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'Phone throne' to give Devon village mobile signal
United Kingdom Created: 14 May 2007
A mast-free town!
Mobile phone users in a remote Devon village have literally worn-out a wooden bench on the village green because standing on it is the only way they can get a signal.

Now parish chiefs are building a special "phone throne" for villagers to climb onto so they can make mobile telephone calls.

East Prawle which is the most southerly village in Devon has virtually no mobile telephone coverage at all.

But through trial and error the villagers have discovered there is one spot in the middle of the village where they can get a signal. The problem is they have to be at least two feet off the ground.

One fed up resident said: "Opposite the village green and just a few yards down from the public toilets is a wooden bench and villagers have found that if they climb onto it and face in the right direction they can make a call.

"Unfortunately so many of them have been doing it that the bench has been getting damaged."

So now parish councillors have now decided to fork out around £100 to build a special podium next to the bench so the villagers and any visitors in the know can climb up and make their calls.

The cliff top village of East Prawle in parish of Chivelstone, with a population of less than 200, has two pubs, a village shop and a village green.

Chivelstone parish councillors met at the village community hall next door to the Providence Inn pub and just 30 yards from the "magic" phone spot and agreed to ask for quotes for the work.

East Prawle district councillor Julian Brazil explained: "You don't get a mobile telephone signal in East Prawle and people don't want a phone mast."

He said the only spot people can make calls is from the bench beside the village green.

"People have been complaining that the bench is getting broken so it has been decided to get some sort of mounting block that people can use to get reception."

He said that it was likely to cost around £100 to build but that the parish council would get its money back in the couple of years from not having to repair the bench.
Click here to view the source article.
Source: This is London, 14 May 2007

Tele-pangs
India Created: 14 May 2007
Readers letter to the newspaper The Hindu.

I live on the ninth floor in a high-rise apartment in Vaishali Sector-9 at Ghaziabad. About four months ago, a Reliance cell phone tower started coming up in an adjacent "farm house" (how such a commercial operation got permission to function from an agricultural-mainly plot is, of course, another story) on the north-eastern side, extremely close to a large number of apartments in this vast group housing complex called Supertech Estate.

We approached the UP Pollution Control Board office in Vasundhara Sector-16, who expressed total ignorance. We supplied to them references to a large number of studies showing that long-term exposure to cell phone tower antenna microwave radiation can cause very serious health problems like increased growth of brain cancer cells, high chance of leukaemia, neurological changes and increased breaks in DNA.

We also approached the District Magistrate, the Mayor of Ghaziabad, and the Ghaziabad Development Authority -- all with copies of references to many studies which show that these deadly diseases are statistically far more likely if we are exposed to high-intensity microwave radiation. We have also apprised the senior residents of nearby Judges Colony -- again with copies of references.

All our activity resulted in a letter from the Pollution Control Board to Reliance asking for a reply, but nothing more has happened. Meanwhile, the said tower with antennae is now functional, radiating very high intensity microwaves directly at many apartments where a large number of children, senior citizens and others are staying.

Is private profit of Reliance so much more important than grave threats to the health and life of so many innocent citizens, including children? Doesn't our fundamental right to life as guaranteed by the Constitution get violated by this brazen act of Reliance Telecommunications?

Whom do we approach now ? Will the higher authorities in UP and the judiciary take notice ?

Soumya Dutta,
Flat 912 Regent,
Supertech Estate,
Vaishali Sector-9, NCR
Ghaziabad - 201010, UP.
Click here to view the source article.
Source: The Hindu, Soumya Dutta, 14 May 2007

Board denies cell phone tower
USA Created: 13 May 2007
The Warminster supervisors unanimously voted against allowing a 110-foot cell-phone tower to be built at the firehouse at Madison Avenue and Ivy Street after hearing strong opposition from neighbors who packed Thursday's meeting.
“The residents have spoken,” Supervisor Donnamarie Davis said. “It just proves that people can make a difference.”
Earlier this week, residents dropped off a petition signed by 200 people opposing the tower.
Officially, Thursday's vote was against settling a lawsuit filed by the corporate parent of cell phone company T-Mobile. The suit appealed July's zoning hearing board decision denying a 120-foot-tall tower. The company had proposed a slightly shorter tower in an attempt at a compromise, though engineers have said that anything shorter wouldn't work.
To Gregg Roosevelt, who lives across the street from the firehouse, the issue was a no-brainer.
“I don't want it there,” he said. “I don't want it that close to my house.”
The fire company would have gotten $18,000 a year for renting the property where the tower was to be built.
Davis thought the telephone company hadn't done enough research into other locations, such as the top of a nearby church steeple.
Roosevelt and other residents believed the tower could cause health problems, even though an engineer's report found that someone standing next to the tower would be exposed to less than one-thousandth the maximum amount of radiation deemed safe by the Federal Communications Commission.
The decision likely means the sides will fight it out in court. That will probably cost the township between $2,500 and $4,000 initially, according to Solicitor Stephen Harris, although additional appeals would add to that.
Supervisor Fred Gold said he found hard to believe T-Mobile's assertion that the tower would not lower property values. The value of the property might not be lowered, Gold said, but if he was the buyer, the sale would be off.
Click here to view the source article.
Source: Bucks County Courier Times, JACOB FENTON, 12 May 2007

Health concerns over mobile phone masts prompt review
United Kingdom Created: 13 May 2007
'IoS' report on the dangers of electronic smog from wireless technology examined by ministers

Ministers are to investigate arrangements for erecting mobile phone masts in the light of growing fears that they may cause cancer and other diseases because of "electronic smog".
They will review the exceptionally favourable rules that allow mobile phone companies to escape normal planning regulations and stop councils from considering the effects of the masts on health, even when they are sited near homes and schools.
Originally promised three years ago, and then shelved, the review follows articles in The Independent on Sunday about possible effects of the radiation on children and bees. The Government will take account of new scientific and medical evidence, and consult experts and campaigners, as part of a wider review of planning guidelines which ministers send to local authorities.
More than 47,000 "base stations", like masts, have already been erected in Britain to service its 50 million mobile phones, often in defiance of intense local public opposition. Successive governments have made extraordinary concessions to the companies to ensure that coverage was rolled out across the country as quickly as possible.
Masts up to 45ft high do not need planning permission in the normal way. Instead, companies merely have to notify councils of their intentions and can go ahead unless they are formally stopped within 56 days.
Overworked planning authorities struggle to cope with these applications on time, and companies have frequently put up the masts against councils' opposition because news of a refusal has reached them shortly after the deadline.
Seven years ago, an official inquiry - headed by Sir William Stewart, a former government chief scientist - concluded that "the siting of all new base stations should be subject to the normal planning process".
Ministers said that they were "minded" to implement this recommendation, and then failed to do so, even though full planning permission has long been required in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The inquiry also urged that masts should not be built near schools unless parents agreed, but ministers refused to agree.
The planning rules also make it clear that councils cannot object to masts on health grounds because "the planning system is not the place for determining health safeguards". Yet studies are revealing worrying levels of symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, difficulties in sleeping and concentrating, and learning and memory problems in people living near the masts - and there is also some suggestion that there may be an increase in cancers and heart disease.
Nevertheless, councils are instructed by the rules to "respond positively" to the phone companies' plans and, in practice, can reject a mast only on aesthetic grounds. The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, promised a review by the end of 2004. It never took place, but last week the Department for Communities and Local Government confirmed that the advice to local authorities is to be re-examined.
A spokesman for the department said: "We are examining developments in research on this issue. It is something that is going to be looked at."
Parents fight Wi-Fi at primary school
Parents have been battling plans to install a Wi-Fi only system in their children's school in north London for the past two years. They are worried that the health implications of Wi-Fi have not been fully researched and radioactivity created by the technology could harm the children at Tetherdown Primary School. They argue it is better and cheaper to install cables with local Wi-Fi connectors.
Rani Jowett, 35, who has three children at the school, said: "It's taking a risk with our children because it's still under study. People in the 1950s took a risk with smoking, but we have the power to stop this. In my own home I have a choice over Wi-Fi, but I don't have the choice in school."
Governors, however, claim that a wired infrastructure would be too expensive. A spokesman for Haringey council said: "Safety standards for this sort of equipment are set nationally and we follow government guidelines."
Click here to view the source article.
Source: The Independent, Marie Woolf, Geoffrey Lean, 13 May 2007

WHO Criticized for Neglecting Evidence
USA Created: 12 May 2007
When developing "evidence-based" guidelines, the World Health Organization routinely forgets one key ingredient: evidence
That is the verdict from a study published in The Lancet online Tuesday.

The medical journal's criticism of WHO could shock many in the global health community, as one of WHO's main jobs is to produce guidelines on everything from fighting the spread of bird flu and malaria control to enacting anti-tobacco legislation.
"This is a pretty seismic event," Lancet editor Dr. Richard Horton, who was not involved in the research for the article. "It undermines the very purpose of WHO."
The study was conducted by Dr. Andrew Oxman and Dr. Atle Fretheim, of the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services, and Dr. John Lavis at McMaster University in Canada. They interviewed senior WHO officials and analyzed various guidelines to determine how they were produced. What they found was a distinctly non-transparent process.
"It's difficult to judge how much confidence you can have in WHO guidelines if you're not told how they were developed," Oxman said. "In that case, you're left with blind trust."
WHO issues about 200 sets of recommendations every year, acting as a public health arbiter to the global community by sifting through competing scientific theories and studies to put forth the best policies.
WHO's Director of Research Policy Dr. Tikki Pang said that some of his WHO colleagues were shocked by The Lancet's study, but he acknowledged the criticism had merit, and explained that time pressures and a lack of both information and money sometimes compromised WHO work.
"We know our credibility is at stake," Pang said, "and we are now going to get our act together."
WHO officials also noted that, in many cases, evidence simply did not exist. Data from developing countries are patchy at best, and in an outbreak, information changes as the crisis unfolds.
To address the problem, they said, WHO is trying to develop new ways to collect information in poor regions, and has proposed establishing a committee to oversee the issuance of all health guidelines.
The Lancet study - conducted in 2003-04 through analyzing WHO guidelines and questioning WHO officials - also found that the officials themselves were concerned about the agency's methods.
One unnamed WHO director was quoted in the study as saying: "I would have liked to have had more evidence to base recommendations on." Another said: "We never had the evidence base well-documented."
Pang said that, while some guidelines might be suspect and based on just a few expert opinions, others were developed under rigorous study and so were more reliable.
For example, WHO's recent advice on treating bird flu patients was developed under tight scrutiny.
Oxman also noted that WHO had its own quality-control process. When its 1999 guidelines for treating high blood pressure were criticized for, among other things, recommending expensive drugs over cheaper options without proven benefit, the agency issued its "guidelines for writing guidelines," which led to a revision of its advice on hypertension.
"People are well-intended at WHO," Oxman said. "The problem is that good intentions and plausible theories aren't sufficient."
It remains to be seen how WHO's 193 member countries will react to The Lancet study, released just before WHO's governing body - the World Health Assembly - meets next week at U.N. headquarters in Geneva to decide future health strategies.
"If countries do not have confidence in the technical competence of WHO, then its very existence is called into question," said Horton, the journal's editor. "This study shows that there is a systemic problem within the organization, that it refuses to put science first."
WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, who took over the position this year, will be under pressure to respond to the study's criticism.
"We need a strong WHO," which in recent years "has seen its independence eroded and its trust diminished," Horton said. "Now is a fabulous opportunity for WHO to reinvent itself as the technical agency it was always meant to be."
Click here to view the source article.
Source: Associated Press / Forbes.com, MARIA CHENG, 05 Mar 2007

WHO crisis: OPEN LETTER TO DR MARGARET CHAN, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Austria Created: 12 May 2007
From: Katz, Alison, Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 4:29 PM, Subject: Open letter to Dr Chan, Geneva, January 2007

Dear Dr Chan,
You have taken office as Director-General of the World Health Organization after two discouraging decades in which the international health authority has been progressively subjected to pressure from powerful minorities, separated from the people it serves and diverted from its public health mission.

In short, WHO has fallen victim to neoliberal globalization - as have most social and economic institutions serving the public interest. A number of WHO staff, in senior and less senior positions, have struggled against the worst excesses of this process, but the damage has been extensive. In addition to the tragedy (and scandal) of continuing, avoidable disease and death, WHO has lost friends among the people it serves and has gained rich and powerful "partners" in search of new areas of influence.
Almost certainly, the world’s people will force a return to the goal of social and economic justice, and in the area of health, to the promise of Alma Ata - which was itself explicitly predicated upon a new international economic order.
"Health for All" became WHO’s slogan at the end of "Les Trentes Glorieuses" (1945-1975) - thirty years of genuine progress towards a fairer - and therefore a healthier - world. This was the era of decolonization, when the need for redistribution of power and resources, including the rights of peoples to self determination and control over national resources, was widely recognized and there was strong commitment to universal, comprehensive public services to meet basic needs for health. A time of optimism, moral vision and genuine progress.
Optimism was fully justified because the world had (and still has) ample resources to ensure peace, security and the wellbeing of all. Health for All is no utopia. It was and is achievable even if it is far more ambitious than the Millennium Development Goals which are - quite literally - a set of half measures defined and delimited by the G8.
If thirty years is the length of cycles of progress and backlash, with social progress for people always overtaking, if only by a small margin, the backlash of powerful minorities to maintain their privileges, we are embarking now on the new 30 year cycle of progress.
And your five years as Director-General (DG) of WHO coincides with that new cycle of progress.
Before I leave, I would like to comment on some of the excellent points you have made in various speeches (1) since your election, confident that your vision - if you can realize even part of it unimpeded, will reinforce and accelerate that progress.

1. Inequality should be the focus rather than poverty and insecurity
You identify poverty and insecurity as two of the greatest threats to harmony which as you rightly state is "a word at the core of the WHO constitution". You state that "health is intrinsically related to both development and security, and hence to harmony". The social justice perspective would go further by stating that peace and security cannot be achieved without justice, and health cannot be achieved without equitable and emancipatory development.
Our focus today should be on inequality rather than poverty, not because of a preference for the relative over the absolute, but because unequal power relations are themselves the root cause of both poverty and insecurity, and because inequality, over and above any level of material wealth or deprivation, is bad for health and for cohesive, safe, healthy societies. Current inequalities - in which the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000 and the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total - are not only grotesque in their divisiveness, they are lethal.

2. Time to focus attention on the rich but to meet with the poor
It has become fashionable to focus attention on the poor but to meet - and establish partnerships with - the rich. In order to address the fundamental problem of inequality, this pattern must be reversed. It is time to focus attention on the rich and powerful because they are the experts in the mechanisms of unequal power relations and the architects of policies and strategies which produce, reinforce and accelerate inequalities. Those systems must be closely examined and opened up to public scrutiny and democratic control. To clarify, this is not a discourse on good and evil; the issue is one of profoundly antisocial and violent systems not of the use made of those systems by a handful of rapacious individuals.
Poor people do not attend G8 summits, board meetings of the latest "Global Fund" or "philanthropic" foundation, let alone the World Economic Forum - where Chief Executive Officers of transnational corporations are offered even more privileged access to political leaders than they already enjoy. But poor people also hold meetings and they are represented - if imperfectly - at the World Social Forum (and in national and regional social fora), in trade union, social and political movements and elsewhere.
As Director-General of WHO, you are committed to "the people of Africa who bear an enormous and disproportionate burden of ill health and premature death" and you have made this "the key indicator of the performance of WHO". Your presence at the next World Social Forum on Health (Nairobi 21-23 January 2007 unfortunately coincides with your first Executive Board) and many other such events in the future, would represent real hope and inspiration for the world’s people and an essential counterbalance to high level meetings with government leaders and their corporate backers/advisers - who are increasingly one and the same.

3. Public-private partnerships or a solid, equitable tax base?
You note that "the landscape of public health has become a complex and crowded arena for action, with a growing number of health initiatives" and you remind us that WHO is "constitutionally mandated to act as the directing and coordinating authority on health". As you know, public-private partnerships have become the policy paradigm for global health work despite the evident conflict of interest which would have outlawed such arrangements thirty years ago. Agencies and organizations with public responsibilities are "partnering" with the private sector for one reason. It (appears to have) become the only source of funds. This situation has arisen because under neoliberal economic regimes, public sector budgets have been slashed and tax bases destroyed. Those developments are themselves the result of the influence of transnational corporations on governments and the international financial institutions.
The solution to this problem is not for public bodies to go begging to the private sector, nor to the foundations of celebrity "philanthropists" with diverse agendas, from industry. The solution is economic justice, including an adequate tax base, both nationally and internationally, to cover all public services, as well as proper funding of public institutions such as WHO through regular budgets so that they may fulfill their international responsibilities unimpeded by corporate interests.
You report that "the amount of money being made available by foundations, funding agencies and donor governments is unprecedented". This will be entirely positive if you are able to use these funds to pursue your vision and priorities, as is your right and your duty. It can be argued that if WHO had operated exclusively on regular budget, even with a significantly smaller workforce but one that was dedicated to WHO’s constitutional mandate, far more progress towards Health for All would have been achieved.
As you say "Primary Health Care (PHC) is the corner stone of building the capacity of health systems. It is also central to health development and to community health security." PHC will remain health rhetoric if it is not supported by a solid, equitable tax base and other forms of redistributive justice (debt cancellation and reparation, fair trade, abolition of tax havens, democratic control of TNC activities etc). WHO itself needs to set targets for the level of core funding, starting perhaps at 70% of total expenditure, and increasing annually until undue influence is removed. The private sector has no place in public health policy making at global or national level. This does not of course exclude responsibly designed interactions as in the past but it does exclude partnerships because partners must share the same goal.

4. Knowledge for the public good - the world cannot afford corporate "science"
You cite technical authority as one of WHO’s four unique assets and you state that "we can be absolutely authoritative in our guidance" and that "WHO must influence the research and development agenda". WHO’s role as the technical health authority is indeed the jewel in its crown. All the more important then to address the current crisis in science and reclaim knowledge systems for the public good.
The commercialization of science and the close relationship between industry and academic institutions (2) should be at the centre of WHO’s concerns. In this regard, the public has every right to insist that assurances be provided that WHO’s recent reports on the health effects of Chernobyl and on the safety of genetically modified foods were researched, developed and produced in full consultation with independent scientists, unimpeded by other interests.
In relation to the corruption of traditional ideals of science, an editorial in the Lancet reported that "Academic institutions . . . have become businesses in their own right, seeking to commercialize for themselves research discoveries rather than preserve their independent scholarly status". Equally worrying is the new trade-related intellectual property regime which represents an unprecedented privatization of knowledge. Knowledge should be in the public domain, accessible to all. It must above all be truthful and reliable - a reminder which is not superfluous today.
Given continuing high levels of avoidable disease and death, alarming resurgence and emergence of old and new infectious disease respectively, and the devastating effects of environmental degradation and resource depletion on population health, the world cannot afford corporate "science". As the world’s technical health authority, WHO must take the lead in transforming the way scientific research is conducted and funded and the way knowledge is acquired and applied.

5. Ethical values and independence of international civil servants
You state that "We share the ethical foundations of the health profession. This is a caring, healing and science-based profession dedicated to the prevention and relief of human suffering. This gives us our moral authority and a most noble system of ethical values".
It has not always been easy for staff to stay close to WHO’s mandate nor to maintain respect for ethical values either as public servants or as colleagues during the neoliberal decades. The pressure often proved overwhelming while the independence of international civil servants was increasingly undermined. As you know, staff management relations reached a low point and resulted in the first industrial action in WHO’s history in November 2005, a massive work stoppage involving 700 staff. This was despite threats of disciplinary action including dismissal from the Director-General’s Office which reflected not only deep dissatisfaction on the part of staff but astonishing disregard for international labour standards on the part of a UN agency.
The work stoppage was not an event to be deplored, lamented, let alone sanctioned.(3) It was a needed signal to Member States and WHO’s wider constituency that radical change was needed. Staff who struggled against the tide during these past two decades were often "guilty" of their attachment to the Declaration of Alma Ata which clearly identified social and economic root causes of avoidable disease and death, placed the debate squarely within international power structures and insisted on a broad public health perspective which addressed non-health sector determinants of health. They were part of the broad movement led by civil society organizations promoting a return to the values and principles of Health for All, which was instrumental in the creation of WHO’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health.
Some, through the Staff Association, were also guilty of revealing to member states, as is their duty, (4) corruption, nepotism, abuse of rules and procedures and an ineffective internal justice system. In an exemplary response, members states called for a progress report on staff management relations at the next EB (January 2007) and an audit of all direct appointments at and under the D1 level.
The response however of the last administration was dismal. WHO staff are now represented by a "Staff Committee" which, apparently in collusion with administration, opposed discussion of the application of international labour standards (human rights in the workplace) in WHO, at the Annual General Meeting of the HQ Staff Association. This is an absurd situation, unworthy of a UN agency. Today, there is an opportunity for civilised and dignified staff management relations in which staff concerns and perspectives are welcomed with interest and respect. The first step will be to declare that WHO supports not only a rights-based approach to health but a rights-based organization which fully respects the ILO Covenants. Staff morale and motivation will soar as will confidence in their leadership.

6. Health for All is value laden and explicitly political
In discussion with colleagues about all the above concerns, I have often heard that with my views, I should rather work for an NGO, that my perspective is "political" and that WHO is not an implementing agency. My response to the first comment is that WHO staff should surely be more committed to the values and principles of Health for All than staff of any other organization, just as all UN staff should be at the frontline of the defense of the UN Charter.
My response to the second comment is that health is political and that the PHC approach and Health for All was and is an explicitly political project - as is the neoliberal project for health and health care. Today’s international health establishment denies any political values, intentions or interests and presents itself as neutral, objective and armed with scientific facts. But scientific objectivity requires awareness and acknowledgement of underlying values and principles. The States Parties to the Constitution, in line with the Charter of the United Nations accepted a set of nine ethical principles when they established the World Health Organization. This is the source of our "moral authority" and it is a value laden and highly political document - if one accepts that politics is about the organization of societal structures and functions, in particular in relation to the distribution of power and resources, for the benefit of its members.
My response to the third comment is that although WHO is not an implementing agency, it has a clear advocacy role in terms of identifying and promoting policies and strategies - on the basis of serious science and sound evidence - that will ensure the meeting of basic needs for health, among other things.

7. Conflicting loyalties
In the neoliberal decades, WHO staff, and other international civil servants, have found themselves in an uneasy position with conflicting duties of loyalty on the one hand to WHO’s constitutional mandate and the UN Charter, and on the other hand - as WHO is an intergovernmental agency - to member states and current office holders and their interpretation of these mandates. The most obvious examples are UN sanctions and the invasion of Iraq which have caused public health catastrophes.(5) These actions have been qualified as war crimes and genocide respectively.(6)
Less spectacular examples of conflicting loyalties relate to certain policies and strategies which do not make the headlines but which cause illness and death on a daily basis and an even larger scale. WHO has failed to denounce, in the strongest possible terms, unfair rules of trade and commerce, odious debt, ruthless liberalization of economies, privatization of public services and continued exploitation of people’s national resources. This is despite ample evidence that these processes create poverty and inequality, interfere with people’s capacity to provide themselves with adequate supplies of food and water, and maintain more than half the world’s people in unspeakably miserable living conditions.
At least 10 million children die every year and the vast majority of those deaths are avoidable. Life threatening, structural violence requires principled, unambiguous resistance not cautious admonitions, let alone timid acquiescence.
We live in exceptional times when leaders of powerful nations, who scarcely represent their own people let alone all member states, embark on illegal action leading to death and destruction and when transnational corporations, in collusion with international financial institutions - with no democratic legitimacy or accountability - are allowed to impose policies which have been shown to have devastating effects on population health. Should staff choose loyalty to current office holders and selected member states rather than loyalty to the mandate of their organization and the world’s people who are often, very poorly represented by their governments? Should respect for human rights and confidence in our own moral judgment tip the balance in these conflicting loyalties ?

8. Perhaps exceptional responses are required in exceptional times
"The way in which citizens of the rich countries currently live their lives is, on the whole, morally acceptable". (7) Recognition that "everyone’s favourite prejudice" is profoundly wrong is fundamental to the struggle for social justice and Health for All.
WHO (and other UN) staff may be misinformed (by failing to consult alternative sources of information) and disinformed (by accepting la pensée unique of mainstream and conventional sources of information). However none of us can claim lack of access to full information. It is time to consider whether the way in which UN and WHO staff serve the UN Charter and WHO’s constitutional mandate, respectively, is, on the whole, morally acceptable or whether this belief is "our favourite prejudice".
Dr Chan, the vision you have articulated is exemplary and an inspiration to staff. But you will need them to summon up the courage of their convictions, stand strong in the face of powerful opposition, and keep close to WHO’s constitutional mandate, if they are to assist you in its realization.
Sincerely,
Alison Katz

Notes
1. Speech to the World Health Assembly, 9 November 2006 as DG elect and Address to WHO staff, 4 January 2007, as DG.

2. This section is drawn from the Convention on Knowledge, Institute of Science in Society. www.i-sis.org.uk/conventiononkn owledge.php

3. My post was abolished three weeks after the work stoppage and three weeks before the normal renewal of my two year contract, after 17 years service. This has been qualified as retaliation for industrial action (a violation of human rights) by Swiss unions and staff association lawyers.

4. According to an Executive Board Resolution EB91/1993/REC/1

5. Just prior to February 2003, WHO was involved in preparations for post-invasion emergency health measures. In the interests of contributing to the prevention of violence rather than merely participating in the "mopping up operation" staff asked administration if they might circulate a petition in support
of the UN Charter (available on request). They were informed that if they did so they would be asked to present their resignations.

6. See for example Initial Complaint prepared for the First Hearing by staff of the International War Crimes Tribunal http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrim2.htm and report on effects of UN sanctions http://iraqnfo.org/

7. Thomas W. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, Polity Press 2002
Click here to view the source article.
Source: cadtm.org, 14 Mar 2007

"I am scared that mobile phone masts are hurting our children"
Wales Created: 11 May 2007
A MOTHER of two has joined the campaign against mobile phone masts to protect her children.
Helen Whitehouse, 40, has already successfully opposed one mast application near her home and is eager to raise awareness of the potential dangers of masts to others.
The mum to Ysgol Gymraeg Bro Eirwg pupils Daryl, 10, and Erin, five, of Llanrumney, Cardiff, believes that a law should be passed so that masts are not erected within 500 metres of a school.
She said: “Throughout my children’s school life they will be exposed to emissions. This scares me as children are more susceptible to emissions because they have thinner skulls.”
Mrs Whitehouse is now planning on sticking posters warning of the dangers of the emissions near to the masts she is aware of and is encouraging others to do their own research.

She said: “We’re just told that emissions are within guidelines but there’s so much we don’t know about them, what do we believe?
“Until we know for definite, they should be treated with caution with more research being done.
“I’m glad I looked into it because I understand it more but it’s quite a scary thing – they’re taking over.”
Mrs Whitehouse and her neighbours have just fought off a T-Mobile application to build a mast opposite her house which would have been within 500 metres of St Cadoc’s School.
She said: “We raised all the arguments against the mast we could think. Only 10 households had been advised so we made sure others got to know about it.
“T-Mobile wrote back to say that due to our strong feelings and opposition they decided to site it on top of a hotel in Pentwyn (Cardiff) instead.”
The proposed mast would have been within 500 metres of another T-Mobile mast next to the post office on Countisbury Avenue.
Nobody objected to this mast because, Mrs Whitehouse says, the planning notice for the mast was placed on a street in Roath – a 10 minute drive away.
She said: “This didn’t give the local people any opportunity to have any input which has taken away any rights we have.”
A spokesman for T-Mobile previously said: “Everybody wants to use their mobile phones, but if we did not have the masts we would not be able to offer a service.”
Click here to view the source article.
Source: South Wales Echo, Laura Wright, 11 May 2007

Dr. George Carlo on the Oprah Winfrey show
USA Created: 11 May 2007
Most of us probably use a cell phone at least once a day, but have you ever stopped to wonder how your phone affects your health? As the number of cell phone users continues to rise, some scientists are examining the effects of the phones on our health and environment. Dr. Oz talks with Dr. George Carlo of the Science and Public Policy Institute about some health problems cell phones may cause.

While there are differing opinions about the harmful effects of cell phones, Dr. Carlo says he feels quite strongly that the information-carrying radio waves that cell phones use are causing serious health problems. He says that the waves from cell phones are different from the other waves we encounter in the electromagnetic spectrum because they don't exist anywhere in nature. These waves are interpreted as foreign invaders by our biological tissues, causing the cell membranes to work to protect the cells. When intercellular communication is interrupted, Dr. Carlo says, it can lead to many problems, from learning disabilities to Alzheimer's disease to tumor development.

Because there are literally billions of cell phone users today, Dr. Carlo says there is an unprecedented increase in potentially dangerous exposure to information-carrying radio waves. Five years ago, he says he was concerned with the phone itself for its concentration of radio waves, but today, especially in large cities, the background level of those waves is the same concentration that once showed up around the phones. So how can you protect yourself? Dr. Carlo offers the following advice:

- Use a headset or speakerphone whenever possible to keep the phone out of direct contact with your body.
- Check to see if your phone has any type of noise-field technology, and if so, use it.
- Keep your phone usage to a minimum, and turn your phone off when not in use.
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Source: Oprah.com, Dr. Mehmet Oz, 10 May 2007

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: biological effects of dirty electricity with emphasis on diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
Canada Created: 11 May 2007
Dirty electricity is a ubiquitous pollutant - It flows along wires and radiates from them and involves both extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields and radio frequency radiation. Until recently, dirty electricity has been largely ignored by the scientific community. Recent inventions of metering and filter equipment provide scientists with the tools to measure and reduce dirty electricity on electrical wires. Several case studies and anecdotal reports are presented. Graham/Stetzer (GS) filters have been installed in schools with sick building syndrome and both staff and students reported improved health and more energy. The number of students needing inhalers for asthma was reduced in one school and student behavior associated with ADD/ADHD improved in another school. Blood sugar levels for some diabetics respond to the amount of dirty electricity in their environment. Type 1 diabetics require less insulin and Type 2 diabetics have lower blood sugar levels in an electromagnetically clean environment. Individuals diagnosed with multiple sclerosis have better balance and fewer tremors. Those requiring a cane walked unassisted within a few days to weeks after GS filters were installed in their home. Several disorders, including asthma, ADD/ADHD, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, are increasing at an alarming rate, as is electromagnetic pollution in the form of dirty electricity, ground current, and radio frequency radiation from wireless devices. The connection between electromagnetic pollution and these disorders needs to be investigated and the percentage of people sensitive to this form of energy needs to be determined.
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Source: PubMed, Prof. Magda Havas, info from Prof. Paul Doyon.

Phone mast planned for North Malvern
United Kingdom Created: 11 May 2007
MOBILE phone company O2 has plans to erect a new mast within yards of homes and a school in North Malvern.

The firm has put in a planning application to erect the mast by the side of Leigh Sinton Road, just south of its junction with Yates Hay Road.

The proposed mast is sited on a grass verge that separates the main road from a slip road that services nearby houses.

The site is only feet away from these houses, and about 50 yards from Dyson Perrins High School.

The plan, submitted by O2's agents Savills, shows a slimline mast disguised as a wooden telegraph pole, with no visible antennas, and with an equipment cabinet at its base. The mast is 12.5 metres tall and the plan shows the cabinet is to be concealed behind bushes.

It is intended to improve coverage to nearby houses, and to the development at North Site, which is not yet built.

The application includes information about alternative sites for the mast that O2 has looked at, but has found not satisfactory. These include the towers of the old and new fire stations in the Link, the BBC mast on North Hill and the Vodafone mast at Link Way. None of them gave full coverage of the area the mast is intended to serve.

An inquiry was also made about putting an antenna on the main building of Dyson Perrins High School, but that fell foul of Worcestershire County Council's policy forbidding phone masts on school grounds.

The plan is now available to view at the contact centre in Malvern Library, and on the council's website. Its reference number is 07/00638.
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Source: Malvern Gazette, 10 May 2007

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