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Most people are completely unaware that the overwhelming majority of paints used to paint their homes, workplaces hospitals and schools are extremely toxic, painter Steve Williams told The Courier Mail (27 May 2006, p.84).

Non-toxic paints are available: “The vast majority of well-known paint brands contain high levels of solvents that contain volatile organic compounds and can give off toxic fumes for up to five years,” he said. This is why in February Mr Williams and business partner Georgia Farrell set up The Natural Painting People, a tailored painting and decorating service dedicated to using non-toxic paints to get quality finishes inside and outside of the home.

They’re better for your home, too: “Our paints are free from dangerous additives and we believe also perform better than conventional petrochemical paints,” he says. “One of the major advantages of natural paints is that they let surfaces breathe; this is a very handy thing living in the sub-tropics as it means the structures that have been painted can regulate moisture content.”

Sustainable trades network envisaged: The Natural Painting People have also begun a Sustainable Trade Network, and are looking to encourage waterwise plumbers, environmentally friendly floor polishers, electricians specialising in solar power and the like on board.

The Courier Mail, 27/5/2006, p. 84

Source: Erisk Net  

New US video game designed to demonize both President Hugo Chavez and the innocent people of Venezuela.

Read about the game

A videogame simulating an invasion of Venezuela is supposed to hit the shelves next year, but it’s already raising the ire of lawmakers loyal to President Hugo Chavez, reported The Daily Telegraph (31/5/2006, p.11).

Congressman fears game part of US psyops: Chavez supporters in Venezuela’s National Assembly suspect the makers of ‘Mercenaries 2: World in Flames’ are doing Washington’s bidding by drumming up support at home for an eventual move to overthrow Chavez. "I think the US Government knows how to prepare campaigns of psychological terror so they can make things happen later," Congressman Ismael Garcia says of the game developed by LA’s Pandemic Studios.

Game plot involves Venezuelan tyrant, oil and invasion: Pandemic Studios describes it as "an explosive open world action game" in which "a power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela’s oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a war zone". The company says players take on the role of well-armed mercenaries.

Publicist: no political statement about Chavez: A publicist for Pandemic, Chris Norris, says the game wasn’t intended to make a political statement about Chavez, though designers "always want to have a rip from the headlines".

Game tars Venezuelan image: Lawmaker Gabriela Ramirez says ‘Mercenaries 2’ gives a false vision of Chavez as a tyrant and Venezuela as being on the verge of chaos. She says the game could be banned under a proposed law aimed at protecting Venezuelan children from violent video games.

The Daily Telegraph, 31/5/2006, p. 11

Source: Erisk Net  

Chinese environmental experts fear worsening pollution could kill the Yangtze within five years, the Xinhua news agency said on 30 May, calling for an urgent clean-up, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (31 May 2006 p10).

Problem not to be ignored: "Many officials think the pollution is nothing for the Yangtze," Xinhua quoted Yuan Aiguo, a professor with the China University of Geosciences, as saying. "But the pollution is actually very serious," the agency added, warning that experts considered it "cancerous".

All the usual culprits: Industrial waste and sewage, agricultural pollution and shipping discharges were to blame for the river’s declining health, experts said.

A long and winding waterway: The Yangtze, the third longest river in the world after the Nile and the Amazon runs from the remote far western province of Qinghai and Tibet through 186 cities including Chongqing, Wuhan and Nanjing, before emptying into the sea at Shanghai.

Receives waste water, expected to provide potable supply: The river absorbed more than 40 per cent of the country’s waste water, 80 per cent of it untreated, said Lu Jianjian, from the East China Normal University. "As the river is the only source of drinking water in Shanghai, it has been a great challenge for Shanghai to get clean water," Xinhua quoted him as saying. Most of the Yellow River, the second-longest in the country and the cradle of early Chinese civilisation, is so polluted it is not safe for drinking or swimming, Xinhua said in May last year.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 31/5/2006, p. 10

Source: Erisk Net  

Last week, Beijing was suffering from rising temperatures, sand sweeping down from the Gobi Desert and high levels of pollution caused by 2.5 million cars and the reconstruction of the city for the 2008 Olympic Games, reported The Australian (31 May 2006 p8). Suddenly, on Friday evening, a rainstorm emerged, apparently from nowhere.

Rainmaker rocketry: In fact, it was "rocket rain". For its true genesis lay in shells fired by technicians of the Beijing Weather Modification Office. They contained cigarette-sized sticks of silver iodide, which produce ice crystals when seeded within moist clouds, and turn to rain as they fall to warmer air.

Temporary relief: The skies then cleared, producing a miraculously fine Sunday. The city’s 15 million or so inhabitants, enduring the worst drought in northern China for 50 years, applauded.

Sealed city surfaces isolate water table: But a water technology expert said on 30 May that the impact of a single downpour on Beijing’s steadily dwindling water table would only be marginal, because of the extent to which the city’s surfaces are compacted by building works and new roads. The result is that most of the rainwater evaporates before it can find open, receptive ground into which to sink.

50b tonne annual raindance: China and Thailand are the major users of artificial rain. In China’s new five-year plan, it says it will create 50 billion tonnes of rain every year, deploying greatly increased resources into rain-making research, which it began in 1958.

Giving Mother Nature a hand: Throughout the country, 23 of the 34 provinces have established weather modification bureaus like Beijing’s, which use dozens of aircraft and several thousand anti-aircraft guns, as well as about 4000 rocket launchers, to seed clouds with iodine to produce rain. Chinese meteorologists say such efforts can only increase rainfall by 10-15 per cent at best, however. And without cloud cover, the weather modification artillerymen can do nothing.

The Australian, 31/5/2006, p. 8

Source: Erisk Net