Category: News on Related Issues
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Families open doors for ailing children of Chernobyl
EVA SALINAS, GLOBE AND MAIL, CANADA, JULY 21, 2006 VANCOUVER — The day of the world’s worst nuclear disaster passed without notice by 12-year-old Galena Datenkova and her family. Less than a week later, after Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded on April 26, 1986, the Datenkova family kept…
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Chernobyl girl's joy after sight restored
<hertfordshire & ESSEX NEWS, JULY 21, 2006 THE precious sight of a teenager from Eastern Europe has been restored following two operations at a district hospital. Ksenya Audzeyeva, 13, who comes from Mogilev in Belarus, a region contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in Ukraine in 1986, came to England blinded by cataracts. She…
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Vietnam News Agency starts Agent Orange victim fund
VIETNAM NEWS AGENCY, JULY 20, 2006 HA NOI — Vietnam News Agency (VNA) has established a fund “For the Victims of Agent Orange” to call for assistance from local and international donors for Agent Orange/dioxin victims in Viet Nam. The fund, which will come into operation in August, will be used to support the victims…
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Vietnam to clean dioxin in hot spots
PHAP LUAT VIETNAM, LAO DONG, TRANSLATED THE VINH, JULY 19, 2006 Vietnam will carry out detoxification of dioxin in several “hot spots,” especially former US military bases that had stored chemical defoliants used during the Vietnam War, heard a conference last week. The Vietnamese Defense Ministry would be in charge of the task, which would…
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Vietnam to clean dioxin in hot spots
PHAP LUAT VIETNAM, LAO DONG, TRANSLATED THE VINH, JULY 19, 2006 Vietnam will carry out detoxification of dioxin in several “hot spots,” especially former US military bases that had stored chemical defoliants used during the Vietnam War, heard a conference last week. The Vietnamese Defense Ministry would be in charge of the task, which would…
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Still more pieces to dioxin puzzle
THE SAGINAW NEWS, JULY 18, 2006 Officials at the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Association last week added new pieces to the Tittabawassee River toxin puzzle. One of the new pieces: The level of the most potent form of dioxins — while still potentially hazardous — was lower than previously thought. The…
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Radiating propaganda
Have you noticed the recent upsurge in pro-nuclear stories? Chernobyl apparently was a mere blip in the nuclear industry’s otherwise shining safety record. One commentator went so far as to say that Chernobyl had actually benefited humankind by leading to improved safety standards. The same stance of course is used by the chemical industry vis…
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Cleaning the river
Warning, this story contains dangerously high levels of irony KELLY NANKERVIS, MIDLAND DAILY NEWS, JULY 16, 2006 Phil Sworden, a district forester with Conservation District, helps out at a water booth they have set up for children during Riverdays Saturday. The display is designed to educate people on water quality and what polution does to…
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Halabja bears scars 18 years after chemical attack
MARGARET BESHEER, VOICE OF AMERICA Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is facing several trials on separate charges of crimes against humanity. One of those trials will focus on the 1988 gassing deaths of some 5,000 Kurds in the northern Iraqi city of Halabja. Halabja’s streets are very quiet on a hot afternoon, lending an eerie…
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Businessman pens Agent Orange song
VIET NAM NEWS AGENCY, JULY 15, 2006 HCM CITY — An American businessman, Curtis King, has written a song about Agent Orange victims to raise awareness about the affliction and raise money for medical treatment. King, who runs the entertainment company Kingsworld Management (Singapore) Ltd, has written “Take my hand: A song of hope for…
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NHRC probe sought into `police excesses' against farmers
THE HINDU, JULY 14, 2006 Activists write to NHRC chairperson # Farmers were protesting the acquisition of 2,500 acres of land by U.P. Government # Land is for a proposed Reliance power plant at Dadri NEW DELHI: Prominent human rights activists, including (retd.) Justice Rajinder Sachar, senior journalist Kuldip Nayar and Narmada Bachao Andolan leader…
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Nation calls for assistance in Agent Orange cleanup work
VIET NAM NEWS SERVICE, JULY 14, 2006 HA NOI — Viet Nam needs the help of international organisations to decontaminate Agent Orange hot spots that are still dangerous three decades after the end of the American War, says the Steering Board to Overcome Consequences of Toxic Chemicals used by the US. Board members met in…
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Expert report on EPA dioxin reassessment suggests improvements: the view from Dow's home town newspaper
KATHIE MARCHLEWSKI, MIDLAND DAILY NEWS. JULY 12, 2006 The long-awaited and objective third-party review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s reassessment of dioxin released Tuesday creates more work and more questions, but both The Dow Chemical Co. and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality agree the dialogue it creates is valuable. The National Academies’ National Research Council…
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The Minamata disaster – 50 years on: Lessons learned?
DR STEPHEN JUAN, KULY 14, 2006 It is now 50 years since the most horrific mercury poisoning disaster the world has ever seen took place in Minamata, Japan. In May 1956, four patients from the city of Minamata on the west coast of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu were admitted to hospital with the…
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Shouldn't propaganda be a bit less obvious?
LOUISA PEARSON, HORIZON, BBC TV I don’t know about you, but most of my childhood fears came into being via the TV screen. It began with mildly disturbing characters – the mean witch Fenella in Chorlton and the Wheelies, Zelda in Terrahawks. Then as the years went by, it was disasters on a grand scale…