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Havana Syndrome Is Likely Real, Feds Admit
USA Created: 10 Feb 2022
EDITOR’S NOTE: After years of stonewalling and outright denials, a federal government report conceded on February 1, 2022 that US diplomats around the world may have been repeatedly assaulted by “pulsed microwave radiation” — a futuristic weapon deployed by unknown adversaries with unknown but clearly malign intent.

In this opinion piece, Paul Brodeur, a writer for The New Yorker — who won an Alicia Patterson Foundation Award for his reporting on the potential dangers of microwave radiation — lays out the tortured history behind the new government report, and its significance for understanding the frightening prospects for technological warfare in the 21st century. Brodeur’s take on the situation is very different from that expressed by other writers for the same magazine, as shown below.

WhoWhatWhy introduction by Gerald Jonas.

During the past five years, US newspapers and magazines have published a number of articles about the Havana syndrome — a sudden onset of ringing in the ears, dizziness, imbalance, earache, headache, and changes in behavior — which originated in the city after which it is named, and soon afflicted several hundred Foreign Service and CIA officers around the world.

The most detailed of these articles appeared in The New Yorker in November 2018, under the title “The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome.”

It was written by Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson. Relying heavily on State Department and intelligence agency sources, Entous and Anderson informed their readers that no one in the United States government had any idea how the Havana syndrome was operating to adversely affect the people who were exposed to it. Other media echoed similar claims of ignorance about the syndrome.

These claims are open to question. I am a former staff writer at The New Yorker who, in 1976, wrote the first articles about the ability of microwave radiation to cause changes in the central nervous system and behavior, as well as other biological effects. They appeared in the magazine when the Soviet Union was bombarding the US embassy in Moscow with microwave radiation known as the “Moscow Signal.”

At the time, government officials surmised that the Soviets were using the radiation to activate listening devices hidden in the walls of the embassy. They also voiced concern that it was being employed to affect the behavior of US diplomats and other personnel who were stationed there.

If Entous and Anderson had consulted The New Yorker library to learn whether the magazine had previously published anything about a phenomenon suspected of causing changes in the behavior of diplomats, they would have found my articles about the adverse biological effects of microwave radiation and the Moscow Signal.

They would also have come across a raft of evidence documenting the efforts of the State Department and other government agencies to keep awareness of the signal under wraps.

As a result, they might have been dubious about believing what they were being told about the Havana syndrome by sources that had gone to great lengths to deceive the press and public about the earlier Soviet irradiation of the Moscow Embassy and its staff.

My own experience with the State Department regarding the Moscow Signal should serve instructive. Within a week of the publication of my articles I received three envelopes in the mail postmarked Washington, DC, with no return address. They had obviously been sent by people who wished to remain anonymous.

Each of the envelopes contained a copy of a classified cable signed by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger which listed potential questions that might be asked about my articles by Foreign Service employees at the Moscow Embassy, followed by answers that were to be given by State Department spokesmen in the event the questions were posed.

The cable read like ventriloquism by satellite. One of the queries assumed that someone might ask “Isn’t the State Department knuckling under pressure from military and industrial interests to downplay or even cover up the significance of microwave effects on health?”

To this query the spokesman was told to reply “No.”

To another possible question: “What about the former Embassy administrative officer’s wife who died of cancer?” The spokesman was told to reply “I do not intend to discuss individual cases,” — which omitted the fact that the State Department had settled a lawsuit brought by the administrative officer, claiming that his wife’s cancer had been caused by radiation.

The prepared response to an additional question revealed more deceit on the part of the Department. The telephone of Walter J. Stoessel Jr., the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, was said to have given off high levels of radiation, and it was widely rumored that he had developed a serious blood disorder. Indeed, The Boston Globe had reported that the ailment resembled leukemia, and was thought to be caused or aggravated by microwave radiation.

If asked “What about Ambassador Stoessel’s health? Has it improved since he left Moscow?” The prepared reply was: “Ambassador Stoessel is on duty in Bonn and I have nothing to add to my earlier comments.”

The fact of the matter is that Stoessel had developed leukemia and had taken a leave of absence from his duties in Germany to be treated at a blood disease clinic in Switzerland. When I interviewed his daughter, Katherine, she told me her father was convinced that his illness had been caused by exposure to microwave radiation in Moscow but had decided to become, in her words, “a good soldier in the cause of national security.’’

(Regarding the connection between exposure to microwave radiation and the development of cancer, it is interesting to note that in 2011, a committee of more than 30 medical scientists convened by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer [IARC] evaluated human epidemiological studies showing increased brain cancer among long-term users of cell phones, which emit low-level microwave radiation into the ears of users, and concluded that microwaves were a possible human carcinogen. Also of interest is a 2018 study conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program which found that rats exposed to cell phone microwave radiation were more likely to develop certain cancers than unexposed animals, and which has resulted in calls for the IARC to upgrade microwave radiation from a possible to a probable cause of cancer.)

Stoessel died of leukemia in 1986. The obituaries that appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post made no mention of his microwave exposure. Notes of my two meetings with his daughter, as well as a copy of Kissinger’s cable, can be found in the collection of my papers at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

Kissinger’s cable and its attempt to deceive Foreign Service employees at the Moscow Embassy did not become widely known until the following year when my New Yorker articles appeared in expanded form in a book titled “The Zapping of America.” However, if Entous and Anderson had read those articles they would have learned the following about the biological effects of microwave radiation and its probable connection with the Havana syndrome.

They would have learned that studies of Soviet radar workers exposed to microwaves during and after World War II demonstrated they were experiencing headache, fatigue, diminished intellectual capacity, and loss of memory — some of the same symptoms US diplomats and spies were undergoing when subjected to the Havana syndrome — and that Soviet scientists were investigating the technology behind these symptoms.

They would have learned that during the early 1960s an American scientist named Allan H. Frey had discovered that human beings could hear pulsed microwave radiation, which they might have found interesting considering that they had described victims of the Havana syndrome as suffering from “mysterious sonic attacks.”

They would have discovered that US intelligence agency officials had known since the early 1960s that the Russians were irradiating the US embassy in Moscow with microwaves, but those officials had kept it secret for more than 10 years from the Foreign Service employees who were stationed there.

Most important of all, they would have learned that in 1965 the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an organization within the Department of Defense tasked with developing new weaponry, had set up a special laboratory at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington where rhesus monkeys were irradiated with microwaves at power densities and frequencies similar to those of the Moscow Signal in order to determine whether the signal could induce changes in the behavior of the animals.

Might this have led them to wonder if the United States had become engaged in a race with the Soviet Union to develop a microwave weapon?

Whatever the case, a second article about the Havana syndrome, which was written by Entous alone, appeared in the May 24, 2021, issue of The New Yorker under the title “Are U.S. Officials Under Silent Attack?”

Entous disclosed that by now the government had decided the syndrome was probably being caused by microwave-emitting devices aimed at US officials to collect intelligence from their computers and cell phones, resulting in brain injury in the process.

He did not speculate on the reason for the previous five-year stonewalling of the press and public about the syndrome, but it seems likely that the government may have wished to hide its own development of a microwave weapon because it was concerned about adverse reaction on the part of the American people to such a fearsome means of mind and crowd control.

Toward the end of his piece, Entous revealed the extent to which his sources were continuing to mislead him. “U.S. national security agencies have a program under way to develop effective countermeasures,” he wrote. “They are looking into what it might take to build a device that can cause brain injuries similar to those which have been observed in Havana syndrome patients. As part of that effort, scientists at a military laboratory are planning on exposing primates to pulsed microwave radiation and then studying their brains.”

The credulity that allowed Entous to report on such a program as if it was just beginning would boggle the mind were it not apparent he had no idea of the ARPA-funded research with monkeys more than half a century earlier.

Credulity regarding the Havana syndrome was not limited to reporting in The New Yorker as became evident on January 20, 2022, when The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and other newspapers and TV networks in the nation ran stories about a so-called “interim report” issued by the CIA which sought to reverse the government’s previous position regarding the role of microwave radiation in the Havana syndrome.

According to the CIA, microwaves were not being used by any foreign power against the United States nor were they causing the strange symptoms afflicting US diplomats and intelligence agents. Rather, these symptoms were the result of environmental factors, undiagnosed medical conditions, and stress.

The article in the Times raised the possibility that stress was causing psychogenic reactions or so-called functional illness — aka mass hysteria — in syndrome victims. An article in Slate suggested that the syndrome was a condition to be found in people whose brains had gone “haywire.”

None of the journalists who covered the story saw fit to find out what environmental factors and undiagnosed medical conditions might be causing the symptoms associated with the Havana syndrome.

Nor did any of them question how mass hysteria might suddenly have affected the 1000 government officials whom the Agency numbered as claiming to have been exposed to it.

Instead, for the most part, they dutifully reported on the findings of the CIA interim investigation just as their colleagues had dutifully reported on earlier claims by the government that it had no idea what the Havana syndrome was or how it operated.

Ten days later, whipsawed by conflicting information, they were obliged to write about yet another intelligence assessment. The latest investigation — which was conducted by a panel of experts convened by the director of national intelligence and the deputy director of the CIA — contravened the findings of the Agency’s interim report by ruling out psychosocial factors, neurological abnormalities, mass hysteria environmental conditions, and medical problems as accounting for the syndrome.

At the same time, it reduced the scope of the problem by concluding that the most plausible cause for the phenomenon in a small group of unsolved cases — albeit one accompanied by many caveats — was pulsed microwave radiation.

The investigation made no attempt to explain how the 1000 previously estimated cases of the syndrome had been winnowed down so quickly, let alone how two reports issued within ten days of one another — the first by the CIA and the second with input from the Agency — could arrive at such opposite conclusions.

Nor did journalists covering the story ask for explanation.

A plethora of questions begs to be raised about the confusing and contradictory reporting on the Havana syndrome that has found its way into the nation’s media.

Should journalists be relying so heavily on sources in the State Department, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies in writing their articles?

Do they have any idea of the sorry record of these organizations when it comes to disclosing accurate information about the harmful biological effects of microwave radiation?

Has it occurred to them that a military establishment such as ours which has developed drones that can be controlled with radiation beamed from satellites to kill people riding in cars in Iraq and Afghanistan has surely been capable of experimenting with various frequencies and pulse widths of microwave radiation to come up with a device similar to the one causing the Havana syndrome?

Are they so trusting of their intelligence-agency sources as to believe that the government would have waited more than half a century to begin developing such a weapon?

Answers to these questions may not be forthcoming anytime soon. Meanwhile, journalists might benefit from vaccination with a strong dose of skepticism to protect us all against the obfuscation spread by a government that appears determined to keep a lid on the mystery of the Havana syndrome.
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Source: WhoWhatWhy, Paul Brodeur, 07 Feb 2022

Emirates president: The 5G snafu is the biggest screwup I've witnessed in my career
USA Created: 9 Feb 2022
Major international airlines are scrambling to modify or cancel flights to the United States amid uncertainty about potential interference between new 5G cell phone services and critical airplane technologies. Emirates has canceled flights to nine US destinations today.

The president of Emirates tells CNN that the airline was not aware of some of the potential 5G rollout issues until yesterday morning, calling the situation "one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible" he has seen in his aviation career.

Speaking to CNN's Richard Quest today, Emirates president Tim Clark said that they were not aware of the issues until yesterday morning "to the extent that it was going to compromise the safety of operation of our aircraft and just about every other 777 operator to and from the United States and within the United States."

Transportation regulators had already been concerned that the version of 5G that was scheduled to be switched on could interfere with some airplane instruments, and many aviation industry groups shared those fears — despite reassurances from federal telecom regulators and wireless carriers.

Specifically, the Federal Aviation Administration has been worried that 5G cellular antennas near some airports — not air travelers' mobile devices — could throw off readings from some aircraft equipment designed to tell pilots how far they are from the ground.

Those systems, known as radar altimeters, are used throughout a flight and are considered critical equipment. (Radar altimeters differ from standard altimeters, which rely on air pressure readings and do not use radio signals to gauge altitude.)

In December, the FAA issued an urgent order forbidding pilots from using the potentially affected altimeters around airports where low-visibility conditions would otherwise require them. That new rule could keep planes from getting to some airports in certain circumstances, because pilots would be unable to land using instruments alone.

"We were aware of a 5G issue. Okay. We are aware that everybody is trying to get 5G rolled out after all it's the super cool future of whatever it may be communication and information flow. We were not aware that the power of the antennas in the United States have been doubled compared to what's going on elsewhere. We were not aware that the antenna themselves have been put into a vertical position rather than a slight slanting position, which then taken together compromise not only the radio altimeter systems but the flight control systems on the fly by wire aircraft. So on that basis we took that decision late last night to suspend all our services until we had clarity," he added, telling Richard Quest the airline wouldn't take any risks.

When asked on what he makes of the situation, Clark said: "I need to be as candid as I normally am, and say this is one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible issue subjects, call it what you like, I've seen in my aviation career because it involves organs of government, manufacturers, science, etc. And you know, the notion that, for instance, the United States government should sell its franchise for all the frequencies for a large amount of money. Somebody should have told them at the time - that the risks and the dangers they placed in certain frequency uses around field, airfields, metropolitan fields that should have been done at the time."
The Emirates president added that services will be restored if the rollout is suspended and the question of interference of their aircraft systems on approach and landing is removed.

AT&T, which owns CNN's parent company, and Verizon both announced Tuesday that they would delay activating 5G on some towers around certain airports. The wireless technology's rollout near major airports had been scheduled for Wednesday.

"We are frustrated by the FAA's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it do so in a timely manner," Megan Ketterer, a spokesperson for AT&T, said.
The Biden administration welcomed the delay, saying in a statement that the "agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90% of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled."
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Source: CNN, Chris Liakos and Richard Quest. 19 Jan 2022

Pittsfield Board of Health votes to send cease and desist order to Verizon for cell tower
USA Created: 8 Feb 2022
After months of neighbors calling for action, the Pittsfield Board of Health voted unanimously Wednesday to send a cease and desist order to Verizon if the company doesn’t address concerns over the cell tower at the top of Alma Street.

What You Need To Know:

- The Pittsfield Board of Health voted to send a cease and desist order to Verizon regarding the Alma Street cell tower
- Verizon will have seven days to respond before the order is issued
- Nearby residents are still experiencing symptoms they say are caused by the tower
- There is the potential for a long legal battle to turn the tower off if the order is issued

“This is a historic moment for the health and safety of our neighborhood,” said Courtney Gilardi, who has been leading the neighborhood’s efforts against the tower for the past 17 months. “The board has always had the ability to do what is right, and now they have the will to do what is right.”

When we visited the neighborhood last spring, many residents said they were experiencing symptoms they never had before. This week, those issues are still around.

“My symptoms are ongoing and have worsened,” said Elaine Ireland, a neighborhood resident. “I never was one to have headaches before. I’m getting regular headaches, ringing in the ears that, it just gets in the way of everyday life.”

One family sold their home and moved out. Courtney Gilardi and her family have been living out of a temporary cottage a few miles down the road for months to find relief.

“Last night, when we came home from the meeting, my little one said, ‘mama, I actually don’t remember what it’s like to live in our own house,’” said Gilardi. “And it broke my heart to hear that from her.”

The board of health is giving Verizon seven days to begin discussions to turn off the tower before the cease and desist order will be issued.

If they do have to send the order, the neighbors are prepared for what could be a lengthy legal battle.

“Our doctors, our scientists, there’s an amazing team of attorneys, we believe we will be vindicated in court because the science is settled, and it’s on the side of those who are suffering,” said Gilardi.

“Win, lose, or draw, no matter what happens, we’re going to be here,” said Charlie Herzig, who lives on Alma Street. “So you can bet we’re going to be there to defend as much as we can.”

A statement from Verizon reads: "Verizon telecommunications equipment and networks comply with all health and safety standards established by the FCC. We have met on multiple occasions with the Pittsfield Health Department and members of the community to address their concerns with this site. All of Verizon’s equipment at the Pittsfield tower operates well under the FCC’s conservative limits, as confirmed by the city’s own RF study from last summer."
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Source: Spectrum News 1, Matt Ristaino, 03 Feb 2022

Report says wireless radiation, said by telecom companies to be harmless, could be hurting wildlife
USA Created: 6 Feb 2022
Health researchers raised concerns in the 1990s about the possible harmful effects of wireless radiation from cellphones and towers, and their warnings met pushback from telecommunications companies on the verge of growing a mega-industry.

Industry-backed researchers assured federal agencies health concerns — especially those centered on the possibility of low-level microwaves causing cancer — lacked conclusive evidence.

Regulators accepted their assessments, and the alarm bells went silent.

Now a trio of researchers have compiled a report saying the widespread installation of cell towers and antennas is generating electromagnetic fields — EMFs for short — that could be physiologically harmful.

The report focuses on potential impacts on wildlife, trees, plants and insects, such as bees, because there are no regulations protecting them from EMFs emanating from wireless antennas. Wildlife protections are becoming more vital as this radiation — known more specifically as radiofrequency EMFs — escalates through 5G technologies, the researchers warn.

"There needs to be regulatory standards to address EMFs affecting wildlife," said Albert Manville, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and one of the paper's authors.

Manville also is an adjunct science professor at Johns Hopkins University.

He said he provided the Federal Communications Commission with some research on how the electromagnetic pollution can hurt wildlife and the steps that could be taken to lessen the impacts.

But the FCC has been unresponsive, Manville said, arguing the agency tends to accommodate the industry it's supposed to regulate.

"That's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is," he said.

The FCC did not respond to questions about whether it would consider making efforts to reduce animals' EMF exposure.

The three authors drew from 1,200 peer-reviewed studies to compile a three-part, 210-page report titled "Effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields on flora and fauna." It was published in the journal Reviews on Environmental Health.

Science journalist Blake Levitt, who also co-wrote the report, said they dug up overlooked studies that contained compelling research on how living organisms react to low-level EMFs. Their compilation invalidates any claims that the EMFs don't cause biological effects, she said.

"We just blew the whole thing out of the water and took it to the ecosystem level, which is really where it needed to go," Levitt said. "Nobody had done that before. We need a whole lot more scrutiny put to the low-intensity stuff."

Ambient EMFs have risen exponentially in the past quarter-century, as cellphones were widely adopted, to become a ubiquitous and continuous environmental pollutant, even in remote areas, the report said, adding studies indicate EMFs can affect animals' orientation, migration, food finding, reproduction, nest building, territorial defense, vitality, longevity and survival.

EMFs' toxic effects on an animal's cells, DNA and chromosomes have been observed in laboratory specimens — and thus would apply to wildlife, according to the report.

Many types of wildlife are exposed to EMFs from wireless sources, such as deer, seals, whales, birds, bats, insects, amphibians and reptiles, the report said. Many species have been found more sensitive to EMFs than humans in some ways.

The report recommends new laws that include the redesign of wireless devices and infrastructure to reduce the rising ambient levels.

It comes several months after a federal court in Washington, D.C., ordered the FCC to review its guidelines for wireless radiation and justify why it should retain them, as the standards haven't been updated since 1996. This radiation should not be confused with radioactivity, the court noted, adding microwaves used in transmitting signals are low enough to not heat tissues in what are known as "thermal effects."

But medical studies suggest the lower-level radiation could cause cancer, reproductive problems, impaired learning and motor skills, disrupted sleep and decreased memory.

These studies and others were submitted to the FCC after it opened a notice of inquiry in 2013 under the administration of former President Barack Obama to probe the adequacy of the 1996 guidelines, which were geared toward avoiding thermal effects, the court said.

In 2019, the Trump administration's FCC deemed the inquiry unnecessary, saying the 1996 rules were sufficient and required no revision.

Two judges called that FCC action "arbitrary and capricious," saying the FCC made the decision out of hand, ignoring all the science presented and offering no reasonable, fact-based argument to back it up.

The agency also failed to look at the technological developments in the past 25 years and how they've changed the degree of exposure, the judges wrote. And they said it refused to examine possible health effects from EMFs that fall below the threshold set in 1996.

"When an agency in the commission's position is confronted with evidence that its current regulations are inadequate or the factual premises underlying its prior judgment have eroded, it must offer more to justify its decision to retain its regulations than mere conclusory statements," the judges wrote.

"Rather, the agency must provide 'assurance that [it] considered the relevant factors,' " they added.

The FCC's reluctance to ensure wireless transmissions are safe for human health extends to wildlife, even as 5G technology gains momentum, said Theodora Scarato, executive director of the Environmental Health Trust, a nonprofit think tank that led the petition against the FCC.

Scarato said her group is promoting the wildlife report to fill a crucial gap in wireless oversight.

She plans to submit the report to the FCC as it conducts its new review of wireless radiation, with the hope the report will go on the record and be considered when crafting future rules.

Regulators need to determine how much EMFs must be curbed to safeguard flora and fauna, she said.

"What is a limit for a person is going to be different" than for animals, Scarato said.

The study notes EMFs can disrupt the Earth's natural magnetic fields that birds, cats, fish and other animals use to navigate and orient themselves.

Towers keep the EMFs away from people on the ground but leave birds vulnerable because they fly near the transmitters and even perch on them, Scarato said.

"Air needs to be designated as habitat," she said. "And EMFs need to be regulated like other pollutants."

The transmissions can disorient bees, causing them to become lost, not return to their hives and die, Manville said.

The bees are already threatened by pesticides and climate change, he said. "It's death by a thousand cuts."

If they have a mass die-off, it could be disastrous for growers that depend on them to pollinate crops, he added.

Manville said as a federal biologist, he pushed to get the Interior Department to establish an environmental review that covered how new sources of wireless radiation would affect wildlife. Interior officials were receptive in 2014, but his proposal stalled at the Commerce Department, which was in charge of internet technology, he said. Then later, the Trump administration scrapped it.

Scarato said this "landmark paper" could be the catalyst for creating wildlife guidelines.

"The challenge before us is there isn't an environmental agency who's even looking at the science at this time," she said. The study's authors "make the case for regulations that we need."
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Source: Santa Fe New Mexican (via Yahoo News), Scott Wyland, 05 Feb 2022

Supply Chain Squeeze Complicates Europe’s Mobile Mast Rollout
Germany Created: 2 Feb 2022
The global supply chain crunch has hit almost every major product, including smartphones. Now it’s getting in the way of building the antennas that provide their signals.

Vantage Towers AG, the mobile mast company spun out of Vodafone Group Plc, said its efforts to build new towers are being hindered by a squeeze on technology supply chains.

“Whilst the build-to-suit program accelerated in the third quarter, the macro site build year-to-date has been challenged mainly by supply chain issues,” the company said in an earnings report Tuesday. “We expect these challenges to persist beyond the fourth quarter of 2022 into 2023, and will require continued management.”

Vantage splits its operations between increasing the number of companies that use existing towers, like a landlord increasing tenancies of a building, upgrading those sites with newer technology such as 5G and connecting them into wider networks, and building entirely new wireless infrastructure - known as Built-To-Suit or BTS.

Although timings have been hit, Vantage said the issues didn’t affect its overall 2022 financial guidance or its planned delivery of 7,100 build-to-suit sites by 2026.
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Source: Bloomberg, Thomas Seal, 01 Feb 2022

Phone mast proposals will put further pressure on landowners
United Kingdom Created: 2 Feb 2022
A new Bill is before Parliament which critics fear will accelerate downward pressure on mobile phone mast rents.

The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill had its second reading in the House of Commons on 26 January.

The government says the aim is to encourage faster and more collaborative negotiations for the installation and maintenance of telecoms equipment on private land.

But campaigners say the changes outlined by the Bill will make it harder for site owners to appeal against arbitrary rent cuts demanded by operators.

The Protect and Connect campaign group said mobile phone giants were holding site owners to ransom.

“Telecom companies who have just imposed price rises of close to 10% now want to pay site owners as little as £50 a year to host mobile phone masts.”

The main changes the Bill would make include:

New provisions to actively encourage alternative dispute resolution rather than legal proceedings where possible

Introducing a faster procedure to allow telecoms operators to get temporary rights to access and install infrastructure on land when an occupier is not responsive

Giving telecoms operators rights to automatically upgrade and share equipment that was installed before 2017

Changes to the terms for renewing certain types of telecoms agreements that were in place before December 2017.

Jeremy Moody, secretary and adviser at the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV), said there was a concern that the government was seeking to change the basis of renewal rents on telecoms leases protected by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.

There were also changes proposed that would give operators the ability to ask for a new agreement while one was already in place, Mr Moody said, “which basically means no landowner would ever know where they stand, and that accelerates the process of how rents might move”.

While there was talk of better complaints procedures and operators being encouraged to find alternative means of dispute resolution, this would only work if the provisions had teeth, he warned.

“Our basic observation is that the more power an acquirer has, the worse they can behave. If they know that there will be checks, that would be an enormous improvement.”

MPs challenging Bill

Mr Moody said it was heartening that several backbenchers who took part in the Commons debate had been critical of the valuation provisions, the powers given to operators, and the behaviours of parties.

They were also anxious about dispute resolution.

He said that the irony of the situation was that mobile phone operators were benefitting less and less from the powers being given to them, because they had sold their masts to stand-alone companies.

“The mast owners get the benefit of the cheap rent from the landowner and then charge the mobile companies full rent, so the value is being taken from the landowner and passed to the mast owner.

“It is not getting to the people who provide the mobile phone service.”

Next steps

The Bill has now moved to the committee stage, where it will face further scrutiny.

The first sitting of the Public Bill Committee is expected to be on Tuesday 15 March, and the committee is scheduled to report by Tuesday 29 March.
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Source: Farmers Weekly, Isabel Davies, 01 Feb 2022

Bid for towering 5G mobile phone mast outside Black Country museum thrown out
United Kingdom Created: 2 Feb 2022
A BID for a 15-metre mobile phone mast which would have "overshadowed the entrance" to the Black Country Museum and affected views from the attraction has been thrown out.

An application for the towering 5G mast near the museum entrance on Tipton Road has been turned down by planners at Dudley Council after the museum objected to the proposal.

It said it would spoil the atmosphere that it creates for visitors.

The museum stated: "It will overshadow the museum entrance"

"It will prejudice views from the museum looking southwards.

"At 15metres high it will protrude above the skyline against the heritage assets impacting and prejudicing the atmosphere the museum portrays to visitors."

It also said cabinets at the base of the mast could affect the view onto Tipton Road for vehicles leaving the car park.

Planners at Dudley Council agreed that the mast would spoil the experience for visitors and turned down the application for prior approval.

They stated: "The proposed mast and its associated ancillary equipment by reason of its siting, excess height, and appearance, would if approved, be harmful to the adjacent heritage assets at the Black Country Living Museum and the locally distinctive character of the wider area.

"The proposal would be insensitive, unsympathetic and harmful to the significance of the heritage assets and would fail to protect and preserve their setting."

The bid from CK Hutchison Networks Ltd was for a 15-metre mast with six antennas and four equipment cabinets.

It was refused on January 31. The site is in the Castle and Priory ward.
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Source: Dudley News, Helen Attwood, 01 Feb 2022

Men concerned about fertility should limit cell phone use to protect sperm quality, study says
USA Created: 1 Feb 2022
Cell phones are meant to connect people, but they might be doing the opposite by limiting man’s reproductive potential.

Men may want to limit their cell phone use if they are concerned about fertility, according to a recent metanalysis published this past November in Environmental Research, which found the radiofrequency electromagnetic waves (RF-EMWs) emitted by cell phones decrease sperm quality by reducing their motility, viability, and concentration.

​​"Male cell-phone users should strive to reduce mobile phone use to protect their sperm quality," said Yun Hak Kim, lead researcher and an assistant professor at Pusan National University.

Previous research has shown cell phones emit RF-EMWs that can be absorbed by the human body to result in potential adverse side effects on the brain, heart and reproductive function, according to the study.

Because there have been numerous published studies since 2012 on the effects of cell phones and sperm quality, the South Korean researchers conducted a comprehensive review that synthesizes these studies to discover common results, also known as a meta-analysis, to evaluate if exposure to RF-EMWs from cell phones affects human sperm quality.

Out of the 435 published studies and records that the researchers screened between 2012 and 2021, they found 18 studies with 4280 sperm samples that were suitable for statistical analyses.

The study did not find a link between the time spent on the cell phone and sperm quality, only that exposure to the cell phone itself was associated with reduced numbers, decreased movement, and how long the sperm was alive, the press release said.

Although the study reported the findings were consistent with previous studies on the topic, it had some limitations because of low amounts of data on patients and because the cell phones in the study are now outdated.

"Knowing that the number of cell phone users is most likely going to increase in the future, it’s high time we start considering exposure to RF-EMW as one of the underlying factors causing a reduction in sperm quality among the male population," the press release added.

"Additional studies will be needed to determine the effect of exposure to EMWs emitted from new mobile phone models in the present digital environment," Kim said.
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Source: Fox News, Shiv Sudhakar, 28 Jan 2022

Former ICNIRP professor James Lin criticizes ICNIRP over 5G guidlines
USA Created: 24 Jan 2022
“Health Safety Guidelines and 5G Wireless Radiation” by James Lin, IEEE Microwave Magazine, January 2022.

“Some of the updated [IEEE and ICNIRP] safety recommendations are marginal, questionable, and lack scientific justification from the perspective of safety protection.”

Lin is a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Chicago, the editor-in-chief of Bioelectromagnetics and a 12-year veteran of ICNIRP (2004-2016).
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Source: Microwave News, Louis Slesin, 08 Dec 2021

Phone mast fails to get a good reception with council planners
Ireland Created: 24 Jan 2022
Plans for an 18 metre high mast in the heart of Drumconrath village have run into trouble, with the refusal of planning permission by Meath County Council.

Plans for the structure had met with an angry response from local residents who had described the proposed structure as a "monstrosity".

Fears had been expressed for the health of schoolchildren, as it is close to the local school, and residents claimed it would have a devastating visual impact on the village.

Eircom (trading as eir) had sought planning permission for the installation of an 18 metres monopole carrying antennas, a dish and associated ground-based equipment and cabinets along the main street beside the community centre.

The company has said it is designed to enhance mobile service in the area.

The council said the location was unsuitable at the lowest point in the village and that there should be co-location of antennas with other structures.

A spokesperson for eir said they would review the decision.

Local residents had expressed concerned about the health implications from radiation, pointing out that planning and development guidelines state it should only be as a last resort that masts are located close to schools or residential areas.

Gavin Byrne a member of the local Historical Society said it would have been “a towering monstrosity in the middle of a rural village.

“This mast would have had a negative visual impact on the area,” he said.

"It was great to get confirmation in the post that it had been refused.

"There is already another mast in the area and it could be shared," he said.

Cllr Michael Gallagher said the site is at the lowest location in the village alongside a small river in a flood zone. “In 2O11 this site was flooded with several foot of water.

“This mast will have serious visual impact on the landscape and a negative effect on the village."

He paid tribute to local resident Francis Saul who made strong submission against the proposal to the council.

Cllr Gallagher as very pleased with the decision as lockdown has curtailed the local community in organising strong campaign to oppose the mast.

“We are not opposed to Eircom improving their communication equipment, but not at this site," he said.

“There is a mast on a hill about a one kilometre away from the Eircom site, where they could co locate and share the existing equipment.”
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Source: Meath Chronicle, Ann Casey, 19 Jan 2022

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