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Energy Bill Action * Ugly American-Oust Diplomats * Space 4 Peace Event
24 April 2002
Item 1 requires your immediate attention. The final vote for the S. 517 on a comprehensive energy bill is coming this week and it needs to be prevented. No energy bill is better than this one. Items 2 and 3 show the real context of the Ugly American. The US is using its financial muscle to control independent organizations to advance its dreadful foreign "terror-feeding" policies. Item 4 is an announcement from the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space on their 10th annual gathering to help end the arms race and prevent nuclear madness from going any further.
Please call US Senators today or ASAP to stop this energy bill as a main priority, and at the same call, request that your Senators introduce legislation that would halt the arms race, similarly to what was proposed by Dennis Kucinich in the US House of Representatives H.R. 3616.
1) Oppose S. 517 Senate Energy Bill -- ASAP
2) The Ugly America - US forces out UN arms director
3) The Uglier American - Climate scientist ousted
4) Keep Space for Peace Conference, May 10-12, Berkeley, CA
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1) Oppose S. 517 Senate Energy Bill -- ASAP
URGENT ALERT-ALERT -ALERT
TELL YOUR SENATORS TO OPPOSE S. 517 THE SENATE ENERGY BILL!
Capitol Switchboard - (202)224-3121; ask for your Senators' offices or find emails and local contact information at http://www.senate.gov.
TAKE ACTION TODAY--
BREAKING NEWS - April 23, 2002–
Energy cloture vote passes in Senate; final vote expected this week. http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily.htm
The Senate moved a giant step closer to finalizing the work on a comprehensive energy bill (S. 517) with a vote for cloture that effectively guarantees a tally on final passage later this week.
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From http://www.nirs.org
We need to put pressure on Senators to vote against this bill. The Democrats need cover to vote against it-let's give it to them. Tell your Senators S 517 curtails all renewable energy and nationalizes nuclear power, once again distorting the electricity market in favor of dangerous, unwanted nuclear energy. At a time when nuclear reactors are (finally) an officially recognized terrorist target, this bill would use taxpayer money and federal land and government resources to "deploy" a new generation of nuclear reactors. Tell them this energy policy is more mid-20th century than 21st century, and that we deserve better. For more information you can contact the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and ask for Cindy 202-328-0002.
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2) The Ugly America - US forces out UN arms director
Times of London Online [April 23, 2002]
America forces out UN arms director
by Michael Binyon
JOSÉ BUSTANI, the embattled director-general of the world body monitoring chemical weapons, was dismissed yesterday when most of the member states supported an American move to oust him.
Forty-eight of the 145 members of the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted to dismiss Senhor Bustani, the first head of the organisation, who was re-elected for a further four years last May. Only seven countries supported him; a further 43 abstained.
A stormy two-day meeting in The Hague heard lengthy accusations against him by the Americans, although the US delegate was booed when he failed to produce the promised evidence. After the vote a devastated Senhor Bustani stormed out of the conference hall, threw his hands in the air and said he had lost his job.
The Americans accused the Brazilian head of the OPCW of a "habit of refusing to consult with member states" and cited his proposed new anti-terrorism measures after September 11, which were not first cleared with the US. The State Department called his management disastrous and blamed him for not resigning after losing a vote of confidence last month. It accused him of threatening inspections in five unspecified countries for political ends.
Senhor Bustani gave an impassioned defence of his tenure. He called the US accusations against him false and said that the meeting would decide "whether genuine multiculturalism will survive, or whether it will be replaced by unilateralism in a multilateral disguise". He added: "I refuse to resign under pressure from a small handful of member states." He said before the vote that his dismissal would be illegal because "the convention does not allow for such a dismissal".
America called the special session of the OPCW to force him out and was supported by Britain, Germany and all European Union and Nato countries, with most of Eastern Europe and several former Soviet states.
Those supporting him were Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, Mexico and his own country, Brazil. Most of Africa, Asia and Latin America abstained.
The United States had co-sponsored Senhor Bustani for re-election, but the change of Administration in Washington led to a swift reappraisal. The Bush Administration, determined not to be bound by multilateral agreements, has resented the restrictions of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It was particularly angered by Senhor Bustani's moves to woo Iraq, which Washington hardliners believe will make any military attack on Baghdad more difficult.
Senhor Bustani accused the White House of trying to push him out because of his independence from Washington. He said that he had been blamed for seeking Iraq's membership of the Chemical Weapons Convention, even though that was in full accordance with the United Nations Security Council decision.
American officials have briefed intensively but anonymously against Senhor Bustani. One said that his lapses "are not legal crimes; nonetheless they are severe mismanagement policies, which significantly impede the effectiveness of the organisation".
Several EU countries said privately they feared that unless they voted with the United States, America, which pays more than a fifth of the budget, would walk out of the UN body. The US has paid only half this year's dues and the OPCW is deeply in debt. A senior member of the OPCW said after the vote that the American arm-twisting was clearly horrendous. He said: "We are now living in a completely different world."
Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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For more on this sorry state of affairs, visit
http://www.monbiot.com/
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Also, for another article on this, by the Christian Science Monitor [US], 24 April 2002, see:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0424/p06s01-woeu.html
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3) The Uglier American - Climate scientist ousted
Friday, 19 April, 2002, 16:36 GMT 17:36 UK
Climate scientist ousted
Sceptics claimed the IPCC had become too political. One of the most outspoken scientists on the issue of global warming has been ousted from his job.
Dr Robert Watson was voted out of the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) on Friday and will be replaced by one of the current vice-chairs, Dr Rajendra Pachauri.
Dr Watson's removal will spark a huge political row - environmentalists accuse the US Government of orchestrating a campaign to have the scientist sidelined.
They say Washington disliked Dr Watson's willingness to tell governments what he believes to be the unvarnished truth - that human activities are now contributing dangerously to climate change.
Government representatives attending an IPCC meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, voted 76 to 49 for the engineer and economist Dr Rajendra Pachauri to take the chair.
Dr Pachauri, the director of the Tata Energy Research Institute in New Delhi, was the US administration's
favoured candidate.
Climate facts
President Bush repudiated the international climate agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only
political instrument so far to result from the IPCC's work.
The president took the view that the protocol would do enormous damage to the US economy.
Green groups believe Mr Bush is unduly influenced by the energy lobby in America, and point to a memo forwarded to the White House by ExxonMobil last year.
The document raised the question of whether Dr. Watson could be replaced as the US representative on the IPCC. Environmentalists claimed the outcome of Friday's vote was proof of ExxonMobil's power behind the scenes in Washington.
The complete BBC story is posted at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1940000/1940117.stm
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For a related link with an Environmental News Network's In-depth Report on Global Warming and Climate Change, see:
http://www.enn.com/indepth/warming/index.asp
Flyby News keeps an updated page on Global Warming, which is linked from flybynews.com or
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1014396414,10278,
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For another in this series of the "Ugly American" ruling reason for greed, here's another individual getting put (sic) in his place:
EPA ombudsman resigns over job shift
An embattled ombudsman at the Environmental Protection Agency submitted his resignation April 22nd, complaining the agency was transferring him into a job where he would "merely answer a telephone" and have no power.
For the full story, see
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/04/04232002/ap_ombudsman_47004.asp
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4) Keep Space for Peace Conference, May 10-12, Berkeley, CA
KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE CONFERENCE SET FOR BERKELEY, CA.
Media Advisory - For Immediate Release
Contacts: Bruce Gagnon (352) 337-9274
Sally Light (510) 527-2057
In the midst of Bush administration's efforts to wage war on the world, hundreds of activists from around the planet will gather at the University of California in Berkeley for the 10th Annual International Space Organizing Conference & Protest.
From May 10-12, peace movement leaders from 15 countries will meet for a protest and to create strategies to prevent the nuclear arms race from moving into the heavens.
Events will begin with a news conference at Noon on Friday, May 10 at Wesley Student Center (2398 Bancroft Way at the corner of Dana) to be followed by a protest rally at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale from 2:30 - 5:30 pm. Lockheed Martin is currently doing research and development on several key space weapons technologies that the U.S. SpaceCommand says they will use to "control and dominate" space and the Earth below.
On Saturday, May 11 at the University of California at Berkeley (Room 2050, Valley Life Sciences Bldg.), the GN will hold its day long conference featuring plenary sessions and educational workshops.
"George W. Bush is now building the costly and destabilizing Star Wars system, that, once deployed, will throw the door wide open to a new arms race,"said Global Network Coordinator Bruce Gagnon. "We are told that Star Wars is intended to make the U.S. more secure but we know that in the end this will not be the case. The only people who will benefit from the weaponization of space are the aerospace corporations and their congressional allies, Republican and Democrat alike."
The Bush team is embarking on the controversial construction of "missile defense" systems in Alaska, expanding testing of Star Wars programs, and threatening so-called "rogue states" with attack if they develop weapons of mass destruction. Recent disclosures of Bush's Nuclear Policy Review showed that it is the U.S., who is now undertaking plans to create new generations of nuclear weapons while the rest of the world is lectured on the immorality of such systems.
The Global Network was founded in 1992 to stop the nuclearization and weaponization of space.
For more information about the conference visit:
www.space4peace.org
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