MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cape Good Hope's turn

Two British vessels transporting radioactive vitrified residues from France to Japan will be rerouted via Good Hope Cape instead of Cape Horn as happened with the recent Pacific Swan, according to a simultaneous release in Britain, France and Japan, the three countries involved in the operation.

Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal left Cherbourg last Friday with a deadly cargo of plutonium monoxide for the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Japan transported by British Nuclear Fuel Ltd., BNFL.

Pacific Swan with highly radioactive substances sailed three weeks ago via Cape Horn in spite of strong protests from Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile.

However a Greenpeace spokesman in Buenos Aires warned that the decision was merely a "distractive measure", since BNFL has a several years contract for transporting nuclear residues from Europe to Japan.

And now?, "mad fish" panic

Italians are imaginative and creative, and following the "mad cow" and "mad sheep" diseases that are causing panic in Europe, environmentalists from the country are now warning about the risks of "mad fish", particularly those bred in farms where sanitary conditions are precarious or insufficient.

In association with Uniprom, -an important consortia of Italian fishermen--, Legambiente as the group is known, has set the alarm by declaring the sanitary "uncertainty" of imported fish.

According to Legambiente and Uniprom, in most countries that export fish to Italy (60% of the country's total consumption) sanitary standards are inadequate, and in fish farms the use of antibiotics as well as toxic or cancer prone substances, plus low quality food is the rule.

Both organizations are demanding quality and origin (traceable) certificates for all fish imported to Italy, to make sure Italian consumers have access to what they define as "organic fish", knowing clearly whether it's imported, caught at sea or bred in farms.

According to the latest statistics fish and poultry consumption in Italy during 2000 increased 15% over 1999, while beef dropped 70%.