BREVITAS

ECO CLIPS

Guardian, UK - Dell, the world's second largest PC manufacturer, announced earlier this month that it is imposing a ban on the export of used equipment bearing its name to developing countries - unless the equipment is in full working order and intended for legitimate use. The idea is to undermine the huge trade in e-waste, too much of which ends up in giant trash piles in Africa, India and China, from where it is dismantled, burned, treated with corrosive chemicals and otherwise persuaded to give up tiny amounts of chemicals that can be sold on. The big question is why all the other manufacturers don't have a similar policy. . . Greenpeace reckons that as much as 80% of the electronic waste sent for recycling in the US ends up being "recycled" using dangerous low-tech methods in foreign countries. And, despite Europe's tougher laws, a lot gets through the net there, too.

Guardian, UK - Climate change is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300m people, according to the first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming. It projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces. Economic losses due to climate change today amount to more than $125bn a year - more than the all present world aid. The report comes from former UN secretary general Kofi Annan's think tank, the Global Humanitarian Forum. By 2030, the report says, climate change could cost $600bn a year.

Portland Press Herald, ME - Maine is about to become the first state in the nation to require the makers of fluorescent lighting to recycle burned-out bulbs and keep mercury out of the environment. The Maine House and Senate both voted overwhelmingly for the bill and are expected to give it final approval as soon as today. Gov. John Baldacci, whose administration supported the proposal, is expected to sign it into law soon after. Under the bill, Maine would require manufacturers to submit plans for a recycling program by 2010 and begin collecting the fluorescent bulbs by 2011. Burned-out bulbs can now be returned to hardware stores and other retailers through a program financed by electricity surcharges.

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THE LOCAL

Wall Street Journal - As the recession batters city budgets around the U.S., some municipalities are considering the once-unthinkable option of dissolving themselves through "disincorporation." Benefits of this move vary from state to state. In some cases, dissolution allows residents to escape local taxes. In others, it saves the cost of local salaries and pensions. And residents may get services more cheaply after consolidating with a county.
Incorporation brings residents a local government with the ability to raise money through taxes and bond issuances. It also gives them more control of zoning decisions and development, and usually provides for local services such as trash pickup and police as well. Dissolving a town government, on the other hand, often shifts responsibility for providing services to the county or state. A city's unexpired contracts usually remain binding, and residents are still obligated to pay off any debt.

CIVIL LIBERTIES IN ISRAEL

Ma'an/Agencies – Israel's parliament, the Knesset, gave preliminary approval to a bill that would mandate a year jail term for anyone who speaks against Israel's status as a Jewish state. . . The bill's passage comes three days after lawmakers advanced a bill that would ban all commemorations of Nakba Day, on which Palestinians, including those who are Israeli citizens, remember their expulsion of 1948. According to news reports, a Palestinian member of the Knesset, Jamal Zahalka, was removed from the auditorium during an argument after the vote.

THE MIX

Lou Chibbaro Jr, Washington Blade - A group of local ministers filed papers Wednesday with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics requesting a voter referendum to overturn a city law recognizing same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. The action by the ministers is expected to set in motion a political fight that gay activists fear could rival the divisive referendum campaign in California that led to the narrow approval of Proposition 8, which overturned that state's same-sex marriage law. Among those asking the election board to begin the process for putting the D.C. gay marriage equality law on the ballot were Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., and Rev. Walter Fauntroy, the city's former delegate to Congress. . . Some gay activists have argued that a referendum calling for prohibiting same-sex marriage in the District could not be allowed because it would violate the Human Rights Act's ban on sexual orientation discrimination. But some legal observers believe the subject of marriage could be interpreted as being separate from the Human Rights Act and would likely be approved for a referendum.

MONEY & WORK

BET - The National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers fears that 140 of Chrysler's 170 to 175 minority-owned dealerships could face being closed. And the figure could almost double if General Motors follows up with closing an estimated 174 of the 300 minority-owned dealers

HEALTH

Medical News Today, 2004 - The U.S. wastes more on health care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all of the uninsured. Administrative expenses will consume at least $399.4 billion out of total health expenditures of $1,660.5 billion in 2003. Streamlining administrative overhead to Canadian levels would save approximately $286.0 billion in 2003, $6,940 for each of the 41.2 million Americans who were uninsured as of 2001. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage. These results are derived from detailed data on administrative costs in the U.S. and Canada in 1999 which appears in New England Journal of Medicine.

Press Watch - Mobile telephones are to be banned from French primary schools, and operators must offer handsets that allow only text messages, under government measures to reduce the health risk to children. The measures, which emerged from a six-week review of mobile phone and wi-fi radiation, have been attacked as inadequate by campaigners who accuse the state of playing down dangers from phones and transmitter masts.

Press Watch - Contact lenses that can cure blindness for millions in days Millions of blind and partially sighted people could be given their sight back after a major breakthrough by scientists. Researchers at Australia's University of New South Wales School of Medical Sciences used patients' own stem cells grown on a simple contact lens. This was placed into the sufferer's eye and within days new cells attached themselves to the damaged area. The revolutionary finding could cure corneal blindness - a condition that affects 5,000 people in Britain and millions worldwide.

FURTHERMORE. . .

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