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	Asbestos in Asia: Breaking Through the Silence in Lao PDR by IRIN News, Apheda   January 2012 (Apheda - Union Aid Abroad)   Australians know that asbestos kills. We are historically one of the highest per capita miners, manufacturers and consumers of asbestos in the world. Almost all public buildings and around one third of all private houses were built with asbestos. And the toll was heavy - by 2020, Australia will have had 13,000 cases of mesothelioma and over 40,000 cases of asbestos related cancer.   Globally, it is estimated that each year 107,000 workers each year succumb to asbestos or asbestos related cancers. And the centre of this new epidemic is Asia. The World Health Organisation estimates that 60% of the 125 million people exposed to asbestos in their homes or workplace are in Asia. And that figure is set to increase - already half of asbestos consumption occurs in Asia with 90% of the global increase in consumption between 2000 and 2004 occurring in Asia.   Late last year, we expanded our successful asbestos disease prevention in Vietnam to neighbouring countries. We have expanded our work in asbestos disease prevention, and advocacy for a ban on asbestos, into Lao PDR.   Lao PDR is more famous for laid back tourism and unspoilt natural wonders, but this tiny country of around 7 million is slowly industrialising. But there has been no commensurate increase in worker protection as factories, mega-infrastructure and construction projects increase. This extends to asbestos use. Lao PDR has no regulations around asbestos at all, not even the blue or brown asbestos which are universally acknowledged as the worst forms. The country still imports around 5,000 tonnes of white asbestos, mostly from Russia and Kazakhstan.   Working with the Lao Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU), we have begun filling the information void on asbestos. Initial projects, jointly coordinated with Building and Woodworkers International, have identified at least five large factories actively importing loose asbestos for manufacture into roof tiles. Asbestos is stored in the open, with bags frequently torn open accidently allowing asbestos fibre to escape into the air. Most workers are poor farmers doing manual labour in their off-season. Many more asbestos products are imported into the country from Thailand and this is only set to increase as the country develops, setting the scene for a replay of the tragic and completely avoidable loss of life.   In December, the LFTU convened one of the first tripartite conferences int he country to get the issue on the national agenda. The union, private sector and the government came together to hear about the international situation of asbestos use, hearing from Australian and Vietnamese experts on how Lao PDR can avoid the public health time bomb of asbestos disease.   We know a ban is possible. Over 51 countries have outlawed the use of asbestos and not just in rich countries like Australia and the United Kingdom. Developing countries, such as South Africa, Egypt and Honduras have embraced the need to rid the world of asbestos.   But our job is made more difficult by the active export of asbestos by countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and most shamefully, Canada. These countries actively court developing countries to continue to use asbestos for economic reasons. They peddle the myth that white asbestos can be used safely, despite knowing that workers who handle asbestos are the least likely to be given any kind of protective equipment, let alone the full body, fully sealed equipment that would be needed to avoid any exposure.   http://www.apheda.org.au/news/1326066139_17792.html   * IRIN News: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95121/ASIA-Asbestos-deadly-but-not-yet-banned Visit the related web page
	Corporate monopolies "may dominate green economy" by SciDev.Net / ETC Group India / Canada   New Delhi: The global push towards a "green economy" risks being hijacked by large corporate monopolies trying to gain control over natural resources, a report has warned.   There is a growing emphasis on the concept of a green economy in the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), in June 2012, in Brazil. A green economy is widely seen as a way of tackling environmental challenges including climate change, failing fisheries and water security.   But a new report has warned that global companies, positioning themselves for a post-petrochemical future, may use the idea as a pretext for gaining control over biomass resources, which would eventually replace petroleum as the feedstock for energy and for industrial products.   The report, published by an international nongovernmental organisation Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Conservation (ETC Group), in Canada, says that most of this biomass is in developing countries, where it is managed by poor peasants, forest dwellers, fishing communities and livestock-owners whose livelihoods depend on them.   The report urges developing countries to craft policies that will protect them from such encroachments.   If they do not, they risk being "seduced" by the promise of quick green techno-fixes, which appear as "a politically expedient" alternative plan to save the climate, the report says, because "techno fixes are not capable of addressing systemic problems of poverty, hunger and environmental crises".   "In the absence of effective and socially responsive governance and government oversight, the bio-based economy will result in further environmental degradation, unprecedented loss of biodiversity and the loss of remaining commons," it says.   The report"s authors said they were not rejecting the concept of green economy, but that countries should build sustainable economies based on using new, more socially and ecologically sustainable economic models.   Hoysala Chanakya, principal research scientist, at the centre for sustainable technologies at the Indian Institute of Science, said that the report was right to highlight that there was potential for corporate take-overs in the absence of adequate policy support and that developing countries need to have policies to ensure that public resources do not get monopolised.   He added that the assumption that technological advances in algal or plant-based biofuel systems, for example, would solve environmental problems, is based partly on hype.   "The [biomass-based] technologies are still in a stage of infancy," Chanakya said. They also leave lots of organic waste which can be polluting, he added.   Other sustainable development policy experts in India suggested that a solution to some of the problems forecast by ETC Group was to decentralise food and energy security programmes and push for small, farmer-centred agriculture.   Instead of the "overarching generalised programmes involving blanket application of solar or hydrogen power" developing countries should move towards decentralised, locally-managed food and energy security programmes that are rooted in their unique local environments, said Rajeswari Raina, scientist at National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies.   Ambuj Sagar, professor of policy studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, agreed: "We need a different narrative that places value on the livelihoods of small farmers in developing countries rather than on food production at lowest cost and protecting interests of farmers in industrialised countries through subsidies."   "Private-sector and market-oriented food and agriculture systems are unlikely to deliver this kind of outcome since that is not the primary objective of these actors and institutions."   Dec 2011   Big Agribusiness influence threatens to override Public Interest. (ETC Group)   A new report that documents the growing influence of agribusiness on the multilateral food system and the lack of transparency in research funding has been released by the international civil society organization ETC Group.   Agribusiness muscles in on Public Goods, presents three case studies – one involving the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and two involving CGIAR Centers (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) – which point to a dangerous trend that will worsen rather than solve the problem of global hunger.   The report details the involvement of, among others, Nestlé, Heineken, Monsanto and others.   “It is unacceptable that the UN is giving multinational agribusiness privileged access to alter their agricultural policies,” said Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group, who has been involved in the field for 40 years.   “It is ridiculous that the key organizations responsible for agricultural research have no credible data on the extent of corporate involvement in their work. Governments and UN secretariats have forgotten that their first task is to serve the public – not corporations.”   The report shows that multinational corporations are now seeing their future profitability in “emerging economies,” and they are finally taking notice of the international institutions that have been quietly working throughout the global South for half a century.   However this new interest in UN agencies is causing “mandate-muddle” as companies demand that policy be rewritten to better reflect their interests, including allowing privileged access to publicly held germplasm*. Public institutions are tending to look the other way when Big Ag harms peasant agriculture.   “Public institutions related to food and agriculture are mandated to support the poor and hungry.   Governments need to address the big- and small-scale conflicts of interest, beginning with a long overdue investigation of the links between the international public and private sectors in food and agriculture. Based on our initial conversations with UN officials about this research, we are hopeful that this will happen,” concludes Mooney.   * A germplasm is a collection of genetic resources for an organism. http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5305 Visit the related web page
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