Nexus - 0505 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS "PROJECT CENSORED" 1997 The 10 "most censored" stories last year: 1. Clinton Administration Aggressively Promotes US Arms Sales Worldwide lhe United States is now the principal arms merchant for the world. US weapons are evident in almost every con- flict worldwide and reap a devastating toll on civilians, US military personnel and the socio-economic priorities of many Third World nations. 2. Personal Care and Cosmetic Products may be Carcinogenic D: you use toothpaste, shampoo, sun- screen, body lotion, body talc, make- up or hair dye? These are among the per- sonal care products the consumer has been led to believe are safe, but are often conta- minated with carcinogenic by-products or contain substances that regularly react to form potent carcinogens during storage and use. Consumers regularly assume that these products are not harmful because they believe that they are approved for safety by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But although the the FDA classi- fies cosmetics, it does not regulate them. An FDA document posted on the agency's web home page explains that "a cosmetic manufacturer may use any ingredient or raw material and market the final product without government approval". 3. Big Business Seeks to Control and Influence US Universities cademia is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Increasingly, industry is creating endowed professorships, fund- ing think-tanks and research centres, spon- soring grants and contracting for research. Under this arrangement, students, faculties and universities serve the interests of cor- porations instead of the public, in the process selling off academic freedom and intellectual independence. 4. The Echelon Global Surveillance System Exposed lhe Echelon system, designed and coor- dinated by the US National Security Agency (NSA), is one of the world's biggest, most closely held intelligence pro- jects. Unlike many of the Cold War elec- tronic spy systems, Echelon is designed primarily to gather electronic transmis- sions from non-military targets: govern- ments, organisations, businesses and indi- viduals in virtually every country. The system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of com- munications and using computers to identi- fy and extract messages of interest from the mass of unwanted ones. Using the Echelon system, an agency in one country may automatically pick up information gathered elsewhere in the sys- tem. Thus, the stations of the junior UKUSA allies function for the NSA no differently than if they were overtly NSA- run bases located on their soil. 5. US Companies are World Leaders in Manufacture of Torture Devices n its March 1997 report entitled "Recent Cases of the Use of Electroshock Weapons for Torture or Ill-Treatment", Amnesty International lists 100 companies worldwide that produce and sell instru- ments of torture. Forty-two of these firms are in the United States. This places the US as the leader in the manufacture of stun guns, stun belts, cattle probe-like devices and other equipment which can cause dev- astating pain in the hands of torturers. 6. Russian Plutonium Lost over Chile and Bolivia oO’ 16 November 1996, Russia's Mars '96 space probe broke up and burned while descending over Chile and Bolivia, scattering its remains across a 10,000- square-mile area. The probe carried about a half-pound of deadly plutonium divided into four battery canisters—and no one seems to know where they went! This amount of plutonium has the poten- tial to cause devastating damage. According to Dr Helen Caldicott, president emeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility: "Plutonium is so toxic that less that one-millionth of a gram is a car- cinogenic dose." She states: "One pound, if uniformly distributed, could hypotheti- cally induce lung cancer in every person on Earth." 7. Norplant: a Human Lab Experiment in the US and Third World ow-income women in the United States and in the Third World have been the unwitting targets of a US policy to control birth rates. A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary, The Human Laboratory, accuses the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of acting in conjunction with the Population Council of New York City to use unin- formed women in Bangladesh, Haiti and the Philippines for tests of Norplant. Norplant is a set of six plastic cylinders containing a synthetic version of a female hormone. It is intended to prevent preg- nancy for five years. Surgery is required for removal, at a cost far beyond the reach of low-income women. The Norplant saga appears to have glob- al political implications. According to the documentary, the US Government consid- ers global population control a "national security issue" and has increased US popu- lation-control efforts around the world. Norplant side-effects have resulted in over 400 lawsuits being filed against Wyeth-Ayerst, the maker of Norplant. These lawsuits include class actions repre- senting over 50,000 women. NEXUS -7 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1998