Nexus - 0903 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS... NEWS UK CARS TO BE FITTED WITH SATELLITE TRACKING METERS secret and kept under wraps even from the arliaments of the rich nations which were negotiating it. When its draft text was leaked to a non- government organisation in early 1997, it came the subject of a worldwide, and very angry, campaign. Given its backroom origins, it was afraid of the sunlight—and the campaign was eventually enough to ‘orce those behind it in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to announce in late 1998 that it was being ut down. From the moment it was laid to rest, owever, its architects in the corporate oardrooms and cabinets of the US and Europe were planning its resurrection— and, sure enough, some of its body parts ave since made their way into International Monetary Fund policy, the terms of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and the Asia—Pacific Economic Cooperation trade agreements. But its biggest step back came on November 14, 2001 when, after days of tense negotiations in the World Trade Organization's Qatar ministerial meeting, the WTO announced that it would launch talks on the terms of an eventual interna- tional agreement on investment. With negotiations due to start in 2002, the MAT is well and truly back. [Note: An in-depth article on the MAI was published in NEXUS Magazine, vol- ume 5, numbers 3 and 4. Ed.] (Source: By Sean Healy, ZNet, December 15, 2001, http://www.zmag.org) Loudoun County, Virginia. * On December 11, Set Van Nguyen, 44, was found dead in the airlock entrance to a walk-in refrigerator in the laboratory where he worked in Victoria, Australia. * On February 8, Vladimir Korshunov, 56, was found dead on a Moscow street. * On February 11, Ian Langford, 40, was found dead in his home in Norwich, England. Prior to these deaths, on October 4 a commercial jetliner travelling from Israel to Novosibirsk, Siberia, was shot down over the Black Sea by an "errant" Ukrainian surface-to-air missile, killing all on board. The missile was over 100 miles off course. Despite early news stories reporting it as a charter flight, Air Sibir 1812 was a regu- larly scheduled flight. According to several press reports, the plane is believed to have had as many as five passengers who were microbiologists. At the time of the Black Sea crash, Israeli journalists had been sounding the alarm that two Israeli microbiologists had recently been murdered, allegedly by terrorists. (Source: From The Wilderness, February 28, 2002, http://www.copvcia.com) ll cars in the UK will be fitted with a "Big Brother" satellite tracking meter to charge drivers up to 45 pence a mile for every journey taken, under radical plans to slash congestion on British roads. The scheme, proposed by the government's independent transport advisers, would see drivers handed monthly bills charging them for every single journey. The Commission for Integrated Transport will recommend using existing GPS satellites to track vehicles via elec- tronic "black boxes" fixed to the dashboard of all vehicles. The information recording the move- ments of motorists would be beamed back to computers at the various highway authorities or to a private company con- tracted to the government—but with strict controls to protect privacy. Prices would be set and adjusted periodi- cally according to levels of congestion. (Source: The Observer, February 24, 2002) MYSTERIOUS DEATHS OF MICROBIOLOGISTS n the four-month period from November 12, 2001 through February 11, 2002, seven world-class microbiologists in differ- ent parts of the world were reported dead. Six died of "unnatural" causes, while the cause of the seventh's death is questionable. In the six weeks prior to November 12, two additional foreign microbiologists were reported dead. Some believe there were as many as five more microbiologists killed during the period, bringing the total to as high as fourteen. These two to seven additional deaths, however, are not the focus of this story. This same period also saw the deaths of three persons involved in medical research or public health: ¢ On November 12, Benito Que, 52, was found comatose in the street near the labo- ratory where he worked at the University of Miami Medical School. He died on December 6. * On November 16, Don C. Wiley, 57, vanished and his abandoned rental car was found on the Hernando de Soto Bridge out- side Memphis, Tennessee. His body was found on December 20. ¢ On November 23, Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, was found dead in Wiltshire, England, not far from his home. ¢ On December 10, Robert Schwartz, 57, was found murdered in his rural home in MAI RISES FROM THE GRAVE he Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which many had thought dead and buried, has now risen from the grave. Dubbed the "corporations' bill of rights", the MAT was a plan hatched in A fy ee "You've noticed lately the increasing levels of food they're putting into the chemical additives?" APRIL — MAY 2002 NEXUS ¢ 11 www.nexusmagazine.com