The left hand knows not what the right does

I vented my spleen recently on Britain’s decision to develop new nuclear arsenal. Now in the US, after explicit statements that countries developing nuclear weapons that are not part of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty will not be helped or tolerated, the US has just signed a deal with India that gives access to Nuclear technology — again this contravenes what the US has signed up to, yes in theory, the US is only helping with domestic nuclear power issues but at the end of the day India is open about it’s nuclear arsenal yet refuses to buy into the International Treaty — and yet there is still no proof that Iran is stockpiling weapons but the US keeps pushing for sanctions against them.

There is also a story about population growth spiralling out of control in developing countries and to be honest it is very high in areas where local resources are scarce and family planning education is an after thought. Yet in the west childless women are regularly lambasted these days for not producing offspring in counties where population growth is reversing. What happened to the idea of a global work population? Should Western governments be actively encouraging expanded families in the West, when in less than 40 years the human species will be hitting the 9 billion mark (it’s 6 at the moment) — throw in the expected reduction in basic resources due to climate change and smaller families suddenly looks like a really good practical idea, there are even rumours that the Catholic church is due to make an about turn on the use of condoms.

Wasn’t there a reason families back in the 18/1900’s were so large? Child mortality was high, life expectancy was low, work was agricultural, needing more hands and family planning non existent — in the West at least we live in a very different world to that. The thing is population reduction has a bad rep — it has been connected with all sorts of distasteful ideas like eugenics and enforced abortion in China, but am I out on a limb here when I say that you can contribute to society and people around you in many many ways without massively expanding your family, or even creating a family at all? Are we so genetically tied up with reproduction that we are all hard wired to keep producing even when a tipping point will be reached on planet resources? Everyone I know who has a child always says its ultimately such a satisfying, creative experience and being around children makes me grin from ear to ear on a regular basis, but I think it’s just as ok to give credence and respect to other aspects of life that are creative and contribute to society without all this focus on progeny.

I’m almost out of spit now but have to point you to another story that’s just come to light on a depressing example of abuse of a position of authority, scientist Richard Doll — a leading figure in his day of a UK Cancer research organisation, it turns out was also a substantially paid consultant for Monsanto in the 80’s around the time that he discredited opinion’s that Agent Orange was a carcinogen — quell surprise — Monsanto made Agent Orange, I try to avoid it, but sometimes my faith in humanity takes a nosedive — but I will keep on backing the 100th Monkey theory, not being in charge of the world I cant banish money, certainly a lubricant in the story above, but if enough people try to live differently to that and it’s already happening changes can be made.

And with that slating of fiscal evil I’m off to the shops ; )

Mel

US agrees on India nuclear bill
BBC
Friday, 8 December 2006

US Congress negotiators have agreed on a law which will allow the US to export civilian nuclear fuel to India .

The bill will still have to be approved by both houses of Congress. The House of Representatives is due to consider it on Friday. The deal offers India US nuclear technology in exchange for inspectors’ access to Indian civilian reactors.

The accord has been hailed as historic by some, but critics say it will damage non-proliferation efforts. The exact details of the new law are not yet known.

‘Compromise bill’

The BBC’s Shahzeb Jillani in Washington says lawmakers have reportedly fine-tuned the language and softened certain conditions in the nuclear agreement in order to accommodate the Indian government’s reservations about the deal.

Supporters of the bill, backed by the White House, are confident that the “compromise bill” will be acceptable to the Indian government, he says.

Earlier, a senior US state department official, Nicholas Burns - who is visiting the Indian capital, Delhi - said he anticipated what he described as a very successful and supportive bill, well within the parameters of an agreement signed between India and the US.

The proposed agreement reverses US policy to restrict nuclear co-operation with Delhi because it has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and has twice tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998.

US President George W Bush finalised the agreement during a landmark trip to India in March. US Senate and House of Representatives committees backed the deal in June. Under the deal, energy-hungry India will get access to US civil nuclear technology and fuel, in return for opening its civilian nuclear facilities to inspection.

But its nuclear weapons sites will remain off-limits.

Critics of the deal say it could boost India’s nuclear arsenal and sends the wrong message to countries like Iran, whose nuclear ambitions Washington opposes. India has made clear that the final agreement must not bind it to supporting the US policy on Iran and does not prevent it from developing its own fissile material. ++

Birth rate ‘harms poverty goals’
BBC
Friday, 8 December 2006

The UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are “difficult or impossible to meet” without curbing population growth, a UK parliamentary group says.

It concludes that a high birth rate in poor nations contributes to poor health and education and environmental damage. The global population is forecast to reach about nine billion by 2050.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health will publish its report later this month. It has spent six months taking evidence from expert witnesses for the report, Population Growth - Its Impact on the MDGs.

“No country has ever raised itself out of poverty without stabilising population growth,” said the group’s vice-chairman, Richard Ottaway MP, at a seminar on population issues this week.

“And the MDGs are going to be difficult or impossible to attain without a levelling out of population growth in developing countries.”

Dividing world

Over the course of the last century, the global population rose from under two billion to just over six billion. The bulk of the growth came in developing countries.

“Ethiopia had five million people in 1900; now it has 64 million, of whom eight million are receiving food aid,” said Mr Ottaway. The projected figure for 2050, he said, was 145 million.

Growth is now levelling off in most of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East; but in much of sub-Saharan Africa it remains very high.

Whereas many Asian countries are seeing birth rates of about two children per family, some African nations are still around five per family.

The UN’s own report into the MDGs earlier this year noted that the number of people living on less than $1 a day in Asia dropped by nearly a quarter of a billion people between 1990 and 2002. But in Africa, the number in extreme poverty increased by 140 million.

Easy as ABC

Mr Ottaway told the seminar, organised by the Population and Sustainability Network, that high birth rates compromised adults and children through:

- Poorer infant nutrition
- Higher risk of death in pregnancy and childbirth
- Less chance of receiving education

“I would agree with that,” said Dr Tiziana Leone, a population studies lecturer at the London School of Economics who submitted evidence to the All Party Group.

“We do see an impact of rapid population growth on poverty and on the health of mothers and babies,” she told the BBC News website.

“But we are also seeing an impact of the ABC rule (Abstinence, Be faithful, Condoms) for funding health programmes which has shifted a lot of funds into the A and the B, and you’re seeing the price of condoms in Uganda for instance going really high.”

The ABC approach is encouraged by the US government, which was accused earlier this month by the UN’s HIV/Aids envoy Stephen Lewis of practising “incipient neo-colonialism” by telling African nations how to fight the disease.

On the environmental side, Mr Ottaway said the evidence was more equivocal. Population growth was not at the moment contributing to climate change, he said, because the fastest growth was seen in countries with the lowest emissions.

But it did contribute to strains on water resources, fish stocks, farmland, forests and wildlife.

Earlier this year, the head of the British Antarctic Survey, Chris Rapley, said the Earth was struggling to sustain current population levels.

Period of doubt

In the 1950s and 60s, concern about the Earth’s burgeoning population was widespread among academics, including economists, said Adair Turner, who also spoke at the London seminar.

Mr Turner headed the British government’s Pensions Commission and is a former director of the Confederation of British Industry.

“The economics community went through a period of doubting whether it should be addressing the issue,” he said.

“That was primarily for reasons of economic theory, although there were religious reasons in there too.”

Now, he said, economists were revisiting the subject. Even in developed nations, said Mr Turner, going beyond a certain population density would impact economic progress.

He said the approach should be to tackle high birth rates with voluntary measures - providing education for women and making family planning available - with which Richard Ottaway agreed.

“We have the solution; it’s not that difficult,” he said. “The question is: will we go for it?” ++

Industry ‘paid top cancer expert’
BBC
Friday, 8 December 2006

The scientist who first linked smoking to lung cancer was paid by a chemicals firm while investigating cancer risks in the industry, it has emerged.

Professor Sir Richard Doll held a consultancy post with US firm Monsanto for more than 20 years.

During that time he investigated the potential cancer causing properties of the powerful herbicide Agent Orange, made by the company.

But a former colleague said he gave money he was paid to charity.

Professor Sir Richard Peto, a fellow expert in cancer, said there were no rules governing disclosure of consultancies of this type 20 years ago.

He said: “Everybody working in this area knew that Richard worked for industry and consulted for industry, and would do court cases.

“It does not in any sense suggest that his work was biased. He was incredibly careful to avoid bias.”

The BBC has seen private letters which show that Sir Richard, who died in 2005 aged 92, received a US$1,500-a-day consultancy fee from Monsanto in the mid-1980s.

During that period, Sir Richard wrote to an Australian commission on the results of his investigation into whether Agent Orange, famous for its use by the US during the Vietnam War, caused cancer.

He argued in his letter that there was no evidence that Agent Orange caused cancer.

Should come clean

Professor Lennart Hardell, of the Oncology Department at University Hospital Orebro, Sweden, has also studied the potential hazards posed by Agent Orange.

He was one of the scientists whose work was dismissed by Sir Richard.

He told the BBC Sir Richard’s work was tainted.

He said: “It’s quite OK to have contacts with industry, but you should be fair and say ‘well, I’m writing this letter as a consultant for Monsanto.”

“But he does it as president, Green College, UK - a prestige position; also the Imperial Research Cancer Organisation in the UK.

“And that makes a different position of the paper because you are an official university-employed person giving this position.”

Further documents obtained by The Guardian newspaper allegedly show that Sir Richard was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association, and chemicals companies Dow Chemicals and ICI for a review of vinyl chloride, used in plastics, which largely cleared the chemical of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer.

According to the newspaper, this is a view with which the World Health Organisation disagrees.

Sir Richard’s views on the chemical were used by the manufacturers’ trade association to defend it for more than a decade, The Guardian said.

Sir Richard was the first to publish a peer-reviewed study, in 1951, to demonstrate smoking was a major cause of lung cancer. ++

Conform to our society, says Tony Blair
BBC
Friday, 8 December 2006

People entering the UK must be prepared to be tolerant or not become part of society, Tony Blair has said.

In a speech at Downing Street, the prime minister said that tolerance was “what makes Britain” and warned “we must be ready to defend this attitude”.

The threat came not from “generalised extremism” but “a new and virulent form of ideology associated with a minority of our Muslim community”.

The Muslim Association of Britain said Mr Blair’s speech was “alarming”.

Wars ‘not helping’

A spokesman said the prime minister should be “investing in our society” to help the deprived, rather than investing “millions and billions in illegal occupations” which had “not helped to promote multiculturalism in this country”.

“Rather than standing up and lecturing us, it’s time he puts his money where his mouth is,” the spokesman said.

Mr Blair also used the speech to announce a crackdown on funding for religious and racial groups, saying in the future they would have to prove they aimed to promote community integration.

Conservative community cohesion spokesman Dominic Grieve said the speech was a “remarkable turnaround”.

“Many of the problems in relation to the issues he addresses are at least in part the consequence of a philosophy of divisive multiculturalism and political correctness that has been actively promoted by the Labour Party over many years at both national and local government levels.”

Funding crackdown

Liberal Democrat communities spokesman Andrew Stunell said: “We must ensure that the voices of moderation have their say, but support for organisations must not be distorted by government-driven targets or Tony Blair’s personal agenda.”

He said: “The right to be in a multicultural society was always implicitly balanced by a duty to integrate, to be part of Britain, to be British and Asian, British and black, British and white.”

Mr Blair “multicultural Britain” should be dispensed with, adding: “On the contrary, we should continue celebrating it,”

But he said the suicide bombings in London on 7 July last year had thrown the whole concept of a multiculturalism “into sharp relief”, the prime minister said.

“The reason we are having this debate is not generalised extremism. It is a new and virulent form of ideology associated with a minority of our Muslim community.

“It is not a problem with Britons of Hindu, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese or Polish origin. Nor is it a problem with the majoirty of the Muslim community.”

‘Essential values’

But he said there was a “problem with a minority of that community, particularly originating from certain countries”.

The failure of that part of the community to integrate did not mean multiculturalism was dead, said Mr Blair, but it would be useful to define “common values” all citizens were “expected to conform to”.

“When it comes to our essential values - belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage - then that is where we come together, it is what we hold in common.”

Mr Blair also said: “If you come here lawfully, we welcome you. If you are permitted to stay here permanently, you become an equal member of our community and become one of us.

“The right to be different, the duty to integrate: that is what being British means.

“And neither racists nor extremists should be allowed to destroy it.”

Race equality

Mr Blair said the Equal Opportunities Commission would be looking at concerns about women’s status inside Muslim communities. He also praised Tory leader David Cameron, saying it was “not conceivable in my view” that he would seek to exploit immigration to win votes.

Labour MP Keith Vaz MP has criticised the newly formed Commission for Equality and Human Rights for taking just one of its nine commissioners from a background in working for race equality. Only chairman Trevor Phillips had this experience, he added. ++

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