Monsanto has barreled its way toward dominance over the global seed market with strong-arm tactics and friends in high places.

As evidence of the former, the roguish company once threatened to sue me -- then a neophyte blogger with 30 readers -- on the most trivial grounds possible. As for the latter, software monopolist Bill Gates, evidently impressed with the way Monsanto tosses around its market girth, has tapped a former Monsanto exec to help lead his foundation's "Green Revolution" in Africa.

The company wins plenty of battles, but it loses sometimes, too. In fact, it suffered two bitter defeats last week.

No GMO alfalfa for you

Last Thursday, a U.S. district judge upheld a ban on new plantings of a genetically modified alfalfa variety that's designed to withstand copious lashings of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

Alfalfa is grown nationwide as a perennial fodder crop for livestock. If so-called Roundup Ready alfalfa becomes ubiquitous, farmers would be encouraged to dump huge quantities of Roundup on pastures -- a direct attack on plant biodiversity. Worse, it could create "superweeds" resistant to Roundup -- at best conjuring up the need for a new and even more fierce herbicide than Roundup, at worst creating an invasive weed that could take over pastures and other fields.

The decision delivers a firm rebuke to the USDA and its matador style of vetting applications for new GMO seed varieties. According to Reuters, the same judge responsible for Thursday's ruling:

... had issued a preliminary injunction in March, ruling U.S. regulators improperly allowed the commercialization of the biotech alfalfa without a thorough examination of its effects. That marked the first time a federal court overturned USDA approval of a biotech seed and halted planting, according to the Center for Food Safety.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Monsanto was getting clobbered by a Munich judge, who struck down the giant's continent-wide patent on GM soybeans.

Hope Shand of the formidable ETC Group previewed the case on Gristmill last week.

It's worth reading ETC's report on the ruling in its entirety. The group says that although the patent was due to expire soon anyway, the rejection forms a useful precedent in fighting the seed giant's attempts to declare ownership over huge swaths of the world's agricultural genetic heritage.

On Wall Street, Monsanto's share price has managed to shake off these setbacks, continuing its meteoric rise.

Why? These defeats are puny compared to the company's long string of easy regulatory victories. Roundup Ready alfalfa may be out of commission for a while -- though Reuters reports that 220,000 acres of it have already been planted -- but Roundup Ready corn and soy are rampant in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and the biofuel craze is only ramping up demand.

CHENNAI: Fish in the Uppanar near the SIPCOT industrial estate at Cuddalore are born with genetic deformity, according to a study conducted by student members of the People's Union for Civil Liberty.

G. Narasimhan, a PUCL student volunteer, who visited the SIPCOT estate in March, said the increased levels of pollution and release of untreated effluent into the waterway had resulted in fish being born with one eye. Several chemical units functioning at the estate were not following the pollution norms prescribed by the Government, he said.

He said the State Pollution Control Board should monitor the levels of emissions and initiate action against polluting units to ensure that the emission levels were within the permissible limits.

The Board and other agencies should ensure that the industries abandoned production processes that were polluting and make them invest in non-polluting production technology, said Siddarth Sareen, another student volunteer.

An extensive groundwater and soil testing in the Cuddalore area had to be done to assess the extent of toxicity and the impact of pollutants as a result of releasing untreated industrial effluents into waterbodies and land, Mr. Sareen said.

A comprehensive health survey of workers and communities in and around the SIPCOT estate had to be conducted.

The work of assessing the health condition of the people should be entrusted to an independent agency and compensation provided to those seriously affected, Mr. Sareen said.

The study also urged the Government not to permit any more polluting units in the estate.

Nearly 25 students from various city colleges visited the place and spent two days in the area and submitted their findings, said V. Suresh, president, PUCL, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.

Report by Dayamani Barla (above), translated by Vidya Jonnalagadda

The displaced people of Gurutoli and Paahantoli in Naamkom Block are eking out a living to put together a couple of modest meals a day by toiling as daily casual labor, and selling grass and country liquor. The financial constraints keep them from providing either decent education to their children or adequate treatment for their sick and ailing. There is no one at all to pay attention to these displaced folks. It seems that hunger, poverty, ill-health and flight (to the cities) is all that is left in their fate. Battling against financial difficulties, these women have themselves started to seek ways to provide timely medical treatment to their families, education to their children, and livelihood for themselves. They have organized into the Nayi Kiran Women’s Association to empower themselves. Under this scheme, each member contributes five rupees a week towards a Women’s Fund. These displaced women have determined to solve their problems themselves.

The President of this Association, Kavita Sanga, the Vice-President, Muni Sanga, and Treasurers Rani Sanga and Susanna Dungdung say, “The lives of the people have been devastated by the Government under the name of establishing Army Cantonment. They have no means to earn a living”. The women say that they now have to resolve their problems themselves. Anita Devi of Gurutoli told us “The Government has taken away our fields and land, and now the Government does not even want to talk about our difficulties”. Anita says that she does not at all wish to sell country liquor, but she has no other means of earning a living at all. Casual labor, working as a coolie or other laborer, and selling country liquor are the only vocations open to them. Karmi Devi said that her husband works, but is an alcoholic. He squanders away all his earnings. “We have four children, we need to educate them and arrange for their weddings; this is why each month I deposit five rupees a week in the Women’s Association”, she said.

Sarita Devi of Gurutoli said that upon being uprooted from the land, they were confronted with the predicament of finding sources of livelihood. “In the absence of any other employment, most of the women are selling country liquor. This is destroying the village”. She said that they want to undertake some other employment to halt this deterioration of their village and community. That is why the women have organized to save five rupees per week. Sarita added, “My husband works as a coolie and drinks moderately. That is why we are able to raise four children”. Javaa Tirkee told us, “Our agricultural lands have been taken away by the Government, so what can we do now!” She told us that her husband Rajesh Tirkee also works as a coolie, and she herself goes to Ranchi at times to work as casual labor. They manage to run their household thus. Malatee Sanga said, “Our farms and fields were taken away by the Government, now they ask us to leave our homes too”. She said that they are trying to educate their four children by working as coolies and casual laborers. Relating her sad tale, Puso Sanga said that their farm-fields were taken away by the Government. She also used to work as a casual laborer to run her household, but since the past seven years or so, she has been suffering from a chest disease (heart palpitations). That is why she cannot do any manual labor. Her husband Lakhan Sanga and one son work as coolies. She added that since the past six months her husband Lakhan has contracted tuberculosis. One of her sons, Babloo, is also sick from the past 15 years. Puso told us that they need a thousand to twelve hundred rupees per month for the medical treatment of the three of them. Asks Puso, “Should we run the household, or educate the children, or treat the ill?” Agitated by sorrow, she questions, “Jharkhand became a separate State (from Bihar), but what did we people get? The big-wigs got enthroned on the political power-seats; there is no one to enquire after the poor”. She said, “We got a separate Jharkhand State, now we should get back the land snatched away from the aadivasis (tribals)”. Let is be known that during the Second World War, land from several villages in the Naamkom Block was appropriated by the Army. There was no resettlement given to the displaced, no jobs, and no suitable compensation. Today all they have been given is some place to live under a Stay Offer.

ABOUT DAYAMANI BARLA:

"Tribals are becoming a minority in their own state!"

Jharkhand, a natural resource, mineral -rich region is sadly, also ‘rich' in the ways and kinds of exploitation against tribal societies that live in these regions. Dayamani Barla's is an inspiring story of a tribal woman who decided to stand up and campaign for issues that continue to erase, erode and impoverish tribal societies in Jharkhand in the name of development.

Dayamani, educated at the Ranchi University, has been writing articles in Hindi in regular newspapers and magazines like Prabhat Khabhar for the last ten years. Her writings powerfully articulate the exploitation faced by tribal communities, especially women. She strongly believes that by taking the voices of the tribal communities to the common public on issues of tribal women's empowerment, health, local self-governance and on Government's Tribal policies, common people can be made aware of the real situations on the ground and thus participate and influence development policies in the right direction.

She has been a powerful campaigner working shoulder-to-shoulder with the community on different issues ranging from eviction of tribals due to the Koel Karo Project, hazards of Uranium mining to forced prostitution of tribal women.

A recipient of the Counter Media Award for Better Rural Journalism (2000) and the National Foundation for India Fellowship (2004), Dayamani runs a local tea-shop for a regular living which she claims is also one of the best places to listen to the ‘voices of the people'!

In the 1960s, the United States blanketed the Mekong River delta with Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant more devastating than napalm. Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the chemical is still poisoning the water and coursing through the blood of a third generation. From Ho Chi Minh City to the town of Ben Tre and from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Hackettstown, New Jersey the photographer James Nachtwey went in search of the ecocide's cruelest legacy, horribly deformed children in both Vietnam and America. Nachtwey, arguably the most celebrated war photographer of his generation, sees the former conflict in Southeast Asia as a touchstone for his work. "My decision to become a photographer," he says, "was inspired by photographs from the Vietnam War." This expanded photo essay from the land of Agent Orange—part of which appears in the August V.F. with an accompanying essay by Christopher Hitchens makes clear, according to Nachtwey, that "the effects of war no longer end when the shooting stops."

SEE JAMES NACHTWEYS PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS SLIDE SHOW

THE VIETNAM SYNDROME

Essay by Christopher Hitchens, August 2006

Agent Orange, used by the U.S. to defoliate Vietnam's jungles, has now poisoned a third generation. From Ho Chi Minh City to the town of Ben Tre, photographer James Nachtwey and the author confront that ecocide's most shocking legacy—horrifyingly deformed children—even as new lawsuits could bring justice for more than a million victims, both Vietnamese and American.

To be writing these words is, for me, to undergo the severest test of my core belief that sentences can be more powerful than pictures. A writer can hope to do what a photographer cannot: convey how things smelled and sounded as well as how things looked. I seriously doubt my ability to perform this task on this occasion. Unless you see the landscape of ecocide, or meet the eyes of its victims, you will quite simply have no idea. I am content, just for once and especially since it is the work of the brave and tough and undeterrable James Nachtwey to be occupying the space between pictures.

The very title of our joint subject is, I must tell you, a sick joke to begin with. Perhaps you remember the jaunty names of the callous brutes in Reservoir Dogs: "Mr. Pink," "Mr. Blue," and so on? Well, the tradition of giving pretty names to ugly things is as old as warfare. In Vietnam, between 1961 and 1971, the high command of the United States decided that, since a guerrilla struggle was apparently being protected by tree cover, a useful first step might be to "defoliate" those same trees. Famous corporations such as Dow and Monsanto were given the task of attacking and withering the natural order of a country. The resulting chemical weaponry was euphemistically graded by color: Agent Pink, Agent Green (yes, it's true), Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and — spoken often in whispers — Agent Orange. This shady gang, or gang of shades, all deferred to its ruthless chief, who proudly bore the color of hectic madness. The key constituent of Agent Orange is dioxin: a horrifying chemical that makes total war not just on vegetation but also on the roots and essences of life itself. The orange, in other words, was clockwork from the start. If you wonder what the dioxin effect can look like, recall the ravaged features of Viktor Yushchenko — ironically, the leader of the Orange Revolution.

The full inventory of this historic atrocity is still being compiled: it's no exaggeration to say that about 12 million gallons of lethal toxin, in Orange form alone, were sprayed on Vietnam, on the Vietnamese, and on the American forces who were fighting in the same jungles. A prime use of the chemical was in the delta of the Mekong River, where the Swift Boats were vulnerable to attack from the luxuriant undergrowth at the water's edge. Very well, said Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr., we shall kill off this ambush-enabling greenery by poisoning it from the skies. Zumwalt believes his own son Elmo III, who was also serving in the delta, died from the effects of Agent Orange, leaving behind him a son with grave learning disabilities. The resulting three-generation memoir of the Zumwalt family — My Father, My Son (1986), written by the first and second Elmos about themselves and about the grandchild — is one of the most stoic and affecting family portraits in American history.

You have to go to Vietnam, though, to see such fallout at first hand. I had naïvely assumed that it would be relatively easy to speak to knowledgeable physicians and scientists, if only because a state that is still Communist (if only in name) would be eager to justify itself by the crimes of American imperialism. The contrary proved to be the case, and for two main reasons. The government is too poor to pay much compensation to victims, and prefers anyway to stress the heroic rather than the humiliating aspects of the war. And traditional Vietnamese culture has a tendency to frown on malformed children, whose existence is often attributed to the sins of a past life. Furthermore, Vietnamese in general set some store by pride and self-reliance, and do not like soliciting pity.

I am quite proud of what I did when I came to appreciate, in every sense of the word, these obstacles. The first time I ever gave blood was to a "Medical Aid for Vietnam" clinic, in 1967. That was also the moment when I discovered that I have a very rare blood type. So, decades later, seeing a small ad in a paper in Ho Chi Minh City (invariably still called Saigon in local conversation) that asked for blood donations for Agent Orange victims, I reported to the relevant address. I don't think they get many wheezing and perspiring Anglos at this joint, let alone wheezing and perspiring Anglos with such exclusive corpuscles; at any rate I was fussed over a good deal while two units were drawn off, was given a sustaining bowl of beef noodles and some sweet tea, and was then offered a tour of the facilities.

This privilege, after a while, I came almost to regret. In an earlier age the compassionate term for irredeemably deformed people was lusus naturae: "a sport of nature," or, if you prefer a more callous translation, a joke. It was bad enough, in that spare hospital, to meet the successful half of a Siamese-twin separation. This was a more or less functional human child, with some cognition and about half the usual complement of limbs and organs. But upstairs was the surplus half, which, I defy you not to have thought if you had been there, would have been more mercifully thrown away. It wasn't sufficient that this unsuccessful remnant had no real brain and was a thing of stumps and sutures. ("No ass!," murmured my stunned translator in that good-bad English that stays in your mind.) Extra torments had been thrown in. The little creature was not lying torpid and still. It was jerking and writhing in blinded, crippled, permanent epilepsy, tethered by one stump to the bedpost and given no release from endless, pointless, twitching misery. What nature indulges in such sport? What creator designs it?

But all evil thoughts about euthanasia dissolve as soon as you meet, first, the other children and, second, those who care for them. In the office of Dr. Nguyen Thi Phuong Tan, a wonderful lady who is in charge of the equally impossible idea of "rehabilitation," I was taking notes when a lively, pretty, but armless 10-year-old girl ran in and sprang with great agility onto the table. Pham Thi Thuy Linh's grandfather had been in the South Vietnamese Air Force, had helped to vent Agent Orange on his Communist foes, and had suddenly succumbed to leukemia at the age of 42. His curse has been transmitted down the generations, whether via the food chain or the chromosomes is unclear. While Pham Thi Thuy Linh deftly signed her name with her right foot - with which she also handled a biscuit from the fond nurses — I learned that she had been listed for some artificial arms, perhaps with modern synthetic flesh, from an organization in Japan. All this will take is a wait until she's fully grown, and some $300,000. Money well spent, I'd say. But there will be no "making whole" for these children — eerily combining complete innocence with the most sinister and frightening appearance, ridden and riddled with cleft palate and spina bifida. One should not run out of vocabulary to the point where one calls a child a monster, but the temptation is there. One sees, with an awful pang, why their terrified and shamed parents abandon them to this overworked clinic. One also realizes that it isn't nature, or a creator, that is to blame. If only. This was not a dreadful accident, or a tragedy. It was inflicted, on purpose, by sophisticated human beings.

I am not an epidemiologist. And there are professionals who will still tell you that there is no absolutely proven connection between the spraying of this poison and the incidence of terrifying illnesses in one generation, or the persistence of appalling birth defects in the next one or the next one. Let us submit this to the arbitration of evidence and reason: what else can possibly explain the systematic convergence? I left Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon and went down the road and along the river, by boat, to the delta town of Ben Tre. This is the very place where Peter Arnett heard the American soldier say in 1968 that "we had to destroy the town to save it." My ferry churned the big muddy waters that had once been cruised by the Swift Boats, and I stood out in the pre-monsoon rain to get a clear look at the riverbanks with vegetation that took so long to grow back. Ben Tre Province, then called Kien Hoa, was a kind of "ground zero" for this experiment on human beings and animals and trees.

Jungles can ostensibly rise again, but dioxin works its way down through the roots and into the soil and the water, where it can enter the food chain. The unforgivable truth is that nobody knew at the time they were spraying it how long it takes dioxin to leach out of the natural system. The muttered prayer of many Vietnamese villagers is that this generation will be the last to feel their grandparents' war in their bones and their blood and their epidermis, but the fact is that the town of Ben Tre is home to about 140,000 people, of whom, the Red Cross says, 58,000 are victims of Agent Orange. (I don't trust Vietnamese statistics, but these were supplied to me by a woman expert who is not uncritical of the Communist regime, and whose family had been subjected to forced "re-education" after the fall of Saigon.)

Once again, after a tour of some thatched hamlets and some local schools for the special cases, I experienced an urgent need to be elsewhere or alone. How many times can one pretend to "interview" the parents of a child born with bright-yellow skin? The cleft palates, the deafness, the muteness, the pretzel limbs and lolling heads … and the terrible expressions on the faces of the parents, who believe that this horror can sometimes skip a generation. There is just enough knowledge for agony and remorse, in other words, but not enough for any "healing process." No answer, above all, to the inescapable question: When will it stop? A rain from hell began falling about 40 years ago. Unto how many unborn generations? At a school full of children who made sign language to one another or who couldn't sit still (or who couldn't move much at all), or who couldn't see or couldn't hear, I took the tour of the workshops where trades such as fishnet weaving or car repair are taught, and was then asked if I would like to say a few words, through an interpreter, to the assembly. I quite like a captive audience, but I didn't trust myself to say a fucking thing. Several of the children in the front row were so wizened and shrunken that they looked as if they could be my seniors. I swear to you that Jim Nachtwey has taken photographs, as one of his few rivals, Philip Jones Griffiths, also took photographs, that simply cannot be printed in this magazine, because they would poison your sleep, as they have poisoned mine.

‘After such knowledge," as T. S. Eliot asked in "Gerontion," "what forgiveness?" That's easy. The question of forgiveness just doesn't come up. The world had barely assimilated the new term "genocide," which was coined only in the 1940s, before the United States government added the fresh hell of "ecocide," or mass destruction of the web of nature that connects human and animal and herbal life. I think we may owe the word's distinction to my friend Orville Schell, who wrote a near-faultless essay of coolheaded and warmhearted prose in the old Look magazine in March 1971. At that time, even in a picture magazine, there weren't enough photographs of the crime, so his terse, mordant words had to suffice, which makes me faintly proud to be in the same profession. And at some points, being naturally scrupulous about the evidence, he could only speculate: "There are even reports of women giving birth to monsters, though most occurrences are not reported because of nonexistent procedures for compiling statistics."

Well, we know now, or at least we know better. Out of a population of perhaps 84 million Vietnamese, itself reduced by several million during the war, there are as many as one million cases of Agent Orange affliction still on the books. Of these, the hardest to look at are the monstrous births. But we agree to forgive ourselves for this, and to watch real monsters such as Robert McNamara and Henry Kissinger, who calmly gave the orders and the instructions, as they posture on chat shows and cash in with their "memoirs." But, hey, forget it. Forget it if you can.

No more Latin after this, I promise, but there is an old tag from the poet Horace that says, Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. "Change only the name and this story is also about you." The Vietnam War came home, and so did many men who had been exposed to Agent Orange, either from handling it and loading it or from being underneath it. If you desire even a faint idea of the distance between justice and a Vietnamese peasant family, take a look at how long it took for the American victims of this evil substance to get a hearing. The chemical assault on Vietnam began in 1961, in the early days of the Kennedy administration, and it kept on in spite of many protests for another 10 years. The first effective legal proceeding brought in any American court was in 1984, in New York. This class action, settled out of court, was so broadly defined, in point of American victims and their stricken children, that almost nobody got more than $5,000 out of it, and there was a sharp (or do I mean blunt?) cutoff point beyond which no claim could be asserted. Six million acres of Vietnam had been exposed to the deadly stuff, and, as is the way with protracted litigation, the statistics began to improve and harden. It was established that there was a "match" between those who had been exposed and those who were subject, or whose offspring were subject, to alarming disorders. Admiral Zumwalt, who had first used the phrase "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" in connection with Vietnam, took a hand in forwarding the legal cause and might have added that his grandson should not be (or do I mean should be?) the last one to suffer for a mistake. More than a mistake. A crime.

Long after both senior male Zumwalts had died — or in 2003, to be precise — the Supreme Court ruled that the issue had not been completely put to rest by the 1984 settlement. The way now lies open for a full accounting of this nightmarish affair. A report, written by Professor Jeanne Stellman, of Columbia University, as part of a U.S. government study, has concluded that nearly two million more gallons of herbicide were disseminated than has yet been admitted, and that the dioxin content of each gallon was much higher than had been officially confessed. (It has been calculated from tests on some Vietnamese that their dioxin levels are 200 times higher than "normal.") The implications are extraordinary, because it is now possible that thousands of Americans may join a million of their former, Vietnamese adversaries in having a standing to sue.

"Doesn't it ever end? When will Agent Orange become history?" These were the words of Kenneth Feinberg, who figured as the court's "special master" in the 1984 suit, and who has more recently run the Victim Compensation Fund for the families of those who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001. One should not leave him to answer his own question all by himself. Agent Orange will "become history" in a different way from the trauma of September 11. Of that event, it's fairly safe to say, there will be no lapse of memory at least until everybody who lived through it has died. Of this Vietnam syndrome, some of us have sworn, there will likewise be no forgetting, let alone forgiving, while we can still draw breath. But some of the victims of Agent Orange haven't even been born yet, and if that reflection doesn't shake you, then my words have been feeble and not even the photographs will do.

Christopher Hitchens is a Vanity Fair contributing editor.

PUBLIC WORRY: Unchecked pollution in the SIPCOT Industrial Estate area
in Cuddalore is causing concern to the residents.

CUDDALORE: The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute
(NEERI), which has been assigned the task of studying the pollution
problem in the SIPCOT Industrial Estate area here, has inordinately
delayed submitting the final report.

The State Government had sanctioned Rs. 20.15 lakh for the study that
commenced in May 2005, particularly on volatile organic compounds,
with the specific mandate that it must be completed by July 2006.

The institute has so far submitted only the interim report, according
to M. Nizamudeen, general secretary of the Cuddalore District Consumer
Organisation.

Mr. Nizamudeen told The Hindu that it showed the unwillingness of the
authorities to address the crucial issue of pollution causing health
hazards to the people living in the vicinity.

The SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitoring (SACEM), formed by
residents to carry on the fight against pollution, is as concerned now
as it was in 2004 when it exposed the hazards of untreated effluents.

But the authorities had not done anything tangible to control
pollution. The samples collected last month at two points near the
SIPCOT canteen and at the entrance of Eachangadu, revealed that the
ambient air contained 12 chemicals of which eight exceeded the limits
prescribed by the Environmental Protection Agency of the U.S.

Three chemicals, namely chloroform, methylene chloride and
trichlorethene, known to cause cancer, were much above the safety
levels. Other chemicals had the potential to affect the nervous system
and kidneys, and, cause heart and eye ailments.

Mr. Nizamudeen noted that the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on
hazardous wastes had directed the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board
to bring down the pollution-level before December 2005. But it was not
complied with.

TNPCB sources said NEERI had submitted the draft report and the final
report would be ready soon.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gummidipoondi, 21 March 2007 – More than 500 residents, primarily women, from S.R. Kandigai panchayat in Gummidipoondi physically entered and stopped work at the project site of Tamil Nadu Waste Management Ltd (TNWML)'s hazardous waste landfill and incinerator. The construction was being carried out without permission from the local Government bodies and against the wishes of local residents. Representatives of Community Environmental Monitoring (CEM) and Chennai based youth group Youth for Social Change (YSC) also joined the residents in solidarity.

Speaking on behalf of the village, Mr. T. Rosepillai, Panchayat president of S. R. Kandigai said "We will move into the project site with our children and families, and physically block the location of the landfill and incinerator if the company and Government decide to press ahead with the project. If the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee, the TNPCB and Government does not protect us, we will protect ourselves."

TNWML, Hyderabad-based Ramky Associates' subsidiary, commenced civil works on the site on March 8 2007, despite being warned on three occasions against construction without securing permission from the Panchayat Union Council as per the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act, 1994. In June 2005, the Gummidipoondi Panchayat Union issued a resolution against the toxic facility. S.R. Kandigai Panchayat president also served a notice under the Panchayats Act to the project promoters asking them to stop work and restore the site to its original condition. A police complaint filed on 14 March, 2007, is pending with the SIPCOT Gummidipoondi police station.

Villagers said they are stopping work because Government agencies have failed to discharge their duty of protecting the law. The villagers had taken a similar action in January 2006 when the company had engaged in illegal construction of the landfill. Subsequently, village representatives had moved the Madras High Court and obtained an interim stay on the work. After a year long legal battle, the Madras High Court vacated the stay in December 2006 stating that according to the Supreme Court's order no High Courts in India have jurisdiction over issues relating to hazardous wastes and that the petitioners should take the matter to the Supreme Court of India.

The predominantly agricultural community in the area contends that the project violates Supreme Court-sanctified siting guidelines, and will poison subsurface water, affect agriculture and threaten the groundwater and public health in the residential areas that lie about 500 metres from the project site. While more than 85 percent of the blocks in Tamilnadu have been declared grey zones for groundwater where water levels have plummeted, Gummidipoondi is one of the few blocks with rich groundwater. The porous sand-stone layer at the surface means any contamination from the landfill will quickly flow to the groundwater. Siting guidelines prohibit the setting up of such facilities near water bodies. However, the project site is less than 100 metres from the Kuluva Cheruvu pond. Villagers also point out that it is ironical that the Tamil Nadu Government is contemplating setting up a landfill in an area that supplied several hundred tankerloads of freshwater to Metrowater in 2004. "On the one hand, the Government is contemplating mega-schemes such as the Rs. 500 crore desalination plant. On the other, it is spending money to poison good water," residents said.

The landfill site was arbitrarily recommended by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee and the Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board after the earlier proposal to locate it in Melakottaiyur had to be abandoned because of public opposition.

Organised by: Gummidipoondi Residents and Villagers from S.R. Kandigai Panchayat

c/o T. Rosepillai, Panchayat President, S.R. Kandigai Post, Gummidipoondi Taluk. Tel: 9865415889

Chandrasekhar Reddy. Resident. Tel: 9443117946

In Chennai: Shweta Narayan, Community Environmental Monitoring. Tel: 9444024315

Website: www.sipcotcuddalore.com

Two years after cyanide gas leaked from a factory in India, killing thousands as they slept, the U.S. government ordered communities to create emergency-response plans -- plans that could affect whether you survive a disaster.

Most information in these plans is considered public record, and is immediately available to anyone who asks for it.

But Broome and two other area counties balked at releasing the information when asked for it.

Broome has taken more than a month to reveal what's in its Local Emergency Response Plan, saying, in effect, that divulging parts of the public document could endanger the public.

County officials say they aren't certain which parts they can let the public see, and may need a month to decide.

Otsego County, and Susquehanna County, Pa., also refused in-person requests for their plans, which are designed to be blueprints for how counties respond in life-threatening emergencies. Delaware, Tioga and Tompkins counties provided theirs when a visitor walked in and asked. Chenango County provided its plan via e-mail a week after receiving a request.

Tioga and Delaware also post versions of their plans on the Internet.

During the past two months, reporters and volunteers from news organizations across the country requested the documents in 404 communities in 37 states and Puerto Rico as part of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' annual "Sunshine Week," project, which promotes awareness of open government.

Locally, the Press & Sun-Bulletin, and volunteers from the League of Women Voters of Broome and Tioga counties, visited county offices unannounced to see if members of the public have easy access to the plans.

The response in Greater Binghamton mirrors a national trend. In more than one-third of cases, government said "no."

"The concern is whether (revealing the plan) goes against homeland security," said Assistant Broome County attorney Holly Zurenda-Cruz, referring to the federal anti-terrorism program instituted after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Indeed, federal law says governments may withhold sensitive parts of the plan, like the locations where toxic chemicals are stored.

Zurenda-Cruz also invoked New York's Freedom of Information Law. FOIL was created to maximize people's access to government actions by minimizing the number of times public business is kept secret. But when an agency withholds parts of records under FOIL, the law says, it must release the others.

'OPEN' RECORDS?

Two League of Women Voters volunteers first requested Broome's plan on Jan. 9. At that point, a county health department employee acted as if the plan was public, handing over a document several inches thick.

When the women asked for a copy, things got complicated.

They were told to visit another office about a three-minute drive away. The request needed to be in writing. They were told they'd need to pay $2, and would have a CD in 10 business days.

About two weeks after the written request was filed, a letter arrived from Legislative Clerk Eric S. Denk. The request for a copy of a document -- one they'd already seen -- had been denied.

On Feb. 2, the newspaper asked in writing to see Broome's plan. Broome should have responded before Feb. 10, according to FOIL. The county could have granted or denied the request, or granted partial access.

It did neither.

On Feb. 20, the newspaper filed a second request. On March 1, Zurenda-Cruz granted partial approval. But first, she said, officials had to review it to see which details could endanger the public.

"We can't stop our everyday work," she said, "to make sure this gets done in one day."

Denk, who helped lead the county's push for a FOIL-friendly Web site when he became clerk this year, said Friday he was surprised to learn that one county department had allowed people to see the report before the county reviewed it. He also was surprised that Delaware and some other counties put their plans on the Web.

The county, he said, is still reviewing the plan.

"The emergency management director told me the law department has given them a month," Denk said. "I hope you know I'm not jerking you around on this."

FALLOUT FROM BHOPAL

The federal law governing local emergency plans requires that they identify facilities and transportation routes of hazardous substances and describe emergency procedures. The law -- the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 -- was spurred by the 1984 incident in which deadly gas leaked from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.

As many as 20,000 people died, estimates say, though Union Carbide puts the number at 3,828. Thousands more were injured, many seriously, and the company paid more than $470 million in settlement costs.

In the U.S. today, states decide who sets up the local plans; New York gives the job to its 62 counties. The state of Maine has 350 local offices; Oregon has one. The plans are supposed to:

* List procedures for public notification in emergencies.

* Describe areas potentially affected -- Tioga's, for example, spells out the radius that could be impacted if formaldehyde was to leak from a plant in Owego.

* Outline evacuation plans.

* List certain resources available in emergencies.

* Identify local emergency response coordinators.

Significant parts of each plan are public; U.S. code says such plans "shall be made available to the general public ... during normal working hours."

Other parts are private. Those include specifics on where dangerous chemicals are stored, and information about the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), which has large quantities of medicine and medical supplies if local supplies run out in an emergency.

There are good reasons why the entire report isn't public. Specifics about where a manufacturing plant stores toxic chemicals and how much is on hand, for example, could be useful to a terrorist.

Some officials, though, take that to mean the entire report should be secret.

Officials in Springfield, Ill., denied a request from a reporter -- and called the police, who ran a computerized background check on the person.

A Maryland county tried to charge a reporter $1,714 for a plan the law says it should have photocopied for $114. Tom Walsh, emergency management director in Carver, Mass., was succinct. "I know what game you're playing with this audit," he told a reporter. "My answer to you is 'no.'"

'EDUCATION TOOL'

Some New York counties put significant portions of their plans on the Web to make it easier for residents to know what to do in emergencies from epidemics to earthquakes to explosions.

In Ulster County in the Hudson Valley, a resident with a computer need simply visit the county's Web site during a spare moment to get more than 100 pages of emergency-response information, including more than a dozen evacuation maps and addresses for 10 sites where emergency shelters would likely be set up in a disaster. The person could then print the information and keep it in a folder until needed.

"The comprehensive plan is general enough that it is an education tool that people can use," said Art Snyder, Ulster's director of emergency response and communications.

Counties aren't required to put emergency plans online; Susquehanna, Pa., and Chenango do not. Tioga has a 220-page version of its 2003 plan online. The plan has been updated since then, said Emergency Management Coordinator Richard LeCount.

But despite their value -- some plans list actual routes people should follow if a river floods or a rail car leaks poisonous gas -- few people, other than an occasional reporter, ask to see them, officials said after the audit.

Longtime Delaware County Emergency Services Director Nelson Delameter -- asked for a copy of his county's plan -- needed only seconds to produce a binder containing the document, and seconds more to express surprise that someone had requested it. The 2003 version of Delaware's plan is online.

Tioga County employees simply seemed glad that someone was showing interest.

An employee willingly provided a copy, then waived a 25-cents-per-page fee that could have topped $50, said Joan Goodell, the League of Women Voters member who requested it.

The lone hiccup: A state Web site says Tioga's plan is kept at Hadco Corp. -- a business that became Sanmina SCI in 2000. A Sanmina employee directed Goodell and a colleague to the county offices in Owego.

"Everyone was very helpful," Goodell said of her Jan. 10 visit. "It was a positive experience."

MIXED MESSAGES

Not everyone was so helpful.

"There are things in there I'm not sure even I'm allowed to see," a man in Otsego County's Emergency Services office in Cooperstown told the person who requested that county's plan Jan. 9. The official, introduced as "Kevin," referred questions to the county's EMS director. Asked when the director would be available, he said it might be that afternoon -- and it might not.

He would not release the plan. According to the head of the state office that oversees public records laws, he should not have withheld the entire plan.

"In New York, there may be some aspects of the county's emergency plans that might be justifiably withheld," Robert Freeman, executive director of the State Committee on Open Government, wrote July 31 in response to the question of whether Suffolk County should make its plan public. But, he wrote, "I do not believe all such plans may be withheld in their entirety."

Otsego officials didn't respond to a Press & Sun-Bulletin e-mail seeking the plan, but mailed a 2003 plan to a citizen who asked.

South of the New York-Pennsylvania border, the response was similar to Otsego's.

Susquehanna County Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Wood pointed to his desk Tuesday when a visitor asked where he could find the county's emergency response plan. But he said the person would have to file a written request with the county commissioners, and that he would not grant access unless told by commissioners to do so.

"I don't know why you'd want to see that," he said. "It's not what we consider a general public document."

His plan to write a book on the Sunderbans joins author Dominique Lapierre to a long list of authors, filmmakers, photographers and tourist agencies who have the gruelling region in focus. The Sunderbans story, though, is far from over

French author Dominique Lapierre rues the fact that the perpetrators of the 1984’s Bhopal gas tragedy continue to elude the “courts of justice”, but knows what his book, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, co-written with Javier Moro, has managed to do. It has prevented further “Bhopals from taking place in the world” and kept alive the tragedy in the minds of readers.

Now, the world’s largest mangrove forest region, the Sunderbans, has come under Lapierre’s scanner and his many visits to the deltaic terrain have exposed a tale of immense human misfortune to him, where “there is a lot of hardship and where even drinking water is salinated and arsenic contaminated.” Sunderbans, declares Lapierre, who is currently visiting Bengal, will be the background of his forthcoming book and, even as he is currently researching the area, says, the book will be on the lines of his earlier novel, The City Of Joy.

Located at the southernmost tip of West Bengal and Bangladesh and exposed to the idiosyncrasies of nature and wildlife, Sunderbans, these days, is also at the epicentre of widespread interest among a cross-section of people, including authors, filmmakers, documentary photographers, climate researchers and travel companies. For Amitav Ghosh, author of the immensely popular novel The Hungry Tide, which had the ‘tide country’ as backdrop, the “book has been as much about the story of its protagonists as a documentation of the human drama unfolding in the region,” he mentioned at a promotional event held at Crossword last year. Shooting for the film based on Ghosh’s book is likely to commence in 2008, according to its director Suman Mukhopadhyay.

Though each tide leaves vast tracts of land inundated and completely under water on a daily basis, as Ghosh writes in the book, the vanishing from the map of islands like Lohachura and Bedford, according to a team of scientists from Jadavpur University, holds out the portents of the Sunderbans dire future. As many as 12 more islands of the Sunderbans archipelago, spread over 26,000 square kilometres across India and Bangladesh, will go under water by 2020 because of an annual 3.14 mm rise in sea level, contends the research team of the School of Oceanographic Studies. Over 7000 people, says Professor Sugata Hazra, director of the School, have been left as “environmental refugees” and many more are likely to suffer a similar misfortune in the coming years.

Yet, it is in the inimical terrain that a grand welcome is being laid out to tourists. Sunderbans, according to conservationist, photographer and editor of wildlife magazine Environ, Biswajit Roy Chowdhury, has been hosting approximately 50,000 tourists annually, with an increasing number of tour agencies taking charge of their upkeep. While the current tourist infrastructure there has room for both budget and mid-range tourists, the recent launch of a luxury cruise at Rs 15,000-18,000 per passenger for a two night trip, is aimed at attracting the top-end of the tourist spectrum. R Sushila, executive director of Vivada that has announced the cruise service, states that the overall upliftment of the Sunderbans is in their interest. “We are offering a village experience to the tourists at Bali island where we are also contributing a portion of our profits for the local community. We also have a senior wildlife expert to inform tourists about the unique ecology and bio-diversity of the place,” she informs.

Meanwhile, Roy Chowdhury with Pradeep Vyas, who holds the office of the Field Director of the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, have come out with a coffee table book, Sunderbans - The Mystic Mangrove, which, he says, can matter to biologists, naturalists, sociologists and tourists. “A recent survey done by a student of Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, concluded that only about 53 percent of Sunderbans’ tourist carrying capacity has been utilised. But increase in tourism potential should also include the local, unemployed youths,” says Vyas. He counts the decline in incidents of man-animal conflict, the crackdown in poaching and animal trade, as among the major achievements in the Sunderbans. Yet, when Vyas, as the Assistant Chief Conservator of Forests, mentions a long wish list, which includes educating tourists on proper behaviour inside forest reserves and on eco-tourism and waste management systems on boats, it is clear that Sunderbans — after all the hype, hoopla and creative fascination — still needs its share of attention.

After more than 13 years she died, Hollywood sensation Audrey Hepburn got a new lease of life in a remote West Bengal village, thanks to the altruistic zeal of French writer Dominique Lapierre.

At a South 24 Parganas village, 50 km south of Kolkata, the celebrated French writer Wednesday inaugurated a school and a mental clinic with funds raised from the sales proceeds of the famous black gown of Audrey Hepburn that the diva wore in the 1961 celluloid gem 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'.

Indophile Lapierre and his wife Dominique Conchon-Lapierre inaugurated the new education centre - 'Bodhalaya Vidyalaya' - as hundreds of children and villagers received the Lapierre couple and their supporters from the West on a grand homage to Hepburn, who had been an ardent Unicef's goodwill ambassador until her death in 1993.

Hepburn portrayed the naive, eccentric socialite Holly Golightly in the film that won Academy awards.

The Lapierres are financing a programme of 15 schools, thanks to the money from the Hepburn's dress which was given to him by its designer, French fashion genius Hubert de Givenchy, when he found out that some of Lapierre's schools had been devastated by floods.

Givenchy thought the dress would get about $10,000 for it from a collector.

Lapierre took the dress to Christies' auction house in London. It was sold Dec 5 last year for $825,000.

Speaking on the occasion, Lapierre also dwelt on his charity for the Bhopal gas tragedy victims.

He said his book on Bhopal gas tragedy co-authored with Javier Moro has stopped other 'Bhopals from recurring around the globe'.

'My book keeps reminding the people about the tragedy and the utter neglect for human dignity in Bhopal. It has perhaps stopped other Bhopals happening around the globe,' said Lapierre.

Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro in their book 'Five Past Midnight in Bhopal' looks into the Bhopal gas tragedy and its aftermath.

Lapierre, who acquired cult status in West Bengal post his book 'City of Joy', and for his charity in Sundarban islands and other West Bengal villages also flayed the state government's decision to ban rickshaw in Kolkata.

His 'City of Joy' was based on the trials and tribulations of rickshaw puller Hazari Pal.

At least three land surveyors working for Tata Steel were beaten up Wednesday in Orissa's Jajpur district by angry villagers who fear the company's proposed steel plant in the region would displace them.

The incident took place at about 1.40 p.m. near Kalamatia village in Kalinganagar industrial complex, some 60 km from the district headquarters of Jajpur, when a team of GO Design, a private firm hired by the Tatas, was conducting contour surveys without informing the district administration, District Collector Arabinda Padhi told IANS.

At least 40 people of about three villages, Gadapur, Chandia and Baligotha, gathered at the site and attacked the surveyors and beat them up with sticks, he said.

There were about five surveyors though only three sustained injuries, the official said.

'I have strictly instructed Tata Steel not to send any of its employees or experts to the troublesome land after the Kalinga Nagar incident,' he said.

'Although the situation is normal now, we have deployed police force in the area immediately after the incident,' said Padhi who was camping at the spot.

At least 13 tribals were killed and several injured when police opened fired on hundreds of tribal agitators in the Kalinga Nagar industrial complex on Jan 2, 2006, located at a distance of about 100 km from state capital Bhubaneswar.

The tribals had clashed with police to protest against the construction of a boundary wall by Tata Steel.

They have blocked a highway since the day of the Kalinganagar firing. The police and district officials have failed in lifting the blockade despite several attempts.

Kodaikanal/ Chennai: More than 500 residents, mostly ex-workers of a Hindustan Lever mercury thermometer factory in Kodaikanal staged a 'salai marial' (road blockade) at Moonjikal, Kodaikanal, today protesting the death of 47-year old P. Natarajan, an ex-worker of the factory. Ex-workers said numerous workers were exposed to toxic mercury because of unsafe working conditions and the failure of the factory management to inform workers about the dangers of toxic metal. Mercury is a nerve poison that can cause subtle- to severe long-term effects, including kidney damage, even at very low concentrations. Agitated ex-workers have demanded a post-mortem on the body to assess the possibility of mercury-induced damage.

Natarajan, who had worked in HLL’s factory for more than 18 years, was employed in the mercury filling area, one of the high-exposure areas. Urinary mercury levels reported for Natarajan by HLL indicate that his levels averaged 80 micrograms/litre over five samples taken by the company during his employment.

“HLL has caused irreparable damage to the health of the workers, more than 20 workers between the age of 22 to 35 years have died due to the poisoning from the factory in the last eighteen years,” said Mahendra Babu, president of the Ponds-HLL Ex Mercury Worker's Welfare Association.

Highlighting the pathetic working conditions in the factory the workers informed that no information or safety measures were provided to any workers during their employment period. “Even though mercury is a neuro toxic chemical and a known poison, HLL chose to hide safety information from the workers and willfully poisoned them”, said K. Gopalakrishnan, an ex-worker. “We came to know about the harmful effects on mercury only recently from friends and experts outside,” added Gopalakrishnan.

The HLL mercury plant was shut down in March 2001 after a long agitation by the workers. Representatives of Kodaikanal Environment Youth Service, United Citizen Council – Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu Alliance Against Mercury, Tamil Nadu Women's Collective, People's Union for Civil Liberties and local residents also participated in today's protest and extended their support to the struggle of the ex-workers.

For more details contact:
Mahendra Babu (Kodaikanal) – 9443828568
(President, Ponds-HLL Ex Mercury Worker's Welfare Association)

Ponds-HLL Ex Mercury Worker's Welfare Association
No 42A, First Floor, 5th Avenue, Besant Nagar, Chennai – 600 090
Phone: +91 44 2446 3763
Email: kodaigopal@gmail.com

The CPM machinery has gone into overdrive in Singur to secure the Tata deal; it has left the peasantry, its constituency, totally in the cold

In the interests of informed debate on issues of prime importance, one should welcome the CPM campaign in the media with its ‘truths’ stating the official CPM position on the Singur issue. However, there is much that compels us to differentiate between ‘facts’ and party propaganda.

First: Why Singur? On December 7, Rajya Sabha mp Nilotpal Basu told a delegation that the Tatas had been shown five different plots for the car project. He also said that the company did not want any other plot than the Singur one. Now, is it for a company to decide whether it should get agricultural land or barren land for a factory? Why should any state government allow itself to be blackmailed by a private company?

Second: Why do the Tatas need 1,000 acres for an automobile factory? According to the CPM version, they are buying this land only for a car manufacturing unit. A car unit needs less than a fourth of that area. No one talks about the need to give so much land to a private company for just one project. Or about how the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894 — meant to allow the government to acquire land for public purpose — is now being used to forcibly acquire land for a private company. In Orissa (where the Tatas were embroiled in a similar controversy in Kalinganagar), the Tatas have acquired huge tracts of land that they hold but do not use. One sometimes wonders whether they are industrialists or real estate speculators. In the case of Singur, neither the CPM nor the Tatas have tried to justify the demand for so much agricultural land. While CPM leaders like Brinda Karat discuss land acquisition and rehabilitation, they say nothing on the Tata Motors project itself, neither its economics nor the mou agreements and process of finalisation. For all the talk about facts, there is a deep secrecy surrounding the project.

AP Photo

How is it that a party that favoured comprehensive rehabilitation (as against mere compensation) in other projects decided to unilaterally give cash compensation for agricultural land and houses?

There are several petitions under the Right To Information (rti) Act pending before the local authorities since early 2006 (months before either Medha Patkar or Mamata Banerjee were involved) demanding transparency in the land deals between the Tatas and the state government, especially regarding the farm lands in Singur. The government has not responded to a single one — a clear violation of the rti Act, 2005, which the CPM has supported very vehemently. Unfortunately, till the time the active resistance started, the state government was not willing to give even the people directly affected any information regarding the land acquisition or negotiate rehabilitation proposals.

Regarding the consent of the people, all the nine meetings held were with party representatives and panchayat members but not with any gram sabha or with the project affected. Why? It is required under the 74th Amendment of the Constitution and must happen, even at this late stage. It is clear that no project details were provided to the gram panchayat nor was its consent sought, as reported to a panel for public hearing on October 27, 2006, by Dhud Kumar Dhara, a member of the gram panchayat.

At a press conference in Delhi, Bharati Das of Khaser Beri village said that they did not know about the land acquisition till the police pushed them back from harvesting their fields. Bharati owns only 1.5 acres in Singur, but demands the right to be informed about the project and to be negotiated with on rehabilitation and the benefits to the affected population. The CPM would do well to remember that democracy is not about majority or minority alone and that each member of society has the right to demand transparency, justice and the right to live with dignity.

Bharati’s statement along with the injuries on her body will also disprove the cruel joke about the police reacting to the bomb-throwing mobs of the Trinamool Congress.

Third: Of a total 997.11 acres, the government got prior consent from farmers for 586 acres only on the day it fenced the land (before passing the Compensation Award). This data is as per a status report on land acquisition in Singur by the state government. Even this much cannot be accepted as given till those documents are made public. In any case, it’s not a question of 100 percent or 99 percent families’ consent. There are 347 affidavits submitted by farmers who have not wanted and do not want to give away land. From the very first argument of the majority being in favour of the compensation, the CPM official stance is fixed to one guideline, that of majoritarianism, completely moving away from its past positions.

The number of landholders has also been challenged. The state CPM report itself shows the number of landholders across 635 acres to be 9,020. This shows the small size of the landholdings. Those who defend the project must understand that post-award consent means consent under duress, and that it is not ‘Free Prior Informed Consent’, a pre-condition that is recommended for large dams and development projects. The fact not mentioned is that most of those dissenting have not even accepted the land acquisition notice under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Hence acquisition in their case is ex-parte, on paper.

Fourth: How is it that a party that took a position favouring comprehensive rehabilitation (as against mere compensation) in other projects decided to unilaterally give cash compensation for agricultural land and houses? What happened to the party’s position on ‘land for land’ rehabilitation? Who authorised the state government to decide that the people should take the cash compensation and be satisfied? The CPM should remember that swearing by the two-third majority in the Assembly will do no good as the party was not seeking votes over the Tata factory in Singur.

Fifth: The issue of compensation to share-croppers and landless people has not been remotely resolved. Training for any vocation does not guarantee employment. To offer such training as a complementary economic development activity is appreciable, but to destroy existing agricultural employment and offer ‘training’ is nothing but a scam. What would the families do with cash? Absentee landlords may invest in some trade but will cultivators be able to purchase land of the same quality, of what area, where and when?

The state that the CPM claims is a people’s state, does not even have a rehabilitation policy. West Bengal should instead opt for a state-level Rehabilitation Act for the minimum displacement that may occur for projects that would be justified and conceded to by the affected people.

Its vicious response to its critics has exposed the CPM more than anything else. To call activists like Medha “the leaders of what are nowadays called social movements”, and dismiss critics as “fascists” does not suit a party which till last month was busy organising the India Social Forum with the same ‘civil society groups’. Until recently, senior party members were on the pavement with the same Medha Patkar when she was on a fast over the Narmada issue. At the time, they seemed to enjoy the attention of TV cameras and made the most fiery of speeches. Why should those ousted from Singur not have the same rights as the displaced of the Narmada Valley? What does this do to the party’s claim to be fighting neo-imperialism? Are some oppressors better than others, even if the brutality they unleash is the same?

Singur, as far as the West Bengal government is concerned, is only the start. The Haripur nuclear plant, for which about 18 sq km of land is to be acquired from traditional fishworkers, is next in line. It will not be surprising to find Comrades Brinda and Yechury opposing the nuclear plant at Koodamkulam while shouting the opposition down in favour of the Haripur plant. Are we to look forward to the day when the state government will accept an offer by Dow Chemicals to start a unit in West Bengal? Will the CPM then delegate its Politburo members to disseminate state propaganda to persuade us that it is right for them to accept the offer of this successor of Union Carbide, which killed more than 20,000 people in Bhopal? Or will we be told that Bhopal was a figment of our imagination — that it never happened?

CPM comrades can ignore the fact that black flags were flying outside most houses in Singur prior to the night of December 6 when party cadres removed them. They are free to believe that the local people were so excited about giving up their land for such a great development project that they went to the extent of organising pro-Tata and pro-Buddhadeb rallies in Singur and Kolkata. Like the West Bengal chief minister, leaders like Brinda Karat are free to believe that Medha Patkar’s visiting Singur would have created a serious law and order problem, which is why she was denied permission. The party is also free to believe that the ‘facts’ they have produced about Singur are the absolute truth and not propaganda. But none of us will have the freedom or right to differ from what the CPM believes — and if we do, we will be arguing against industrialisation.

The CPM’s Singur fact-sheet reminds us of a similar campaign released by the Gujarat government when the nba, with the Left’s support, was opposing the Sardar Sarovar dam; and also of a ‘fact-sheet’ that has now been issued by the Chhattisgarh government defending the violence by the Salva Judum.
The CPM and its comrades should remember the words of James Bovard: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” However, the actions of party leaders suggest that the era of enlightened despots is back. The CPM is not just right, the CPM is THE right, and since they are the arbiters of ‘the good of the people’ — because they are agitating on the streets as well as sitting in government — there’s no place for any real criticism.

Vijayan is associated with the Delhi Forum, a coordination centre for people’s movements

"This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells, and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like DIME an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims?"

:: Part 1 of 3 ::

It’s been almost five months since the first report that Israeli drone aircraft have been dropping a “mystery weapon” on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, news media around the world have run stories depicting the strange and “horrific” wounds inflicted by the new bomb. The international press has spoken with Palestinian doctors and medics who say Israel’s new device is a kind of chemical weapon that has significantly increased the fatality rate among the victims of Israeli attacks. [1][2]

In mid-October, Italian investigators reported forensic evidence that suggests the new weapon may also represent the near future of US “counterinsurgency warfare”. Combined with photographs of the victims and testimony from attending doctors, this evidence points to the use of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). [3]

DIME is an LCD (“low collateral damage”) weapon developed at the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial deployment in 2008. DIME bombs produce an unusually powerful blast within a relatively small area, spraying a superheated “micro-shrapnel” of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA). Scientific studies have found that HMTA is chemically toxic, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic).[4-11]

It is unfortunate that the US media have virtually blacked out the story of Israel’s new weapon, not least because our own military may soon be using it in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story might also have told us something about the grossly disproportionate brutality of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people—reason enough for the media to suppress it. [12]

Thanks to the intrepid Italians, the story could even have introduced Americans to their government’s DIME weapons program. This three-part article will ask whether Israel is ‘testing’ US DIME bombs in the Gaza Strip, and explore the workings, dangers, and projected use of DIME weapons and their roots in depleted uranium (DU) research. These parallels will lead us to consider DIME in its historical context, as the latest innovation in the US military’s long-running development of genotoxic weapons.

“They cannot return to life again”

The first reports about ‘Israel’s new weapon’ came from Dr Joma Al-Saqqa, chief of the emergency unit at Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa. Dr. Al-Saqqa said that Israel was using “a new ‘chemical’ weapon” and its siege was “a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200.” He observed that, “despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body.”[13]

“There were usually entry and exit wounds,” Dr. Al-Saqqa reported. “When the wounds were explored no foreign material was found. There was tissue death, the extent of which was diff icult to determine….A higher deep infection rate resulted with subsequent amputation. In spite of amputation there was a higher mortality.” The effects of the weapon seemed “radioactive”. [14][15]

According to Palestine News Network, Dr. Al-Saqqa “confirmed that there were dozens of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been burned from the inside, and distorted to the point that they cannot return to life again.”[16]

“When the shrapnel hit[s] the body, it causes very strong burns that destroy the tissues around the bones…it burns and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and the spleen and other organs and makes saving the wounded almost impossible. As a surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but nothing was like this weapon.”[17]

However, Dr. Al-Saqqa could not analyze the chemistry of the bizarre wounds. On the first day of the siege, June 27, Israel had conveniently destroyed Gaza’s only criminal laboratory. [18]

Despite his pleas to the “international community” to investigate and lend assistance in treating the victims, “no one has lifted a finger”, the doctor was quoted in mid-July. “What we found were journalists who came to take pictures, but as for the medical community, nothing.” [19]

On August 3, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd had visited Dr. Al-Saqqa’s hospital, “where the staff is struggling to deal with wounds resulting in an unusually high number of amputations.” Commissioner AbuZayd commented that “what we saw in Al-Shifa...was rather horrific.” [20]

According to Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International), “75 per cent of war-wounded patients admitted at one hospital needed amputations” following an Israeli attack on Gaza City. [21]

The World Health Organization was reportedly considering an investigation into the injuries. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel “agreed to take away fragments of tissue from the bodies of Palestinians killed during the recent military operations in Gaza for possible analysis in Israel but urged the medics to seek an international investigation.” [22]

Tungsten in Tissue Samples: A DIME Weapon?

On October 19, Italy’s Rai24news televised an investigative report that supplied crucial new information. The Italian investigators had tissue samples from the victims in Gaza analyzed by Dr. Carmela Vaccaio at University Parma. Dr. Vaccaio reportedly found “a very high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials, such as copper, aluminum and tungsten.” The doctor concluded that her "findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME."

Rai24news reporters also talked to Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Israel, former chief of the IDF's weapons development program. General Ben-Israel appeared to be familiar with DIME weapons. He explained that, "one of the ideas is to allow those targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other persons." [23]

The US Air Force refers to this emerging realm of weaponry as FLM (Focused Lethality Munitions). FLM is expected to provide the ‘weapons of choice’ for targeting “terrorists hiding among civilians”, as a cheerleading Wall Street Journal article put it. [24]

With “focused lethality [and] higher energy materials...nano particles, intelligent fuzing, [and] mass focus lethality”, the Air Force “will be able to strike effectively, wherever and whenever necessary, with minimal collateral damage.” Ominously, the military thinks these weapons will allow it to target sites "previously off limits to the warfighter." [25][26]

This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells, and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like DIME an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims? These disturbing questions will be explored in the next installment of this article.

:: Part 2 of 3 ::

“Horrific” wounds in Gaza may be warfare of the future

In early July, shortly after the beginning of Israel’s bloody military siege of the Gaza Strip, reports began to appear that Israeli forces were using a new weapon that inflicted strange and untreatable wounds, and significantly increased the death tolls of Israel’s attacks. [27][28]

Italian investigators have reported evidence that the unidentified Israeli weapon is probably Dense Inert Metal Explosives, or DIME, a so-called LCD (“low collateral damage”) weapon developed by the United States Air Force. [29]

DIME bombs blast a superheated “micro-shrapnel” of powdered heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA). Studies indicate that HMTA embedded in the body disrupts biochemistry and rapidly causes cancer. Like depleted uranium (DU), HMTA is genotoxic—it is capable of inflicting genetic mutations. [30-36]

Publicly slated for deployment in 2008, DIME bombs are small but unusually powerful. Their carbon fiber casings make “more of the blast energy…available as blast as opposed to being absorbed in [a] steel case". The carbon reportedly breaks into “thousands of harmless fibers” to prevent unintended casualties from casing shrapnel. [37]

The ‘footprint’ of the DIME blast is much smaller than a conventional bomb’s, because gravity and air resistance quickly drag the dense, finely powdered “micro-shrapnel” to the ground. The blast radius is reportedly as small as 25 feet. [38][39]

DIME is part of the Air Force’s Focused Lethality Munitions (FLM) program, which is expected to “allow” the targeting of “terrorists” wherever they are, even in places "previously off limits to the warfighter." [40]

The ideal of FLM is to reliably kill every human within the blast zone—one way or another. It is ‘total war’ on a 50-foot circle, within which deaths are not admitted as collateral, but purchased as insurance.

Israel’s new weapon “slices” off its victims’ legs, leaving “signs of heat and burns near the point of the amputation”. It’s “as if a saw was used to cut through the bone”, according to Dr. Habas al-Wahid, head of the ER at Gaza’s Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital. [41]

Viewing photographs of the living and dead Palestinian victims of this device, many of whom are children, we notice patches of darkened but unburned skin, possibly where metal powder was driven into and/or through the skin by blast force. A child's torso is peppered with holes, some of which, judging from doctors’ reports, probably tunnel through to exit wounds in the back. The skin and muscle of one victim is ripped into a blood-encrusted pulp, as if blasted at close range with tiny birdshot. Some of the corpses are unrecognizable. Most of the recent photos of “strange” wounds from Gaza appear to be consistent with what is known about DIME weapons. [42]

The area of a DIME blast should be treated with caution until it has been decontaminated (assuming this is possible). Depending on the local HMTA concentration, soil in the blast area may remain barren for an indefinite period of time, or it may grow plants internally contaminated with HMTA. [43][44]

The “who knew?” charade

In the scientific literature on tungsten and its alloys, the toxicity of HMTA stands apart. This formula (roughly 9 parts tungsten and one part nickel and cobalt or iron) damages DNA even when powders of the metals are simply mixed together. [30][31][35]

Implanting four tiny bits of weapons-grade HMTA in lab mice induced terminal cancer in 100 percent of the subjects. A powdered HMTA recipe was tumor-generating and capable of “genotoxic effects”. At least one experiment found parallels in the way DU and HMTA attack DNA. The results of another suggested that HMTA may pass its genetic damage down to the next generation. [34][31][35][36]

HMTA may be much more carcinogenic than DU when it is embedded in the body—as intended. “Tumors developed rapidly” in rats implanted with pellets of HMTA, but researchers “did not observe tumor formation in the DU-implanted rats.”

Multiple syndromes of heavy metal poisoning have also been attributed to this alloy, including polycythemia, which can be induced by cobalt overdose. Because HMTA contains far too little cobalt to cause the disease by itself, researchers suspected a synergistic effect among or between the metals. [34]

In a 2005 article reviewing the “status of health concerns” about depleted uranium and “surrogate metals” such as HMTA, three scientists at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) wrote that “medical and political controversies surrounding the use of DU” had spurred “a search for substitute metals in armor-penetrating munitions.” [45]

“[N]ew alloys of tungsten/nickel/cobalt and tungsten/nickel/iron…rival DU in armor-penetrating performance”, and are “among the leading candidates to replace DU in selected munitions”. Some of this ordnance “has already been deployed, although on a relatively small scale.”

The article then reviews the science detailing the alarming health risks of HMTA, much of it conducted by the authors, whom we thank for their work. It then attempts to explain how the military’s favorite “surrogate metal” turned out to be almost as genotoxic as DU, and probably more carcinogenic:

“In many ways the development of substitutes for DU in munitions has followed a pattern similar to that for DU deployment, in that incomplete toxicological information was available prior to their release…it was assumed that many years of industrial use of tungsten and alloys such as tungsten carbide…meant they could be used as safely in armaments.”

We infer that it was reasonable for the military to deploy DU weapons, because the toxicological information was “incomplete”. It’s a strange scientific rigor that requires us to know exactly how a known poison works before we stop giving it to people.

The cold fact is that there never was a scientifically valid reason to “assume” that depleted uranium could be used “safely in armaments”. Quite the opposite; as we shall see in part three, the Army realized more than 60 years ago that finely powdered uranium products could make extremely potent antipersonnel weapons. [46]

We currently have “incomplete toxicological information” about HMTA, but for more than fifteen years we have had clear warnings about the health risks of combining these metals. US weapons scientists should have known as early as 1992 that mixing cobalt with tungsten could greatly increase the resulting alloy’s cancer potential. [47][48]

It is hardly news that nickel is carcinogenic and genotoxic, and specialists have long noted that heavy metal alloys tend to unpredictably amplify the toxicities of their component metals. With this kind of “incomplete” information at hand, could military scientists have reasonably “assumed” that nickel would be a “safe” addition to HMTA?

Concerns have been voiced about tungsten sport ammunition for several years. Tungsten alloy bullets, some also containing nickel and cobalt (for superior hardness), were found to pose potential environmental hazards in several studies. A probable link between industrial tungsten and leukemia has been identified. Compared to these findings, however, the toxicity of HMTA may be of a different order. [43][44]

The “who knew?” apologia offered by the AFRRI researchers asks us to assume that the scientists who developed DIME weapons proceeded in sheer ignorance of the existing science. They were so incompetent that they merely “assumed” that they could use any tungsten alloy.

Does this implausibility jibe with the rest of the picture? A multi-billion dollar military weapons program is stung by the “controversies” surrounding its toxic DU-uranium weapons, and is under pressure to produce an expedient alternative. Would this program’s scientists have been allowed to be so cavalier about consulting the literature? Would the replacement metal be chosen on blind faith, without bothering to conduct even simple studies of its potential health impacts?

Logically, we must conclude that the military developed HMTA in the knowledge that it could have significant carcinogenic and genotoxic effects. Did they “assume” that saying “tungsten is safer than DU” would take care of the matter?

Perhaps relatively non-toxic tungsten carbide, famed for its hardness and cutting ability, would not have sufficed for the purposes of the DIME bomb. Focused Lethality Munitions like DIME must kill all of their victims. Slicing off their arms and legs is not enough.

The last installment of this article will trace the roots of HMTA in depleted uranium and decades of US warfare with poisonous, DNA-damaging powders. Then we will return to Gaza to consider the damage done, and the damage to come, if the warmakers have their way.

:: Part 3 of 3 ::

The human genome: target or innocent bystander?

Since early July, Israeli forces have been using a new weapon in the Gaza Strip that inflicts strange and deadly wounds. Doctors and medics say the unidentified device has significantly increased fatalities from Israel’s attacks. [49][50]

In the first two parts of this article we reviewed evidence that Israel’s new weapon may be Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), a “low collateral damage” weapon developed by the US Air Force. The DIME bomb’s “micro-shrapnel” is reportedly made of HMTA, a tungsten alloy that disrupts body biochemistry, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic). [51-56]

The Road to DIME

DIME weapons are "spin-offs" from the military’s “bunker buster” research. Initially, “bunker busters” were made with depleted uranium (DU), which had already been used in armor-piercing bombs, bullets, and artillery shells. [57]

The former director of the US Army’s Depleted Uranium project, Dr. Douglas Rokke, warns us that DU is an “illegal…radioactive toxic material”, the use of which “is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity.” [58]

During Gulf War I, US forces deployed more than 300 tons of DU in Iraq. A few years later, more was dropped during Operation Desert Fox. Iraqi doctors reported alarming rises in the incidence of cancer, leukemia, and birth defects, in clusters closely correlated with US bombsites. Scientists found strong links between DU and Gulf War Syndrome, which is slowly killing thousands of veterans. [59-61]

Despite the science, the vets, and the tragedies in Iraq, the US has stubbornly refused to end its use of DU. US-UK forces may have expended more than 2000 additional tons of DU in Iraq since March 2003. Nowadays, however, commanders are supposed to warn GIs to avoid contact with the results of their work. [62]

After the 2001-2002 bombing of Afghanistan, the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) found that the urine of Afghanis living near US bombing sites contained 4 to 20 times the normal level of non-depleted uranium (NDU). These unexpected results could not “be explained by…any known geological or other features in the area.”

UMRC researchers were “shocked” that, “without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill…[with] symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium.” [63]

Their field results indicated that our weapons scientists had “progressed” beyond DU to NDU, a processed form of pure uranium that is even more toxic than the depleted form. The “slightly enriched” uranium reported from recent Israeli bombsites in Lebanon may possibly be NDU from modified GBU 28 ‘bunker busters’ supplied by the United States. [64][65]

Dual-Purpose Munitions

Considering the scope of their destructive power, DU and NDU may be said to function as Dual-Purpose Munitions, like cluster bomblets that kill both tanks and people. As their exotic metallurgy “burns” through concrete and steel, DU and NDU bombs are converted to micron-sized particles that sicken and kill and murder the next generation in the womb. [66][67]

Agent Orange, an herbicide heavily used during the war on Vietnam, also performed two functions. It obliterated the ‘jungle cover hiding the Viet Cong’ while it ‘weakened the enemy’ with burns, illness, and death, and corrupted the DNA of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. The third generation of its disfigured and suffering victims is now being born. [68][69]

This madness seems to have begun during World War II, within the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb. In a 1943 memo to Brigadier General L. R. Groves, three researchers proposed steps to develop:

“a gas warfare instrument” [of radioactive material, such as uranium] “ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke….in this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It has been estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty.” [70]

The good doctors were concerned the Germans might be preparing such a weapon. They urged the Army to be ready to respond, or act, in kind. General Groves promptly followed their recommendations.

The toxic HMTA “micro-shrapnel” spewed by DIME weapons appears to be the latest development in a long string of carcinogenic and genotoxic weapons developed and deployed by the US military.

Return to Gaza: The mythology of murder

Israel has denied using DIME weapons. Nonetheless, Israel’s military has used the occupied Palestinian territories as a weapons development zone for decades, testing bright ideas like depleted uranium and poison gases. It would not surprise us to find that it is now testing a weapon for the US Air Force on Palestinians in Gaza. [71]

Unfortunately, the DIME hypothesis is the most plausible explanation for the grotesque effects of Israel’s new weapon. We can only pray that we have not witnessed the first experiment in the effects of embedded HMTA in human subjects.

Still, DIME may not explain all of the evidence. For example, one of the metals found in victims’ wounds was copper. DIME bombs are not known to contain significant copper, but another US marvel, the Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW), sprays slugs of molten copper at its targets. Is Israel also testing the SFW? [72][73]

If DIME weapons are designed to reduce civilian casualties, why has Israel’s ‘mystery weapon’ increased the civilian death toll? Perhaps this question should be addressed to the advocates of Focused Lethality Munitions, and to the remote-control operators of Israel’s drone aircraft and their commanders and politicians.

Although much remains unclear about Israel’s new weapon, a few devastating facts are indisputable:

The weapon causes enormous and indiscriminate pain and suffering.

It operates as both a chemical weapon and an anti-personnel explosive. At the very least, it is likely to induce heavy metal poisoning in its surviving victims.

The weapon has significantly increased civilian mortality rates, in part because it inflicts virtually untreatable wounds.

Despite this public parade of horrors, Israeli forces have continued to use this weapon against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for nearly five months.

“Whenever and wherever necessary”

If the DIME hypothesis is confirmed, authorities will probably explain that it is a new class of weapon not regulated by international law. The truth is that existing conventions and treaties have already prohibited some of the most egregious effects of the new weapon.

To cite one example, the bomb may be in direct violation of Protocol I of the 'Geneva Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons', which "prohibits the use of any weapon the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays." [74]

We will likely be told that DIME weapons provide a more “humane” way to fight “terrorism” by “reducing collateral damage” and “helping US troops win hearts and minds”. At the same time, we’ll be assured that the new weapon “packs quite a punch” and will “give our troops more options” to “take the battle to the enemy”, even if he is “hiding among civilians”.

Whether Israel’s new weapon is the Air Force’s DIME bomb or another similarly dreadful invention, the horrors unfolding in Gaza make it clear that “Focused Lethality” is a blood-drenched lie. It promises only a deadlier form of indiscriminate warfare.

US plans to explode payloads of cancer-causing genotoxic heavy metal powder “wherever and whenever necessary” may portend an escalation of a campaign currently limited to the vicinity of “hard targets” we attack with DU and NDU. Whatever we make of the intent behind these weapons, the habitual result is chemical-genetic warfare. It cannot be allowed to continue.

Notes:

[1]. Palestinian injuries suggest Israel is using chemical weapons in Gaza
Ma'an News, 7/10/2006
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php? opr=ShowDetails&ID=13044

[2]. Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza
By Jean Shaoul, Centre for Research on Globalization/wsws.org, 10/24/2006
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/
isra-o24.shtml

[3]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/
ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894

[4]. Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME)
GlobalSecurity.org, 10/18/2006
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/
systems/munitions/dime.htm

[5]. Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel
Miller, AC, et al, PubMed, 11/26/2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/
query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&
list_uids=11873492&dopt=Abstract

[6]. Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal–tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects
Miller, AC, et al
Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University Press
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/
full/22/1/115

[7]. Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys
Alexandra C Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)
http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/
du_library/reports/projects/dod122.htm

[8]. Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant
alpha particle decay
Miller, AC, et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002 pp. 246– 252
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf

[9]. Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats
Kalinich et al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/
7791/7791.html

[10]. Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2)
By Miller, AC, et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u8830 115617471jl/

[11]. Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring
By Alexandra C. Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5: Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006
http://www.aacrmeetingabstracts.org/cgi/
content/abstract/2006/1/448-b

[12]. If Americans Knew
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

[13]. Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' in Gaza
By Duraid Al Baik, Centre for Research on Globalization/Gulf News, 6/13/2006
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? context=viewArticle&code=
AL%2020060713&articleId=2730

[14]. Are New Weapons Being Used In Gaza and Lebanon
By David Halpin MB BS FRCS, Electronic Intifada, 8/14/2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5528.
shtml

[15]. Ministry of Health report on toxic Israeli weapons confirmed by Gaza City medical sources
Palestine News Network, 7/13/2006
http://www.pnn.ps/english/archive2006/
jul/week2/130706/report5.htm

[16]. ibid.

[17]. Doctors Report Unusual Weapon Used in Gaza
Pacifica/Free Speech Radio News 7/11/2006
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/fsrn/
fsrn_060711.html

[18]. Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' in Gaza
Centre for Research on Globalization/Gulf News, 6/13/2006
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? context=viewArticle&code=
AL%2020060713&articleId=2730

[19]. Ministry of Health report on toxic Israeli weapons confirmed by Gaza City medical sources
Palestine News Network, 7/13/2006
http://www.pnn.ps/english/archive2006/
jul/week2/130706/report5.htm

[20]. UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd: "Please don't forget what's going on in Gaza"
ReliefWeb/UNRWA, 8/3/2006
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/
db900SID/EVOD-6SBJDR? OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

[21]. Hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed and running out of supplies
Electronic Intifada/Merlin, 8/8/2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5455.
shtml

[22]. Gaza doctors encounter 'unexplained injuries'
Donald Macintyre, The Independent 9/4/2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/
middle_east/article1359830.ece

[23]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/12/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894

[24]. Air Force seeks a bomb with less bang
By Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/11/2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06096/679996-84.stm

[25]. Munition Technology Drivers
By Col. Thomas “Mas” Masiell, Air Force Research Laboratory, 12/1/2006
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2001munitions/masiello.pdf

[26]. USAF Unfunded Priority List (UPL)
SAF/FMB POC, FY 2007, February 2006, Page 54
http://wwwd.house.gov/hasc_democrats/
Issues%20109th/unfunded/AF%20UFR%
20FY07.pdf

[27]. Israel accused of using 'Dime' bombs
AlJazeera, 10/13/2006
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
B79DF070-B20C-47A7-A204-
08297E5FC1B2.htm

[28]. Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza
By Jean Shaoul, Centre for Research on Globalization/wsws.org, 10/24/2006
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/isra-o24.shtml

[29]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/
ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894

[30]. Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel
Miller, AC, et al, PubMed, 11/26/2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.
fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids
=11873492&dopt=Abstract

[31]. Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal–tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects
Miller, AC, et al
Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University Press
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/
full/22/1/115

[32]. Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys
Alexandra C Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)
http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_
library/reports/projects/dod122.htm

[33]. Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant
alpha particle decay
Miller, AC, et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002 pp. 246– 252
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf

[34]. Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats
Kalinich et al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/
7791/7791.html

[35]. Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2)
By Miller, AC, et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
http://www.springerlink.com/content/
u8830115617471jl/

[36]. Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring
By Alexandra C. Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5: Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006
http://www.aacrmeetingabstracts.org/cgi/
content/abstract/2006/1/448-b

[37]. Air Force seeks a bomb with less bang
By Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/11/2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06096/679996-84.stm

[38]. Cancer Worries for New U.S. Bombs
DefenseTech.org, 5/20/2006
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/
002434.html

[39]. Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME)
GlobalSecurity.org, 10/18/2006
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/
systems/munitions/dime.htm

[40]. USAF Unfunded Priority List (UPL)
SAF/FMB POC, FY 2007, February 2006, Page 54
http://wwwd.house.gov/hasc_democrats/
Issues%20109th/unfunded/AF%20UFR%
20FY07.pdf

[41]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/
ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894

[42]. Effects of Israel's New Weapon
Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel
http://www.vtjp.org/report/neweapon
images.htm

[43]. Possible Health And Environmental Impacts Of Tungsten In Lead Replacement Shot
Paul Harrison and Karen Bradley, MRC Institute for Environment and Health 2005
http://www.defra.gov.uk/ENVIRONMENT/
chemicals/achs/050906/achs0516a.pdf

[44]. Tungsten Effects on Soil Environments
Nikolay Strigul, et al, UMass, Annual International Conference on Soil, Sediments and Water, 10/18/2004
http://www.umasssoils.com/abstracts2004/
Tuesday/trainingranges.htm#Tungsten%
20Effects%20on%20Soil%20Environments

[45]. Status of Health Concerns about Military Use of Depleted Uranium and Surrogate Metals in Armor-Penetrating Munitions
D.E. McClain, A.C. Miller, and J.F. Kalinich, NATO, 2005
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/mcclain_NATO_2005.pdf

[46]. Memorandum to: Brigadier General L. R. Groves From: Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey
Midfully.org/War Department, United States Engineer Office, Manhattan District, Oak Ridge Tennessee, 10/30/1943
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Groves-
Memo-Manhattan30oct43.htm

[47]. Abstract: Comparative study of the acute lung toxicity of pure cobalt powder and cobalt-tungsten carbide mixture in rat
Lasfargues G., et al, Toxicology and Applied
Pharmacology, 1992
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt
=5201679

[48]. Evaluation of the role of reactive oxygen species in the interactive toxicity of carbide-cobalt mixtures on macrophages in culture
D. Lison and R. Lauwerys, SpringerLink//Archives of Toxicology, 6/1/1993
http://www.springerlink.com/content/
k2u94u07558q6224/

[49]. Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks
By Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, 10/18/2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/
0,,1924675,00.html

[50]. Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza
By Jean Shaoul, Centre for Research on Globalization/wsws.org, 10/24/2006
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/
isra-o24.shtml

[51]. Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel
Miller, AC, et al, PubMed, 11/26/2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.
fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_
uids=11873492&dopt=Abstract

[52]. Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal–tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects
Miller, AC, et al
Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University Press
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/
full/22/1/115

[53]. Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys
Alexandra C Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)
http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_
library/reports/projects/dod122.htm

[54]. Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant
alpha particle decay
Miller, AC, et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002 pp. 246– 252
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf

[55]. Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats
Kalinich et al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/
7791/7791.html

[56]. Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2)
By Miller, AC, et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
http://www.springerlink.com/content/
u8830115617471jl/

[57]. Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring
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For years, Francisco Antenor drove his tractor past the banana plantations of this tropical village as they were sprayed with pesticide. Droplets fell like dew on his copper-hued skin, which is now spotted like a Dalmatian's.

José Alberto Zapata fathered his second child shortly after he began working in those same plantations, which grew bananas eaten across the United States. But after repeatedly handling chemical-coated fruit, he became sterile.

Nicolaza Caballero wore a plastic apron when she trimmed and washed banana bunches, but liquid splashed her limbs and lap. Now, festering welts cover her shins, two of her children were stillborn and doctors have removed four tumors from her uterus.

Antenor, Zapata and Caballero are among tens of thousands of residents of Latin America, Africa and the Philippines who blame their health problems on Nemagon, a U.S.-made pesticide that U.S. fruit companies began using on their foreign banana plantations in the 1960s.

The United States suspended use of Nemagon in 1977 and permanently banned it in 1979. But hundreds of lawsuits filed against Nemagon makers and users by foreign workers claim that fruit companies applied it into the 1980s overseas.

For nearly a quarter-century, U.S. food and chemical giants have stalled most of those lawsuits in the United States and abroad, claiming there is no proof Nemagon harmed workers or nearby residents. But a few cases have inched forward, including two jury trials slated for early next year in California and Texas - the first in U.S. courts involving foreign Nemagon plaintiffs.

Pitting some of the world's poorest residents against some of its biggest conglomerates, including Dole Fruit Co., Shell Oil Co. and Dow Chemical Co., the cases could set new benchmarks for multinationals' accountability in developing countries.

"They can run and they can hide, but eventually they will have to pay," predicted Los Angeles lawyer Walter Lack, who is handling a major Nemagon case and fought the Erin Brockovich toxicity suit that became a hit Julia Roberts movie.

Few settlements abroad

While U.S. workers and communities have won massive Nemagon awards or settlements, their foreign counterparts have received little or nothing, said Erika Rosenthal of the San Francisco-based Pesticide Action Network.

The plight of alleged victims has assumed added symbolism in Central American countries, once called "banana republics" because of the political clout of international fruit companies there. In Nicaragua, workers in recent years have staged hunger strikes, marches and sit-ins to demand damage awards.

Nemagon, which is derived from dibromochloropropane, or DBCP, attacks parasites that discolor or destroy fruit. In El Viejo and other villages in Nicaragua's banana-growing province of Chinandega, where activists estimate 16,500 people were harmed and more than 1,000 died from exposure, DBCP is called "Death's Dew."

The Environmental Protection Agency suspended Nemagon in 1977 after one-third of men manufacturing it in a U.S. lab became sterile and tests linked it to cancer in animals.

But companies including Dole, Shell and Dow say there is no proof it harmed humans in open-air environments. "You have some very poor people who are blaming every misery they have on DBCP" when the real problem is a lack of development and health care in their countries, said Michael Carter, Dole's executive vice president and general counsel. Dole owns Standard Fruit Co., a target of many lawsuits.

U.S. lawyers for foreign banana workers counter that Nemagon manufacturers knew as early as the 1950s that it might harm humans, yet downplayed its risks to regulators. Among other studies, Dow in 1961 noted liver and kidney cancer and testicular damage in lab animals exposed to DBCP.

Fruit companies not only used Nemagon abroad after the EPA ban but often intentionally ignored manufacturers' warnings, such as clearing people from areas being sprayed, lawyers also allege.

"Workers [abroad] were spraying DBCP into the air with irrigation guns, wearing jeans and cotton clothing with no protection," said Duane Miller, a leading DBCP lawyer who represents 12 Nicaraguan workers in a trial slated for Los Angeles Superior Court in March. "It was unconscionable."

In Chinandega, where Standard Fruit operated until 1982, workers described the pungent pesticide becoming trapped in banana fronds, sticking to fruit.

"The pesticide washed all over us. Nobody told us there was a danger," said Caballero, 64, the fruit trimmer. Like most banana workers here, she has no savings - monthly plantation wages in 1980 were about $22 - and no health insurance.