's economic miracle," said
Martin.

China is the only temperate nation which ranks as one of the world's
"megadiversity" countries. Its diversity of biological resources matches
those of tropical nations like Brazil and Indonesia, Martin said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------





Every child has the right to a healthy diet - that means no meat.

http://www.earth.org.hk/



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