more 'collateral' chemicals in the sky

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 20:43:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gunder Frank <agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca>
To: agf <agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca>
Subject: more 'collateral' chemicals in the sky

PANCEVO, Apr. 18 - Last night's attack against a Pancevo chemical factory
was a case in point (see above).  The NATO bombs caused huge fires which
released toxic fumes into the atmosphere.  This afternoon, as your editor
returned to Belgrade, a plume of black smoke was visible from 50 miles
away.  And even now, at about 3PM GMT, the black toxic cloud is clearly
visible over the northeastern Belgrade suburbs from this writer's hotel.

For your information, Pancevo is about as close to downtown Belgrade as
Central Park is to the World Trade Towers in New York.  Here's an excerpt
from an e-mail which we've just received from two professors of the
Belgrade University:

"We are faced with serious ecological catastrophe.

Heavy bombing of the factories of the Petrochemical Complex in Pancevo has
been repeated* last night (18th April, about 01:00 local time).  Ammonia
plant ("Azotara") and Vinyle Chloride Monomere (VCM) plant ("Petrohemija")
have been destroyed completely. Huge dark cloud appeared over the city of
Pancevo (northern suburb of Belgrade). The cloud is expanding in northwest
direction.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica vinyl chloride, also called
chloroethylene, a colourless, flammable, toxic gas belonging to the family
of organic halogen compounds, is used principally in making polyvinyl
chloride, an important synthetic resin. Prolonged exposure of humans and
laboratory animals to vinyl chloride vapor has been linked to several
forms of cancer.

Huge dark cloud is now spreading over the territory of Southeastern
Europe. VCM is over our heads. Who has the  right to do that?"

M. Sci. Dmitar Lakusic, President, Ass. Prof. Dr. Radoje Lausevic,
Secretary, Serbian Ecological Society, Univ. Belgrade, Faculty of Biology.
 

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                   ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
250 Kensington Ave - Apt 608     Tel: 1-514-933 2539    
Westmount/Montreal PQ/QC         Fax: 1-514-933 6445 
Canada H3Z 2G8              e-mail:agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca 

My Personal/Professional Home Page- http://www.whc.neu.edu/gunder.html
My NATO/Kosovo War Page-http://csf.colorado.edu/archive/agfrank/letters/       
My professional/personal conclusion is the same as Pogo's - 
            We have met the enemy, and it is US 
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