The 72 ha plantation lacks toilet and washing facilities despite the problems of working with citric acid – protective clothing and even knives are not provided. The labour group Batay Ouvriye (Worker's Struggle) has helped

to establish a trade union which has won concessions on pay and conditions from Marnier, although these have been slow to materialise. Not surprisingly, unions and Batay Ouvriye have been victimised by plantation managers and the ruling party since approaching Marnier.

Batay Ouvriye is supported by War on Want and they are asking campaigners to:
• Write to Marnier-Lapostelle (SA 91 Boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris, France) asking that they authorise proper wage increases.
• Write to plantation managers Daniel Zephir, Etablissements Novella B.P. 53, Cap-Haitien, Haiti.

CROSS RIVER RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN
A raft of new government initiatives threatens to wipe out the remaining rainforest in Nigeria's Cross River State where clear felling has already begun to prepare land for the establishment of agro-industrial estates, and further commercial logging concessions have been granted.

The local community is outraged that these activities are proceeding contrary to recommendations of Nigeria's Forestry Development Department and Britain's Department for International Development to sustainably manage the land.

The destruction of the rainforest will mean the loss of natural resources vital

to the livelihoods of several thousand people who depend on hunting, fishing and the gathering of non-timber forest products for much of their income.

If all this wasn't bad enough, the new Forestry Commission - set up to make policies on the rainforest's management - is to be headed by none other than the biggest logging contractor to the notorious unsustainable logger WEMPCO (see Corporate Watch issue 11).

A decade of UN economic sanctions on Iraq has caused an appalling humanitarian crisis.
Hundreds of thousands of children under five have died as a result of sanctions; many more suffer chronic malnutrition and disease. Sanctions have affected every aspect of life for ordinary Iraqis, leaving them struggling to survive in a society where health care, education, agriculture, even access to clean water can no longer be taken for granted.

The British and US governments seem determined to keep sanctions in place, despite the impact they are having on ordinary people, especially children. In response to this, Voices in the Wilderness groups in Britain and the US break the sanctions by taking medical supplies to Iraq without applying for export licences, in an open act of civil disobedience against the sanctions regime. Voices UK campaigns in other ways too, producing regular newsletters and briefings, as well as running letter writing campaigns and organising civil disobedience. Almost 100 people took part in civil disobedience recently to mark the 10th anniversary of sanctions, and further action is planned in the near future.

Contact Irelands's Workers Solidarity Movement http://surf.to/anarchism

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The WEF meeting in Sydney this September met with major resistance – on the first day around 10,000 protestors successfully blockaded all entrances to the summit. According to a conference official, an estimated 200 of the 800 delegates never made it to the summit, while some of them had to be flown in by helicopter and others ferried down the river Yarra in small boats getting very wet in the process!

The WEF is due to hold an India Economic Summit in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi this November before attempting to 'Manage New Expectations and Old Challenges' in collaboration with the Mexican Investment Board in Mexico in December. More info: www.s11.org

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Brazil landless leave buildings after protest
Brazil's Movimente Sem Terra (MST) occupied public buildings for two days this September in a nationwide effort to bring about land reform, finally calling off the occupations in expectation of talks with the government about land and credits.

The occupations by 15,000 MST members was the second nationwide protest for land since May and the government reacted swiftly by saying it would not negotiate with the group as long as the occupations continued.

The MST says the government has not made good on a promise made in July to act on a $1.1 billion package of land reform measures that would, among other things, settle 250,000 families by 2002, build houses and provide public services to rural areas.

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GM NEWS

There will also be a National Animal Feed Day of Action this November – contact 01865 513 224 or TOGG 01803 840098

GM maize and the UK National Seed List
For the first time in Britain a GM seed (Chardon LL fodder maize) may be added to the National Seed List. 68 campaign groups or individuals will give evidence and call witnesses during the unprecedented 10-week hearing. Aventis has announced that they will not put themselves in the position of being cross-examined and will not cross-examine other witnesses but they want to comment at the end of the hearing - these comments will, of course, not be subject to cross-examination. To follow proceedings see the MAFF website www.maff.gov.uk or contact 01865 513 224.

Local campaign groups have sprung up wherever agribusiness has sown its seeds - wherever they lay their patch it'll be mown.

December 3rd has been declared a 'Day of No Pesticide Use' and campaign group BAYERwatch is planning to use this opportunity to send an open letter to the company demanding that they withdraw all pesticide products which contain active ingredients as classified by the World Health Organisation.

To add your name contact CBGnetwork@aol.com.

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Stop Huntingdon
Despite recent police repression, the campaign to close Huntingdon Life Sciences is still very strong. The group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) believes that Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is on its last legs and may be finished off within months. On 15th August four volunteers were arrested in a raid on homes and the SHAC office, when all items relating to the campaign were also confiscated. The four were charged with conspiracy to incite harrassment and criminal damage, and despite lack of evidence (the police relied on excepts from the SHAC newletter released seven months previously) they were remanded. This event coincided with the announcement by HLS that they are to be re-financed by an American investor, in an attempt to convince shareholders it can survive. The truth is that HLS's third quarter figures show a pre-tax loss of £2.5 million. It has been losing money for a long time after a sustained campaign directed at shareholders and investors, and grinding down morale outside the gates of the HLS complex. SHAC vows to increase pressure on HLS customers such as SmithKline Beecham by campaigning in the high street, and on shareholders such as Merrill Lynch and Citibank.

Contact 0121 6326460; www.shac.net

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Peace Diary
The 2001 Housmans Peace Diary is out now. Cheques payable to Housmans for £6.95 (inc p&p) from 5, Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX

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The mainstream media consistently refuses to acknowledge the genuine groundswell of resistance to neoliberal economics and its supporting institutions, preferring instead to focus on activist personality profiles or street violence. Despite this, people who protested against the meeting received fresh momentum from September's expressions of global solidarity, and a greater understanding of issues around the World Bank which affect both the global North and global South. Meanwhile each meeting venue for these institutions comes to resemble a fortress rather than a conference centre. How high are they hoping the walls will go?

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Niger Delta Update
Nigeria's Delta region, the scene of many environmental and human rights abuses committed by the government with the collusion of Shell and other oil companies, has seen several tragic accidents and uprisings in recent months. 250 people died when an oil pipe exploded on 12 July near Jerri. The pipe had been punctured by petrol thieves and the local community readily exploited the opportunity to sell petrol to the unofficial market. Less than a week later and only 10 km away another fire killed at least 30 people. Locals were clearly not perturbed by the previous fire and efforts of the police to stop vandalism.

The dangers involved demonstrates the lengths Nigerians will go to to claim some of the vast wealth extracted from their lands. Two million barrels of oil are extracted from the delta every day, worth billions per year, but villages in the delta see few material benefits and their land and fisheries are blighted by spills and gas-flaring.

In early August young men took over an oil installation and took workers hostage, demanding jobs on the rig and improvements to local amenities.

Despite promises from the new democratic government the people of the delta have seen little improvement and their struggle to win back a share of the country's wealth continues. Shell in particular is still refusing to admit their complicity in state repression or negotiate a way forward for development in the delta.

Info: www.mosopcanada.org ; www.oneworld.org/delta

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Victory in case re Monsanto squashing media debate
The latest example of Monsanto attempts to stop critics airing their views was exposed in August when a jury in Tampa, USA, returned a verdict in favor of investigative reporter Jane Akre.

The panel awarded her $450,000 in damages, concluding she was fired from her job at at a Tampa TV station for threatening to report to the Federal Communications Commission that the station wanted her to broadcast a false and misleading news report about Monsanto's synthethic bovine growth hormone (rBGH). Contact foodfirst@foodfirst.org.

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No Shop Day 2000 – 25th November
Imagine this -"You get into a car that you haven't finished paying for yet and drive out of town very slowly because everyone else is doing the same and park in a huge concrete carpark (that used to be a real park) and enter an anonymous aircraft-hangar-style super clean warehouse with piped music and bored-looking security 'personnel', to choose from a selection of overpriced PVC-wrapped this-size-only- identical-from-Land's-End-to-John-O'Groats-pre-cut sheets of wood, grab a packet of nails in a Houdini-proof plastic box from a 60 foot long neon-lit display rack, pay for them by handing over your (membership has its privileges) American Express card to a spotty 17-year old trapped behind a video-monitored check-out booth who hates the place as much as you do, and then drive home (slowly. .) wondering why you feel like you've spoken to no one in the last two hours, and worrying about the environmental consequences of all that packaging and shrinkwrap. . . "

Or how about this – a different way of buying wood and nails – "Well... you put your shoes on and walk to the small local cram-it-all-in DIY shop, you have to (Oh no! How will you bear it?) queue for a bit and then get served by someone who more or less likes what they're doing and gets a bit of satisfaction from it and who actually talks to you, and will cut you a bit of wood to just about the right size, you nails get served to you from a tatty old cardboard box and wrapped in a bit of old newspaper, there's sawdust on the floor, and the whole place has at least got a bit of atmosphere about it - you can even smell the wood for God's sake - and alright, the person who runs the place can be a bit patronising but hey, at least life is colourful and has a bit of variety to it and bingo! you go home feeling more or less happy."

OK - maybe it's just me? Maybe I've got a thing about little DIY stores. But it's not the only example.

Consumerism wants to put an end to these alternatives. It thrives on big shopping malls, on insecurity and alienation. It takes away our personal contact with people and then tries to comfort us with useless trinkets.

So in order to afford these useless trinkets, we end up working harder in jobs we don 't like, making or selling things no one really needs. But we don't have to go down this line. It's not the only way to create jobs, nor is it the only way to meet our commercial and physical needs.

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Birmingham Northern Relief Road (BNRR) on target
The Government has finally approved arrangements for funding and constructing the Birmingham Northern Relief Road which the concessionaire, Midland Expressway Limited signed up to this month. Work on the road will start later this year.

Midland Expressway Limited (MEL) has signed contracts with CAMBBA (a joint venture of Carillion, Alfred McAlpine, Balfour Beatty and AMEC) to build the road with Abbey National and Bank of America to arrange and underwrite the funding of the road.

The main construction work will start early in 2001, with a view to the road opening in early 2004.

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is Ms Kalamma, a farmer from Tamil Nadu, India. The sequence is taken from Dr Martin Barnado's work on the human major histocompatibility complex cell surface glycoprotein gene. Credit: Hugh Warwick

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Cape Bites the Dust
Campaigners celebrated an historic victory in the High Court this summer when the Law Lords gave the green light for former South African asbestos miners to sue Cape plc for compensation in the UK (for details see Corporate Watch issue 11)

Cape had insisted that any court case for compensation must be heard in South Africa but the miners' lawyers point out "The decision to expose their staff to fatal illnesses was made in Britain. The resulting profits flowed to Britain. Yet the company is saying the trial should be heard in a country where it has no assets which can be seized if the judge finds against it."

Despite international sanctions and the known dangers of asbestos dust, Cape Plc mined and milled asbestos in apartheid South Africa up until 1979.

In Britain the first asbestos regulations came into force in 1931, and in the 1960s the asbestos exported by Cape from South Africa even carried warning stickers. South African miners however weren't even issued with protective clothing.