IPEN

As we approach the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management's (SAICM's) 2nd Open Ended Working Group (OEWG2) meeting, IPEN has updated its 2008 "NGO Guide to SAICM" booklet with a new preface. The new text addresses SAICM developments since the Guide was first released, touches on the wide scope of SAICM, and includes information about lead and pesticide poisoning and emerging toxics issues.

The Asian Lead Paint Elimination Project Partner Newsletter for November, 2014 is now available, and contains news about partners' work in sampling house dust for lead content (and the resulting reports), and their activities during Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.

For immediate release (Bangkok): The U.S. has led a push at the mercury treaty negotiations in Bangkok to further delay any global action on mercury contaminated sites. The sixth negotiating meeting of the Minamata Convention on Mercury has failed to live up to its title, which references the world’s most infamous mercury contaminated site in Minamata, Japan.

IPEN and Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand (EARTH) held a press conference at the headquarters of the Thai Journalists’ Association to call attention to the mercury pollution issues in Thailand, particularly mercury emissions from coal power plants and other industrial sources such as petroleum and gas production and waste incineration.