WESSEX
Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Tel: 01962 852122
SPRING 1998
NLP LOCAL NEWS
Radio
On the Wessex front 1998 has got off to a good start for the Natural Law Party. The party has twice featured live on the monthly one hour discussion programme "Talk About Tomorrow" on Radio Wey Valley. Subjects covered included "life-long learning" and retraining, organic farming, natural medicine, education, global conflict and the dangers of genetically engineered foods. The latter also featured in an NLP piece on Isle of Wight Radio.
(Free audio cassette of Radio Wey Valley programme)
Press
Press coverage in the Wessex region has also included the local party's support for Iceland Foods' ban on Genetically Modified (GM) ingredients in its own brand products (which it will be able to guarantee with effect from the 1st of May), as well as other GM issues.
(Dorchester Guardian on GM foods)
Major full and double page articles on Maharishi Ayur-Veda (MAV) health programmes, which form the corner stone of the NLP's prevention based health policies, have also recently been run in the Dorchester Guardian, Dorset Evening Echo, and the Portsmouth News (the region's largest daily newspaper). This follows the opening of the new MAV Health Centre in Bournemouth.
(Bournemouth MAV Health Centre)
Schools
William Treend, the 1997 NLP candidate for Portsmouth South, has given another highly successful presentation to the sixth form at Portsmouth Grammar School. This follows on from last year's presentation which resulted in the NLP winning the school's mock election during the General Election campaign.
(NLP win election at Portsmouth Grammar School)
Biotechnology
The party has also held a number of local meetings to encourage farmers, consumers and shopkeepers to require food retailers to establish clearly identified sections in their stores which sell only GM free products, so as to make life easier for those shoppers who wish to avoid GM foods. Ultimately the Natural Law Party, along with other organisations like the Soil Association, wishes to see such products banned.
As a result of information provided by a local Wessex Natural Law Party supporter and molecular genetics research scientist Dr Michael Antoniou, "Farming News" (the country's second most important periodical for farmers) issued a major editorial on 20th March urging the agricultural sector to take a much more cautious line with the introduction of genetically engineered crops. To date it has been virtually unheard of for the farming press to take anything other than an almost completely enthusiastic approach to genetic engineering.
(Farming press excerpts on GM crop problems)
STOP PRESS!! The UK NLP Environment Spokesman has been invited to be the speaker at the meeting of local charity the Wessex Healthy Living Foundation on Saturday 25th April, in Bournemouth, starting 10.30 am.
The talk is entitled: "GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS - The most serious threat of our time to public health and the environment."
For further details contact Mrs Raksha Peters, of the Wessex Healthy Living Foundation, on 01202 462680. PUBLIC and PRESS welcome.
(For more information on the dangers of genetically engineered foods click here)
NLP GLOBAL NEWS
India
Meanwhile the global goal of the Natural Law Party in 1998 is to establish itself in all remaining countries in the world by the end of the year. Already established in over 60 countries this project got underway in March with the formation of the Natural Law Party in India, under the name of the Ajeya Bharat Party, which ran 110 candidates in the recent General Election. The party ran under the banner of "Let us create ideal India" and caused a great stir in the Indian press.
Northern Ireland
On the other side of the world the Natural Law Party of Northern Ireland, spear-headed by party leader Jim Anderson and party chairman Tom Mullins, has been influential in providing solutions to the age old divisions in the province. The Party produced a visionary document entitled "Decommissioning the Potential for Conflict, Reducing Stress and increasing Coherence in Collective Consciousness". The Party has presented this document to many important world leaders including US President Bill Clinton. The Party has also met with the Co-Chairman of the influential Congressional Committee on Irish Affairs in Washington.
Currently, many influential names from both sides of the political divide in Northern Ireland are supporting the Natural Law Party in its attempt to persuade the British Government to implement proposals to reduce stress levels and increase coherence in the collective consciousness of the province as part of the on-going peace process.
(NLP Northern Ireland Home Page)
Holland
The world's first ever Natural Law Party candidate elected to public office, Mr Rob van der Sloot, has been re-elected to the city council of Lelystad in the Netherlands. He took office in 1994 after the first local elections in the Netherlands in which the Natural Law Party participated. Mr van der Sloot commented on his new success by saying, "In every part of Lelystad there are people who know us and give us their vote. The people have started to learn much more about the Natural Law Party, so the votes we got this time are the votes of those who really know the essence of the Natural Law Party and its programmes. Our campaign was very much focused on creating coherence in collective consciousness and decreasing stress in society."
USA
In the US the Natural Law Party of America is campaigning against the government's current proposals to dilute US standards for organic food to the point where it would be illegal to sell organic produce as people on both sides of the Atlantic have come to know it . The proposals would allow genetic engineering and virtually every form of input now used in conventional agriculture to be included under the organic label. These proposals are causing uproar internationally as well as in the US. Party leader, Dr John Hagelin, says: "Never in my six years of campaigning has an issue engendered more cynicism among voters and distrust of the Federal Government than the USDA's proposed regulations governing genetic engineering and the organic label."
(The American Organic Standard scandal)
The US Natural Law Party has also been an important force in the creation of the recently established cross party Congressional Prevention Coalition to promote government based on preventative principles, including the use of preventative medicine. In addition John Moore, the US Natural Law Party's director of ballot and media access, has been appointed chairman of the Fair Elections Commission, a new body founded to redress U.S. election injustices. Other third parties represented on the Commission include Ross Perot's Reform Party, as well as the Libertarian and Green Parties.
(Congressional Prevention Committee)
Finally, internationally renowned psychiatrist and author Dr. Harold Bloomfield has decided to run for Governor of California on the Natural Law Party's 1998 ticket. Dr. Bloomfield is a world leader in herbal medicine and integrative psychiatry and has authored 17 books, several of them international best-sellers. Dr. Bloomfield has appeared frequently on US peak-view television programmes including Oprah, Sally Jesse Raphael, Larry King, Geraldo, Leeza, and FOX and ABC News specials, and has been called "the psychiatrist America trusts." He has been at the forefront of many important self-help movements world-wide for 25 years, and his books have sold more than 6.5 million copies and have been translated into 26 languages.