Campaign news: action for global health

MEDACT (Medical Action for global security) is joining International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) in calling for a halt to French testing of nuclear bombs in the South Pacific.

MEDACT says there are significant health hazards to the testing, including the immediate and long-term effects of radiation, as well as contamination of the sea and the food chain. Radioactive isotopes have been found in local water samples and are likely also to be present in plankton.

MEDACT has called on its members to support the boycott of French products, especially wine, in protest.

Boycott stickers are available from MEDACT to help publicise the boycott.

They cost £2.50 per sheet, including p&p.

The UK Working Group on Landmines is organising an action day against landmines for 23 September 1995. It estimates that 100 million landmines are now armed and in place around the world, killing or disabling between 1,000 and 2,000 people every month.

The group is calling on the government to ban the production and sale of anti-personnel landmines, to increase the UK contribution to international efforts to clear existing mines, and to increase funding for the rehabilitation of those disabled by mines.

The action day will be marked by local lobbying events aiming to raise awareness of the humanitarian, developmental and medical impact of landmines on civilian populations.

‘Landmines are blind weapons that cannot distinguish between the footfall of the soldier and that of an old woman gathering firewood’, says lobby group Human Rights Watch. ‘Long after the fighting has stopped, they can maim or kill the children and grandchildren of the soldiers who laid them.’

MEDACT, 601 Holloway Road, London N19 4DJ. Tel: 0171-272 2020

Fax: 0171- 281 5717

Details of the campaign and the action day are available from:

UK Working Group on Landmines, 601 Holloway Road, London N19 4DJ.

Tel/fax: 01296-632056