HEALTH HAZARD: How the system makes us sick - NI 331 - Chronicle 2000

Health hazard / CHRONICLE

.WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE MAJORITY WORLD

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Click a month above to read an alternative view of the key events of that month.

Nobel Peace Prizes tend to go to big-name public figures. For individuals who are not politicians but who ‘offer practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today’ there are the ‘Alternative Nobels’, also known as the Right Livelihood Awards.
It is perhaps indicative of the state of our planet that three of the four award recipients for the year 2000 were environmentalists. The winners were:

Turkish environmentalist Birsel Lemke, recognized ‘for her long-standing struggle to protect her country from the devastation of cyanide-based gold mining and her key role in the international campaign to ban this disastrous technology’. Lemke wanted to stop further cyanide mining and managed to convince local farmers and 13 mayors to support her. She even took the step of campaigning for 300,000 people to apply for asylum in Germany on the grounds that mining would make their homelands uninhabitable. Although a court case found in her favour and banned cyanide mining, the company involved, EUROGOLD, continues to press the Government to reverse the decision.
Ethiopian scientist Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher took the lead for the Group of 77 during the 1999 ‘biosafety’ negotiations. He helped the Third World deliver strong, united, progressive positions – such as the demand for the banning of patents on living materials. The award recognized ‘his exemplary work’ in ‘achieving an outcome that safeguards biodiversity and the traditional rights of farmers and communities to their genetic resources’.
US plant geneticist Wes Jackson received an award ‘for his single-minded commitment over more than two decades to developing an agriculture based on perennial crops that is both highly productive and truly ecologically sustainable’. His Sunshine Farm Research Program investigates ways of farming without fossil fuels, fertilizer or pesticides.
The fourth winner was a human-rights activist. Indonesian lawyer Munir was honoured ‘for his courage and dedication in fighting for human rights and the civilian control of the military in the world’s fifth most populous country’. He is a founder of human-rights group KONTRAS and also a member of the Commission to Investigate Human-Rights Violations in East Timor which uncovered evidence of the Indonesian army’s involvement in recruitment, training and financing of the militia which ravaged East Timor before and after the referendum last year.

For more information on the ‘Alternative Nobels’: www.rightlivelihood.se

THAILAND Monks tie saffron robes around trees due to be felled, in the hope that loggers will consider it a sin to destroy them. In places such as Mae Paa Phai the monks establish community education centres to spread information about the negative effects of deforestation.

BURMA According to the country’s military rulers, 99.77 per cent of the electorate in the Prome area want the opposition National League for Democracy to be dissolved. Voters are forced to attend mass rallies demanding its dissolution.

RUSSIA More than 2.5 million people sign petitions calling for a referendum on nuclear-waste imports into Russia. The energy ministry intends to change laws preventing imports of nuclear waste and plans to build 30 nuclear-power stations.

CAMBODIA The worst flooding in 70 years damages the 12th-century Angkor Wat temple complex. But this is just one of many tragedies – the floods kill 333 Cambodians and affect 3.4 million people. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy goes on a hunger strike accusing the Government of mismanagement of food aid.

WORLD Montreal hosts a meeting of top finance ministers and central bankers from the so-called G20, which includes the richest industrial nations with some of the biggest industrializing countries including India, China and Brazil. Police arrest 46 of the hundreds of protesters outside the talks, which fail to result in any proposals on poverty and debt.

At the Climate Change Conference in The Hague, international talks aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions collapse without agreement, despite recent evidence from the International Government Panel on Climate Change that global warming is happening much faster than predicted (see box).

NEW CALEDONIA/KANAKY The eighth Festival of Pacific Arts draws together indigenous delegations from all over the South Pacific – including those who sailed for eight days in traditional seacraft to reach the celebrations.

MALAWI President Bakili Muluzi sacks his entire cabinet amidst allegations of ministerial corruption. Muluzi offers for sale Mercedes cars that were ordered using money intended for development projects.

SOUTH AFRICA Video footage of white police setting their dogs onto black prisoners in an exercise to teach the animals to be ‘vicious and aggressive’ prompts outrage and calls for immediate reform of the force.

INDIA The Supreme Court allows further construction of the Narmada Dam after six years of protest concerning its displacement of 100,000 residents. The court says it finds no proof of environmental damage that would justify halting the project.

HAITI Presidential elections once again spark controversy. The main opposition parties withdraw their candidates in protest against unfairness in May’s parliamentary elections. The charity ActionAid complains about growing intolerance after its staff is warned not to criticize the Government.

NORTH AMERICA The world watches on bemused as the US Presidential election descends into chaos. Only a few hundred votes separate the two candidates – with Republican George Bush just slightly ahead of Democrat Al Gore – and ballot irregularities prompt calls for a recount in the key state in Florida. Russian leader Vladimir Putin offers to ‘help’ and Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe suggests ‘international monitors’. Meanwhile, across the border in Canada, elections (completed in one day) bring victory to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, fighting off a threat from the extreme right.

ROMANIA Leaders of the Government coalition, the Christian Democrats, suffer an electoral defeat. The extreme nationalist Greater Romania party comes a close second to the leftwing Party of Social Democracy.

KOSOVO Moderate ethnic Albanian Ibrahim Rugova of the Democratic Party of Kosovo wins the province’s first democratically held elections.