Nano Toxicity Risk Merit Attention

Developing countries overlook the potential risks of nanoparticles and structures like carbon nanotubes

Developing countries forging ahead with nanotechnology need regulation and research into local risk patterns, say Alok Dhawan and Vyom Sharma.

Nanotechnology, the science of manipulating tiny particles less than 100 nanometers in diameter, has found many applications in consumer products, biomedical devices, drug delivery agents and the industrial sector.

In the consumer sector alone, more than 30 countries are manufacturing some 1,300 nanotech-based products, including textiles, food packaging, cosmetics, luggage, children's toys, floor cleaners and wound dressings. The number of such products has increased five-fold in the last five years.

But this rapid growth has also raised concerns about the potential for adverse effects on human health and the environment. Although research on harm remains inconclusive, developing countries that embrace nanotechnology should not overlook possible risks and must regulate products that contain nanoparticles.

Special properties, possible harm

Their small size gives nanoparticles some unusual physical properties, as they have a larger ratio of surface area to volume than bigger particles. This can also make them biologically more active. For example, when gold, usually an inert material, is converted to a nano-form, it acts as a catalyst for chemical reactions owing to high surface reactivity.

This suggests that nanoparticles may interact differently with biological systems, compared with larger particles, and could reach further into the body.

People can be exposed to nanoparticles either directly, such as through nano-based drugs and topically applied cosmetics or sunscreens, or indirectly, for example by inhalation during synthesis of nanoparticles.

A number of studies have documented in vitro and in vivo toxicity of exposure to nanoparticles. Evidence suggests they can induce DNA damage, reactive oxygen species, damage to cellular organelles and cell death.

And a study published in the European Respiratory Journal in 2009 claimed that seven Chinese workers developed severe lung damage after inhaling polyacrylate nanoparticles produced in their printing factory — the first time that a link was made between exposure to nanoparticles and human illness. [1]
Risk on the agenda…

There is currently no mandatory consumer labelling of nanomaterials as potentially hazardous in any country. But governments and scientific bodies in the developed world — including the Royal Society, United Kingdom, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — are taking note of the potential hazards and have set up committees to formulate risk assessment guidelines.

For example, under existing regulations, the EPA is proposing rules requiring those that manufacture, import or process two chemical substances — multi-walled and single-walled carbon nanotubes — to submit a notice with information that would help it monitor health or environmental risks.

Similarly, washing machines using silver nanoparticles at the end of the wash cycle are being evaluated by the US government for their environmental safety. In 2005, concerns about toxic effects on microbe populations prompted the temporary withdrawal of a washing machine using silver nanoparticles in Sweden.

The US EPA has already decided to regulate products containing silver nanoparticles, which are used widely in consumer products and have anti-bacterial properties.
…while developing countries lack guidance

But developing countries still lack awareness of the potential hazards of nano-based consumer products, and only a few guidance documents are available in the public domain.

A company in India already claims to be the world's largest manufacturer of nanotech-based fabrics. Many other companies that synthesise nanoparticles — for use in cosmetics, for example, or water filtration devices — are emerging in countries such as China and India.

Framing regulations and guidelines for the synthesis, use and disposal of nanomaterials is of great importance for the responsible development of nanotechnology in developing nations. International organisations and developed nations can assist them by sharing scientific data and technologies for assessing environmental and health safety.

And to control occupational exposures, the regulatory framework should include mandatory documentation of the nanomaterials developed and personnel involved, and training workers to take precautions.

Our institute, the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, has recently published guidance on the safe handling of nanomaterials in research laboratories, a step in the right direction. [2]
Implications, not just applications

But the vast majority of government funding in developing nations is spent on research into the applications, rather than the implications, of nanotechnology.
For example, out of more than 200 research projects funded during 2001–10 by the Department of Science and Technology in India under its flagship Nano Mission programme, only one was directly related to nanoparticle toxicity studies (and was awarded to our institute).

As a result, scientists may fail to identify any impacts of nanotechnology that are specific to populations or the use of a product in poor countries — patterns of environmental distribution and exposure could be different in developing nations.
Current research on nanotoxicity does not take into account how different local environments and populations can influence risk. People in developing countries may be more prone to adverse effects of nanoparticles because of underlying health conditions and malnutrition. Moreover, genetic susceptibility to toxic effects varies in diverse ethnic groups and geographical areas.

The scientific community needs to identify these information gaps before developing regulations and standard methodologies for nanotoxicity assessment.
Alok Dhawan is principal scientist and Vyom Sharma is a senior research fellow at the Nanomaterial Toxicology Group, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, India.

References
[1] Song, Y. et al. Exposure to nanoparticles is related to pleural effusion, pulmonary fibrosis and granuloma. European Respiratory Journal 34, 559–567 (2009)
[2] Dhawan, A. et al. Guidance for safe handling of nanomaterials.Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology 7, 218–224 (2011)

Alok Dhawan and Vyom Sharma

25 August 2011

http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/opinions/address-risk-of-nanotech-toxicity-1.html?

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NHRC notice on unethical drug trials on Bhopal gas victims

NHRC issues notices to the Centre and the Madhya Pradesh Government on allegations of unethical drug trials on Bhopal gas victims

The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC has taken cognizance of a complaint referring to a news web link alleging that on pretext of medical treatment, the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre has carried out unethical clinical trials on Bhopal gas victims resulting in death of many persons.

Allegedly, the multi-specialty hospital was setup for treatment of gas victims, but it conducted unethical drug trials in them. 215 out of 279 patients on whom unethical drug trials were conducted comprised Bhopal gas victims.

On consideration of the complaint, the Commission has issued notices to the Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India and Chief Secretary, Government of Madhya Pradesh calling for their reports in the matter within four weeks.

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What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know About Capitalism

Interview conducted by Scott Bochert


Fred Magdoff is co-author, with John Bellamy Foster, of the recently released What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment . He is professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont. Scott Borchert works for Monthly Review Press.

What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism is a short, accessible introduction to the ecological crisis that is intended for a wide audience — why did you decide to write a book like this, and why now?

In the fall of 2008 I attended a conference where discussion of the environment was prominent, although not the only subject. As people talked about the variety of problems facing the earth and humanity I had the feeling that they were constantly “beating around the bush.” So when it was my time to talk, I discarded my notes dealing with ecology and agriculture, and said that I thought a central issue was being ignored. I explained that I was going to speak about “the bush” that I thought everyone was beating around — that is, the capitalist system and how in its very essence it is destructive of the environment.

This approach was a real stumbling block for most people there. They were very interesting and innovative people — many would be considered “out of the box” thinkers. But, I realized that they, and those in the environmental movement in general, were unable to think outside of capitalism. It appears inconceivable to most of the people I spoke with that somehow there might be a future economic system that wasn't capitalist.

It seemed to me that this was the critical issue. I thought that, if they fully understood the role of the normal workings of the capitalist system in causing environmental havoc, people with such great concern for the environment might begin to understand that another social/economic/political system is not just possible, but essential.

Most people will agree that we're facing a number of environmental problems, from climate change to ocean acidification to species extinction, but how serious is the situation, really?

The world's environmental problems rise to the level of a major crisis. This is certainly the most devastating crisis that has been faced by the world's people. There is so much damage being done to essentially all aspects of the environment that local, regional, and global ecosystems are being degraded. We are already seeing severe effects of climate change, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, soil erosion, and so on.

Just to give a few examples: extreme weather events have occurred with greater frequency; yields of a number of crops have been decreased by high temperature, droughts, and floods; the drinking water for many people is contaminated with pesticides and high nitrate levels; people have had to move because of melting permafrost in the far north and the melting of glaciers that once provided reliable water in the dry season. As the ocean level rises, low-lying coastal agricultural land is becoming contaminated with salt — this is already occurring in regions such as Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

When all of the effects of environmental degradation are added together, the only conclusion one can come to is that the earth's systems that support our existence as well as that of many other species are threatened. Millions of people are already suffering various effects of environmental degradation.

What are some of the proposed solutions to dealing with the ecological crisis, and why do you argue that they are insufficient?

There is no shortage of ideas about what to do — live more simply, purchase “green” products, purchase carbon credits to offset the global warming effects of an airplane trip, blast the atmosphere with particles to reflect sunlight, develop systems for taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it deep underground, impose a tax on all fossil fuels (a carbon tax), etc.

Some of these make more sense than others. Others have unknown consequences. However, they all give the illusion that it is possible to solve the ecological crisis without confronting capitalism as a system. And it is capitalism's necessity to grow the economy forever and the single overriding goal of obtaining more and more profits that are at the heart of the environmental problems we face.

Why should the environmental movement be concerned with economic issues at all?

The big question — that environmentalists usually don't ask — is why all of these assaults on the global ecosystem are happening. They are usually concerned with one issue or another, global warming, chemical pollution, soil degradation, etc. But why are they all occurring? Without digging into how the economic system actually functions in the real world (not theoretically), it isn't possible to answer the question.

There are some environmentalists that are concerned with economic issues. In fact, there are professors who consider themselves “ecological economists,” and there is even an institute of ecological economics. But these people, some of whom are very creative thinkers, are concerned with putting a price on what they call “ecological services” — such as the role wetlands play in cleaning runoff water and providing habitat for wildlife — and suggesting ways that might make certain processes or products with less damage to the environment.

But they have no real critique of the system itself and there is no consideration given to alternative ways to organize and run an economy.

What is the general attitude of the environmentalist movement toward your view, i.e. a systemic, anti-capitalist point of view? Have attitudes been changing in recent years?

Over the last decade there are increasing numbers of environmentalists who do understand that capitalism is the critical issue. This is certainly a major step forward. However, most of these people call for what is essentially tinkering with the system — better regulations, more government support for alternatives to fossil fuel energy, trying to factor in the costs of damage done to the environment into the prices of products — while keeping the essence of capitalism intact.

Why not try to reform capitalism along “green” or “sustainable” lines, or aim for a “zero growth” economy?

Truly “green” or “sustainable capitalism” is an oxymoron. The very heart of the system — production of goods and services to make profits, which propels growth — excludes the possibility of capitalism being anything other than a system that has environmental destruction as a by-product.

Of course, it's possible to have such things as better environmental regulations and use of fewer toxic chemicals. We now have sewage treatment plants to treat the waste of cities and the rivers are therefore cleaner.

But the need to grow — to produce and sell more and more stuff while recognizing no boundaries — and having profits as the driving force and overwhelming goal of production means the system will always be environmentally destructive.

Zero growth is an economic disaster in a capitalist economy. At this time (August 2011), the United States economy has been growing for more than two years since the official end of the Great Recession. But it's growing too slowly to provide enough jobs to re-employ the fired workers and get anywhere near full employment.

We have some 28 million people either unemployed (14 million), underemployed, or so discouraged that they have stopped looking for work (another 14 million between them). Sustained high rates of economic growth are needed to get anywhere near what might be considered full employment.

The only way that zero economic growth can be consistent with satisfying people's basic needs — physical and non-physical — is to have a different economic/social system in which production is done only for the purpose of providing these needs to the population instead of production for the purpose of selling stuff (regardless of its social value) and perpetually making profits.

Who are the kinds of people you hope will read this book, and what effect do you hope it will have?

Our hope is that this book will have an impact on people who already understand how serious the environmental problems are for humans as well as many other species. These people don't need to be convinced about the environmental disaster — although there is enough information in the book to bring a deeper understanding of the issues to all who read it — but rather need to grasp how what is happening is connected to the basic way our economic system functions. It's not an aberration — but rather a natural outcome.

You're also the co-author of The ABCS of the Economic Crisis (with Michael D. Yates), which is a short introduction to the causes of the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession – what is the relationship between that book and this new one?

Both books are aimed at a general audience and written to be accessible to everyone interested in these subjects. Both are also in the tradition of Monthly Review magazine as well as Monthly Review Press books — they try to get to the root of issues. This means putting events into context to help people understand not only what problems or issues are occurring, but, more importantly, why they occurring and what might be done about them.

How are movements and governments in other countries responding to the ecological crisis, compared to in the United States? What can people in the U.S. and other core capitalist countries do?

There is a huge amount of activity around the world over concern with, and how to improve, the environment. One indication of this concern was the 2010 World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in Bolivia. Some 30,000 people attended representing many countries, organizations, and indigenous groups. Many of those attending were from organizations engaged in actions around environmental justice and stopping the pillage of the earth as well as helping people cope with the consequences. One of the people I met was from the Alaska tribal council and told of helping to move an entire native Alaska village because sea level increases and melting permafrost under their village made another location necessary.

There is much that can be done now, in the U.S. and other core capitalist countries. For example, some groups are pushing for a carbon tax with money returned on an equal per capita basis. This would slow down energy use without penalizing the poor who tend to use lower amounts of energy than the wealthy — they would receive more money than the extra they pay for the tax.

Just a few days ago people were arrested outside the White House while protesting the proposed building of a pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta Canada to Texas . Recovery of oil from the tar sands is an especially damaging process.

There is no lack of organizations that are doing meaningful things to help the environment. What there is, however, is a lack of groups and a movement that understand that the environmental problems are deeply embedded in the economy and that a different way of interacting with the economy, other people, and the environment is necessary.

http://www.countercurrents.org/bochert260811.htm

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QUESTIONS ON SHEHLA MASOOD IN PARLIAMENT

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Joint Statement on Martyrdom of Shehla Masood

Joint Statement on Martyrdom of Shehla Masood (for your endorsement)

16 August, 2011

"I am proud to be an Indian.Happy Independence Day."
Shehla Masood, 15 August, 2011

Gandhi "the purpose of civil resistance is provocation". Anna has succeeded in provoking the Govt and the Opposition. Hope he wins us freedom from corruption. Meet at 2 pm Boat Club Bhopal"
Shehla Masood, 16 August, 2011 few minutes before her martyrdom

Shehla Masood, a Madhya Pradesh based civil rights and environmental rights activist was was shot dead by an unidentified person in front of her residence in Koh-e-Fiza locality in Bhopal around 11 AM on 16th August, 2011.

We the undersigned aghast at the irony that tigers, tribals, trees and civil rights and environmental rights activists are being hunted and killed in the same manner.

We demand that the possible connection between her murder and her raising the issue of illegal Diamond mining project in Chhattarpur district, Madhya Pradesh by Rio Tinto, a transnational mining company headquartered in the UK, combining Rio Tinto plc, a London and NYSE listed company, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange must be investigated along with other suspicions by a high level probe team. (Factsheet on Rio Tinto’s illegal mining activity given below)

She was active to save the watershed of the Panna Tiger Reserve and the Shyamri River, one of the cleanest in the country from Rio Tinto’s mining activity along with other activists.

We suspect that the considered timing of her elimination during the ongoing anti-corruption campaign when she was on her way to support Anna Hazare’s fast is meant to overshadow the issue of illegal Diamond mining project in Chhattarpur district, Madhya Pradesh by Rio Tinto and the political Mafiosi.

The mining block is inside a forest which is the northernmost tip of the best corridor of teak forests south of the Gangetic plain. It is an established law that mining is non-forestry activity. There is an immediate need for a probe to determine who allowed the mining to take place in such an ecologically fragile area.

The Bunder mine project, near the city of Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh, about 500 kilometres south-east of Delhi, is likely to be one of the largest diamond reserves in the world. It is estimated that there is a ''inferred resource'' of 27.4 million carats, a diamonds resource seven times richer than the Panna mine, country's only working diamond mine.

A statement dated March 22, 2011 was laid in the Parliament (Lok Sabha) on “need to review the diamond mining project in district Chhattarpur, Madhya Pradesh posing serious threat to environment in the region".

We have learnt from senior journalists that two Collectors have been transferred to facilitate the ongoing illegal mining and the fact that the new Collector has allowed mining which came to light when a PIL was filed stating that Rio Tinto has been carrying on exploitation of mineral resources in Chattarpur district violating the prescribed provisions.

Prior to the statement in the Lok Sabha, on March 10, 2011, the FOREST ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING of Ministry of Environment & Forests listed Agenda no. 6 on “ Prospecting of diamond at 143 additional locations in 2329.75 ha. forest land located in 18 compartments in Buxwaha Range in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh by M/s Rio Tinto Exploration India Private Limited. [File No. 8-49/2006-FC-(Vol.)]” to discuss it but did not do so stating, “Due to paucity of time the proposal could not be discussed during the meeting”.

We had written to the Union Environment Minister and Parliamentary Petitions Committee separately drawing its attention towards Madhya Pradesh High Court’s notices to the Centre and the state government on illegal mining of diamonds by international mining companies. The court had asked both the governments to reply in this matter within four weeks. Considering the act of illegal mining as a serious offence, a double bench of Chief Justice Sayed Rafat Alam and Justice Sushil Harkauli criticised the Forest Departments, Mining Secretaries of the state as well as the Centre and issued notices against them in addition to the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board and Chattarpur Collector.

We take cognisance of the fact that Corporate Watch, a London based group had chosen Rio Tinto to award it for its display of heinous, misguided, and altogether anti-social behaviour over the last ten years in 2010.

We take note of 'Rio Tinto: the Tainted Titan,' the Stakeholders Report, www.cfmeu.asn.au, 1997, which states "It's (Rio Tinto's) activities in some of the wildest and the most pristine places in the world and their impact on the environment of those places, the people who live there, the life-style of the indigenous people and also its corporate culture, are subjects of real concern."

We submit that Rio Tinto project is threatening unique forest resources in the area affected by the mine in Chhattarpur, MP. In this context, it may be noted that Roger Moody, a veteran journalist in his book Plunder, describes Rio Tinto's activities as ranging from "brow-beating opponents, leaning on governments and price-fixing, to violating international law, union-busting and management of one of the world's biggest commodity cartels". His book outlines numerous examples of its environmental irresponsibility.

It is germane to recollect what Sir Roderick Carnegie, as Chairman Rio Tinto-Zinc (RTZ) had said at its 1984 shareholders' meeting: "The right to land depends on the ability to defend it".

We salute the struggle and martyrdom of Shehla Masood who defended our forests, rivers, land and wildlife in the face of unscrupulous corporate assault in nexus with ruling political regimes.

Shehla Masood used to conclude her messages with a proud “Roarrrrr” that cannot be silenced by the bullets of her assailants.

Signatories

Gopal Krishna, ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA), New Delhi (krishna2777@gmail.com)
Prakash K Ray, Jawaharlal Nehru University Researchers Association (JNURA), New Delhi (pkray11@gmail.com)

Fact sheet on Rio Tinto, Chhattarpur, Madhya Pradesh

May, 2004: ACC Rio Tinto of Australia, De Beers of South Africa, BHP Minerals of Canada and the National Mineral Development Corporation are set to start survey and exploration of diamond mines in the Panna, Chhattarpur, Tikamgarh, Sagar, Angor and Majhgawan areas of the state. ACC Rio Tinto has been issued four reconnaissance permits for 10,000 sq km area in the Panna Damoh and Chhatarpur districts.

2004: Rio Tinto discovered a significant diamond deposit in Chhattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh.

2006: Rio Tinto was given the prospecting licence

17 January 2007: Bunder Project is a proposed new diamond mine , located at Janpad Panchayat Buxwaha, Tehsil Buxwaha, District, Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh. If the project is approved and proves viable, it could be the "first significant world class diamond mine in India", according to the Rio Tinto Group, who have proposed the mine. The foundation of the plant was inaugurated by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on 17 January 2007. Government accorded pollution clearance certificate by its letter no. 213/EPCO/SEIAA/08 dated 22.11.08 for DMS plant.

July 2007: Australian multinational mining company, Rio Tinto has applied for prospecting license for locating diamond area in Madhya Pradesh's Panna and Chhatarpur districts. Diamond Officer J S Solanki said Rio Tinto has discovered a 'Kimerlite Pipe Line' at Bakswaha in Chhatarpur and Amjhiria and Rampur in Panna district. The company has applied for prospecting license. After receiving no objection certificate (NOC) from the forest department, the application would be forwarded to the state government. The company would begin its work as soon as it receives permission from the government. National Mines Development Corporation (NDMC) has also started surveying the area in view of new possibilities.

23 June 2008: Rio Tinto announced on 23rd June that it had filed for a mining lease to proceed with the project. They are also waiting permission from the pollution control board for a Dense Media Separation Plant which would allow samples taken from the mine to be processed on location.

December 2008: Rio Tinto has discovered diamond deposit in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. Rio Tinto Diamond - one of the largest producers of rough diamond - has sought the mining lease from state government for running its commercial business in Chhatarpur, he added. Chhatarpur is the second district after Panna in the state where diamond deposit was discovered. They were expecting 30 million carats of diamond deposit in Chhatarpur and the state government is hopeful of getting Rs 100 crore royalty from this project's commercial production. Rio Tinto would begin mining diamonds using latest technology. Rio Tinto has put in around USD 25 million in exploring and discovering the diamond deposit. The firm was exploring diamond reserve for well over four years and eventually discovered it some months ago. Rio Tinto is the first in the last five years which has got prospecting license for diamond exploration in India.

August 2009: Virbhadra Singh, India’s Steel Minister said that National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) is exploring for diamond reserves in the Chattarpur District. "We have requested the Madhya Pradesh government to allow NMDC to explore more areas adjoining the Panna mines so that the area could emerge as a diamond hub. Moreover, Chattarpur district is also rich in diamond reserves," he said. Maintaining that this would attract investments in diamond cutting and polishing

2010: The presence of diamond deposits has been detected in Chhattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh during an aerial survey by an Australian company. "The process for granting permission for a land survey to confirm the presence of diamonds is underway". Diamonds were earlier found in Panna district, which is close to Chhattarpur. Australia's Rio Tinto Exploration Company had been carrying out aerial surveys for diamonds over the past three years in the northeastern part of the state. The central government had given permission to the Australian firm for such surveys.

31st August, 2010: The second largest mining company of the world Rio Tinto has began production of diamonds from its Bunder Diamond project at Chhatarpur district in Madhya Pradesh. "Rio Tinto has commenced production and bulk sampling at Mumbai diamond auctions," said SK Mishra, MP Mining and Mineral Secretary. The company has so far invested about Rs 250 crore and mining lease had been offered on 475 hectares. Rio Tinto was given prospecting licence for the project in 2006. The company will gradually scale up investment and will cover 5,000 hectares over a period and the investment is expected to touch Rs 2,500 crore. Madhya Pradesh's Additional Chief Secretary (Commerce, Industry and Employment), Satya Prakash said, the company will invest Rs 370 crore over the next three years. The state government has also earmarked 280 acres near Indore for a diamond park for value addition like cutting, polishing and jewellery. MP is the only diamond producing state with prospect of 1200 thousand carats of diamond reserve.

November 2010: Environmentalists and conservationists raise serious objections about the Madhya Pradesh government giving full support to global diamond giant Rio Tinto’s Indian subsidiary planning commercial mining of diamonds in an eco-sensitive zone close to the Panna tiger reserve. Tiger expert Valmik Thapar, asked about Rio Tinto’s Bunder diamond project in Chhatarpur district, a few kilometers from the Panna reserve’s western border, said: “It’s an example of a completely dysfunctional system of government from top to bottom.” He said that if Panna were to recover (the loss of all its tigers), it would need at least another 10 years of complete protection of surrounding forests and (their) connecting corridors. Asked about Rio Tinto’s plan to start commercial diamond mining in an area which is also the watershed for the Panna reserve and the Shyamri river, considered one of the cleanest in the country, Thapar said the water regime was also essential for life and no water resource should be negated by those bent on commercial exploitation of mineral resources in forest areas. Almost 99 per cent of the Bunder diamondiferous block is inside a forest which is the northernmost tip of the best corridor of teak forests south of the Gangetic plain. “It is an established law that mining is non-forestry activity — if pitting is involved, prospecting is also mining activity,” a senior state forest officer said, adding that a probe was needed to determine on what grounds clearance to prospect in this area was given in the first place.

March 10, 2011: PROCCEDINGS OF THE FOREST ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING of Ministry of Environment & Forests refer to Agenda no. 6 on “ Prospecting of diamond at 143 additional locations in 2329.75 ha. forest land located in 18 compartments in Buxwaha Range in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh by M/s Rio Tinto Exploration India Private Limited. [File No. 8-49/2006-FC-(Vol.)]” It states, “Due to paucity of time the proposal could not be discussed during the meeting”.
March 22, 2011: Jeetendra Singh Bundela, MP from Khajuraho laid a statement in Lok Sabha on “need to review the diamond mining project in district Chhattarpur, Madhya Pradesh posing serious threat to environment in the region.”

April 2011: Rio Tinto applied for a mining licence for what could be the largest diamond mine in India. The global mining giant is carrying out pre-feasibility exploration at the Bunder Mine project near Chhattarpur in Madhya Pradesh. The mine can have reserves of 27.4 million carats, making it the largest diamond find in the last 10 years in the world. The Bunder mine is likely to hold resources seven times more than Panna, the only operating diamond mine in the country. It is estimated that the grade of the Bunder reserves is 0.7 carats per tonne. Diamond traders in Delhi estimated the value of the roughs at $4-5 billion.

The grant of the licence to Rio may get delayed as environment activists have filed a case against the firm in Madhya Pradesh High Court. The company claims that it is fully compliant with all laws, including environmental norms. The domestic diamond processing industry generates revenues of more than Rs 70,000 crore annually but is facing a shortage of 30 per cent in its requirement of roughs. Rio, a Reliance Industries’ subsidiary has been prospecting for diamond in the country. The Reliance subsidiary holds a prospecting licence for about 1800 sq km spread over Rewa, Siddhi and Satna in Madhya Pradesh.

9th April, 2011: Madhya Pradesh High Court issued notices to the Centre and the state government on illegal mining of diamonds by international mining companies. The court has asked both the governments to reply in this matter within four weeks. Considering the act of illegal mining as a serious offence, a double bench of Chief Justice Sayed Rafat Alam and Justice Sushil Harkauli rapped the Forest Departments, Mining Secretaries of the state as well as the Centre and issued notices against them in addition to the MP Pollution Control Board and Chattarpur Collector. The issue of illegal diamond mining came to light when a PIL was filed by a social activist. The PIL stated that an Australian mining company, Rio Tinto, has been carrying on exploitation of mineral resources in Chattarpur district violating the prescribed provisions. The PIL said that under Section 2 of the Forest Preservation Act, permission from the Central government is required to carry on mining trade in any part of India. Other than this, a no objection certificate (NOC) from Pollution Control Board is mandatory. The counsel of the petitioner, Vipin Yadav, told the court that the Collector of Chattarpur had written a letter to the Revenue Department in this context, but no action was taken. Yadav added, “This proves that the officials of Forest and Revenue departments are working hand-in-hand and foreign companies are making profit at the cost of our country’s natural resources.”

25th July, 2011: A letter on Illegal Diamond mining project in district Chhattarpur, MP was submitted to the Parliamentary Petitions Committee by ToxicsWatch Alliance.
Subsequent to this a letter was sent to Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan by Shehla Masood on 25 July, 2011. She had also filed Right to Information application in this regard.
16 August, 2011: Shehla Masood killed in Bhopal

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Dioxins emitting waste to energy incinerators Lies Defunct in Andhra Pradesh

Press Release

Dioxins emitting waste to energy incinerator Lies Defunct in Andhra Pradesh

Cited as a Successful Example in Delhi High Court

Preliminary Fact Finding Survey Report on the Closure of 6.6 MW Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar District, Andhra Pradesh by SELCO International Ltd

New Delhi, 13/8/2011: A Fact Finding team visited the plant site of SELCO International Ltd’s Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) incineration technology based waste to energy project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar district and found the plant to be locked. This is the plant that was cited a successful example by Mr.Najmi Waziri, Delhi Government's counsel on 18th July, 2011 in the Delhi High Court in front of Chief Justice Bench to defend Delhi’s Okhla Waste to Energy plant of M/s Jindal Urban Infrastructure Limited (JUIL), a company of M/s Jindal Saw Group Limited owned by Prithviraj Jindal part of O P Jindal Group.

The security guard of the SELCO International Ltd's 6.6 MW Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar District, Andhra Pradesh informed that the plant is closed for the last three years. This fact has been verfied with the local people and a site inspection too revealed the same. The Preliminary Fact Finding Survey Report is enclosed and pasted below.

The Report's Preliminary Inference states, "On 10th August, Citizens of Vietnam remember the anniversary of the first use of nearly 80 million liters of Dioxins laced Agent Orange as chemical weapon against Vietnam from 1961 to 1971 that has wrecked havoc crippling people and causing hitherto unknown diseases for last 50 years. The Dioxins emitting waste to energy incinerators in residential and ecologically fragile areas or elsewhere tantamount to peace time use of chemical weapon against one’s own citizens and their ecosystem."

The Report's Preliminary Recommendations are as under:

· The inquiry team constituted by Delhi High Court ought to visit the 6.6 MW Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar district in Andhra Pradesh to ascertain facts for themselves along with representatives from media

· Construction of Delhi’s Waste to Energy Incinerators be stopped pending final outcome in the court else it would appear that a fait accompli has been present to the judiciary

· Contempt of Supreme Court’s Order merits immediate legal remedy

The Fact Finding Survey team comprised of K Babu Rao, former scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, Narasimha Reddy Donthi, Chief Advisor, Chetana Society, Hyderabad and Gopal Krishna, Convener, ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA), New Delhi. The final report of the Fact Finding Team will be shared shortly following the release of report of the Delhi’s waste to energy incinerators based on site visits.

For Details: K Babu Rao, former scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, (baburaokalapala@gmail.com), Narasimha Reddy Donthi, Chief Advisor, Chetana Society, Hyderabad (nreddy.donthi@gmail.com), Gopal Krishna, Convener, ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA), New Delhi, Mb: 9818089660 Web: toxicswatch.blogspot.com

Preliminary Fact Finding Survey Report on the Closure of 6.6 MW Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar District, Andhra Pradesh by SELCO International Ltd

Fact Finding Team

K Babu Rao, former scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, (baburaokalapala@gmail.com)

Narasimha Reddy Donthi, Chief Advisor, Chetana Society, Hyderabad (nreddy.donthi@gmail.com)

Gopal Krishna, Convener, ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA), New Delhi, (Krishna2777@gmail.com)

August 2011

Hyderabad/New Delhi

Closure of 6.6 MW Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar District, Andhra Pradesh by SELCO International Ltd

Site Visit Report: The Fact Finding team visited the plant site of SELCO International Ltd’s Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) incineration technology based waste to energy project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar district and found the plant to be locked. The security guard informed that the plant is closed for the last three years. A closer scrutiny revealed that the plant machinery is in an abandoned condition within the premises of the factory site and is rusting. The team verified the status of the plant from villagers passing by. It was further corroborated by a road side shop owner. One of the team members had visited the plant site on two occasions. The members of the team had testified before the Supreme Court’s Committee on Waste to Energy. Their submissions are part of the Committee’s report. The visit was undertaken on August 1, 2011.

The team also visited the 11 MW Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Project at Chinnaravulapally Village, Bibinagar Mandal, Nalgonda District, Andhra Pradesh by M/s. R.D.F power projects Ltd. This project was initially sanctioned on July 16, 2000. It was revived on February 2, 2005. It entered into a Power Purchase Agreement with TATA Power Trading Co, Mumbai. Name & Address of the Developer: Sri. J. Phani Kumar, Executive Director. M/s.RDF Power projects Ltd, 401,Galada Towers, Adjacent Lane to Pantaloons, Begumpet, Hyderabad-500 016. Phone No: 40042600 / 2700, FAX: 40032579, Cell: 9849002571. The care taker spoke to a company official on phone and did not allow the team to examine the plant. It is observed from the gate that even the civil structural work is not completed. This visit was also undertaken on August 1, 2011.

Analysis of the Closure of the SELCO International Ltd’s Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) incineration technology based waste to energy project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar district
1. Waste to Energy is non-Renewable Energy: 'Municipal solid waste is not considered to be a renewable energy source since it tends to be a mixture of fuels that can be traced back to renewable and non-renewable sources,' said Mark Radka, Chief of the Energy Branch, Division Technology, Industry and Economics for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).[1]

2. Unlearnt Lessons from Delhi’s Timarpur Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) incineration technology based waste to energy project: The White Paper on Pollution in Delhi with an Action Plan' prepared by Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. It says, "The experience of the incineration plant at Timarpur, Delhi and the briquette plant at Bombay
support the fact that thermal treatment of municipal solid waste is not feasible, in situations where the waste has a low calorific value. A critical analysis of biological treatment as an option was undertaken for processing of municipal solid waste in Delhi and it has been recommended that composting will be a viable option. Considering the large quantities of waste requiring to be processed, a mechanical composting plant will be
needed."[2] Delhi High Court order was also ignored. The court had directed the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) to conduct an inquiry into the failure of the Timarpur plant. The high court order came in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) Dr. B.L. Wadhera vs Union Of India and Others. The Court observed, “The cost of the plant amounting to Rs. 22 crores went down the drain. It is not known how much amount had been spent in contesting the arbitration proceedings in London. It is not in dispute that despite the fact that an award had been made against it, further amount had been spent towards alleged maintenance of the plant but even then no effective use thereof was made.” [3]

3. Global Scenario: At the international level India is party to the Stockholm Convention, on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which include dioxins and furans. These are largely the result of waste combustion or thermal treatment of municipal and medical wastes, especially involving chlorinated plastics such as PVC. The Convention on POPs calls for improvements in waste management with the aim of the cessation of open and other uncontrolled burning of wastes, including the burning of landfill sites. It states that "when considering proposals to construct new waste disposal facilities, consideration should be given to alternatives such as activities to minimize the generation of municipal and medical waste, including resource recovery, reuse, recycling, waste separation and promoting products that generate less waste. Under this approach, public health concerns should be carefully considered, as per Annexure C of the Convention." Annex C of the Convention refers to the Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/PCDF) and municipal waste incinerators.[4]

The United States' Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has evaluated that that incinerator emissions are the primary source of dioxin, and major sources of mercury, lead, arsenic, particulate, and other pollutants. The ash that results from burning trash is even more toxic. These effects have been recognised worldwide. Inventories of releases of such emissions, such as dioxins, heavy metals etc. have put municipal waste incinerators to be amongst the highest sources of such pollutants worldwide. Of course these are global pollutants but have drastic short term and long-term health effects. Various conventions have stated concerns about this.

4. Incineration of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) violates several international laws:
a)Kyoto Protocol: As per Annexure A of the Protocol waste incineration is a green house gas emitter, b)Stockholm Convention on POPs and the c)Recommendations of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)'s Global Assessment on Mercury. The Global Mercury Assessment Working Group recommended measures to address global adverse impacts of mercury at the global, regional, national and local levels. The options include measures such as reducing or eliminating the mercury emission from waste incineration
because unlike other heavy metals, mercury has special properties that make it difficult to capture in many control devices.

5. Incineration of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) violates National Legislation: In fact all recent waste policies of the Government of India, which include the Supreme Court's High Powered Committee report of Urban waste, the Shukla Committee report of the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment, as well as the national Municipal Solid Waste regulations issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, do not recommend the use of incineration. A passing reference to it does not mean endorsement that must be seen along with the White Paper of Union Ministry of Environment & Forests.

6. Examination of the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) incineration technology by Supreme Court’s Committee on Waste to Energy: Based on Committee’s recommendations, the Court rejected this technology and approved Biomethanation technology that too for five pilot projects.

7. Fiscal Incentives for Demonstration Projects for Power generation from MSW through new technologies Violates Supreme Court’s Order: Supreme Court has put a stay on subsidy for waste to energy projects except 5 pilot projects based on Biomethanation technology. “For demonstration of various new and emerging technologies, financial assistance will be provided to the extent of 50% of the project cost, subject to a maximum of Rs. 3.0 crore / MW for setting up demonstration projects based on gasification/pyrolysis and plasma are technologies.”[5]

8. Low Calorific Value, Resource Burning and Energy Loss: Municipal Waste in India has an average calorific value of about 800 cal / kg. For combustion technologies to succeed they would need about 2000 to 3000 cal /kg, other wise auxiliary fuel has to be added. This makes the process more uneconomical and polluting than it already is.[6] Communities in more than 30 countries are recognising that waste incineration results in massive increases in energy consumption worldwide.[7]

False Claim

On the website of New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Ltd, a state government company, it is mentioned under the Success Story section that SELCO INTERNATIONAL LTD is “segregating and processing the heterogeneous garbage and generating Electricity from RDF through municipal solid waste process under waste to energy sector. This Project have produced 6.6 MW Electricity from RDF for the first time in the Country and synchronized with Grid on 8th November-2003 and generating Electricity since then.” It was sanctioned on June 5, 2000. New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Ltd was earlier named the Non-Conventional Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Ltd (NEDCAP).

Name & Address of the RDF Incineration based Waste to Energy Plant Developer:

Dr. G.V.Ramakrishna, M.D., M/s. SELCO INTERNATIONAL LIMITED., 309, 3rd Floor, Lala-II, Oasis Plaza, H.No. 4-1-898, Tilak Road, Abids, HYDERABAD – 500 001. A.P., INDIA. Phone No: 24750990, Tele Fax: 91 40 24750990, Email: selco@sify.com, Cell: 9848057634[8]

Preliminary Findings of the Fact Finding Survey Team:

I. Although a non-renewable energy project, it was promoted as renewable energy project. Andhra Pradesh Incineration based Waste to Energy Plant has failed but the same is being cited all over the country as an example of successful project which can be undertaken to earn carbon credits. Delhi’s Okhla Waste to Energy plant of M/s Jindal Urban Infrastructure Limited (JUIL), a company of M/s Jindal Saw Group Limited owned by Prithviraj Jindal part of O P Jindal Group is also being promoted citing the defunct RDF incineration based Waste to Energy plant of Andhra Pradesh. Similar projects in Delhi’s Narela-Bawana and Gazipur and in other cities like Patna, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune etc is likely to meet the same fate.

II. RDF Incineration Technology which was used in the SELCO International Ltd’s plant is a thermal and combustion technology, mainly used to prepare waste for mass incineration. The reason for making pellets is to both get the waste in a dry combustible form besides making it ready for those types of incinerators, which can handle RDF. As such all controls which are necessary for incineration need to be in place for RDF, which is not a stand-alone technology, but only another stage for a type of incineration. All such technologies go under various names such as RDF, incineration, pyrolysis, gasification etc. If mixed waste is burnt, it creates problems of very toxic compounds such as dioxins and furans, heavy metals and other pollutants. The calorific value for the waste comes from materials such as plastics and metals. Plastics, especially chlorinated plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) when combusted gives rise to these highly toxic pollutants. In fact PVC plastic combustion is banned in India by regulation both in the municipal and bio-medical waste handling rules.

III. Toxic emissions are created at various stages of such thermal technologies like RDF which was used in this Waste to Energy plant of Andhra Pradesh, and not only at the end of the stack. These can be created during the process, in the stack pipes, as residues in ash, scrubber water and filters, and in fact even in air plumes which leave the stack. There are no safe ways of avoiding their production or destroying these once produced, and at best they can be trapped at extreme cost in sophisticated filters or in the ash. The ultimate release is unavoidable, and if trapped in ash or filters, these then become hazardous wastes themselves. This technology release hazardous emissions in completely uncontrolled environments to which communities are directly exposed. [9]

IV. Waste to Energy Projects based on RDF incineration technology violate Supreme Court’s order dated 6th May, 2005 wherein it said, “…we hope that till the position is clear, the Government would not sanction any further subsidies.” It is noteworthy that on 15th May, 2007, the Court’s order "permit (s) Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES) to go ahead for the time being with 5 pilot projects chosen by them" but it is noteworthy that this refers specifically to bio-methanation technology. MNES is renamed as Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE). It has been revealed through Right to Information application that neither the proposed Delhi’s waste to energy incinerator projects one of those 5 pilot projects nor is it based on the recommended Biomethanation technology.[10]

V. In the Writ Petition (Civil) No. 9901 of 2009 in Delhi High Court, legal officials like Mr A S Chandiok Additional Solicitor General and Standing Counsel for the Delhi Government and for the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, Najmi Waziri has been misleading and misrepresenting facts about waste to energy plants in Andhra Pradesh by saying that “the Refuse Derived Fuel incineration technology was already in use at Hyderabad and Vijayawada”. The fact is that there is no plant in Hyderabad. The plant that became functional and now stands defunct is in Shadnagar, Mahboobnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. On 18th July, 2011, Delhi High Court on asked Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to conduct a joint inquiry about India's first waste-to-energy plant and file a report on the allegations that it posed health risks to citizens. "A joint report be submitted by the DPCC and the CPCB after an inquiry of the site of the energy plant about the alleged risks posed to citizens,"[11] a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Delhi High Court.[12] The order reads: “Mr Nigam, learned senior counsel for the petitioner that the plant is going to be operated…soon…Delhi Pollution Control Committee has issued the consent to operate. Mr.Waziri, learned standing counsel for GNCTD (Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi) and DPCC submitted that consent to establish has been given but consent to operate has not yet been given. Needless to emphasize, without obtaining consent for operation, the plant cannot be operationalized. Let the matter be listed on 29th August, 2011.”

For consent to operate, page no. 102 of the signed minutes of the 19th Meeting of the Committee constituted for deciding the consent under the Air and Water Acts, for Planning, Coordination & MSWM Cell under the DPCC, Department of Environment, Government of NCT Delhi F. No. DPCC/Plg & MSW/246 dated 4/7/2011 reveals inexplicable influence over the concerned government agencies from Jindal Urban Infrastructure Limited (JUIL), a company of M/s Jindal Saw Group Limited owned by Prithviraj Jindal part of O P Jindal Group. The relevant portion of the minutes signed by B Kumar, Additional Director, is reproduced ad verbatim: “Status of Consent: Consent to establish has been issued on 29.01.08. The unit has applied for consent to operate on 21.01.09, CTO issued on 20.01.2010, valid up to 20.01.2012.” The CTO stands for consent to operate.

The consent to operate has been given even before the completion of the construction work which itself is in violation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s order and despite the explicit letter dated 1st April, 2011 of the Union Minister of Environment & Forests. The repeated amendment in the plant’s environmental clearance without fresh public hearing is quite a glaring instance of environmental lawlessness in the national capital which sets a very bad precedent.

Preliminary Inference: On 10th August, Citizens of Vietnam remember the anniversary of the first use of nearly 80 million liters of Dioxins laced Agent Orange as chemical weapon against Vietnam from 1961 to 1971 that has wrecked havoc crippling people and causing hitherto unknown diseases for last 50 years. The Dioxins emitting waste to energy incinerators in residential and ecologically fragile areas or elsewhere tantamount to peace time use of chemical weapon against one’s own citizens and their ecosystem.

Preliminary Recommendations:

· The inquiry team constituted by Delhi High Court ought to visit the 6.6 MW Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Project at Elikatta Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Mahboobnagar district in Andhra Pradesh to ascertain facts for themselves along with representatives from media

· Construction of Delhi’s Waste to Energy Incinerators be stopped pending final outcome in the court else it would appear that a fait accompli has been present to the judiciary

· Contempt of Supreme Court’s Order merits immediate legal remedy

Note: The final report of the Fact Finding Team will be shared shortly following the release of report of the Delhi’s waste to energy incinerators based on site visits.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Personal Communication with Mark Radka, Chief of the Energy Branch, Division Technology, Industry and Economics for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

[2] http://envfor.nic.in/divisions/cpoll/delpolln.html

[3] http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/1743616/

[4] http://www.pops.int/documents/convtext/convtext_en.pdf

[5] http://www.nedcap.gov.in/Industrial_Waste_to_Energy.aspx?ID=40

[6] http://www.nedcap.gov.in/Industrial_Waste_to_Energy.aspx?ID=42

[7] http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/oct/env-burntech.htm

[8] www.selco.co.in

[9] Burning biomass is not green, http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/jul/env-timarpur.htm

[10] Supreme Court (W.P. (C ) No. 888/1996)

[11] HC orders inquiry about energy plant to ascertain health hazards, 18 July, 2011, PTI, The Times of India

[12] W.P.(C) 9901/2009, Delhi High Court, 18th July, 2011 order


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News » Events-Actuality 04.09.2011 13:41
SPEECH OF HER EXCELLENCY VICE PRESIDENT NGUYEN THI DOAN
11.08.2011 23:33

SPEECH OF HER EXCELLENCY VICE PRESIDENT NGUYEN THI DOAN
AT THE MASS RALLY TO COMMEMORATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AGENT ORANGE DISASTER IN VIETNAM
(Grand Theatre Hall of Hanoi, August 10th , 2011))
----------------

Dear Comrades
Dear fellow citizens, cadres and soldiers all over the country!
Dear distinguished international guests,
Dear brothers and sisters - victims of Agent Orange / dioxin in Vietnam

In the war of aggression in Vietnam, the U.S. forces did not only use conventional weapons but also chemical weapons in order to destroy Vietnam’s environment, ecology and human health, causing an extremely serious disaster. This is the largest and longest chemical warfare with most serious consequences in the history of mankind. Fifty years have passed, not just the environment and ecology of Vietnam have been severely damaged, but millions of our comrades and people also have become victims of Agent Orange / dioxin. Many of them have died, many others are living with lethal diseases and infections which can be transmitted to even their children and grandchildren. This pain is untold. This pain is the common pain of the people of Vietnam, as well as the pain of the progressive mankind in this world.

For years, the Party and the State have developed several policies to help alleviate the difficulties in the daily life of the families and children of the victims of Agent Orange. The entire political system, organizations and individuals in Vietnam and abroad have strived to provide them with both physical and spiritual support. Our progressive friends in the world have also joined hands with us to help the victims of Agent Orange. But we can say that the life of the victims of Agent Orange / dioxin in Vietnam is still very difficult due to lethal diseases and mentally tormented pain, many families are at a risk of forever destruction. But recently, many of them have won over illnesses in the process of their advancement to set a good learning and laboring examples.

On this occasion, on behalf of the leaders of the Party and the State, I warmly welcome all of you, brothers and sisters, young victims of Agent Orange who are imbued with strong will can overcome various difficulties in integrating themselves with their communities. This demonstrates the bravery of the Vietnamese people and the traditions of heroism and resilience of our forefathers. I warmly praise the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange / dioxin. Its cadres and members have upheld the spirit of responsibility, solidarity, and good faith, and devoted days and nights for serving the victims of Agent Orange. I also enthusiastically appreciate the Party committees, governments, UNI0Ns, people in the entire country, compatriots abroad, international friends and people of conscience around the world who have and continues to support and assist victims of Agent Orange / dioxin in Vietnam so that justice will be executed, their life will be better off with every passing day.

Comrades and delegates!
Dear fellow citizens, cadres and soldiers all over the country!

235 years ago, the Declaration of Independence of the United States (1776) solemnly stated, "All men are created equal, the Creator has given them the right that no one can deny, among these rights are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness .... " But Agent Orange / dioxin sprayed by the U.S. imperialists over Vietnam has deprived the right to life of millions of people in Vietnam. Many of them have become disabled for life; their children and grandchildren, because of their grandparents or parents’ exposure, have been born with deformities and consequently become disabled persons. Upon meeting them, everyone would feel like being hurt.

On this occasion, I call upon fellow citizens and soldiers all over the country to continue to join hands and contribute your part in doing everything possible to ease the Orange pain; to help victims to improve their living conditions. To care and help the victims of Agent Orange / dioxin is the responsibility, obligation and conscience of the political systems of all levels, departments, organizations and individuals in the whole society, This requires close coordination of all levels, from central to local, and the perfect integration of local socio-economic planning and development programs with those of the whole country.

The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange / dioxin that has made great efforts, should try to make greater efforts in the task set to encourage the victims of Agent Orange to overcome difficulties, to participate in social activities, and to make community integration; to mobilize and to obtain resources for caring and helping the victims and their families; to constantly enlist the support and to expend their international cooperation.

Those victims of Agent Orange who have bravely overcome difficulties and diseases who have set bright examples, should try harder in the spirit of solidarity to continue to act as witnesses in the struggle for justice, to continue to show good virtues of the Vietnamese people.

I call upon the U.S. government to take responsibility for the damage caused by it to the environment and health of the people of Vietnam. I welcome the recent initial cooperation extended by the U.S. Government, but I hope that it should make better collaboration with the Government and people of Vietnam in the remediation of the consequences of Agent Orange / dioxin, in health care support for the victims and in the clean up of the areas where dioxin still remains in Vietnam.

I urge all the governments, international and national organizations, NGOs, scientists, lawyers, social activists and people in the world to provide greater help and support to the victims of Agent Orange / dioxin in Vietnam in daily life and in the struggle for justice. Your help and support are not only for the victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam but also for victims of Agent Orange in other countries around the world.

For a permanent peace and justice, let’s unite, and together speak out against Agent Orange / dioxin, against all chemical and biological weapons. The world will become healthier, the life of all nations will be more peaceful and happier, if Agent Orange / dioxin, as well other chemical weapons do not exist at all.

On this occasion, on behalf of the Party and the State, I would like to send my profound regards to victims of Agent Orange and their families; to thank the international organizations and friends who have devoted their support and valuable assistance both physically and spiritually to them, to share the pain of millions of Agent Orange victims and their families.

Best wishes to brothers and sisters - victims of Agent Orange and their families that they may enjoy more energy, may overcome difficulties and may maintain their confidence needed to win their victories.

Finally, my best wishes will go to comrades, delegates, international guests, members of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange / dioxin and all fellow compatriots, cadres and soldiers with good health and good successes in their services for the life and the rights of the victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Thank you very much .

http://www.vava.org.vn/modules.php?name=News&op=viewst&sid=841

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Government of USA Dropped Atom Bomb On Nagasaki

9th August 1945 : Government of the United States of America (USA) dropped its second atomic bomb in Nagasaki, Japan.

The first bomb had been dropped 3 days earlier on Hiroshima. Six days later on August 15, Japan announced its surrender.

Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945 although its defeat was clear prior to the dropping of the Atom Bomb.

The USA has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests — 217 in the atmosphere.

The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests — 219 in the atmosphere.

France, 210 tests, 50 in the atmosphere.

The United Kingdom, 45 tests — 21 in the atmosphere.

China, 45 tests — 23 in the atmosphere.

India and Pakistan — 13 tests underground.

Israel — possible 1 test atmosphere South Africa 1979.

North Korea — 1 test underground, October 2006.

How Press Censorship Hid Truth About Nagasaki a-Bomb
Posted on 09 August 2010

Today August 9 is the 65th anniversary of the A-bombing of Nagasaki port city. Nearly 70,000 civilians (and a few military personnel) died. It has always been The Forgotten A-Bomb City. No one ever wrote a bestselling book called Nagasaki, or made a film titled Nagasaki, Mon Amour, writes Greg Mitchell on his blog.

Nagasaki was “forgotten” from the very start, thanks to a blatant act of press censorship.

But one of the great mysteries of the Nuclear Age was solved just five years ago, claims Mitchell

What was in the censored, and then lost to the ages, newspaper articles filed by the first reporter to reach Nagasaki following the atomic attack on that city on Aug. 9, 1945, questions Mitchell in his blog.

The reporter was George Weller, the distinguished correspondent for the now-defunct Chicago Daily News. His startling dispatches from Nagasaki, which could have affected public opinion on the future of the bomb, never emerged from General Douglas MacArthur’s censorship office in Tokyo. I wrote about this cover-up in the book I co-authored with Robert Jay Lifton in 1995, Hiroshima in America.

Read below the whole blog on Nagasaki by Greg Mitchell:

Greg Mitchell
Blogger, The Nation, “Media Fix”

Nagasaki, which lost over 70,000 civilians (and a few military personnel) to a new weapon 65 years ago today, has always been The Forgotten A-Bomb City. No one ever wrote a bestselling book called Nagasaki, or made a film titled Nagasaki, Mon Amour. Yet in some ways, Nagasaki is the modern A-bomb city. For one thing, when the plutonium bomb exploded above Nagasaki it made the uranium-type bomb dropped on Hiroshima obsolete. In fact, if it had not exploded off-target the death toll in the city would have easily topped the Hiroshima total.

Hiroshima has always drawn the vast majority of press, public and historical interest, even though many who support the first atomic bombing have expressed severe misgivings about number two because of the failure of United States to give the Japanese at least a few days to consider surrender after the first blast (and the Soviets’ shocking declaration of war). Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., once said in an interview that the “nastiest act by this country, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki.” Telford Taylor, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, called it a “war crime.”

But Nagasaki was “forgotten” from the very start, thanks to a blatant act of press censorship.

One of the great mysteries of the Nuclear Age was solved just five years ago: What was in the censored, and then lost to the ages, newspaper articles filed by the first reporter to reach Nagasaki following the atomic attack on that city on Aug. 9, 1945.

The reporter was George Weller, the distinguished correspondent for the now-defunct Chicago Daily News. His startling dispatches from Nagasaki, which could have affected public opinion on the future of the bomb, never emerged from General Douglas MacArthur’s censorship office in Tokyo. I wrote about this cover-up in the book I co-authored with Robert Jay Lifton in 1995, Hiroshima in America.

Carbon copies of the stories were found in 2003 when his son discovered them after the reporter’s death. Four of them were published in 2005 for the first time by the Tokyo daily Mainichi Shimbun, which purchased them from the son, Anthony Weller. I was first to report on this in the United States.

The articles published in Japan (and later included in a book assembled by Anthony Weller, First Into Nagasaki) revealed a remarkable and wrenching turn in Weller’s view of the aftermath of the bombing, which anticipates the profound unease in our nuclear experience ever since. “It was remarkable to see that shifting perspective,” Anthony Weller told me.

An early article that George Weller filed, on Sept. 8, 1945 — two days after he reached the city, before any other journalist — hailed the “effectiveness of the bomb as a military device,” as his son describes it, and made no mention of the bomb’s special, radiation-producing properties.

But later that day, after visiting two hospitals and shaken by what he saw, he described a mysterious “Disease X” that was killing people who had seemed to survive the bombing in relatively good shape. A month after the atomic inferno, they were passing away pitifully, some with legs and arms “speckled with tiny red spots in patches.”

The following day he again described the atomic bomb’s “peculiar disease” and reported that the leading local X-ray specialist was convinced that “these people are simply suffering” from the bomb’s unknown radiation effects.

Anthony Weller, a novelist, told me that it was one of great disappointments of his father’s life that these stories, “a real coup,” were killed by MacArthur who, George Weller felt, “wanted all the credit for winning the war, not some scientists back in New Mexico.”
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Others have suggested that the real reason for the censorship was the United States did not want the world to learn about the morally troubling radiation effects for two reasons: It aimed to avoid questions raised about the use of the weapon in 1945, or its wide scale development in the coming years. In fact, an official “coverup” of much of this information–involving print accounts, photographs and film footage–continued for years, even, in some cases, decades.

“Clearly,” Anthony Weller told me of his father’s reports, “they would have supplied an eyewitness account at a moment when the American people badly needed one.”

THE SCOOP THAT WASN’T

How did George Weller get the scoop-that-wasn’t?

After years of covering the Pacific war, Weller (left) arrived in Japan with the first wave of reporters and military in early September. He had already won a Pulitzer for his reporting in 1943. Appalled by MacArthur’s censors, and “the conformists” in his profession who went along with strict press restrictions, he made his way, with permission, to the distant island of Kyushu to visit a former kamikaze base. But he noted that it was connected by railroad to Nagasaki. Pretending he was “a major or colonel,” as his son put it, he slipped into the city (perhaps by boat) about three days before any of his colleagues, and just after Wilfred Burchett had filed his first report from Hiroshima.

Once arrived, Weller toured the city, the aid stations, the former POW camps (by some counts, more American POWs died from the A-bomb in Nagasaki than Japanese military personnel) and wrote numerous stories within days. According to his son, he managed to send the articles to Tokyo, not by wire, but by hand, and felt “that the sheer volume and importance of the stories would mean they would be respected” by MacArthur and his censors.

Although Weller did not express any outward disapproval of the use of the bomb, these stories — and others he filed in the following two weeks from the vicinity — would never see the light of the day, and the reporter lost track of his carbons. He would later summarize the experience with the censorship office in two words: “They won.”

In the years that followed, Weller continued his journalism career, winning a George Polk award and other honors and covering many other conflicts. Neither the carbons nor the originals ever surfaced, before he passed away in 2002 at the age of 95. It was then that his son made a full search of the wildly disorganized “archives” at his father’s home in Italy, and in 2003 found the carbons just 30 feet from his dad’s desk.

And what a find: roughly 75 pages of stories, on fading brownish paper, that covered not only his first atomic dispatches but gripping accounts by prisoners of war, some of whom described watching the bomb go off on that fateful morning.

A ‘PECULIAR WEAPON’

In the first article published by the Japanese paper, the first words from Weller were: “The atomic bomb may be classified as a weapon capable of being used indiscriminately, but its use in Nagasaki was selective and proper and as merciful as such a gigantic force could be expected to be.” Weller described himself as “the first visitor to inspect the ruins.”

He suggested about 24,000 may have died but he attributed the high numbers to “inadequate” air raid shelters and the “total failure” of the air warning system. He declared that the bomb was “a tremendous, but not a peculiar weapon,” and said he spent hours in the ruins without apparent ill effects. He did note, with some regret, that a hospital and an American mission college were destroyed, but pointed out that to spare them would have also meant sparing munitions plants.

In his second story that day, however, following his hospital visits, he would describe “Disease X,” and victims, who have “neither a burn or a broken limb,” wasting away with “blackish” mouths and red spots, and small children who “have lost some hair.”

A third piece, sent to MacArthur the following day, reported the disease “still snatching away lives here. Men, women and children with no outward marks of injury are dying daily in hospitals, some after having walked around three or four weeks thinking they have escaped.

“The doctors … candidly confessed … that the answer to the malady is beyond them.” At one hospital, 200 of 343 admitted had died: “They are dead — dead of atomic bomb — and nobody knows why.”

He closed this account with: “Twenty-five Americans are due to arrive Sept. 11 to study the Nagasaki bomb site. Japanese hope they will bring a solution for Disease X.” To this day, that solution for the disease–and the threat of nuclear weapons–has still not arrived.

[[See my pieces on Hiroshima here from a few days ago, including story of how Truman edited the first Hollywood movie about the bombings.]]

Greg Mitchell is co-author of “Hiroshima in America” and writes the popular Media Fix blog for The Nation. He is the former editor of Nuclear Times and Editor & Publisher. Email: epic1934@aol.com Twitter: @GregMitch

(The blog appeared in the Huffington Post in 2010.)


Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department's Timesman Won a Pulitzerby Amy Goodman and David Goodman


The burnt street ... looking toward North West from the explosion center.
Governments lie.
— I. F. Stone, Journalist

At the dawn of the nuclear age, an independent Australian journalist named Wilfred Burchett traveled to Japan to cover the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The only problem was that General Douglas MacArthur had declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the press.

Over 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told the story. The world's media obediently crowded onto the USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the surrender of the Japanese.

Wilfred Burchett decided to strike out on his own. He was determined to see for himself what this nuclear bomb had done, to understand what this vaunted new weapon was all about. So he boarded a train and traveled for thirty hours to the city of
Hiroshima in defiance of General MacArthur's orders.

Burchett emerged from the train into a nightmare world. The devastation that confronted him was unlike any he had ever seen during the war.

The city of Hiroshima, with a population of 350,000, had been razed.
Multistory buildings were reduced to charred posts.

He saw people's shadows seared into walls and sidewalks.

He met people with their skin melting off.

In the hospital, he saw patients with purple skin hemorrhages, gangrene, fever, and rapid hair loss.

Burchett was among the first to witness and describe radiation sickness.

The patterns of clothes burnt by the heat rays. Picture: http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ Provided by Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education

The patterns of clothes burnt by the heat rays.

Burchett sat down on a chunk of rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter. His dispatch began:

"In Hiroshima, thirty days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly-people who were uninjured in the cataclysm from an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague."

He continued, tapping out the words that still haunt to this day: "Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller has passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world."

Burchett's article, headlined THE ATOMIC PLAGUE, was published on September 5, 1945, in the London Daily Express. The story caused a worldwide sensation. Burchett's candid reaction to the horror shocked readers.

"In this first testing ground of the atomic bomb I have seen the most terrible and frightening desolation in four years of war. It makes a blitzed Pacific island seem like an Eden. The damage is far greater than photographs can show.

"When you arrive in Hiroshima you can look around for twenty-five and perhaps thirty square miles. You can see hardly a building. It gives you an empty feeling in the stomach to see such man-made destruction."

Burchett's searing independent reportage was a public relations fiasco for the U.S. military. General MacArthur had gone to pains to restrict journalists' access to the bombed cities, and his military censors were sanitizing and even killing dispatches that described the horror.

The official narrative of the atomic bombings downplayed civilian casualties and categorically dismissed reports of the deadly lingering effects of radiation. Reporters whose dispatches convicted with this version of events found themselves silenced: George Weller of the Chicago Daily News slipped into Nagasaki and wrote a 25,000-word story on the nightmare that he found there.

Then he made a crucial error: He submitted the piece to military censors. His newspaper never even received his story. As Weller later summarized his experience with MacArthur's censors, "They won."

U.S. authorities responded in time-honored fashion to Burchett's revelations: They attacked the messenger.

General MacArthur ordered him expelled from Japan (the order was later rescinded), and his camera with photos of Hiroshima mysteriously vanished while he was in the hospital. U.S. officials accused Burchett of being influenced by Japanese propaganda. They scoffed at the notion of an atomic sickness.

The U.S. military issued a press release right after the Hiroshima bombing that downplayed human casualties, instead emphasizing that the bombed area was the site of valuable industrial and military targets.

A-bomb sufferers who have escaped to Miyuki Bridge (about 2km. from the explosion center) Picture: http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ Provided by Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education

A-bomb sufferers who have escaped to Miyuki Bridge (about 2km. from the explosion center)
Picture: http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/
Provided by Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education

Four days after Burchett's story splashed across front pages around the world, Major General Leslie R. Groves, director of the atomic bomb project, invited a select group of thirty reporters to New Mexico.

Foremost among this group was William L. Laurence, the Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for The New York Times.

Groves took the reporters to the site of the first atomic test. His intent was to demonstrate that no atomic radiation lingered at the site.

Groves trusted Laurence to convey the military's line; the general was not
Laurence's front-page story, U.S. ATOM BOMB SITE BELIES TOKYO TALES: TESTS ON NEW MEXICO RANGE CONFIRM THAT BLAST, AND NOT RADIATION, TOOK TOLL, ran on September 12, 1945, following a three-day delay to clear military censors.

The article began. 3

"This historic ground in New Mexico, scene of the first atomic explosion on earth and cradle of a new era in civilization, gave the most effective answer today to Japanese propaganda that radiations [sic] were responsible for deaths even after the day of the explosion, Aug. 6, and that persons entering Hiroshima had contracted mysterious maladies due to persistent radioactivity."

Laurence said unapologetically that the Army tour was intended "to give the lie to these claims."

Laurence quoted General Groves:
"The Japanese claim that people died from radiation.
If this is true, the number was very small."

Laurence then went on to offer his own remarkable editorial on what happened:
"The Japanese are still continuing their propaganda aimed at creating the impression that we won the war unfairly, and thus attempting to create sympathy for themselves and milder terms . . . Thus, at the beginning, the Japanese described 'symptoms' that did not ring true."

But Laurence knew better. He had observed the first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945, and he withheld what he knew about radioactive fallout across the southwestern desert that poisoned local residents and livestock. He kept mum about the spiking Geiger counters all around the test site.

William L. Laurence went on to write a series of ten articles for the Times that served as a glowing tribute to the ingenuity and technical achievements of the nuclear program. Throughout these and other reports, he downplayed and denied the human impact of the bombing. Laurence won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting.
Persons cremating bodies at the ruins. Picture: http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ Provided by Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education
Persons cremating bodies at the ruins.

It turns out that William L. Laurence was not only receiving a salary from The New York Times. He was also on the payroll of the War Department. In March 1945, General Leslie Groves had held a secret meeting at The New York Times with Laurence to offer him a job writing press releases for the Manhattan Project, the U.S. program to develop atomic weapons.

The intent, according to the Times, was "to explain the intricacies of the atomic bomb's operating principles in laymen's language." Laurence also helped write statements on the bomb for President Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson.

Laurence eagerly accepted the offer, "his scientific curiosity and patriotic zeal perhaps blinding him to the notion that he was at the same time compromising his journalistic independence," as essayist Harold Evans wrote in a history of war reporting.

Evans recounted: "After the bombing, the brilliant but bullying Groves continually suppressed or distorted the effects of radiation. He dismissed reports of Japanese deaths as 'hoax or propaganda.' The Times' Laurence weighed in, too, after Burchett's reports, and parroted the government line." Indeed, numerous press releases issued by the military after the Hiroshima bombing-which in the absence of eyewitness accounts were often reproduced verbatim by U.S. newspapers-were written by none other than Laurence.

"Mine has been the honor, unique in the history of journalism, of preparing the War Department's official press release for worldwide distribution," boasted Laurence in his memoirs, Dawn Over Zero. "No greater honor could have come to any newspaperman, or anyone else for that matter."

"Atomic Bill" Laurence revered atomic weapons. He had been crusading for an American nuclear program in articles as far back as 1929. His dual status as government agent and reporter earned him an unprecedented level of access to American military officials-he even flew in the squadron of planes that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

His reports on the atomic bomb and its use had a hagiographic tone, laced with descriptions that conveyed almost religious awe.

The ruins of Hatchobori and its vicinity (700-800m. from the explosion center). Picture: http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ Provided by Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education

The ruins of Hatchobori and its vicinity (700-800m. from the explosion center).
In Laurence's article about the bombing of Nagasaki (it was withheld by military censors until a month after the bombing), he described the detonation over Nagasaki that incinerated 100,000 people.
Laurence waxed:

"Awe-struck, we watched it shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from outer space, becoming ever more alive as it climbed skyward through the white clouds. . . . It was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes."

Laurence later recounted his impressions of the atomic bomb:
"Being close to it and watching it as it was being fashioned into a living thing, so exquisitely shaped that any sculptor would be proud to have created it, one . . . felt oneself in the presence of the supranatural."

Laurence was good at keeping his master's secrets-from suppressing the reports of deadly radioactivity in New Mexico to denying them in Japan.

The Times was also good at keeping secrets, only revealing Laurence's dual status as government spokesman and reporter on August 7, the day after the Hiroshima bombing-and four months after Laurence began working for the Pentagon.

As Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell wrote in their excellent book Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial, "Here was the nation's leading science reporter, severely compromised, not only unable but disinclined to reveal all he knew about the potential hazards of the most important scientific discovery of his time."
Radiation: Now You See It, Now You Don't

A curious twist to this story concerns another New York Times journalist who reported on Hiroshima; his name, believe it or not, was William Lawrence (his byline was W.H. Lawrence). He has long been confused with William L. Laurence. (Even Wilfred Burchett confuses the two men in his memoirs and his 1983 book, Shadows of Hiroshima.)

Unlike the War Department's Pulitzer Prize winner, W.H. Lawrence visited and reported on Hiroshima on the same day as Burchett. (William L. Laurence, after flying in the squadron of planes that bombed Nagasaki, was subsequently called back to the United States by the Times and did not visit the bombed cities.)

A burnt hand with Keloid marks. Picture: http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ Provided by Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education
A burnt hand with Keloid marks.
Picture: http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/
Provided by Hiroshima Institute for Peace Education

W.H. Lawrence's original dispatch from Hiroshima was published on September 5, 1945. He reported matter-of-factly about the deadly effects of radiation, and wrote that Japanese doctors worried that "all who had been in Hiroshima that day would die as a result of the bomb's lingering effects."
He described how "persons who had been only slightly injured on the day of the blast lost 86 percent of their white blood corpuscles, developed temperatures of 104 degrees Fahrenheit, their hair began to drop out, they lost their appetites, vomited blood and finally died."

Oddly enough, W.H. Lawrence contradicted himself one week later in an article headlined NO RADIOACTIVITY IN HIROSHIMA RUIN.

For this article, the Pentagon's spin machine had swung into high gear in response to Burchett's horrifying account of "atomic plague."

W.H. Lawrence reported that Brigadier General T. F. Farrell, chief of the War Department's atomic bomb mission to Hiroshima, "denied categorically that [the bomb] produced a dangerous, lingering radioactivity."

Lawrence's dispatch quotes only Farrell; the reporter never mentions his eyewitness account of people dying from radiation sickness that he wrote the previous week.
The conflicting accounts of Wilfred Burchett and William L. Laurence might be ancient history were it not for a modern twist.

On October 23, 2003, The New York Times published an article about a controversy over a Pulitzer Prize awarded in 1932 to Times reporter Walter Duranty.

A former correspondent in the Soviet Union, Duranty had denied the existence of a famine that had killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933.

The Pulitzer Board had launched two inquiries to consider stripping Duranty of his prize. The Times "regretted the lapses" of its reporter and had published a signed editorial saying that Duranty's work was "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper." Current Times executive editor Bill Keller decried Duranty's "credulous, uncritical parroting of propaganda."

On November 21, 2003, the Pulitzer Board decided against rescinding Duranty's award, concluding that there was "no clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception" in the articles that won the prize.

As an apologist for Joseph Stalin, Duranty is easy pickings. What about the "deliberate deception" of William L. Laurence in denying the lethal effects of radioactivity? And what of the fact that the Pulitzer Board knowingly awarded the top journalism prize to the Pentagon's paid publicist, who denied the suffering of millions of Japanese? Do the Pulitzer Board and the Times approve of "uncritical parroting of propaganda"-as long as it is from the United States?

It is long overdue that the prize for Hiroshima's apologist be stripped.
Published on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

Amy Goodman is host of the national radio and TV show "Democracy Now!."
This is an excerpt from her new national bestselling book The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them, written with her brother journalist David, exposes the reporting of Times correspondent William L. Laurence

Democracy Now! is a national radio and TV program, broadcast on more than 240 stations and on the internet.

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Increase in illegal entry of ships into India

Why has the ministry of shipping failed to reverse the trend of ships bearing flags of largely cash-haven countries sinking, colliding or drifting into Indian waters?

The latest cargo vessel to sink off the Mumbai coast last Thursday is MV Rak. The ship was carrying 60,000 metric tones of coal, 290 tonnes of fuel oil and 50 tonnes of diesel all of which has sunk off the coast of India’s premier commercial city.
Prior to this accident, the unmanned vessel, MT Pavit, with both Panama and Comoros flags drifted off the coast of Mumbai. The ship remains stranded at the Juhu beach despite several efforts to tug the stranded ship to sea. The ship, an oil tanker is laden with 10 tonnes of fuel oil and another 10 tonnes of gas oil.

The Directorate of Shipping is presently holding an enquiry into how it was allowed to reach Mumbai. Defense minister A.K. Anthony is seeking a report from the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Kumar Verma on how MT Pavit managed to enter Juhu Beach undetected since this should be viewed as a serious security threat.

Activists calculate that over 100 ships have made their way into this country in this clandestine manner. Gopal Krishna, who heads ToxicsWatch Alliance, wonders why Pavit, abandoned by its crew off the Oman coast on June 29 2011, was allowed to “reach” Sikka in Gujarat since this is not a port for oil cargo. “And then, more surprisingly, how did it make its way to Juhi beach ?” he asks.
Prior to this, was the infamous collision which took place of MSC Chitra which also bore a Panama flag at the Mumbai port on August 7, 2010. MSC Chitra collided with the inbound MV Khalijia-3 and was found discharging three to four tones of oil by the hour off the city coast.

In a similar fashion, MV Wisdom with a Singapore flag got stuck on Juhu beach in Mumbai on June, 2011. The ship had run aground after breaking away from a tow ship that was lugging it to Alang for ship breaking. Nearly 80 maritime personnel and three tugs were required to remove the 9,000 tonne heavy ship from the beach.
Environmentalists worry that most of these ships are carrying hazardous waste which could include depleted uranium. Mr Krishna warned, “Most of our ports do not possess radiation detection equipment and this is a matter of grave concern.” They cite the example of Gulf Jaish and the French ship Clemenceau, both of which were turned back but Blue Lady, carrying 1,240 metric tons of radioactive material and asbestos, was allowed to be broken down at Alang.

The inter-ministerial committee of July 8, 2011, focused on both the environmental threat and also on security issues pertaining to these repeated entries with representatives from the Coastal Guards warning that emergency beacons dismantled from these ships (to cite on example) were not being deactivated and could prove a major threat.

The Directorate of Naval Intelligence has repeatedly warned that many of these ships could be involved in nefarious activities.

Rashme Sehgal
Aug 08, 2011
The Asian Age

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