Can Mickey Save the Dome?
UK -- London's Millennium Dome ["Doming Down the Millennium," Spring 2000 EIJ] is taking a drubbing. The dome has been dubbed a "white elephant" and derided as a "vacuous, pompous, preachy, infantile sham." With people staying away in droves, the Dome's project manager was replaced by an executive from the EuroDisney theme park near Paris. The BBC recently sampled public opinion about the Dome. Here are some responses: "So, Tony Blair's vision of 'Cool Britannia' is now to be run by a Frenchman on behalf of an insidious American company. Why is it such a flop? Maybe because it is contrived, derivative and smacks of state-sponsored 'culture.'" "Who ever heard of a government building a theme park?" "The only thing that can ever be done to improve the Dome is to sell it." "Turn it into a massive soup kitchen." "There are many more ways to celebrate the new Millennium with 1 billion pounds ... What about providing every school or hospital in the country with the necessary facilities and resources?" "Players of the National Lottery have mainly funded the dome. Why not offer free admission to anyone who can present 20 or more losing lottery tickets?" "The money would have been much better spent improving our existing great national museums and allowing them to restore the free admission which was taken away by the previous government."

SHARK Saves the Bulls
MEXICO - Cola giant Pepsico has removed its ads from hundreds of Mexican bullrings. The $33 billion multinational acted after an 18-month campaign by Steve Hindi, director of the animal rights group SHARK [Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, PO Box 28, Geneva, IL 60134, (630) 262-9908]. "I was amazed Pepsi hung in as long as they did," Hindi said. "What the company was doing was offensive to anyone with a heart and brain." Pepsico capitulated after Hindi's videotapes showing bloodied bulls suffering alongside wallboards advertising Pepsi Cola were passed to Maneka Gandhi, India's Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment. Gandhi, an animal rights activist, threatened to show the tapes on her popular Indian TV show. Since cows are sacred in India, Hindi noted, Gandhi's threat meant that Pepsico "faced writing off nearly a billion potential customers." Pepsico's Dave DeCecco credited the SHARK campaign for prompting the company's action. Hindi now plans to shift the campaign to target Corona beer, whose ads have replaced Pepsi's.

Plug Pulled on Privatization Plan
INDIA -- A ten-day strike by electrical workers in Uttar Pradesh ended with the government capitulating to strikers' demands. Workers walked out to protest plans to privatize the power industry. According to the BBC, privatization plans have been "postponed indefinitely." The government is reinstating 2,000 dismissed strikers with full back pay and agreed to free jailed protestors - all 7,000 of them!

Two Women: One Voice
PAKISTAN -- Since India and Pakistan exploded tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998, vigorous anti-nuclear movements have blossomed in both countries. Prizewinning author Arundhati Roy is a prominent member of India's anti-nuke campaign. In Pakistan, another woman has stepped forth to challenge her country's conscience. Professor Naela Quadri knew she was risking her job when she publicly criticized Pakistan's bomb tests in the mountains of Baluchistan. Last year, thousands gathered to protest the tests - and the local impacts. In the region near the blast "the color of the water has changed," Quadri says. "There are no animals near the test site. People exposed to the blast have had nosebleeds and skin eruptions."

Reparations Over-DU
CANADA -- After the Canadian Navy conducted military exercises off Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, local fishers were astonished to discover that six tons of depleted uranium shells had been left behind on the ocean bottom. The Navy says there is no danger. Unconvinced, fishers and lobster-trappers are conducting an independent investigation of the environmental impacts.

This Land Is Our Land
JAPAN - There appeared to be nothing standing in the way of Tohoku Electric Power Company's (TEPC) to construct four nuclear reactors in Maki, Japan. After all, TEPC already owned more than 97 percent of the land the plants would sit on. But local residents fought the plan for three years. In 1999, after 60 percent of the people voted against the nuke plants in a referendum, the city council declared that it would never sell the remaining acres to the power company. "And they haven't," reports the World Information Service on Energy. "In September 1999, they sold it to 20 anti-nuclear groups."

Nuclear Accident Cover-up
JAPAN - The September 30, 1999 nuclear accident at the JCO nuclear facility in Tokai-Mura ["Blue Flash Hits Tokai-Mura," Spring 2000 EIJ] has claimed the life of one of three seriously exposed workers. The accident now appears to have been more serious than authorities first let on. On October 8, the accident was upgraded to Level 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (equal to the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island in the US). Exposure in the surrounding neighborhood was 20 times higher than the maximum permissible yearly dose. The zone around the plant was never completely evacuated and hundreds of residents were exposed to heavy neutron doses for 17.5 hours. Eight workers and residents tested positive for DNA damage. Leukemia does not show up for ten years; other cancers may not show up for 30 years. On October 2, the government declared the danger was past. It has since been revealed that JCO kept the plant's exhaust fans running until October 11 and radioactive iodine was still seeping from the damaged plant on October 15. Third Opinion magazine speculates that JCO "may have been reducing contamination inside the building by venting as much as they could ... so cleanup work inside the building could start as early as possible."

Do People Kill People? People Do
US -- On May 25, 1998, a helicopter assault on unarmed Nigerian protestors occupying a Chevron oil platform in the Delta region left two people dead and several others severely injured. An investigation by members of Global Exchange has turned up disturbing evidence that "the helicopters used in the attack are housed at a Chevron facility in the Delta, and Chevron security officials were onboard the helicopters at the time of the attack." Bola Oyimbo, a protest leader who was arrested and tortured, told Global Exchange investigators that a soldier informed him that Chevron had paid for the assault. "When they brought us to the naval base, the Chevron representative handed them their money and actually there was a row between them. There was a disagreement [because] that was not the amount they had agreed on."

Several Nigerian families have filed a lawsuit against Chevron in US Federal Court. According to Global Exchange, there is new evidence that "Chevron also aided a January 4, 1999 attack that left churches, homes, wells, and fishing equipment burned." The attack by Nigerian military forces reportedly "was launched in response to public protests against environmental destruction." The attack "occurred at the request of Chevron personnel and also utilized Chevron helicopters, boats and personnel." Henry Clark, director of the West County Toxics Coalition in Richmond, California, was one of nine human rights observers who traveled to Nigeria. Clark's community has battled Chevron officials for years to reduce emissions from a nearby refinery. Clark stated that "after traveling to Nigeria, I better understand why it has been so difficult. This company, wherever it operates, has no interest in meeting the concerns of local communities." The full report, Profiting from Repression, is available from Global Response [2017 Mission St., No. 303, San Francisco, CA 94110, (415) 255-7296].

Industrial Hot Spas
GERMANY - European families looking for a cheap vacation experience are turning toward "industrial tourism." Instead of visiting distant beaches in the south of France, Germans are frolicking in the warm waters spilling into the Lippe River from the cooling pipes of a 670-megawatt powerplant in Westfalen. The Hamm-Uentrop plant, with its three massive cooling towers, is home to "Germany's ugliest campground" - a 300-lot site with canoeing, golf courses and bike trails. "You should see it when the sun sets," one vacationer gushed, "The way the towers light up is absolutely beautiful." In France, vacationers are blissfully splashing in the warm waters of state-owned powerplants - coal, gas, thermal and even nuclear. At Pierrelatte, in the south of France, the 104°F waters spilling from a uranium-enrichment plant heat a popular roadside attraction - a tropical greenhouse complete with 335 Nile River crocodiles. "We'd have to go all the way to Africa if it weren't for the nuclear plant," said one delighted 8-year-old.

Eco-Design Award
UK - Last October, London's Design Museum presented its first Design Sense Award to Charlie Paton of Light Works, Ltd. Paton received a £40,000 prize for his work on the Seawater Greenhouse, a combination desalination/horticultural facility installed on the coast of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The building uses the natural forces of sunlight, cold seawater and the atmosphere to produce clean water, cool air and "optimum conditions for low-cost horticulture." One innovative: corrugated cardboard stiffened with calcium carbonate from seawater was used to make evaporators.

Humps Not Dumps
AUSTRALIA -- Belated cheers to a group of eight plucky women who staged "Humps Not Dumps" - a 1000-km (621-mile) camel trek across the South Australian desert to protest plans to build a radioactive waste dump on Aboriginal land at Billa Kalina. The women kept in touch via solar- and wind-powered communication devices as their route took them through indigenous communities, past the Roxby Downs and Beverley uranium mines, close to the Nurrungar military base (run by US troops), and near Woomera, an abandoned missile site containing 9700 barrels of radioactive waste.

Ads, Java, Vino Win: Burgers A Bust
US - Business Ethics magazine's Millennium-End Awards were presented to St. Luke's (an employee-owned ad agency in London), Equal Exchange (a Massachusetts coffee company that has pioneered fair trade practices) and Fetzer Vineyards (a California organic-winemaker whose rammed-earth buildings are powered by photovoltaic panels). McDonald's was in the running for "excellence in environmental management" but Business Ethics [2845 Harriet Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55408, (612) 879-0695] bumped the company out of concern about "inhumane treatment of animals slaughtered for food."

US Remains in Killing Club
US - The Washington Spectator [London Terrace Station, PO Box 20065, New York, NY 10011] reports that "the growing use of the death penalty [in the US] is stirring international protests… from many of the 105 countries that have abolished capital punishment." Since the US Supreme Court ended a four-year ban on executions in 1979, more than 580 people have been put to death in the US - including 14 foreign nationals whose deaths, some argue, constitute a violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. At the beginning of the millennium, "the US, China and Japan remain the only world powers with the death penalty still in force." Canada, Mexico, Russia and all of Western Europe have ended state-sponsored executions. The remaining "death-penalty" countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Chile, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Singapore, Libya, North Korea, and South Korea.

No Diet Coke in Iceland, Please
ICELAND - Grocery stores in Iceland have stopped selling Diet Coke, owing to concerns that the artificial sweetener aspartame can cause brain tumors. London's Kings College has begun a three-year study of the sweetener's effect on consumers in the US. Meanwhile, Monsanto, aspartame's manufacture, is trying to sell its sweetener division.

No Way to Curry Favor
INDIA - "It's enough to get Indians hot under the collar," reports the Thimmakka newsletter [1641 S. Westgate Ave., No 9, Los Angeles, CA 90025-3776, (310) 820-0157, www.thimmakka.org]. "Hirayama Makoto and Ohashi Sachiyo, two Japanese entrepreneurs, have taken out a patent application on curry! If granted, the patent could give them exclusive rights to the process of making curry." According to Thimmakka, incidents of foreigners using new global patent laws to steal traditional knowledge are "bound to increase in the future."

Kites Can Kill Kites
INDIA - Balloons are known to pose a threat to wildlife [Winter '88 EIJ] and now, reports Beauty Without Cruelty [4 Prince of Wales' Drive, Wanowrie, Pune 411 040, India, www.bwcindia.org], innocent-looking paper kites also can kill. Each year New Delhi's Jain Charity Bird Hospital reportedly "treats thousands of birds injured by sharp kite strings." It seems the thin manja string used to tether high-flying kites can "cut deep into [birds'] wings, bodies or feet, resulting in profuse bleeding and often gruesome death, if beheaded."

The Green Report Card
According to the National Environmental Scorecard (NES), in 1999, more than a third of US Senators failed to cast a single pro-environment vote, choosing instead to "benefit special interests at the expense of the environment and taxpayers." The Scorecard, published annually by the League of Conservation Voters [LCV, 1920 L St., NW, No. 800, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 785-8683, www.lcv.org], noted that "Democrats outscored Republicans by over 60 points in each chamber." The LCV lamented that Sen. Robert Smith (R-NH), the new chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, racked up a "zero percent score."

The 54-page Scorecard is packed with stunning tabulations. Here is the list of the Greenest Pols (with 100 percent NES scores) - In the Senate: Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Ron Wyden (D-OR).

In the House: Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Thomas Barrett (D-WI), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), David Bonior (D-MI), Michael Capuano (D-MA), William Clay (D-MO), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Danny Davis (D-IL), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Julian Dixon (D-CA), Bob Filner (D-CA), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), Jerry Kleczka (D-WI), James McGovern (D-MA), Marty Meehan (D-MA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), John Olver (D-MA), Major Owens (D-NY), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), William Pascrell (D-NJ), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (Independent-VT), Thomas Sawyer (D-OH), Jose Serrano (D-NY), Christopher Shays (R-CT), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Mark Udall (D-CO), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

Rage Against Wall Street
US - On January 26, a film crew led by Michael Moore ("Roger and Me," "The Awful Truth") set up to shoot a music video featuring the fiery Los Angeles rock/rap band Rage Against the Machine. While Moore's crew had a federal permit to film on the steps of the Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan, refused to issue a sound permit. (Moore is in disrepute in NYC since he grabbed Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a headlock at an awards ceremony last year and gave the startled mayor a noogie.) On the sixth take, the NYPD moved in to arrest Moore. This gave several band members an opening to rush through the doors of the nearby New York Stock Exchange. "They made it through the building's first set of doors before Exchange security hit a button, bringing down metal bars and closing the financial capitol of the world at 3:15 PM," Moore reports. "For a few minutes, Rage Against the Machine was able to essentially shut down American capitalism." For the latest on Mike's adventures, check out www.michaelmoore.com.

Car-Free Earth Day 2000
US - The call for a Car-Free Earth Day in the US has been endorsed by the organizers Earth Day 2000 and Earth Day US. On February 10, Italy showed how it can be done when 150 Italian cities and towns were closed to motorized traffic. Italians hit the streets with bikes, skates and walking shoes. Free rides were offered on busses and trains. Museums lowered (or abandoned) entry fees. Italy's Environment Minister Edo Ronchi declared the experiment "a success" and scheduled new car-free Sundays for March, April and May. Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, England, Denmark and Finland have endorsed the European Union's plan for a European-wide car-free day. And on February 24, Bogota became the first city in Latin America to go car-free. Bicycles replaced Bogota's 800,000 autos and air pollution dropped 30 percent. Bogota's progressive mayor Enrique Penalosa declared "We're showing ourselves and the world that we can build on our dreams and create a more livable city." Let's make it happen in the US!

Are Muddy Shoes Killing Frogs?
US - The old eco-cavet, "Take only photos and leave only footprints," may have to be revised. On February 17, Arizona State University Biologist Elizabeth Davidson warned the American Association for the Advancement of Science that nature-lovers and well-meaning scientists have been carrying deadly pathogens into pristine environments - in the mud caked on their boots and shoes. Viruses and fungi in boot mud may be playing a part in the global decline of frogs, salamanders and other amphibians. The solution: Before trekking in the wild, wash you shoes in a 10 percent solution of household bleach.

Frankenfish and the "Trojan Gene"
US - Genetically engineered (GE) salmon fitted with the human growth hormone grow faster, become larger, reach sexual maturity faster and lay more eggs. Because of their bigger size, the New Scientist reports, these genetic mutants "attract four times as many mates as their smaller rivals." But there is a chilling problem. Two Purdue University scientists, William Muir and Richard Howard, have found that one in three of the GE fish they studied died in the wild before they could reproduce. A computer simulation run to predict what would happen if 60 transgenic creatures with this so-called "Trojan Gene" were released into a wild population of 60,000 found that "the population became extinct within just 40 generations." The escape of even a single GE fish would have the same effect - it would just take longer. With these GE fish, Muir stated, "You have the very strange situation where the least fit individual ... is getting all the matings - this is the reverse of Darwin's model." John Beringer of Bristol University and a former member of Britain's GE advisory board warned: "It would make it very difficult for anyone at the moment to approve the release of ... fish carrying growth hormone."

Top Money Man Pied
Bangkok - Minutes before Michel Camdessus was to give his parting address as chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he was saluted with a cream pie launched by an activist with Patissiers San Frontieres (roughly translated: "Pie-tossers Without Borders"). The Belgium-based group claimed it pied Camdessus "in solidarity with people in Thailand, Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and the former Soviet Union who had been bit by IMF's policies." As Reuters reported, the IMF has been accused of "widening the gap between rich and poor and catering only to the needs of giant Western corporations." After cleaning up, Camdessus mounted the podium and told delegates at the UN Conference on Trade and Development that the world's growing rich-poor gap was "morally outrageous, economically wasteful and potentially socially explosive." Camdessus refused to press charges against the pie-thrower, a US citizen named Robert Naiman.

Ford Has a Buggy Idea
US - In Britain, Australia, Israel, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Singapore, it is against the law to use a cellphone while driving. In New York City, taxi drivers are prohibited from yacking and hacking at the same time. Cities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, Texas and Utah are cracking down on four-wheeled phoners. Enter the clueless Ford Motor Company - which claims that it is "dedicated to providing ingenious environmental solutions that will position us as a leader in the automotive industry of the 21st century." Ford has announced plans to equip its new line of vehicles with "voice-activated telematics systems offering advanced security and information access." Ford's "Infotainment" options will include surf-and-you-drive Internet link to "bring news and more straight to the car." Ford promises that "connected customers will be able to customize their Internet offerings so their favorite items will be delivered automatically. Drivers will be able to monitor e-mail, update schedules, get stock quotes ..." And before too long, Ford predicts, cars can be "electronically tracked for recovery" and "vehicles will talk to each other to communicate real-time traffic information."

Cyanide Ecocide
Romania - On January 30, a ruptured dam at the Australian-owned Baia Mare Gold Mine flushed tons of cyanide into the Tisza and Danube Rivers, extinguishing nearly all life in the rivers. "The Tisza was one of the largest and most beautiful rivers in Hungary, figuring in many Hungarian songs and legends," recalled Zoltan Grossman, head of the US Wolf Watershed Educational Project. "Its waters fed enormous wetlands rich in migrating birds, and its plentiful fish fed numerous communities." Grossman and other US activists are trying to save Wisconsin's Wolf River from a similar fate. Nicolet Mineral's proposed Crandon Mine would use as much as 18 tons of cyanide per month. A coalition of eco-groups is demanding a ban on the use of cyanide and a revision of Wisconsin's mining laws, which prevent the public from knowing how much precious metal companies are extracting from mines - a loophole that critics claim sanctions "natural resource burglary."

Gloria in Excelsis Deo
US - The range wars of the Sagebrush Rebellion have claimed another victim. Gloria Flora, the Forest Supervisor for the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada has resigned in an attempt to draw national attention to attacks on Forest Service personnel. In an emotional press conference, Flora stated "I have learned that in Nevada, as a federal employee, you have no right to speak, no right to do your job and certainly no right to be treated with respect." Flora charged that fed-bashing had become "a state-sanctioned sport" in Nevada, with USFS workers "castigated in public, shunned in your communities, refused service in restaurants, kicked out of motels… just because of who you work for." In October 1999, Nevada State Assemblyman John Carpenter organized a mob to rebuild a road that the USFS had closed to protect threatened bull trout. More than 20 felonies and 50 misdemeanors - including assaults on USFS workers and acts of illegal grazing - have gone unpunished by the US Department of Justice.

Nuclear Slaves
Japan - As unemployment grows in Japan, the nuclear industry is creating new job opportunities for "nuclear slaves." Hundreds of homeless people have been hired to clean the country's nuclear reactors. Attracted by high wages, an estimated 5,000 workers have been hired on a part-time basis. Supervision is lax: Some workers complain that they were told to keep on working even after their radiation detectors started beeping. Some workers travel from reactor to reactor - piling up more exposure to radiation. There is no compensation for workers who fall ill and many fear speaking out because the recruiters have been linked to Japan's criminal mobs.

Three If by Air
Switzerland - In a replay of the World Trade Organization ruckus in Seattle, the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos was wreathed in tear gas as police fired warning shots to disperse anti-free-trade activists from around the world. Police, pelted with snowballs, barricaded streets with Landcruisers fitted with large metal grids. One protest sign read "Don't let the multinationals destroy the people." Another read: "Don't feed the economic elite. Cook them!" Davos had one element that was missing in Seattle. The day before the large demonstrations began, three paragliders - including Swiss rainforest activist Bruno Manser - swooped from the skies above Davos with placards urging WEF delegates to "Make decisions with a heart."

Dropping the Bond
Scotland - On February 14, more than 60 people were arrested attempting to blockade a flotilla of British Trident nuclear submarines at the Faslane Naval Base near Lochgoilhead. Some 400 protestors - including Scottish politicians and clergy and two members of the European Parliament - descended on the base, citing Scottish Sheriff Margaret Gimblett's ruling that Trident subs are illegal under international law and that civilian attempt to "disarm" nuclear weapons are justified. Scottish activist and actor Sean Connery faxed a message of support from Los Angeles, assuring the protestors that "I am with you in spirit."

What Would Moses Say?
US - Last November, the UN General Assembly reaffirmed the Outer Space Treaty in an attempt to halt an arms race in space [Spring '00 EIJ]. Only two countries abstained - the US and Israel. The US, in defiance of world opinion, is planning to build a costly Ballistic Missile Defense System. State University of New York professor Karl Grossman (producer of the award-winning documentary "Nukes in Space") notes that "Israel has an interest in the program's defensive component: It is working with the US on the Arrow project to develop a new anti-missile missile. Israel Defense Industry's Malam is the primary contractor on the $2 billion Arrow project, most of the funding for which comes from the US." Grossman is appealing to American Jews to challenge the weapons program. "A huge, potentially catastrophic miscalculation is being made that can lead to war in the heavens," Grossman warns. "Israel should not be supporting this."

Do-it-yourself Air Traffic Control
US - The planned expansion of air travel industry is going to clog airports and airways. The Federal Aviation Administration is considering a plan to ease the pressure on air traffic controllers with a "Free Flight Program." Under this concept, pilots would be encouraged to "choose and modify" their routes. "The idea," explains a NASA spokesperson, "is to let the flight crews have more flexibility in resolving their own traffic conflicts and managing their own airspace."

EPA Cover-up on MTBE
US - Rep. Bob Franks (R-NJ) has confronted the EPA with a 1987 internal memo that identified the proposed gas additive MTBE as a toxic agent, capable of causing tumors or neurological problems if inhaled or absorbed through the skin. The memo, prepared three years before the EPA approved adding methyl tertiary butyl ether to gasoline, warned that the chemical "could lead to widespread drinking water contamination" that could "rapidly mushroom due to leaking underground storage tanks." Franks has called for an immediate ban on MTBE and wants Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate the EPA's actions.

Green Taxis
US - American Livery, a taxi operator in Orange Country, California, has become the first US cab company to switch its entire fleet to natural-gas-powered cars. By adding 76 Ford Crown Victoria NGVs to its fleet of 104 vehicles, American Livery expects to cut its fuel costs by 48-cents per gasoline-gallon-equivalent. NGVs produce 90 percent fewer emissions than petroleum-fueled cars.

The Oil Era: Dying Slowly
US - The US Energy Policy Act called for replacing ten percent of the country's gasoline consumption with non-oil fuels by 2000. The General Accounting Office reports that the US replaced 100.7 million barrels of gasoline with alternative fuels in 1998 - 3.6 percent of total consumption. As of 1998, there were a million alternative fueled vehicles on US roads. The next goal is to reduce petroleum fuels 30 percent by 2010. While most oil and auto companies are paying more attention to renewable fuels, Reuters reports that ExxonMobil remains unmoved and "forecasts ever-greater use of petroleum fuels."

All that's Golden doesn't Glitter
US - In southeastern California, land held sacred by the Quechan Tribe has won protection from a planned Glamus Imperial gold mine. The Department of the Interior issued a legal opinion opposing the mine on cultural and environmental grounds - an important precedent in protecting sacred sites on public land. Many tribes testified before the Federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation on the importance of protecting the environmentally sensitive site from the Canadian multinational's massive open-pit mine. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) met with tribal elders and voiced her concern on this issue. Congress may try to reverse the decision. You can help by support Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's decision [1849 C St., NW, Washington, DC 20240].