RM990607 Irish news - Sun/Mon 6/7 June Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - owner-ireland_list@email.rutgers.edu Mon Jun 7 22:21:58 1999 IRISH NEWS ROUND-UP http://irlnet.com/rmlist/ Sunday/Monday, 6/7 June, 1999 1. SCHOOL BOMB BID TO WRECK PEACE 2. Irish school discrimination exposed 3. Sinn Fein call for local democracy 4. Biotech firm corners God 5. Analysis: Local Power - A National Right ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> SCHOOL BOMB BID TO WRECK PEACE British Prime Minister Tony Blair was urged to call peace talks as soon as possible after loyalists today planted a bomb at a Catholic primary school in Ballymena, County Antrim. Over 120 children up to the age of twelve had to be evacuated while the deadly pipe bomb was defused. Saint Mary's school in Ballymena has previously been subject to arson attacks in incidents linked to last year's marching season and efforts to force sectarian parades through the nearby nationalist village of Dunloy. The attack on St Mary's took place on the same day as the funeral in Portadown of grandmother Elizabeth O'Neill, who was killed by a similar device which was hurled into her livingroom on Saturday. One of Mrs O'Neill's two sons, Martin, said her death was pointless and not worth the seven-minute walk local Orangemen are attempting to force down the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown. Speaking before the low-key funeral in Portadown today, he said: "A 59-year-old woman blown up ... it didn't take a hard man to do that. "If a seven-minute walk down the road done this to my mother, is it worth that, is it worth it? How many more innocent people are going to suffer like this ?" At least six bombings were carried out against Catholic homes over the weekend, including two in west Belfast overnight. There was deep concern that loyalists would mount fresh attacks so shortly after the Portadown murder. Nationalists living in isolated communities now fear a wave of sectarian "cleansing" to force them out as doubts grow over the future of the peace process. Ten men, women and children have already died as a result of loyalist bomb and gun attacks on nationalists and the intimidation of the Garvaghy Road community. Tony Blair was urged to end the political vacuum generated by the failure thus far to implement last year's Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams called for talks to be reconvened immediately after the election to prepare for the June 30 deadline, the date by which devolution of powers to a new coalition executive is to take place. He said: "The rejectionists and the right wing of unionism are being allowed to dictate the political agenda, to subvert the peace press and undermine public morale. This situation needs to be reversed. All of the parties need to be brought together. "Too much time has already been wasted," he added. Unionist opposition to Sinn Fein's participation in the agreed new Executive has not relented despite Britain's governor in Ireland Mo Mowlam declaration today that her government will stand by its promise to establish the Executive by June 30. She warned: "We are moving into dangerous times and it would be well to reach agreement. People know what the month of July means, the potential danger and instability." In Portadown, there is increasing concern for the safety of several other families living in certain areas. A rally, which was to have been held this Sunday in support of the besieged community, has been postponed in an attempt to dampen tension. Nationalist spokesman Breandan Mac Cionnaith described a claim by the Orangemen that the Garvaghy residents supported ethnic cleansing as "outrageous". Referring to Mrs O'Neill's murder, he added: "When one takes into account the 24 hours before, we have a prime example of ethnic cleansing in Portadown and it was not nationalists who were responsible for it. "Nineteen families have moved out of Portadown over the last few months and I have not heard the Orange Order issuing any condemnation." The Orange Order are still planning to go ahead with a "mini-12th parade" in Portadown in advance of the feared standoff over the annual Drumcree parade on the Saturday before 'The Twelfth'. Proximity talks to defuse the major crisis looming around the July 4 march met with little success over the weekend as Orangemen demanded to be allowed to "complete" last year's Drumcree march before again parading down the Garvaghy Road on July 4. Garvaghy residents meanwhile pointed out there was little chance of success while the Orange Order refused to meet their representatives for direct talks -- Orangemen are insisting that a mediator shuttle messages back and forth between the delegations. But they were also infuriated by professional mediator Frank Blair, who they said had a "complete bias" against their position. The talks, which were overshadowed by the murder of Mrs O'Neill, broke up on Saturday but are expected to resume some time later this week in Belfast. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said the onus was on Tony Blair and the British government to uphold the rights of the people on the Garvaghy Road. "This beleaguered community have suffered greatly at the hands of Orange fundamentalists and the nationalist people of Portadown have been targeted as part of a vicious sectarian campaign," he said. The demand of the Portadown Orangemen to march down the Garvaghy Road was "at the core" of the loyalist campaign of violence, he added. "There is no absolute right to march," he said. "But there is an obligation on both the British government and the Irish government to uphold the rights of the people of Portadown to be free from sectarian harassment." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> Irish school discrimination exposed Discrimination against Irish schools across the North is increasing, particularly in rural areas. In one of the latest developments, illustrating the attitude of the North East Education Library Board (NEELB) and the Education Department (DENI) towards Irish language schools, Dunloy Bunscoil Dhal Riada Media Primary School students have been denied funding on the basis that they have been refused school transport. According to parents, the NEELB and DENI have taken the "unnecessarily restrictive and narrow-sighted view" that under the current legislation, arrangements can only be permitted to be made to transport pupils to Grant Aided Schools and Institutions of further Education. The parents argue that the legislation doe not restrict pupils fromm non-grant aided schools to use any spare seats on a concessionary basis. Currently, there are extra available seats in buses for the children who attend St. Joseph's Primary School, situated beside the Bunscoil. The parents have also pointed out that there would be no extra financial expense involved for taking children attending the Bunscoil as the school bus drives past the houses of some of the Bunscoil pupils every morning and evening. Talks are underway with the NEELB but so far there has been no progress. Parents continue to have to rely on the goodwill of other parents or walk along the busy road accompanied by the younger children. They are hoping that the government will reconsider its decision not to provide funding to the Bunscoil and revise its policy with regard to transport. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> Sinn Fein call for local democracy Sinn Fein is mounting its greatest campaign for election to the South's local councils in recent years, standing candidates in all counties except Longford, Roscommon, Kilkenny and Carlow. The party is standing 110 candidates to contest 131 wards, 20 corporations, 55 County Councils, 45 urban district councils and 11 town commissions. "Sinn Fein has a vision for local government in Ireland," said Dublin EU Candidate, Sean Crowe, speaking at the launch of the party's Local Government Manifesto today. "We want to see the people of Ireland in control of local government. We want to see them running their local health services, organising regional enterprise, builiding their own houses and planning their own local economies. "In short we want to put people first, give them power over their local communities. We want to give them control of the resources to develop and grow those communities. We want to do this throughout Ireland." Sinn Fein is proposing: * All-Ireland local government structures. * Constitutional provisions to be made guaranteeing the rights and powers of local government structures and arguing that this should ultimately happen on an all-Ireland basis. In this context the party supports the proposed insertion of a section in the Constitution on local government. * A system of financing local government that has its own revenue raising powers -- currently in the 26 Counties less than 10% of total spending comes under the remit of local government while the EU average is between 30% and 40%. * A system of local government that allows for directly elected regional, county, district and community councils. * Substantial devolution of powers and finances from central government. "We can stamp out discrimination and corruption. We can roll back the influences of central government. We can deliver local democracy," Crowe declared. "We do not have local democracy in this county, instead we have an outmoded system of local administration with an elected tier with little or now real power." "Local government in this state is based on the framework laid down 100 years ago. It was inadequate then and it has deteriorated over time. The City and County Managers Acts give virtually dictatorial powers to unelected officials in every county and borough. Successive governments removed more powers from local councils while establishing numerous statutory agencies which took over or duplicated many of the functions of local government. It was not the councillors who lost out but the people who elected them. "Sinn Fein is calling for a root and branch reform of this system. Local authorities must be given the powers to retain locally and spend locally a proportion of income tax. Local government must be financed and empowered in the context of fundamental tax reform, including a specific tax on the financial sector. Our proposals on local government are radical and courageous. They grasp the political nettle from which other parties flinch. They are vital if we are to establish real local democracy." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> Monsanto corners God -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Allen explains the bizarre world of genetically modified food -- suicide genes, terminator seeds, hormone-flavoured milk and meat -- all delivered by bio-tech revolutionaries, Monsanto. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Render under Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.' You might not be very keen on doing either, but when it comes to agriculture, or just plain eating, you might have no choice. Monsanto, which in the past contributed Agent Orange, dioxins and PCBs to humanity, has now made some further modifications of 'God's works', which, if let, will give the company a patent on the crops upon which the world depends for its food. The 'debate' about GM food is the struggle to determine whether Monsanto will be let corner the food market. * Tying seeds and farmers to proprietary chemicals Monsanto has produced a 'super' weedkiller called Roundup. Roundup (glyphosate herbicide) is so effective it kills every weed and saves hours of labour putting out herbicides. Monsanto then modified the seed, like soya, so it was strong enough to resist 'Roundup'. Now farmers can spew 'Roundup' all around with impunity, the soya survives. And if you want 'Roundup-ready soya' you have to enter into a contract with Monsanto promising, on pain of huge penalties, never to save or replant it, and to use Monsanto's Roundup. A Kentucky farmer, D. Chaney, one of 1,000 so far prosecuted for breaking contract, settled for a mere $35,000 damages to Monsanto. Herbicides are big business. U.S. farmers spend $4.3 billion annually controlling weeds. Roundup is a nice little earner. 'Roundup', which is already on the shelves in Ireland, causes nausea, skin and eye inflammation, bronchial constriction and nervous system disorders. (One in three of children here now have asthma. Nobody can work out why. - The Lancet) * Suicide genes Not content with this 'sledge-hammer' herbicide, which farmers can get hooked on, Monsanto has recently produced seeds which include a suicide gene. It means that instead of plants reproducing themselves, they are programmed, by interfering with their DNA, not to have seed which germinates. That keeps farmers going back to Monsanto every year for their new seed. They are called 'Terminator' seeds. It is reported they'll be on stream in five years. At present, 80% of crops grown in the Third World are grown from farm-saved seeds. With the new seed, the farmers will have to come back every year for more. With suicide genes, and Roundup contracts, Monsanto has a patent ad futurum. God didn't even have that. Monsanto boasts that U.S. soya production in the year 2000 will be 100% genetically modified. That is 60 million acres, in the US alone. Cotton is a special case again. Monsanto bought up Calgene, which had modified cotton genes to withstand a good dose of a herbicide, BXN(Bromoxynil) which happens to be recognised by the U.S. EPA as a cause of cancer and birth defects, including water on the brain (hydrocephaly) and spine and skull defects. Rabbits developed all these 'defects' when they were fed BXN. Now humans mignt not directly eat cotton plants, but they do eat meat, and BXN is fat soluble and accumulates in the meat of animals which eat cotton plant as silage in the states. * Testing times Independent testing of Monsanto's new products is both rare and hazardous. Most often, test results have emerged from Monsanto's own 150 labs at base camp, St, Louis, Missouri, and have been readily accepted by the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration, as proving crops to be quite safe. A potato is still after all a potato, and we've eaten them for years. That's what Monsanto said anyway. Recently Dr. Pusztai, at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, researched Monsanto's genetically modified potato by feeding it to rats. He found that the spud weakened the rats' immune system and damaged vital body organs, heart, liver, brain and stomach. Dr. Pusztai, who is 68, went on Granada TV with the Institute's permission, to talk about his results. He was promptly suspended and then sacked from his job. The Rowlett Research Institute recently received a donation of #140,000 from Monsanto. A group of 20 scientists, in an unprecedented move, supported his findings called for his reinstatement. They also called for funding for extensive research into Dr. Pusztai's results, which investigated the effects of Lectin in the GM potato. Lectin has also been introduced into a range of modified foods, including maize. * Roundup Ready Soya is everywhere You perhaps don't think that people eat much soya. You'd be wrong. Soya is in 60% of all processed food sold in Britain, from bread, beer, biscuits, baby food, and so on. 80% of U.S. vegetable oils come from soy beans. You're talking genetically engineered crop products in crisps, salad dressings, chocolate, burgers, margarine, biscuits, infant formulas, oils, chips, and, wait for it, MacDonalds french fries (which spends a phenomenal $2 billion a year on its advertising.) In all, 30,000 items in U.S. grocery stores contain genetically modified ingredients. And that is where GM labelling comes in. Without labelling GM products, nobody knows what they are consuming, and the damage to health, perhaps 5 or 10 years down the road, can never be established. The U.S. Government FDA does not consider labelling is necessary, thanks to strong bipartisan lobbying by Monsanto. After all, why would you need to label a potato, asks Monsanto. It's a potato. * On/off germination genes But hot on the heels of 'terminator' genes, are 'verminator' genes, which link the plant's ability to germinate, or grow at all, to the application of proprietary chemicals. If you switch off germination at end of season, the farmer has to come back for more seed. That means Monsanto has to keep producing seed. But with verminator genes, the farmer only has to buy a chemical to switch germination on again. That is cheaper for Monsanto. And you have to buy it. RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International) calls them junkie seeds - like Lazarus they rise again, under the blessed chemical from Monsanto. Novartis (the Swiss owned conglomerate of Sandoz asnd Ciba-Geigy) has even gone so far as to genetically engineer switching off the plants' natural resistance to infections. (The SAR system) Only a proprietary Novartis-produced chemical can then switch them on again. * Persuading the Persuaders How did Monsanto get away with it? Last year Monsanto made a gross profit of $5 billion on gross revenue of $8.6 billion. Not only have they contributed to the election campaigns of Clinton and Blair, they have also been walking in and out of the 'open door' at the White House with judicious selection of Congressmen and government advisers to take into their pay - a place on the board earns them $100,000 per annum. An article in Chicago's 'In These Times' gives a wide list of Monsanto lobbyists who are drawn from the ranks of Congressmen, Government and past and present presidential aides. Monsanto's public relations chief, Virginia Weldon, is a member of Clinton's Committee of Scientific Advisors and Gore's Sustainable Development Roundtable; Mickey Kantor, a former Secretary of Commerce, and adviser to Clinton, has joined William Ruckleshaus, a former director of the U.S. EPA, on the Monsanto Board. The same article refers to top Clinton aides, including Madeleine Albright, Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, and William Daley, Secretary of Commerce, lobbying EU counterparts on Monsanto's behalf, and mentions Bertie Ahern and Lionel Jospin as objects of their attentions. Monsanto's CEO Shapiro has been named by Clinton as a "special trade representative." Could it be that their attention to Bertie Ahern caused his swift, if not unique U-turn, (remember PfP) when Ahern forgot his last election undertaking of total opposition to genetically modified foodstuffs and trials thereof -- which have since been conducted on Teagasc (state Research and Development company for Agriculture) land at Oakpark, Carlow. The crop was destroyed by opponents of GM. "What else was open to them?" says Dublin European election candidate Sean Crowe, who has voiced concerns over GM foods encroaching into Ireland. The EPA first granted Monsanto a licence to grow Roundup ready sugar beet, on Teagasc land in County Carlow. Genetic Concern tried every avenue to contest the licence. In the end, Clare Watson took a case by way of judicial review, and lost. Monsanto insisted to the judge that she should bear costs, estimated to run to #400,000. It is a practice well known to corporations in the States -- it's called slapps, where a sharp and high cost reminder is delivered to protestors to shut them up. Genetic Concern has not shut up. This year, although the Dublin Minister for the Environment, Noel Dempsey, talked of his interest in a GM crop moratorium, Monsanto is going ahead this year with 'trials' all over the place, in Cork, in Tipperary, in Meath, Wexford, Kildare and Carlow and Dempsey has set up an 'exploratory debate' which started last week. Meanwhile the CEO of the Food and Safety Authority of Ireland, Patrick Wall, gave as its considered opinion 2 weeks that GM food "was quite safe", and Dr. Fenton Howell, of no less a body than the Irish Medical Organisation, said he thought that this opinion was "welcome and sensible". Minister Dempsey thinks that a general moratorium on GM food would be illegal under the EU regulations. He might have considered other EU countries, like Greece, which placed a moratorium on all GM crop tests; Austria and Luxembourg, which have GM food bans; France and Denmark, which have restrictions. In Britain, where Blair is 'gung ho' for GM, the British Medical Association, representing 15,000 doctors, called for a moratorium on all GM crop planting, and the Local Government Association in Britain has supported a 5-year freeze on 'Frankenstein Foods', which gives children in school and people in care the right to a GM-free diet. Sinn Fein Councillor Cionnaith O Suilleabhain, from Clonakilty, in Cork, initiated just such a lead to Irish councils in a resolution he put to Clonakilty UDC last February, calling for an end to planting GM crops and the labelling of GM food and support for other EU states which are resisting the bureaucrats in Brussels. The craven attitude taken by Ahern's government, a stance mirrored within the establishment parties, means that local authorities have not taken up Cionnaith's challenge. Local authorities across the state have final authority over planning decisions, but have not used their powers to stop GM, still less to ensure the preservation of Ireland's trading image as 'green safe food', which might yet ensure the continuation of Irish agricultural production and trade in a world where Ireland cannot compete with world prices of the U.S. and Oceania. * Hormone stuffed beef Two weeks ago a showdown was billed between EU Commissioner Franz Fischler and U.S. Agriculture Secretary, Dan Glickman, over whether the EU would allow imports of hormone-treated meat, rBGH, which the World Trade Organisation has declared cannot be banned. Hormone-treated beef has been banned for ten years in the EU. Cattle are treated with growth promoting hormones which include doses of testosterone, progesterone and worst, oestradiol 17 beta. (The latter 2 hormones compose the contraceptive pill, the former is a male sex hormone). The hormones accumulate in milk and the meat. Just this month, the EU veterinary committee announced that it had uncovered new evidence that oestradiol 17 beta has both tumour-initiating and tumour-promoting effects. Oestradiol, as far back as the 1950s, was known to have been a cause of vaginal cancers in women and cancers in their offspring. In Italy, babies fed on hormone treated cattle products developed breasts. A picture of a baby's head on a female body on the front of Der Spiegel damned the product in Europe, yet its use has been cleared by such organisations as the U.S. FDA, the World Health Organisation and the UN FAO. Monsanto hopes to get the ban lifted at the WHO conference in Rome this summer. * Trade War over GM and BGH The U.S., which has been selling 30,000 tonnes of supposedly 'hormone-free' beef to the EU annually, was caught out two weeks ago, when growth promoters were discovered in supposedly hormone-free beef. Attitudes have hardened and the EU, according to EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler, has no intention of revoking the ban. The World Trade Organisation has adjudicated the EU ban to be illegal. So the U.S. has retaliated by threatening a trade war and has drawn up a hit list of mainly agricultural products worth $900 million, upon which the U.S. threatened 100% tariffs unless the beef ban was withdrawn by 13 May. It wasn't. The U.S. hit list affects only some #10 million of Irish exports to the US, mostly pigmeat. The battle over EU bans on rBGH beef, or GM foods is one between immensely powerful corporations looking to control the food market and the staple crops which feed the world. It's not so much Frankenstein seeds, but Frankenstein on the board of directors. The ban on beef using hormone growth promoters, as the dispute over genetically modified crops, is one important way for the EU to protect its farmers the hand of Monsanto cornering God and the food market, but also the US taking over our food markets. In April this year, seven of the largest grocery chains in Europe went GM free: Tesco, Safeway, Sainsbury's, Iceland, Marks and Spencer, the Co-op and Waitrose are all looking for products which are 100% free of GM organisms. Then Unilever, which had been an aggressive supporter of GM, threw in the towel, then Nestle, and the next day, Cadbury Schweppes all joined the GM-free European consortium. Dunnes Stores is still assessing its position. At the end of the day, it's not a scientific analysis which will determine the outcome, but a power play for control of markets - for who is going to be let to corner the food market. It just so happens that it is also our survival, and that of the animals and their furry friends, the caterpillers, that are at stake too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> Analysis: Local Power - A National Right You could be forgiven for having a feeling of deja vu.about this month's local government elections in the 26 Counties. Eight years ago, there were also local elections. Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats were in power and the corruption mill was beginning to grind on with allegations and disclosures. Now Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats are back in power, the corruption mill is still grinding and its election time again. In 1991, the turnout of 55% was considered to be apallingly low. Now, a poll of 55% next week would be considered high. Sinn Fein came out of the 1991 county council elections with six seats. This time around, the party is aiming to add seats throughout the 26 Counties, with hopes high of breakthroughs in areas such as Kerry, Cork, Dublin, Donegal, Louth, Leitrim, Limerick, Tipperary, Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Offaly, Waterford, Meath, Wexford, Wicklow, Clare and Cavan. When you count in the UDC and Town Commission elections you get a total of 110 Sinn Fein candidates running in 131 wards. Sinn Fein's vote share has grown since 1991, with gains made in the 1994 local elections as well as the 1997 Leinster House elections. Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats are hoping they can pull out their core vote while the apathetic anti-establishment voters stay at home. This strategy could backfire, however, as public disillusionment with the establishment political parties is at an all-time high. Labour and Fine Gael are approaching the election as if they were never in government during the 1990s. In 1991, Sinn Fein entered the local elections with a policy document called Local Power - A democratic right. This year, the Sinn Fein ard fheis endorsed a new policy document called Local Power - A national right. The documents highlight the failure of successive Dublin Governments to deliver on the promise of local government reform, to devolve real power and the promise to provide adequate funding for local government. The only anwer to these governmental failures is to vote Sinn Fein and use your preferences wisely. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Note: Your trial subscription expires within ten days. 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