Next update, evening Monday 3rd
Snippets of what's going in labour, environment, politics
Nestle, the Swiss based multinational with fingers in every pie of global food production has a fascinating view of the future: They predict that in the nexty 20/30 years drinking water will become the world's most valuable commodity. Given the behaviour of food multinationals. this is very scarey....
take Cargill, for example, the US based grains and food trader. They urged farmers in India to abandon their traditional crops for sunflower seeds, which Cargill said would make them a lot more money. The farmers switched to sunflowers but the crop failed and they were left with not enough money to buy food. Cargill was aiming to hook farmers to buying genetically engineered seeds at high prices (as well as the necessary pesticides, etc) and also to allow more dumping of surplus US grains into India....
Monsanto applies for licences to grow genetically engineered sugar beet in Carlow Kilkenny and Cork. They want to engineer the plant so it will be resistant to weedkiller glyphosate which they market as Roundup. Then they hope to rake in by selling Roundup and the genetically engineered seeds as a pack. Glyphosate is very toxic. And genetic engineering is bad news.
Blood transfusion board scandal:
One Cecily Cunnigham, chief biochemist at the BTSB, was reponsible for not checking a batch of blood for hepatitis or AIDS. Then she ignored seveal positive tests for hepatitis and the product was used on several pregnant women. She is still working at the BTSB. There is a history of the BTSB using blood they know is infected in other products. And Cecily Cunnigham is still working at the BTSB...
Ructions over the price of the pint: pint fixing has been going on in Dublin since 1965. Suddenly the govt decides to do something: They ask the Licensed Vintners Federation, who promptly agree to withdraw the increase. Well, this is election year....
A chieftain told St Brigid she could have as much land as her cloak would cover. When she laid her cloak on the ground it just kept growing and growing....kinda like what the speculators are doing: In Lucan, developers want to rezone industrial land to build 600 new houses. In Swords, extra houses will mean more sewage into the beautiful Broadmeadow estuary. Councillors dismissed talk of an Evironmental Impact Survey......
Building sites are unsafe: "In the last 12 months more scaffolds have probably collapsed than any 12 month period since the foundation of the State," says ATGWU official Mick Brennan. He blames the greater profits made by quick, unsafe building....
300 Irish Life sales staff were suspended in dispute over changed working conditions....Telecom workers are ballotting for strike action because the company refuses to pay the 2.5% already agreed in the PCW, unless it gets concessions....100 binworkers are on strike in south county dublin. They now have to collect from 1,200 houses instead of 750 a day. The Council pressured workers to accept the deal and then didn't pay some men the agreed amount fopr the changeover....Most workers voted against the "new" national pay - Partnership 2000. But it was passed because a narrow victory in SIPTU swung all the votes of that union at the ICTU conference...
Curiouser and curiouser....Was the attempted escape of six prisoners from Whitemoor Prison in 1994 a set up??. The escape happens just weeks after the IRA declared the ceasefire. It seems impossible for the guns and bolt cutters to have been smuggled in without inside help. And the prisoners did not have enough time to cut the fence. Someone else must have cut it for them.There is at least four crucial minutes missing from the closed circuit TV. Nobody knows where they went to. But two prison officers have died in similar car crashes. The wife of one says he may have been killed because he knew too much. Did some crazed MI5 agent set up the desperate prisoners to be busted?
Crazy stuff in Israel...550 workers are on strike at Haifa Chemical. The owner wants 30% cuts in labour costs. The workers occupied the factory and prevented machinery from being removed. Owner Ariyeh Genger hired 200 thugs to break the workers occupation. Four strikers were hospitalised. But they fought back by spraying the thugs with chemicals. The head of the Histadrut main trade union was arrested at a Haifa Chemical support meeting. Israeli workers across the country stopped working instantly, shutting down banks, the airport, bus drivers blocked main roads and even the stock market staff struck work. Within five hours, the labour court discovered the whole thing was a "mistake" and released the union leader.
Got a snippet???? Why don't you 
us?
