From: globalvisionary@cybernaute.com (jean hudon)
Subject: SNET: Use of depleted uranium in bullets and missiles in the Kosovo war & KOSOVO
 'FREEDOM FIGHTERS' FINANCED BY ORGANISED CRIME + Global warming may
 increase ozone hole
Date: 10 Apr 1999 23:45:46 -0400
To: globalvisionary@cybernaute.com (Jean Hudon)


->  SNETNEWS  Mailing List

Dear media person

Please review the following information and care to report this in your
media to let the world know about some of the hidden truths concerning the
Kosovo war that NATO and the New World Order administration do NOT want you
to know about or report about...

But then, you would have to be "objective" to do so, wouldn't you?...

Jean Hudon - Quebec, Canada
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000


FIRST A DIRTY SECRET...

From: Rosalie Bertell 

Hello,

I am an Epidemiologist.  My specialty is in higher mathematics, with
applications in the radiobiology and the biomedical sciences.

You can quote me on the following comment on the crisis in Kosovo:

Depleted (DU) uranium is one of the largest categories of radioactive waste
produced for the nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor industry.  It is
highly toxic to humans, both chemically as a heavy metal and radiologically
as an alpha particle emitter which is very dangerous when taken internally.

Recently it has been a substitute for lead in bullets and missiles by the US
and UK, and was first used extensively by the West in the Gulf War.  It is
most likely a major contributor to the Gulf War Syndrome experienced both
by the veterans and the people of Iraq.

When used in war, the DU bursts into flame from the impact when it hits a
target.  It can pierce tanks and armoured cars, releasing inside of them a
deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen before.  It can
kill everyone in a tank.  This ceramic aerosol is much lighter than uranium
dust.  It can travel in air tens of kilometres from the point of release,
or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with wind or human
movement.  It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: a baby,
pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick.  This radioactive ceramic can stay
deep in the lungs for years, irradiating the tissue with powerful alpha
particles within about a 30 micron sphere, causing emphysema and/or
fibrosis.  The ceramic can also be swallowed and do damage to the
gastro-intestinal tract.  In time, it penetrates the lung tissue and enters
into the blood stream.  It can be stored in liver, kidney, bone or other
tissues, again for years, irradiating all of the delicate tissues located
near its storage place.  It can effect the blood, which is the basis of our
immune system, and do damage to the renal system as it is eventually
excreted in the urine.  It can also initiate cancer or promote cancers
which have been initiated by other cancinogens.

In October 1998 the WHO undertook a two year study of the increasing cancer
rates, especially leukemia in young children, which have been note in
southern Iraq where most of the war took place.
The WHO report is not yet out, but newer data from Iraq tells the story of
even  more dramatic increases in cancer rates, especially among the Iraqi
veterans who participated in the war. In the West,  thousands of veterans
are recognized as seriously ill with an unknown syndrome, and we have been
able to document DU in their urine as late as 7 or 8 years after the war.
There is no natural source of DU to explain this phenomena!

It is imperative that we all denouce this radiation and toxic chemical
warfare!  It has now been used by the US and Britain against Iraq and in
Bosnia. It is now being used in Kosovo (NATO announcement in Europe, 30
March 1999).  It has been condemed by the United Nations Human Rights
Tribunal (August 1996 Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights,
Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of
Minorities).  The Human Rights Commission has requested that the Secretary
General prepare a written report on DU and certain other weapons of mass
destruction (Resolution 1997/36, which also established a UN Rapporteur to
take over the study of DU and other weapons of mass destruction on behalf
of the UN).  The damage being done will not only cause incredible and
unending suffering to today's victims, but the genetic damage it may cause
can be passed on to their offspring.  Such weapons and war itself need to
be condemned as utter barbarianism!

This is certainly not to be interpreted as condoning so-called ethnic
cleasing or any of the nationalistic actions of the Yugoslav government.
However, as one of the Professors at the University of Toronto said, "I can
offer a different and more effective policy, but I would not start from
here".   This Kosovo action is resulting from deep seated conflicting ideas
of "World Order" - that proposed by NATO's vision of itself as a world
police force, and that of the OSCE (Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe) which sees security rising out of honest cooperation
and legal resolution of conflicting opinions.

Rosalie Bertell, Ph. D., GNSH

****************************************************************************

AND NOW THE DIRTY MONEY... AN INTERESTING BACKGROUND TO KNOW ABOUT THIS WAR

And check also this webpage on how the Kosovo war has been planned and
engineered by the world elite:

http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/Bilderberg.htm

KOSOVO 'FREEDOM FIGHTERS' FINANCED BY ORGANISED CRIME

By Michel Chossudovsky
Department of Economics,
University of Ottawa,
Ottawa,
K1N6N5
Voice box: 1-613-562-5800, ext. 1415
Fax: 1-514-425-6224
E-Mail: chossudovsky@sprint.ca
7/4/99


    Heralded by global media as a humanitarian peace-keeping
mission, NATO's ruthless bombing of Belgrade and Pristina goes
beyond the breach of international law. While Milosevic is
demonised as a remorseless dictator, the KLA is upheld as a
nationalist movement struggling for the rights of Albanians. The
truth is that the KLA is sustained by organised crime with the
tacit approval of the US and allies.

    Following a pattern set during the War in Bosnia, public
opinion has been carefully misled. The multibillion dollar Balkans
narcotics trade has played a crucial role in "financing the
conflict" in Kosovo in accordance with Western economic, strategic
and military objectives. Amply documented by European police files,
acknowledged by numerous studies, the links of the KLA to criminals
in Albania, Turkey and the EU have been known to W govts and
intelligence agencies since the mid-1990s.

    The financing of the Kosovo guerilla war poses critical
questions and sorely tests claims of an "ethical" foreign policy.
Should the West back a guerrilla army that appears partly financed
by organised crime?[1]

    While KLA leaders were shaking hands with Madeleine Albright at
Rambouillet, Europol was "preparing a report for European justice
ministers on a connection between the KLA and Albanian drug
gangs."[2]

    In the meantime, the rebel army has been skilfully heralded by
global media (in the months preceding the NATO bombings) as
representative of the interests of Albanians in Kosovo.

    With KLA leader Hashim Thaci (a 29 year "freedom fighter")
appointed as chief negotiator at Rambouillet, the KLA has become
the de facto helmsman of the peace process on behalf of the
Albanian majority and this despite its links to the drug trade. The
West was relying on its KLA puppets to rubber-stamp an agreement
which would have transformed Kosovo into an occupied territory
under Western Administration.

    Ironically Robert Gelbard, America's special envoy to Bosnia,
had described the KLA last year as "terrorists". Christopher Hill,
America's chief negotiator and architect of the Rambouillet
agreement "has also been a strong critic of the KLA for its alleged
dealings in drugs."[3]

    Moreover, barely a few two months before Rambouillet, the US
State Department had acknowledged (based on reports from the US
Observer Mission) the role of the KLA in terrorising and uprooting
ethnic Albanians:

    ...the KLA harass or kidnap anyone who comes to the police, ...
KLA representatives had threatened to kill villagers and burn their
homes if they did not join the KLA [a process which has continued
since the NATO bombings]... [T]he KLA harassment has reached such
intensity that residents of 6 villages in the Stimlje region are
"ready to flee.[4]

    While backing a "freedom movement" with links to the drug trade,
the West seems also intent in bypassing the civilian Kosovo
Democratic League and its leader Ibrahim Rugova who has called for
an end to the bombings and expressed his desire to negotiate a
peaceful settlement with the Yugoslav authorities.[5]

It is worth recalling that a few days before his March 31st Press
Conference, Rugova had been reported by the KLA (alongside three
other leaders including Fehmi Agani) to have been killed by the
Serbs.

    COVERT FINANCING OF 'FREEDOM FIGHTERS'

    Remember Oliver North and the Contras? The pattern in Kosovo is
similar to other CIA covert operations in Central America, Haiti and
Afghanistan where "freedom fighters" were financed through the
laundering of drug money. Since the onslaught of the Cold War,
Western intelligence agencies have developed a complex relationship
to the illegal narcotics trade. In case after case, drug money
laundered in the international banking system has financed covert
operations.

    According to author Alfred McCoy, the pattern of covert
financing was established in the Indochina war. In the 1960s, the
Meo army in Laos was funded by the narcotics trade as part of
Washington's military strategy against the combined forces of the
neutralist government of Prince Souvanna Phouma and the Pathet
Lao.[6]

    The pattern of drug politics set in Indochina has since been
replicated in Central America and the Caribbean. "The rising curve
of cocaine imports to the US", wrote journalist John Dinges
"followed almost exactly the flow of US arms and military advisers
to Central America."[7]

    The military in Guatemala and Haiti, to which the CIA provided
covert support, were known to be involved in the trade of narcotics
into Southern Florida. And as revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank
of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) scandals, there was
strong evidence that covert operations were funded through the
laundering of drug money. "Dirty money" recycled through the banking
system - often through an anonymous shell company - became "covert
money," used to finance various rebel groups and guerilla movements
including the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan Mujahadeen.
According to a 1991 Time Magazine report:

    Because the US wanted to supply the Mujahedeen rebels in
Afghanistan with stinger missiles and other military hardware it
needed the cooperation of Pakistan. By the mid-1980s, the CIA
operation in Islamabad was one of the largest US intelligence
stations in the World. 'If BCCI is such an embarrassment to the US
that forthright investigations are not being pursued it has a lot
to do with the blind eye the US turned to the heroin trafficking in
Pakistan', said a US intelligence officer.[8]

    AMERICA AND GERMANY JOIN HANDS

    Since the early 1990s, Bonn and Washington have joined hands in
establishing their respective spheres of influence in the Balkans.
Their intelligence agencies have also collaborated. According to
intelligence analyst John Whitley, covert support to the Kosovo
rebel army was established as a joint endeavour between the CIA and
Germany's Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) (which previously played a
key role in installing a right wing nationalist government under
Franjo Tudjman in Croatia).[9]

    The task to create and finance the KLA was initially given to
Germany: "They used German uniforms, East German weapons and were
financed, in part, with drug money."[10]

    According to Whitley, the CIA was, subsequently instrumental in
training and equipping the KLA in Albania.[11]

    The covert activities of Germany's BND were consistent with
Bonn's intent to expand its "Lebensraum" into the Balkans. Prior to
the onset of the civil war in Bosnia, Germany and its Foreign
Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher had actively supported secession; it
had "forced the pace of international diplomacy" and pressured its
Western allies to recognize Slovenia and Croatia. According to the
Geopolitical Drug Watch, both Germany and the US favoured (although
not officially) the formation of a "Greater Albania" encompassing
Albania, Kosovo and parts of Macedonia.[12]

    According to Sean Gervasi, Germany was seeking a free hand among
its allies "to pursue economic dominance in the whole of
Mitteleuropa."[13]

    ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM IN SUPPORT OF THE KLA

    Bonn and Washington's "hidden agenda" consisted in triggering
nationalist liberation movements in Bosnia and Kosovo with the
ultimate purpose of destabilising Yugoslavia. The latter objective
was also carried out "by turning a blind eye" to the influx of
mercenaries and financial support from Islamic fundamentalist
organisations.[14]

    Mercenaries financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had been
fighting in Bosnia.[15]

    And the Bosnian pattern was replicated in Kosovo: Mujahedeen
mercenaries from various Islamic countries are reported to be
fighting alongside the KLA in Kosovo. German, Turkish and Afghan
instructors were reported to be training the KLA in guerilla and
diversion tactics.[16]

    According to a Deutsche Press-Agentur report, financial support
from Islamic countries to the KLA had been channelled through the
former Albanian chief of the National Information Service (NIS),
Bashkim Gazidede.[17]

    "Gazidede, reportedly a devout Moslem who fled Albania in March
1997, was in 1998 being investigated for his contacts with Islamic
terrorist organizations."[18]

    The supply route for arming KLA "freedom fighters" are the
rugged mountainous borders of Albania with Kosovo and Macedonia.
Albania is also a key point of transit of the Balkans drug route
which supplies Western Europe with grade four heroin. 75% of the
heroin entering Western Europe is from Turkey. And a large part of
drug shipments originating in Turkey transits through the Balkans.
According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), "it is
estimated that 4-6 metric tons of heroin leave each month from
Turkey having [through the Balkans] as destination Western
Europe."[19]

    A recent intelligence report by Germany's Federal Criminal
Agency suggests that: "Ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent
group in the distribution of heroin in Western consumer
countries."[20]

    THE LAUNDERING OF DIRTY MONEY

    In order to thrive, the criminal syndicates involved in the
Balkans narcotics trade need friends in high places. Smuggling rings
with alleged links to the Turkish State are said to control the
trafficking of heroin through the Balkans "cooperating closely with
other groups with which they have political or religious ties"
including criminal groups in Albanian and Kosovo.[21]

    In this new global financial environment, powerful undercover
political lobbies connected to organized crime cultivate links to
prominent political figures and officials of the military and
intelligence establishment.

    The narcotics trade nonetheless uses respectable banks to
launder large amounts of dirty money. While comfortably removed from
the smuggling operations per se, powerful banking interests in
Turkey but mainly those in financial centres in Western Europe
discretely collect fat commissions in a multibillion dollar money
laundering operation. These interests have high stakes in ensuring a
safe passage of drug shipments into Western European markets.

    THE ALBANIAN CONNECTION

    Arms smuggling from Albania into Kosovo and Macedonia started at
the beginning of 1992, when the Democratic Party came to power,
headed by President Sali Berisha. An expansive underground economy
and cross border trade had unfolded. A triangular trade in oil, arms
and narcotics had developed largely as a result of the embargo
imposed by the international community on Serbia and Montenegro and
the blockade enforced by Greece against Macedonia.

    Industry and agriculture in Kosovo were spearheaded into
bankruptcy following the IMF's lethal "economic medicine" imposed
on Belgrade in 1990. The embargo was imposed on Yugoslavia. Ethnic
Albanians and Serbs were driven into abysmal poverty. Economic
collapse created an environment which fostered the progress of
illicit trade. In Kosovo, unemployment increased to a staggering
70% (according to Western sources).

    Poverty and economic collapse served to exacerbate simmering
ethnic tensions. 1000s of unemployed youths "barely out of their
teens" from an impoverished population, were drafted into the
KLA.[22]

    In Albania, the free market reforms adopted since 1992 had
created conditions which favoured the criminalisation of State
institutions. Drug money was also laundered in the Albanian
pyramids (ponzi schemes) which mushroomed during the government of
former President Sali Berisha (1992-1997).[23]

    These shady investment funds were an integral part of the
economic reforms inflicted by Western creditors on Albania.

    Drug barons in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia (with links to the
Italian mafia) had become the new economic elites, often associated
with Western business. In turn the financial proceeds of the trade
in drugs and arms were recycled towards other illicit activities
(and vice versa) including a vast prostitution racket between
Albania and Italy. Albanian criminals in Milan "have become so
powerful running prostitution rackets that they have even taken
over the Calabrians in strength and influence."[24]

    The "strong economic medicine" under the Washington based
Bretton Woods institutions had contributed to wrecking Albania's
banking system and precipitating the collapse of the Albanian
economy. The resulting chaos enabled American and European
transnationals to carefully position themselves. Several Western
oil companies including Occidental, Shell and British Petroleum had
their eyes rivetted on Albania's abundant and unexplored
oil-deposits. Western investors were also gawking Albania's
extensive reserves of chrome, copper, gold, nickel and platinum...
The Adenauer Foundation had been lobbying in the background on
behalf of German mining interests.[25]

    Berisha's Minister of Defence Safet Zoulali (alleged to have
been involved in the illegal oil and narcotics trade) was the
architect of the agreement with Germany's Preussag (handing over
control over Albania's chrome mines) against the competing bid of
the US led consortium of Macalloy Inc. in association with Rio Tinto
Zimbabwe (RTZ).[26]

    Large amounts of narco-dollars had also been recycled into the
privatisation programmes leading to the acquisition of State assets
by the mafias. In Albania, the privatisation programme had led
virtually overnight to the development of a property owning class
firmly committed to the "free market." In Northern Albania, this
class was associated with the Guegue "families" linked to the
Democratic Party.

    Controlled by the Democratic Party under the presidency of Sali
Berisha (1992-97), Albania's largest financial "pyramid" VEFA
Holdings had been set up by the Guegue "families" of Northern
Albania with the support of Western banking interests. VEFA was
under investigation in Italy in 1997 for its ties to the Mafia which
allegedly used VEFA to launder large amounts of dirty money.[27]

    According to one press report (based on intelligence sources),
senior members of the Albanian government during the Presidency of
Sali Berisha including cabinet members and members of the secret
police SHIK were alleged to be involved in drugs trafficking and
illegal arms trading into Kosovo:

    (...) The allegations are very serious. Drugs, arms, contraband
cigarettes all are believed to have been handled by a company run
openly by Albania's ruling Democratic Party, Shqiponja (...). In the
course of 1996 Defence Minister, Safet Zhulali [was alleged] to have
used his office to facilitate the transport of arms, oil and
contraband cigarettes. (...) Drugs barons from Kosovo (...) operate
in Albania with impunity, and much of the transportation of heroin
and other drugs across Albania, from Macedonia and Greece en route
to Italy, is believed to be organised by Shik, the state security
police (...). Intelligence agents are convinced the chain of command
in the rackets goes all the way to the top and have had no
hesitation in naming ministers in their reports.[28]

    The trade in narcotics and weapons was allowed to prosper
despite the presence since 1993 of a large contingent of American
troops at the Albanian-Macedonian border with a mandate to enforce
the embargo. The West had turned a blind eye. The revenues from oil
and narcotics were used to finance the purchase of arms (often in
terms of direct barter): "Deliveries of oil to Macedonia (skirting
the Greek embargo [in 1993-4] can be used to cover heroin, as do
deliveries of kalachnikov rifles to Albanian 'brothers' in
Kosovo".[29]

    The Northern tribal clans or "fares" had also developed links
with Italy's crime syndicates.[30]

    In turn, the latter played a key role in smuggling arms across
the Adriatic into the Albanian ports of Dures and Valona. At the
outset in 1992, the weapons channelled into Kosovo were largely
small arms including Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, RPK and PPK
machine-guns, 12.7 calibre heavy machine-guns, etc.

    The proceeds of the narcotics trade have enabled the KLA to
develop a force of ~30,000 men. More recently, the KLA has acquired
more sophisticated weaponry including anti- aircraft and anti-armor
rockets. According to Belgrade, some of the funds have come
directly from the CIA "funnelled through a so-called 'Government of
Kosovo' based in Geneva. Its Washington office employs the PR firm
Ruder Finn  notorious for its slanders of the Belgrade
government".[31]

    The KLA has also acquired electronic surveillance equipment
which enables it to receive NATO satellite information on the
movement of the Yugoslav Army. The KLA training camp in Albania is
said to "concentrate on heavy weapons training - rocket propelled
grenades, medium caliber cannons, tanks and transporter use, as
well as on communications, and command & control." (According to
Yugoslav government sources).[32]

    These extensive deliveries of weapons to the Kosovo rebel army
were consistent with Western geopolitical objectives. Not
surprising has been the "deafening silence" of international media
regarding the Kosovo arms-drugs trade. In the words of a 1994
Report of the Geopolitical Drug Watch: "the trafficking [of drugs
and arms] is being judged on its geostrategic implications (...) In
Kosovo, drugs and weapons trafficking is fuelling geopolitical
hopes and fears"...[33]

    The fate of Kosovo had already been carefully laid out prior to
the signing of the 1995 Dayton agreement. NATO had entered an
unwholesome "marriage of convenience" with the mafia. "Freedom
fighters" were put in place, the narcotics trade enabled Washington
and Bonn to "finance the Kosovo conflict" with the ultimate
objective of destabilising the Belgrade government and fully
recolonising the Balkans. The destruction of an entire country is
the outcome. Western governments which participated in the NATO
operation bear a heavy burden of responsibility in the deaths of
civilians, the impoverishment of both the ethnic Albanian and
Serbian populations and the plight of those who were brutally
uprooted from towns and villages in Kosovo as a result of the
bombings.

    NOTES

    [1]. Roger Boyes and Eske Wright, Drugs Money Linked to the
Kosovo Rebels The Times, London, Monday, March 24, 1999.
    [2]. Ibid.
    [3]. Philip Smucker and Tim Butcher, "Shifting stance over KLA
has betrayed' Albanians", Daily Telegraph, London, 6 April 1999.
    [4]. KDOM Daily Report, released by the Bureau of European and
Canadian Affairs, Office of South Central European Affairs, U.S.
Department of State, Washington, DC, December 21, 1998; Compiled by
EUR/SCE (202-647-4850) from daily reports of the U.S. element of the
Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission, December 21, 1998.
    [5]. "Rugova, sous protection serbe appelle a l'arret des
raides", Le Devoir, Montreal, 1 April 1999.
    [6]. See Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast
Asia Harper and Row, New York, 1972.
    [7]. See John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, The Shrewd Rise and
Brutal Fall of Manuel Noriega, Times Books, New York, 1991.
    [8]. "The Dirtiest Bank of All," Time, July 29, 1991, p. 22.
    [9]. Truth in Media, Phoenix, 2 April, 1999; see also Michel
Collon, Poker Menteur, editions EPO, Brussels, 1997.
    [10]. Quoted in Truth in Media, Phoenix, 2 April, 1999).
    [11]. Ibid.
    [12]. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 32, June 1994, p. 4.
    [13]. Sean Gervasi, "Germany, US and the Yugoslav Crisis",
Covert Action Quarterly, No. 43, Winter 1992-93).
    [14]. See Daily Telegraph, 29 December 1993.
    [15]. For further details see Michel Collon, Poker Menteur,
editions EPO, Brussels, 1997, p. 288.
    [16]. Truth in Media, Kosovo in Crisis, Phoenix, 2 April 1999.
    [17]. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, March 13, 1998.
    [18]. Ibid.
    [19]. Daily News, Ankara, 5 March 1997.
    [20]. Quoted in Boyes and Wright, op cit.
    [21]. ANA, Athens, 28 January 1997, see also Turkish Daily News,
29 January 1997.
    [22]. Brian Murphy, KLA Volunteers Lack Experience, The
Associated Press, 5 April 1999.
    [23]. See Geopolitical Drug Watch, No. 35, 1994, p. 3, see also
Barry James, In Balkans, Arms for Drugs, The International Herald
Tribune Paris, June 6, 1994.
    [24]. The Guardian, 25 March 1997.
    [25]. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, La crisi
albanese, Edizioni Gruppo Abele, Torino, 1998.
    [26]. Ibid.
    [27]. Andrew Gumbel, The Gangster Regime We Fund, The
Independent, February 14, 1997, p. 15.
    [28]. Ibid.
    [29]. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No. 35, 1994, p. 3.
    [30]. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 66, p. 4.
    [31]. Quoted in Workers' World, May 7, 1998.
    [32]. See Government of Yugoslavia at
http://www.gov.yu/terrorism/terroristcamps.html
    [33]. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 32, June 1994, p. 4.

    ***

    Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, 1999. Permission is
granted to post this text on non-commercial internet sites, provided
the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To
publish this text in printed and/or other forms contact the author
at chossudovsky@sprint.ca

Recent articles by Chossudovsky on the global economic crisis at:

http://wwwdb.ix.de/tp/english/special/eco/6373/1.html
http://www.transnational.org/features/chossu_worldbank.html
http://www.transnational.org/features/g7solution.html
http://www.twnside.org.sg/souths/twn/title/scam-cn.htm
http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/chossd.htm
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/eco/
http://heise.xlink.de/tp/english/special/eco/6099/1.html#anchor1

****************************************************************************

From: Susan Ferguson 
Subject: Global warming may increase ozone hole

[I have read that the ozone hole is now larger and our exposure to skin cancer
will be greater than ever this summer. A recent article in a health care
magazine suggests that people go out in the sun AFTER 4pm. Sound extreme? Check
the skin cancer rates for yourself.   ---S]

Global warming may increase ozone hole
March 29, 1999

Despite international measures to reduce atmospheric concentrations
of ozone destroying halogens to protect the ozone layer, global
warming may lead to a weakening of the ozone layer, according to
international scientists.

A team of German, Swiss and British scientists reported in the March 26
issue of the journal Science that while future climate change is expected to
heat up the lower atmosphere it is likely to cool the air at the altitude of the
ozone layer in the stratosphere.

Cooler air in the stratosphere may lead to increased polar stratospheric
clouds, which are believed to play an essential role in ozone hole
chemistry.

In particular, the cloud particles may settle lower atmospheric layers,
thereby removing trace gases which under normal circumstances lead to a
deactivation of ozone-destroying chlorine.

In other words, in a colder stratosphere the sediment particles may inhibit an
important mechanism protecting ozone.

Full article

http://www.cnn.com/NATURE/9903/29/global.warming.enn/



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