Soils are critical for all life—they act as a water filter and growing medium, supply nutrients for plant growth and contribute to biodiversity.  Yet, despite the universal importance of healthy soil, we continue to lose approximately 5 to 7 million hectares each year through soil degradation – 24 billion tons of this non-renewable resource have been lost over the last century from the world’s arable land. Today, land and soil degradation affect approximately 1.5 billion people, and not just in arid or dry environments. June 17 is World Day to Combat Desertification, and this year’s theme is ‘Land Belongs to the Future - Let’s Climate Proof’. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), through its technical cooperation programme and the Joint FAO/IAEA Division, is helping Member States to address this goal by supporting the collection of data on soil and water interactions. Nuclear technology, and radioactive and stable isotope techniques in particular, play a very importa...

By Robin Ramsay “ Lobster  has had its moments.  It has been denounced  in the House of Commons... ” “ Where were the  shouts of derision ... when MI5 and MI6... overspent the budgets on their new builings by  £200 million ... why do MPs take no notice... The Labour Party's passivity... is a more compled phenomenon... ” “ A member of [Neil Kinnock's] personal staff actually phoned 'Spycatcher' Peter Wright in Australia...  every phone within a mile of Wright and his legal team was tapped of course... the information about the call from Kinnock's office was duly passed -- presumably from the NSA via GCHQ -- to the Tories. Mrs Thatcher then stood up in the Commons and denounced Kinnock for talking to a traitor... [Kinnock] should have asked how she knew the contents of the phone call... ” “ Peter Mandelson...  has been around MI6 since his early 20s ... Four of the Blair cabinet are alumni of the Anglo-American elite group the British American Pr...

The influence of intelligence services on the British left A talk given by Robin Ramsay to Labour Party branches in late 1996 This is an adaptation and massive compression of the pamphlet The  Clandestine Caucus  written and published by Robin Ramsay in 1996. In that the sources for most of the claims contained in this talk are to be found. Dirty tricks and covert operations In the official theory of British politics the state in general and the intelligence services in particular have no role. This is what I think of as the Disney version of politics; and this is the one that is still largely taught in British universities and regurgitated by the mass media. In the Disney version, the state is neutral. Interests in society align with political parties; and the parties contest elections. The election winners form governments whose policies are then implemented by the state. This was the view, for example, of Ron Hayward, the General Secretary of the Labour Party. In 197...