In one of her first executive acts as Prime Minister Theresa May has abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change, DECC.

Its energy remit will now be amalgamated with business in a new Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – a choice of name in which the words ‘climate change’ are notably absent.

The new Secretary of State at BEIS is to be Greg Clarke, MP for Tunbridge Wells, who was appointed Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government following the 2015 general election.

Meanwhile Andrea Leadsom has been rewarded for her timely and highly convenient standing down as a candidate for the Conservative leadership by being appointed Secretary of State in charge of Defra, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Leadsom’s promotion – entirely undeserved in terms of her weak performance as energy minister at DECC – has only fuelled suspicion of an expertly executed Tory fix to fast-track the appointment of a new leader while denying the party’s membership of their vote.

Fury and incredulity

The abolition of DECC has provoked a furious response from environment campaigners who fear that it wil severely downgrade the status of climate change in government policy making – just two days after the Climate Change Committee published its powerful and outspoken report highlighting the severe risks climate change poses to the UK’s national security.

“This is shocking news”, said Friends of the Earth CEO Craig Bennett. “Less than a day into the job and it appears that the new Prime Minister has already downgraded action to tackle climate change, one of the biggest threats we face.

“This week the government’s own advisors warned of ever growing risks to our businesses, homes and food if we don’t do more to cut fossil fuel pollution. If Theresa May supports strong action on climate change, as she’s previously said, it’s essential that this is made a top priority for the new business and energy department and across government.”

Secretary of Stephen Devlin, Environmental Economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), described DECC’s abolition as “a terrible move by our new Prime Minister” that “signals a troubling de-prioritisation of climate change by this government.

“This reshuffle risks dropping climate change from the policy agenda altogether – a staggering act of negligence for which we will all pay the price. Theresa May must reaffirm her government’s commitment to the 2008 Climate Change Act and reassure businesses and civil society that the targets under the Climate Act are not up for negotiation.”

ClientEarth Chief Executive James Thornton was equally dismayed: “At a time when the challenge of climate change becomes ever more pressing, the Government has scrapped the department devoted to tackling it. This is a statement of disregard for one of the most challenging economic, social and environmental issues humans have ever faced. 

“It sends a terrible signal at the worst possible time, undermining efforts to secure a clean, safe energy future. It is now essential that Greg Clark proves the Government’s commitment to tackling climate change is undimmed. This decision will otherwise be a source of deep regret in the difficult years ahead.”

And what of Leadsom? Badgers, pollution, farming, fishing …

Andrea Leadsom – resolutely pro-fracking and pro-nuclear at DECC – now finds herself responsible for a number of contentious issues that even highly competent ministers would struggle with. For example, she is now responsible for agriculture and fisheries, both areas in which the EU has considerable powers, just as the UK is negotiating the terms of its exit from the EU.

So its now up to her to set out her alternative vision of farming and fisheries under direct UK control: having campaigned for Brexit it is unthinkable that she would wish to simply perpetuate existing EU policies. And while farmers and landowners will expect the continuation of direct payments to them simply for owning farmland, the public will surely be demanding that the money – some £4 billion a year – be put into underfunded public services like health and education.

Other political hot potatoes that have landed in her lap include the England badger cull, widely derided as cruel, expensive and entirely ineffective at tackling bovine TB; regulation of chemicals and pesticides in a post-EU regulatory framework, including bee-killing neonicotinoids and the controversial herbicide glyphosate; and the problem of bad air quality in UK cities which is causing tens of thousands of premature deaths every year.

“Whatever the outcome of EU negotiations Andrea Leadsom must defend and extend existing nature protections – an early test will be ruling-out the return of bee-harming neonicotinoid pesticides that are currently banned by the EU”, said Craig Bennett (FoE).
 
“This week a stark official climate change risk assessment report was published: Leadsom must commit to action to protect the UK from worsening flooding and heatwaves. British farming now has to make the case for the public money it receives – we should not be subsidising unsustainable food production or farming practices which fail to protect and preserve Britain’s green and pleasant land.”

Thornton (ClientEarth) added: “The UK wildlife and countryside protection laws will be at risk when we leave the EU, and Leadsom’s first priority must be to pass laws which are as strong, or stronger, than those currently in place. This is essential to protect our precious animals and habitats, and the communities and industries which depend on them.

“Mrs Leadsom should also urgently support our demands for a new Clean Air Act which will protect lives once we leave the EU. The new government must now step up and deal with this public health crisis so that the whole country can breathe cleaner air.”

A silver lining for energy policy?

But not all environmentlaists believe that the abolition of DECC is such a disaster for climate and energy policy. Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), sounded an optimistic note on the appointment of the new BEIS Secretary:

“Greg Clark is an excellent appointment. He understands climate change, and has written influential papers on the benefits of Britain developing a low-carbon economy. Importantly, he sees that economic growth and tackling climate change are bedfellows not opponents – and he now has the opportunity to align British industry, energy and climate policy in a way that’s never been done before.”

He went on to recall that Theresa May had assured Conservative MPs that her government will continue to be an “international leader on climate change”: “It would be odd not to continue with that when all the most important new trading partners in our post-Brexit world, such as China, India and the United States, are themselves making massive investments in a clean energy transformation.”

The union of energy and business in one department also created could also help to develop the domestic market for green energy, he said: “Creating this new department opens up the exciting option of an innovation and industry strategy that enables companies in the clean energy supply chain, including steel, to expand and thrive together. But they’ll need a strong British market.

“Within the last few months, the National Infrastructure Commission and energy industry big cheeses, through Energy UK, have said that the UK should continue building a smart, flexible low-carbon grid – so there’s a clear pathway laid out for ministers, and the rationale for following it hasn’t changed a bit.”

RenewableUK’s Chief Executive Hugh McNeal also emphasised the potential opportunities: “We’re looking forward to working supportively with Mr Clark in his new role, as we represent industries that can attract inward investment in the UK, and onshore wind offers the cheapest source of new power for Britain.

“The UK will invest over £20bn in wind energy in the next five years. Energy is the big ticket item in British infrastructure spending. Industry is ready to invest and it is vital for our economy that this work continues.”

Oliver Tickell is Contributing Editor at The Ecologist.

A controversial hydroelectric dam project in sub-Arctic Canada relies on local Innu people giving up their own lands.

Nalcor Energy, the firm building two dams to produce the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador, along Canada’s north-eastern coast, talks enthusiastically about “boundless energy”.

And why not? Hydroelectric power is seen as a renewable and relatively benign way to meet the ever-growing energy needs of industrialised societies. Nalcor, owned by its provincial government, says that its project will “significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions – equivalent to taking 3.2m vehicles off the road each year”.

This sounds great. Yet beyond the impressive feats of engineering and the CAN$11 billion cost (£6.5 billion), what will it take to accomplish what is being imagined here?

Across the world, many areas sacrificed for hydroelectric generation belong to indigenous or land-based peoples who either have to be moved or live with drastic changes. The Three Gorges dam in China displaced 1.2m people and the Belo Monte dam in Brazil could displace up to 40,000.

And back in the 1950s the Kariba dam project on the Zambesi river in Zambia precipitated an involuntary resettlement of some 57,000 people, including the Gwembe Tonga farmers and hunters, whose homes, gardens, burial and spiritual sites were flooded with virtually no consideration from the British colonial authorities.

Opposition to ‘progress’ may lead to imprisonment and in the case of Honduras and Guatemala, even to the suspected murder of indigenous opposition leaders and protesters.

This land was made for you and me

Canada is a supposed world leader on human rights. Yet any country staking its economy upon energy production on the lands of indigenous peoples is likely at some level to disregard their rights.

I have researched this over the past 20 years. Muskrat Falls is being constructed on the culturally important Mishta-shipu (‘Big River’) on lands where there has been no treaty and which remain under unextinguished Aboriginal Title. The lands belong to the Innu peoples of the Labrador-Quebec peninsula.

Yet Canadian authorities are proceeding with the project as they anticipate the Innu electorate will at some time in the future vote to extinguish ownership of their own land. Contrary to standards in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on free, prior and informed consent, the Innu are given few meaningful choices other than to relinquish their lands.

Under the current land claims process they must either extinguish their aboriginal and land rights or, under the notorious certainty provision, agree not to exercise those rights. In the short-term, many Innu may enjoy some extra cash, self-government rights and business opportunities, but they will have to accept having most of their collective lands privatised.

It’s not just me saying this: even the UN has been concerned for some time about the ease with which indigenous lands in Canada have been usurped. As recently as last year the Human Rights Council urged Canada to reconsider its process for consultation and consent.

‘Consent’ in Canada is based on the mind-numbingly complex New Dawn Land Claims Agreement-in-Principle. Although the Innu Nation negotiating team contests the agreement, many Innu do not know its contents. On a recent visit earlier this year to the Innu villages, I found that only four of the 30 Innu adults I consulted had read any of the text. Previous trips also revealed little knowledge of the important provisions in the agreement.

But the agreement to extinguish their ownership rights doesn’t really matter because the mega-project is a fait accompli.

Who benefits? Not the locals

An environmental study commissioned by Nalcor downplayed the negative environmental effects of Muskrat Falls. The company admits that the dam will increase levels of toxic methylmercury in water and plankton but claims it will remain “in the natural ranges observed for lakes and rivers”.

A subsequent modelling study by Harvard researchers predicted much higher concentrations of methylmercury in the waters surrounding Innu and neighbouring Inuit communities and predicted that “increases in methylmercury concentrations resulting from flooding associated with hydroelectric development will be greater than those expected from climate change”.

For people who continue to rely on fishing, this is shattering. A number of Innu and their supporters, alarmed by the likely impact, have now called for a complete rethink. They have organised protests at the site, where five Innu were dragged away, arrested and charged by police.

Nalcor says the dam will bring stable electricity prices, clean energy and jobs. But though the jobs brought to the nearby Innu community of Sheshatshiu provided a quick injection of cash they also increased existing community problems. People there told me cocaine and alcohol abuse have increased because of the high pay and shift work patterns at Muskrat Falls, along with subsequent family destabilisation and child neglect.

This adds to endemic health problems such as high diabetes and suicide rates that are 14 times higher than the Canadian average. Community infrastructure remains terrible – one village even lacks drinkable water.

The very high costs of living in Labrador have always been offset by subsistence hunting, fishing and gathering, but with Muskrat Falls now joining a network of other hydroelectric projects spanning Innu territories across the Labrador-Quebec peninsula, the continual violation of their rights is increasingly imperilling their ability to enjoy healthy and sustainable lifestyles.

While international attention focuses on the trampling of indigenous rights in developing countries, we should not forget that Muskrat Falls joins a long history of dispossession in North America.

Colin Samson is Professor of Sociology, Indigenous Peoples, University of Essex.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Africa is facing a new and devastating colonial invasion driven by a determination to plunder the continent’s natural resources – especially its strategic energy and mineral resources.

That’s the message from a damning new report from War On Want ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources‘ that highlights the role of the British government in aiding and abetting the process.

Written and researched by Mark Curtis, the report reveals the degree to which British companies now control Africa’s key mineral resources, notably gold, platinum, diamonds, copper, oil, gas and coal.

It documents how 101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) – most of them British – have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African countries and collectively control over $1 trillion worth of Africa’s most valuable resources.

The UK government has used its power and influence to ensure that British mining companies have access to Africa’s raw materials. The report exposes the long-term involvement of the British government (Labour and Conservative) to influence and control British companies’ access to raw materials.

The new ‘extractive colonialism’

Access has been secured through a revolving door between the political establishment and British mining companies, with at least five British government officials taking up seats on the boards of mining companies operating in Africa.

Augmented by WTO rules, Britain’s leverage over Africa’s political and economic systems has resulted in a company like Glencore being able to to show revenues ten times that of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Zambia.

Under the guise of the UK helping Africa in its economic development (a continuation of the colonial paternal narrative), $134 billion has flowed into the continent each year in the form of loans, foreign investment and aid, while British government has enabled the extraction of $192 billion from Africa mainly in profits by foreign companies, tax dodging and the cost of adapting to climate change.

The report highlights the roles played by major companies, such as Rio Tinto, Glencore and Vedanta. From the displacement of people and killings to labour rights violations, environmental degradation and tax dodging, Africa appears to have become a free for all. In only a minority of mining operations do African governments have a shareholding in projects. And even if they do, it tends to be small at 5-20%.

In the report, Mark Curtis argues that an African country could benefit from mining operations by insisting that companies employ a large percentage of their staff from the country and buy a large proportion of the goods and services they procure from the country. However, World Trade Organisation rules prevent African countries from putting such policies in place.

Countries could also benefit from corporate taxation, but tax rates and payments in Africa are minimal and companies are easily able to avoid paying taxes, either by their use of tax havens or because they have been given large tax incentives by governments – or often both.

And when companies export minerals, governments usually do not benefit at all. Governments only benefit from exports when there is an export tax. There are almost none in Africa.

The ransacking of Western Sahara

One of the case studies in the report is the scramble for gas and oil in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Morocco has occupied much of Western Sahara since 1975. Most of the population has been expelled by force, many to camps in the Algerian desert where 165,000 refugees still live. Morocco’s occupation is a blatant disregard for international law, which accords the Saharawi people the right to self-determination and the way in which their resources are to be used.

Over 100 UN resolutions call for this right to self-determination but UN efforts to settle the conflict by means of a referendum have been thwarted by Morocco. The International Court of Justice has stated that there are no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Western Sahara, and no state in the world recognises Morocco’s self-proclaimed sovereignty over the territory.

Despite this, six British and/or LSE-listed companies have been handed permits by the Moroccan government to actively explore for oil and gas resources, making them complicit in the illegal and violent occupation of Western Sahara.

Cairn Energy, based in Edinburgh and LSE listed, is one such company. It is part of a consortium, led by US company Kosmos Energy, that in December 2014 became the first to drill for and later discover oil off the coast of Western Sahara. The former Director of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has been a member of the Kosmos Board of Directors since 2012.

Saharawis have consistently protested against the exploration activities of oil companies in Western Sahara, but by doing deals with the Moroccan government oil companies such as Cairn are directly undermining the Saharawis’ right to a referendum on self-determination.

Cairn’s claim to support human rights are hard to square with Morocco’s activities in Western Sahara, where basic rights and freedoms are routinely suppressed by the same authorities which have given oil companies ‘rights’ to operate.

The report states that, instead of reining in companies such as Cairn, the British government has actively championed them through trade, investment and tax policies. Successive British governments have long been fierce advocates of liberalised trade and investment regimes in Africa that provide access to markets for foreign companies. They have also consistently opposed African countries putting up regulatory or protective barriers and backed policies promoting low corporate taxes.

UK government must be held accountable for the plunder

In response to the report’s findings, War on Want believes that UK companies must be held responsible for their behaviour in Africa and that the UK government must be held accountable for its complicity in the plunder. It supports calls for

• mining revenues to stay in the countries where they are mined;
• for raw materials to be processed in the countries where they are mined to promote maximum value addition;
• and for governments to act to protect the rights of people affected by mining rather than protecting the profit margins of corporations exploiting them.

On the back of the report, Saranel Benjamin, International Programmes Director at War on Want, said:

“The African continent is today facing a new colonial invasion, no less devastating in scale and impact than the one it suffered during the nineteenth century. It’s a scandal that Africa’s wealth in natural resources is being seized by foreign, private interests, whose operations are leaving a devastating trail of social, environmental and human rights abuses in their wake.

“For too long, British companies have been at the forefront of the plunder, yet rather than rein in these companies, successive UK governments are actively championing them through trade, investment and tax policies. It is time British companies and the UK government were held to account.”

It is not the first time we see the enabling role of government where the private sector is concerned, regardless of the massive adverse impacts on people, communities and the environment. In capitalism, the state’s role is first and foremost to secure the interests of private capital. In 2014, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray said that as a state the UK that is prepared to go to war to make a few people wealthy.

He added that he had seen things from the inside and the UK’s foreign interventions are almost always about resources. Military intervention is, however, often the final resort – after other methods have failed.

The institutions of international capitalism – from the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO to the compliant bureaucracies of national states or supranational unions – facilitate private capital’s ability to appropriate wealth and institute everyday forms of structural violence (unemployment, infant mortality, bad housing, poverty, disease, malnutrition, environmental destruction, etc) that have become ‘accepted’ as necessary and taken for granted within mainstream media and political narratives.

When referring to Western countries, those narratives like to use the euphemism ‘austerity’ for deregulation, privatisation and gross inequalities and hardship, while hiding being the mantra ‘there is no alternative’.

When referring to Africa, they use the euphemism ‘helping Africa’ for colonialism and economic plunder, while hiding behind the term ‘investing in’.

The report: ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources‘ is written and researched by Mark Curtis, and published by War On Want.

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher, based in the UK and India. More of his articles can be found on Colin’s website.

Support Colin’s work here.

What better way to discredit your critics than to rope in 107 naive Nobel Prize winners (all without relevant expertise) to criticize your opposition?

But such tactics are not new. Long ago, the GMO industry spent well over $50 million to promote ‘Golden Rice’ as the solution to vitamin A deficiency in low income countries.

They did so well – before the technology was completely worked out, let alone tested. Let alone consumer acceptability tested. Let alone subjecting it to standard phase 2 and 3 trials to see if it could ever solve problems in the real world.

So why has this apparently straightforward scientific project not reached completion after so many decades?

Because the purpose of Golden Rice was never to solve vitamin A problems. It never could and never will. Its purpose from the beginning was to be a tool for use in shaming GMO critics and now to convince Nobel Laureates to sign on to something they didn’t understand.

I worked with a conventional fortified rice technology (Ultra Rice) for years for the NGO PATH in several countries. It became clear to us that rice-consuming populations were extremely picky about their rice and unwilling to accept even the tiniest changes in its appearance, smell or taste.

They are now to be convinced to eat rice that’s bright yellow in color? That will never happen on any large scale. If it does, it will be because a huge investment was made to overcome consumer resistance. Money that could have been spent to convince people simply to eat the low-cost plant foods easily available in all countries that can prevent vitamin A deficiency.

Yellow rice is mouldy, toxic rice

Consumer resistance has special importance among the really poor people for whom Golden Rice actually might otherwise prove useful. That’s because when rice is poorly stored it can be infected with a yellow mould causing the deadly ‘yellow rice disease’ (beriberi) if consumed. Only a decade ago this was thought to have killed dozens of male sugar workers in the Maranhao region of Brazil (Rosa et al., 2010). Is that really a type of consumer resistance we want to debunk?

The Rosa paper does not prove that the epidemic and accompanying deaths in Brazil were due to the mould, just that the mould was present in rice in the area of the outbreak. However, Brazilian authorities we talked with in 2007 believed that the mould was almost certainly involved and probably the main cause. But one does see beriberi in the East (this is the first large-scale outbreak in the West) among hard working men who drink a lot of alcohol and eat mainly white rice.

Penicillium citreonigrum Dierckx is the name of the mould that turns rice yellowish. Another can turn it brownish. Infected rice does not really look like Golden Rice. My point is rather that people in places where rice often gets wet during storage generally know that yellow rice is dangerous.

Telling people that yellow rice is safe – a message Golden Rice will have to trumpet – sounds like a typical self-serving message that has the additional disadvantage of putting people in danger. Teaching them which appearance safe vs unsafe rice has is again getting into pretty great detail and expense.

The effort should do into promoting fresh leaves and vegetables

In Bangladesh I was involved with a communication NGO, the Worldview International Foundation, that worked with 10 million people to convince them to grow and consume high-carotene foods. We conducted a large-scale evaluation to see if it worked. It did.

It cost only $0.15 per capita – though this was over two decades ago. But it also had many side benefits, such as the other nutrients contained in fresh vegetables (Greiner and Mitra, 1995).

The signatures of 107 Nobel Laureates do not prove that Golden Rice is safe or effective-but they do prove that, no matter how good scientists are in their own narrow fields, they are often no smarter than any of the rest of us about many other things. Sometimes their egos even get the best of them and they go out on a limb and say things without properly researching them first, especially when other smart people have already come out and done so.

The people who designed Golden Rice clearly were also unaware of ‘yellow rice disease’, with much less excuse. Or they were aware and had no scruples.

And if you have read this far, pat yourself on the back! You now know more than 107 Nobel Laureates about something concerning which they signed a letter – sadly putting their scientific reputations on the line.

Ted Greiner, PhD is former Professor of Nutrition, Hanyang University, Korea.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND).

References

• Encyclopedia of Food Mycotoxins  (2001) by Martin Weidenbörner.
• Greiner T. and Mitra S.N. (1995) Evaluation of the impact of a food-based approach to solving Vitamin A deficiency in Bangladesh. Food and Nutrition Bulletin 16 (3) 193-205.
• Rosa et al., (2010) Production of citreoviridin by Penicillium citreonigrum strains associated with rice consumption and beriberi cases in the Maranhão State, Brazil. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A. 27 (2):

A controversial hydroelectric dam project in sub-Arctic Canada relies on local Innu people giving up their own lands.

Nalcor Energy, the firm building two dams to produce the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador, along Canada’s north-eastern coast, talks enthusiastically about “boundless energy”.

And why not? Hydroelectric power is seen as a renewable and relatively benign way to meet the ever-growing energy needs of industrialised societies. Nalcor, owned by its provincial government, says that its project will “significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions – equivalent to taking 3.2m vehicles off the road each year”.

This sounds great. Yet beyond the impressive feats of engineering and the CAN$11 billion cost (£6.5 billion), what will it take to accomplish what is being imagined here?

Across the world, many areas sacrificed for hydroelectric generation belong to indigenous or land-based peoples who either have to be moved or live with drastic changes. The Three Gorges dam in China displaced 1.2m people and the Belo Monte dam in Brazil could displace up to 40,000.

And back in the 1950s the Kariba dam project on the Zambesi river in Zambia precipitated an involuntary resettlement of some 57,000 people, including the Gwembe Tonga farmers and hunters, whose homes, gardens, burial and spiritual sites were flooded with virtually no consideration from the British colonial authorities.

Opposition to ‘progress’ may lead to imprisonment and in the case of Honduras and Guatemala, even to the suspected murder of indigenous opposition leaders and protesters.

This land was made for you and me

Canada is a supposed world leader on human rights. Yet any country staking its economy upon energy production on the lands of indigenous peoples is likely at some level to disregard their rights.

I have researched this over the past 20 years. Muskrat Falls is being constructed on the culturally important Mishta-shipu (‘Big River’) on lands where there has been no treaty and which remain under unextinguished Aboriginal Title. The lands belong to the Innu peoples of the Labrador-Quebec peninsula.

Yet Canadian authorities are proceeding with the project as they anticipate the Innu electorate will at some time in the future vote to extinguish ownership of their own land. Contrary to standards in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on free, prior and informed consent, the Innu are given few meaningful choices other than to relinquish their lands.

Under the current land claims process they must either extinguish their aboriginal and land rights or, under the notorious certainty provision, agree not to exercise those rights. In the short-term, many Innu may enjoy some extra cash, self-government rights and business opportunities, but they will have to accept having most of their collective lands privatised.

It’s not just me saying this: even the UN has been concerned for some time about the ease with which indigenous lands in Canada have been usurped. As recently as last year the Human Rights Council urged Canada to reconsider its process for consultation and consent.

‘Consent’ in Canada is based on the mind-numbingly complex New Dawn Land Claims Agreement-in-Principle. Although the Innu Nation negotiating team contests the agreement, many Innu do not know its contents. On a recent visit earlier this year to the Innu villages, I found that only four of the 30 Innu adults I consulted had read any of the text. Previous trips also revealed little knowledge of the important provisions in the agreement.

But the agreement to extinguish their ownership rights doesn’t really matter because the mega-project is a fait accompli.

Who benefits? Not the locals

An environmental study commissioned by Nalcor downplayed the negative environmental effects of Muskrat Falls. The company admits that the dam will increase levels of toxic methylmercury in water and plankton but claims it will remain “in the natural ranges observed for lakes and rivers”.

A subsequent modelling study by Harvard researchers predicted much higher concentrations of methylmercury in the waters surrounding Innu and neighbouring Inuit communities and predicted that “increases in methylmercury concentrations resulting from flooding associated with hydroelectric development will be greater than those expected from climate change”.

For people who continue to rely on fishing, this is shattering. A number of Innu and their supporters, alarmed by the likely impact, have now called for a complete rethink. They have organised protests at the site, where five Innu were dragged away, arrested and charged by police.

Nalcor says the dam will bring stable electricity prices, clean energy and jobs. But though the jobs brought to the nearby Innu community of Sheshatshiu provided a quick injection of cash they also increased existing community problems. People there told me cocaine and alcohol abuse have increased because of the high pay and shift work patterns at Muskrat Falls, along with subsequent family destabilisation and child neglect.

This adds to endemic health problems such as high diabetes and suicide rates that are 14 times higher than the Canadian average. Community infrastructure remains terrible – one village even lacks drinkable water.

The very high costs of living in Labrador have always been offset by subsistence hunting, fishing and gathering, but with Muskrat Falls now joining a network of other hydroelectric projects spanning Innu territories across the Labrador-Quebec peninsula, the continual violation of their rights is increasingly imperilling their ability to enjoy healthy and sustainable lifestyles.

While international attention focuses on the trampling of indigenous rights in developing countries, we should not forget that Muskrat Falls joins a long history of dispossession in North America.

Colin Samson is Professor of Sociology, Indigenous Peoples, University of Essex.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Africa is facing a new and devastating colonial invasion driven by a determination to plunder the continent’s natural resources – especially its strategic energy and mineral resources.

That’s the message from a damning new report from War On Want ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources‘ that highlights the role of the British government in aiding and abetting the process.

Written and researched by Mark Curtis, the report reveals the degree to which British companies now control Africa’s key mineral resources, notably gold, platinum, diamonds, copper, oil, gas and coal.

It documents how 101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) – most of them British – have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African countries and collectively control over $1 trillion worth of Africa’s most valuable resources.

The UK government has used its power and influence to ensure that British mining companies have access to Africa’s raw materials. The report exposes the long-term involvement of the British government (Labour and Conservative) to influence and control British companies’ access to raw materials.

The new ‘extractive colonialism’

Access has been secured through a revolving door between the political establishment and British mining companies, with at least five British government officials taking up seats on the boards of mining companies operating in Africa.

Augmented by WTO rules, Britain’s leverage over Africa’s political and economic systems has resulted in a company like Glencore being able to to show revenues ten times that of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Zambia.

Under the guise of the UK helping Africa in its economic development (a continuation of the colonial paternal narrative), $134 billion has flowed into the continent each year in the form of loans, foreign investment and aid, while British government has enabled the extraction of $192 billion from Africa mainly in profits by foreign companies, tax dodging and the cost of adapting to climate change.

The report highlights the roles played by major companies, such as Rio Tinto, Glencore and Vedanta. From the displacement of people and killings to labour rights violations, environmental degradation and tax dodging, Africa appears to have become a free for all. In only a minority of mining operations do African governments have a shareholding in projects. And even if they do, it tends to be small at 5-20%.

In the report, Mark Curtis argues that an African country could benefit from mining operations by insisting that companies employ a large percentage of their staff from the country and buy a large proportion of the goods and services they procure from the country. However, World Trade Organisation rules prevent African countries from putting such policies in place.

Countries could also benefit from corporate taxation, but tax rates and payments in Africa are minimal and companies are easily able to avoid paying taxes, either by their use of tax havens or because they have been given large tax incentives by governments – or often both.

And when companies export minerals, governments usually do not benefit at all. Governments only benefit from exports when there is an export tax. There are almost none in Africa.

The ransacking of Western Sahara

One of the case studies in the report is the scramble for gas and oil in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Morocco has occupied much of Western Sahara since 1975. Most of the population has been expelled by force, many to camps in the Algerian desert where 165,000 refugees still live. Morocco’s occupation is a blatant disregard for international law, which accords the Saharawi people the right to self-determination and the way in which their resources are to be used.

Over 100 UN resolutions call for this right to self-determination but UN efforts to settle the conflict by means of a referendum have been thwarted by Morocco. The International Court of Justice has stated that there are no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Western Sahara, and no state in the world recognises Morocco’s self-proclaimed sovereignty over the territory.

Despite this, six British and/or LSE-listed companies have been handed permits by the Moroccan government to actively explore for oil and gas resources, making them complicit in the illegal and violent occupation of Western Sahara.

Cairn Energy, based in Edinburgh and LSE listed, is one such company. It is part of a consortium, led by US company Kosmos Energy, that in December 2014 became the first to drill for and later discover oil off the coast of Western Sahara. The former Director of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has been a member of the Kosmos Board of Directors since 2012.

Saharawis have consistently protested against the exploration activities of oil companies in Western Sahara, but by doing deals with the Moroccan government oil companies such as Cairn are directly undermining the Saharawis’ right to a referendum on self-determination.

Cairn’s claim to support human rights are hard to square with Morocco’s activities in Western Sahara, where basic rights and freedoms are routinely suppressed by the same authorities which have given oil companies ‘rights’ to operate.

The report states that, instead of reining in companies such as Cairn, the British government has actively championed them through trade, investment and tax policies. Successive British governments have long been fierce advocates of liberalised trade and investment regimes in Africa that provide access to markets for foreign companies. They have also consistently opposed African countries putting up regulatory or protective barriers and backed policies promoting low corporate taxes.

UK government must be held accountable for the plunder

In response to the report’s findings, War on Want believes that UK companies must be held responsible for their behaviour in Africa and that the UK government must be held accountable for its complicity in the plunder. It supports calls for

• mining revenues to stay in the countries where they are mined;
• for raw materials to be processed in the countries where they are mined to promote maximum value addition;
• and for governments to act to protect the rights of people affected by mining rather than protecting the profit margins of corporations exploiting them.

On the back of the report, Saranel Benjamin, International Programmes Director at War on Want, said:

“The African continent is today facing a new colonial invasion, no less devastating in scale and impact than the one it suffered during the nineteenth century. It’s a scandal that Africa’s wealth in natural resources is being seized by foreign, private interests, whose operations are leaving a devastating trail of social, environmental and human rights abuses in their wake.

“For too long, British companies have been at the forefront of the plunder, yet rather than rein in these companies, successive UK governments are actively championing them through trade, investment and tax policies. It is time British companies and the UK government were held to account.”

It is not the first time we see the enabling role of government where the private sector is concerned, regardless of the massive adverse impacts on people, communities and the environment. In capitalism, the state’s role is first and foremost to secure the interests of private capital. In 2014, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray said that as a state the UK that is prepared to go to war to make a few people wealthy.

He added that he had seen things from the inside and the UK’s foreign interventions are almost always about resources. Military intervention is, however, often the final resort – after other methods have failed.

The institutions of international capitalism – from the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO to the compliant bureaucracies of national states or supranational unions – facilitate private capital’s ability to appropriate wealth and institute everyday forms of structural violence (unemployment, infant mortality, bad housing, poverty, disease, malnutrition, environmental destruction, etc) that have become ‘accepted’ as necessary and taken for granted within mainstream media and political narratives.

When referring to Western countries, those narratives like to use the euphemism ‘austerity’ for deregulation, privatisation and gross inequalities and hardship, while hiding being the mantra ‘there is no alternative’.

When referring to Africa, they use the euphemism ‘helping Africa’ for colonialism and economic plunder, while hiding behind the term ‘investing in’.

The report: ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources‘ is written and researched by Mark Curtis, and published by War On Want.

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher, based in the UK and India. More of his articles can be found on Colin’s website.

Support Colin’s work here.

What better way to discredit your critics than to rope in 107 naive Nobel Prize winners (all without relevant expertise) to criticize your opposition?

But such tactics are not new. Long ago, the GMO industry spent well over $50 million to promote ‘Golden Rice’ as the solution to vitamin A deficiency in low income countries.

They did so well – before the technology was completely worked out, let alone tested. Let alone consumer acceptability tested. Let alone subjecting it to standard phase 2 and 3 trials to see if it could ever solve problems in the real world.

So why has this apparently straightforward scientific project not reached completion after so many decades?

Because the purpose of Golden Rice was never to solve vitamin A problems. It never could and never will. Its purpose from the beginning was to be a tool for use in shaming GMO critics and now to convince Nobel Laureates to sign on to something they didn’t understand.

I worked with a conventional fortified rice technology (Ultra Rice) for years for the NGO PATH in several countries. It became clear to us that rice-consuming populations were extremely picky about their rice and unwilling to accept even the tiniest changes in its appearance, smell or taste.

They are now to be convinced to eat rice that’s bright yellow in color? That will never happen on any large scale. If it does, it will be because a huge investment was made to overcome consumer resistance. Money that could have been spent to convince people simply to eat the low-cost plant foods easily available in all countries that can prevent vitamin A deficiency.

Yellow rice is mouldy, toxic rice

Consumer resistance has special importance among the really poor people for whom Golden Rice actually might otherwise prove useful. That’s because when rice is poorly stored it can be infected with a yellow mould causing the deadly ‘yellow rice disease’ (beriberi) if consumed. Only a decade ago this was thought to have killed dozens of male sugar workers in the Maranhao region of Brazil (Rosa et al., 2010). Is that really a type of consumer resistance we want to debunk?

The Rosa paper does not prove that the epidemic and accompanying deaths in Brazil were due to the mould, just that the mould was present in rice in the area of the outbreak. However, Brazilian authorities we talked with in 2007 believed that the mould was almost certainly involved and probably the main cause. But one does see beriberi in the East (this is the first large-scale outbreak in the West) among hard working men who drink a lot of alcohol and eat mainly white rice.

Penicillium citreonigrum Dierckx is the name of the mould that turns rice yellowish. Another can turn it brownish. Infected rice does not really look like Golden Rice. My point is rather that people in places where rice often gets wet during storage generally know that yellow rice is dangerous.

Telling people that yellow rice is safe – a message Golden Rice will have to trumpet – sounds like a typical self-serving message that has the additional disadvantage of putting people in danger. Teaching them which appearance safe vs unsafe rice has is again getting into pretty great detail and expense.

The effort should do into promoting fresh leaves and vegetables

In Bangladesh I was involved with a communication NGO, the Worldview International Foundation, that worked with 10 million people to convince them to grow and consume high-carotene foods. We conducted a large-scale evaluation to see if it worked. It did.

It cost only $0.15 per capita – though this was over two decades ago. But it also had many side benefits, such as the other nutrients contained in fresh vegetables (Greiner and Mitra, 1995).

The signatures of 107 Nobel Laureates do not prove that Golden Rice is safe or effective-but they do prove that, no matter how good scientists are in their own narrow fields, they are often no smarter than any of the rest of us about many other things. Sometimes their egos even get the best of them and they go out on a limb and say things without properly researching them first, especially when other smart people have already come out and done so.

The people who designed Golden Rice clearly were also unaware of ‘yellow rice disease’, with much less excuse. Or they were aware and had no scruples.

And if you have read this far, pat yourself on the back! You now know more than 107 Nobel Laureates about something concerning which they signed a letter – sadly putting their scientific reputations on the line.

Ted Greiner, PhD is former Professor of Nutrition, Hanyang University, Korea.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND).

References

• Encyclopedia of Food Mycotoxins  (2001) by Martin Weidenbörner.
• Greiner T. and Mitra S.N. (1995) Evaluation of the impact of a food-based approach to solving Vitamin A deficiency in Bangladesh. Food and Nutrition Bulletin 16 (3) 193-205.
• Rosa et al., (2010) Production of citreoviridin by Penicillium citreonigrum strains associated with rice consumption and beriberi cases in the Maranhão State, Brazil. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A. 27 (2):

What better way to discredit your critics than to rope in 107 naive Nobel Prize winners (all without relevant expertise) to criticize your opposition?

But such tactics are not new. Long ago, the GMO industry spent well over $50 million to promote ‘Golden Rice’ as the solution to vitamin A deficiency in low income countries.

They did so well – before the technology was completely worked out, let alone tested. Let alone consumer acceptability tested. Let alone subjecting it to standard phase 2 and 3 trials to see if it could ever solve problems in the real world.

So why has this apparently straightforward scientific project not reached completion after so many decades?

Because the purpose of Golden Rice was never to solve vitamin A problems. It never could and never will. Its purpose from the beginning was to be a tool for use in shaming GMO critics and now to convince Nobel Laureates to sign on to something they didn’t understand.

I worked with a conventional fortified rice technology (Ultra Rice) for years for the NGO PATH in several countries. It became clear to us that rice-consuming populations were extremely picky about their rice and unwilling to accept even the tiniest changes in its appearance, smell or taste.

They are now to be convinced to eat rice that’s bright yellow in color? That will never happen on any large scale. If it does, it will be because a huge investment was made to overcome consumer resistance. Money that could have been spent to convince people simply to eat the low-cost plant foods easily available in all countries that can prevent vitamin A deficiency.

Yellow rice is mouldy, toxic rice

Consumer resistance has special importance among the really poor people for whom Golden Rice actually might otherwise prove useful. That’s because when rice is poorly stored it can be infected with a yellow mould causing the deadly ‘yellow rice disease’ (beriberi) if consumed. Only a decade ago this was thought to have killed dozens of male sugar workers in the Maranhao region of Brazil (Rosa et al., 2010). Is that really a type of consumer resistance we want to debunk?

The Rosa paper does not prove that the epidemic and accompanying deaths in Brazil were due to the mould, just that the mould was present in rice in the area of the outbreak. However, Brazilian authorities we talked with in 2007 believed that the mould was almost certainly involved and probably the main cause. But one does see beriberi in the East (this is the first large-scale outbreak in the West) among hard working men who drink a lot of alcohol and eat mainly white rice.

Penicillium citreonigrum Dierckx is the name of the mould that turns rice yellowish. Another can turn it brownish. Infected rice does not really look like Golden Rice. My point is rather that people in places where rice often gets wet during storage generally know that yellow rice is dangerous.

Telling people that yellow rice is safe – a message Golden Rice will have to trumpet – sounds like a typical self-serving message that has the additional disadvantage of putting people in danger. Teaching them which appearance safe vs unsafe rice has is again getting into pretty great detail and expense.

The effort should do into promoting fresh leaves and vegetables

In Bangladesh I was involved with a communication NGO, the Worldview International Foundation, that worked with 10 million people to convince them to grow and consume high-carotene foods. We conducted a large-scale evaluation to see if it worked. It did.

It cost only $0.15 per capita – though this was over two decades ago. But it also had many side benefits, such as the other nutrients contained in fresh vegetables (Greiner and Mitra, 1995).

The signatures of 107 Nobel Laureates do not prove that Golden Rice is safe or effective-but they do prove that, no matter how good scientists are in their own narrow fields, they are often no smarter than any of the rest of us about many other things. Sometimes their egos even get the best of them and they go out on a limb and say things without properly researching them first, especially when other smart people have already come out and done so.

The people who designed Golden Rice clearly were also unaware of ‘yellow rice disease’, with much less excuse. Or they were aware and had no scruples.

And if you have read this far, pat yourself on the back! You now know more than 107 Nobel Laureates about something concerning which they signed a letter – sadly putting their scientific reputations on the line.

Ted Greiner, PhD is former Professor of Nutrition, Hanyang University, Korea.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND).

References

• Encyclopedia of Food Mycotoxins  (2001) by Martin Weidenbörner.
• Greiner T. and Mitra S.N. (1995) Evaluation of the impact of a food-based approach to solving Vitamin A deficiency in Bangladesh. Food and Nutrition Bulletin 16 (3) 193-205.
• Rosa et al., (2010) Production of citreoviridin by Penicillium citreonigrum strains associated with rice consumption and beriberi cases in the Maranhão State, Brazil. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A. 27 (2):

What better way to discredit your critics than to rope in 107 naive Nobel Prize winners (all without relevant expertise) to criticize your opposition?

But such tactics are not new. Long ago, the GMO industry spent well over $50 million to promote ‘Golden Rice’ as the solution to vitamin A deficiency in low income countries.

They did so well – before the technology was completely worked out, let alone tested. Let alone consumer acceptability tested. Let alone subjecting it to standard phase 2 and 3 trials to see if it could ever solve problems in the real world.

So why has this apparently straightforward scientific project not reached completion after so many decades?

Because the purpose of Golden Rice was never to solve vitamin A problems. It never could and never will. Its purpose from the beginning was to be a tool for use in shaming GMO critics and now to convince Nobel Laureates to sign on to something they didn’t understand.

I worked with a conventional fortified rice technology (Ultra Rice) for years for the NGO PATH in several countries. It became clear to us that rice-consuming populations were extremely picky about their rice and unwilling to accept even the tiniest changes in its appearance, smell or taste.

They are now to be convinced to eat rice that’s bright yellow in color? That will never happen on any large scale. If it does, it will be because a huge investment was made to overcome consumer resistance. Money that could have been spent to convince people simply to eat the low-cost plant foods easily available in all countries that can prevent vitamin A deficiency.

Yellow rice is mouldy, toxic rice

Consumer resistance has special importance among the really poor people for whom Golden Rice actually might otherwise prove useful. That’s because when rice is poorly stored it can be infected with a yellow mould causing the deadly ‘yellow rice disease’ (beriberi) if consumed. Only a decade ago this was thought to have killed dozens of male sugar workers in the Maranhao region of Brazil (Rosa et al., 2010). Is that really a type of consumer resistance we want to debunk?

The Rosa paper does not prove that the epidemic and accompanying deaths in Brazil were due to the mould, just that the mould was present in rice in the area of the outbreak. However, Brazilian authorities we talked with in 2007 believed that the mould was almost certainly involved and probably the main cause. But one does see beriberi in the East (this is the first large-scale outbreak in the West) among hard working men who drink a lot of alcohol and eat mainly white rice.

Penicillium citreonigrum Dierckx is the name of the mould that turns rice yellowish. Another can turn it brownish. Infected rice does not really look like Golden Rice. My point is rather that people in places where rice often gets wet during storage generally know that yellow rice is dangerous.

Telling people that yellow rice is safe – a message Golden Rice will have to trumpet – sounds like a typical self-serving message that has the additional disadvantage of putting people in danger. Teaching them which appearance safe vs unsafe rice has is again getting into pretty great detail and expense.

The effort should do into promoting fresh leaves and vegetables

In Bangladesh I was involved with a communication NGO, the Worldview International Foundation, that worked with 10 million people to convince them to grow and consume high-carotene foods. We conducted a large-scale evaluation to see if it worked. It did.

It cost only $0.15 per capita – though this was over two decades ago. But it also had many side benefits, such as the other nutrients contained in fresh vegetables (Greiner and Mitra, 1995).

The signatures of 107 Nobel Laureates do not prove that Golden Rice is safe or effective-but they do prove that, no matter how good scientists are in their own narrow fields, they are often no smarter than any of the rest of us about many other things. Sometimes their egos even get the best of them and they go out on a limb and say things without properly researching them first, especially when other smart people have already come out and done so.

The people who designed Golden Rice clearly were also unaware of ‘yellow rice disease’, with much less excuse. Or they were aware and had no scruples.

And if you have read this far, pat yourself on the back! You now know more than 107 Nobel Laureates about something concerning which they signed a letter – sadly putting their scientific reputations on the line.

Ted Greiner, PhD is former Professor of Nutrition, Hanyang University, Korea.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND).

References

• Encyclopedia of Food Mycotoxins  (2001) by Martin Weidenbörner.
• Greiner T. and Mitra S.N. (1995) Evaluation of the impact of a food-based approach to solving Vitamin A deficiency in Bangladesh. Food and Nutrition Bulletin 16 (3) 193-205.
• Rosa et al., (2010) Production of citreoviridin by Penicillium citreonigrum strains associated with rice consumption and beriberi cases in the Maranhão State, Brazil. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A. 27 (2):

What better way to discredit your critics than to rope in 107 naive Nobel Prize winners (all without relevant expertise) to criticize your opposition?

But such tactics are not new. Long ago, the GMO industry spent well over $50 million to promote ‘Golden Rice’ as the solution to vitamin A deficiency in low income countries.

They did so well – before the technology was completely worked out, let alone tested. Let alone consumer acceptability tested. Let alone subjecting it to standard phase 2 and 3 trials to see if it could ever solve problems in the real world.

So why has this apparently straightforward scientific project not reached completion after so many decades?

Because the purpose of Golden Rice was never to solve vitamin A problems. It never could and never will. Its purpose from the beginning was to be a tool for use in shaming GMO critics and now to convince Nobel Laureates to sign on to something they didn’t understand.

I worked with a conventional fortified rice technology (Ultra Rice) for years for the NGO PATH in several countries. It became clear to us that rice-consuming populations were extremely picky about their rice and unwilling to accept even the tiniest changes in its appearance, smell or taste.

They are now to be convinced to eat rice that’s bright yellow in color? That will never happen on any large scale. If it does, it will be because a huge investment was made to overcome consumer resistance. Money that could have been spent to convince people simply to eat the low-cost plant foods easily available in all countries that can prevent vitamin A deficiency.

Yellow rice is mouldy, toxic rice

Consumer resistance has special importance among the really poor people for whom Golden Rice actually might otherwise prove useful. That’s because when rice is poorly stored it can be infected with a yellow mould causing the deadly ‘yellow rice disease’ (beriberi) if consumed. Only a decade ago this was thought to have killed dozens of male sugar workers in the Maranhao region of Brazil (Rosa et al., 2010). Is that really a type of consumer resistance we want to debunk?

The Rosa paper does not prove that the epidemic and accompanying deaths in Brazil were due to the mould, just that the mould was present in rice in the area of the outbreak. However, Brazilian authorities we talked with in 2007 believed that the mould was almost certainly involved and probably the main cause. But one does see beriberi in the East (this is the first large-scale outbreak in the West) among hard working men who drink a lot of alcohol and eat mainly white rice.

Penicillium citreonigrum Dierckx is the name of the mould that turns rice yellowish. Another can turn it brownish. Infected rice does not really look like Golden Rice. My point is rather that people in places where rice often gets wet during storage generally know that yellow rice is dangerous.

Telling people that yellow rice is safe – a message Golden Rice will have to trumpet – sounds like a typical self-serving message that has the additional disadvantage of putting people in danger. Teaching them which appearance safe vs unsafe rice has is again getting into pretty great detail and expense.

The effort should do into promoting fresh leaves and vegetables

In Bangladesh I was involved with a communication NGO, the Worldview International Foundation, that worked with 10 million people to convince them to grow and consume high-carotene foods. We conducted a large-scale evaluation to see if it worked. It did.

It cost only $0.15 per capita – though this was over two decades ago. But it also had many side benefits, such as the other nutrients contained in fresh vegetables (Greiner and Mitra, 1995).

The signatures of 107 Nobel Laureates do not prove that Golden Rice is safe or effective-but they do prove that, no matter how good scientists are in their own narrow fields, they are often no smarter than any of the rest of us about many other things. Sometimes their egos even get the best of them and they go out on a limb and say things without properly researching them first, especially when other smart people have already come out and done so.

The people who designed Golden Rice clearly were also unaware of ‘yellow rice disease’, with much less excuse. Or they were aware and had no scruples.

And if you have read this far, pat yourself on the back! You now know more than 107 Nobel Laureates about something concerning which they signed a letter – sadly putting their scientific reputations on the line.

Ted Greiner, PhD is former Professor of Nutrition, Hanyang University, Korea.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND).

References

• Encyclopedia of Food Mycotoxins  (2001) by Martin Weidenbörner.
• Greiner T. and Mitra S.N. (1995) Evaluation of the impact of a food-based approach to solving Vitamin A deficiency in Bangladesh. Food and Nutrition Bulletin 16 (3) 193-205.
• Rosa et al., (2010) Production of citreoviridin by Penicillium citreonigrum strains associated with rice consumption and beriberi cases in the Maranhão State, Brazil. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A. 27 (2):