Letters: Ivory trade

UK must act to protect elephants from the deadly trade in ivory

It is imperative that the UK Government acts now to oppose China as an ivory buyer to protect elephants from a future where poaching to supply the illegal ivory trade may again ravage their populations to the brink of extinction ("Return of the ivory trade", 12 July).

Each year a staggering 20,000 elephants and many rangers are killed to sustain human's demand for ivory. Nowhere is this demand more prolific than in China, which has the world's largest black market in illegal ivory and is the world's single major destination for illicit, poached ivory, mainly from African elephants.

If the decision is made at this week's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) Standing Committee to allow China to buy stockpiled ivory from four African nations, this will open the floodgates to allow even more illegal ivory on to China's market.

As a member of the Standing Committee, the UK, as one of three European representatives, has a crucial vote in this decision. International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has lobbied the UK Government to oppose China's request. Thousands of our supporters have contacted Joan Ruddock MP to urge her to ensure that the UK opposes China and more than 140 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion on the subject.

Many African nations have formed the African Elephant Coalition, whose aim is to protect elephants from the ivory trade, and together they, too, are calling on Cites to reject China's request.

Evidence also shows that even China's own people are opposed to the trade. A 2007 survey showed that over 70 per cent of respondents would like the Chinese government to support African countries in banning trade in elephant ivory. So why isn't China listening to its own public?

Time is running out for elephants. The UK, and the rest of the world, must act now to protect elephants from this deadly trade.

Robbie Marsland

Director of IFAW UK, London SE1

David Davis's dangerous beliefs

Before your leader writer or other civil libertarians get too matey with the recently re-elected MP for Haltemprice and Howden ("David Davis has struck a fine blow for the cause of civil liberties", 12 July), they should remember that political opportunism is rarely a successful long-term strategy, and that "my enemies' enemies are my friends" can be a very dangerous maxim.

Mr Davis's record should give any genuine liberal cause for much concern. Specifically on terror suspects, he voted for four weeks' detention without trial, so it's difficult to understand why an extra two weeks with increased judicial review should cause quite so much angst.

And if views such as his had prevailed, 10 terror suspects – the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six – would have been hanged by their necks until they were dead, rather than being available for release when their convictions were overturned.

Brian Hughes

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

You report "Davis returns with 15,000 majority to fight for liberty" (12 July), but it is not clear how the intention attributed to him is to be carried out more effectively from the back benches than from within the shadow cabinet. The inference is that until now he has not been able to "fight for liberty", apparently hamstrung by being in a position of some influence.

I agree with him on his rejection of the 42 days bill, and look forward to the emergence of a new, humane freedom-fighter. As Luke had it: "There is more rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner who repents ... "

Eddie Dougall.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

An argument offered by those who favour a national DNA database is that if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. However, in 1933 a US world leader in database technology agreed to sell this technology to Germany. By acting through its overseas subsidiaries, the Third Reich was supplied with punch-card machines that helped the Nazis to track down European Jews. Those identified by the Nazis had done nothing wrong, but had everything to fear.

DNA information is very handy if you wish to identify the ethnic origins of the donor, but it cannot tell you whether the donor is likely to commit a future crime. One hopes that the Nazis were a special case and that those days could not return. Then along comes news that Snr Berlusconi promises to get "tough" on foreigners, in particular, Italy's 150,000 Romany gypsies, and that his interior minister wants all of Italy's gypsies to be fingerprinted.

Can we entirely trust a national DNA database to an unknown future government? Johann Hari's description (9 July) of "the pain some people apparently feel at having a speck of their DNA stored in a database" might become very real pain for some people who currently have nothing to fear.

Chris Elshaw

Headley Down, Hampshire

In a brief story on 12 July you informed us that the three suspects in the Kercher murder case in Italy are, possibly, about to be charged after being held in prison presumably without charge since November. That is eight months. It makes our Government's suggestion of six weeks in the most serious cases of terrorism, with a host of caveats, seem rather liberal.

I would carry an ID card voluntarily, and am keen to join other Europeans who flash a card on arrival into this country, instead of searching for a passport which does not fit easily into a wallet. Why should we Britons be treated as second-class citizens on entering our own country?

Lastly: eight weeks ago, I was subject to an unprovoked attack and, although the police arrived promptly while the assault was still ongoing, my assailant accused me of having started the incident. Four hours later, CCTV had confirmed my story and my attacker was charged.

It seems that in David Davis the voters re-elected a representative who is soft on terrorism and soft on crime.

Rik Starr

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Blair's hot air over climate change

Tony Blair, "climate change campaigner and former prime minister" (7 July), seems to have been spending too much time in Mr Bush's company. When asked about livestock's enormous contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions, he cited "technological advances such as methane capture" as a way of mitigating the "climate impact of animal agriculture". He is clearly misinformed. CCS (carbon capture and storage) is a method of significantly reducing C02 emissions from coal-fired power stations: to the best of my knowledge there are no plans to attach poly bags to the orifices of cows to capture their greenhouse-gas emissions.

If Blair wants to pass himself off as a serious "climate change campaigner", he needs to inform himself more carefully. He also needs to provide a more intelligent answer to Nitin Mehta's original question, ie, "Eighteen per cent of greenhouse gas emissions (UNFAO figures) come from farm animals raised for meat, while rainforests are destroyed for cattle ranching. Will you go vegetarian and lead by example?"

Until Blair can give a coherent reply to that, he has no right to suggest that "This does not mean that the world has to give up meat". It does, actually.

James Boyle

Dunlop, East Ayrshire

'Apartheid' on the West Bank

In Donald Macintyre's report on the visit of ANC veterans to the West Bank (11 July), Judge Davis of the South African delegation says that comparisons between Israel's discriminatory practices and South African apartheid made by many of his colleagues were "unhelpful" and that "this is a country that is really about how there is going to be divorce and we were always a marriage".

But the two-state "divorce" is a paradigm that was effectively forced upon the Palestinians by Zionism's overwhelming military strength and political backing. The PLO officially adopted this policy 20 years ago and it has delivered nothing but more Jewish-only settlements and continued dispossession; consequently the one-state solution is gaining popularity both among Palestinians and international human-rights campaigners.

The two-state scenario, with its dependence on Palestinians abandoning their right to return, is a symptom of the problem and not an excuse for apartheid policies.

Benjamin Counsell

London E5

Prejudice against Muslims

Dominic Kirkham (letters, 7 July) relates his experience of Muslim people asking what was in the food distributed at an adult learning programme and suggests that this shows how "Muslims choose to distance themselves from the generality on the basis of 'their religion'."

Quite apart from the question of how this experience qualifies him to judge the entire Muslim population, it makes one wonder whether he applies a similar criterion to other sections of society. Would he, for example, offer a teetotaller food containing alcohol, or expect a Jewish person to accept a bacon sandwich, a vegetarian Hindu to eat a meat pie, etc? If so, it calls into question his fitness to run programmes for "mixed ethnic" groups; if not, he displays just the type of Islamophobia that Shahid Malik warns of in his article of 4 July and tells us more about his own arcane prejudices than he does about the Muslim community's willingness to integrate into what he refers to as "normal society".

Muhammad Waraqah Williams

London E12

I wish to applaud Peter Oborne, Mark Steel and The Independent for the excellent articles published over the past week or so on "the shameful Islamophobia at the heart of Britain's press".

Peter Oborne and James Jones's investigative work, including the recent Dispatches TV programme, will only bear fruit when decent organs of the British media such as your newspaper and Channel 4 give it the support it deserves.

It is high time that irresponsible journalists and newspapers are brought to task for fabricating and publishing rubbish that inflames the anti-Islamic prejudice that, in the words of Britain's first Muslim Minister, Shahid Malik, makes many Muslims feel like aliens in their own country.

Riaz Nanji

London N6

As a Muslim woman married to an Englishman who has lived in the UK for many years, I yearn for the years of greater tolerance, the time before 9/11, before the rules of the game were changed and the war on terror was thrust upon us. Mr Oborne's valiant stand against those who are attacking Islam and Muslims indiscriminately reminded us that we still live in that same country we loved.

Of course it is vital and right that we should have a serious and honest debate about the role of Islam in British society. Moderate Muslims keep being asked loudly, but often just rhetorically, to come forward and condemn or approve this or that. But who is naive enough to think that this is a genuine invitation for a real dialogue, or that we stand a real chance of being heard or engaged with on an equal basis?

Satanay Dorken

London N10

Reach of Iran's missiles

B Emmerson states (letters, 12 July) that Condoleezza Rice appears either to not know where eastern Europe is, or not know where Iran is.

On the contrary; an Iranian missile based in western Iran and with a range of 2,000km would be perfectly capable of hitting, among others, the cities of Ankara, Athens, Bucharest and Sofia.

Andrew Bristow

Chorley, Lancashire

Doctors' morale

Two medical students say (letters, 10 July) that despite patients having cause to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS, doctors' morale is at an all-time low. The latter is presumably a medical condition their tutors have taught them skilfully to observe. This threatening clinical disorder, to which Presidents of the BMA alert us at regular intervals, presents a mystifying phenomenon. Morale apparently never rises but falls lower each year than it has ever been before. Is there a medical name for this chronic condition of irreversible decline, and are financially based medicaments the only palliative?

Ian Beach

Oxford

Credit where it's due

In Edward Seckerson's review of The Rake's Progress (8 July), he ignores the role of Auden's co-librettist and partner, Chester Kallman. As notebooks and editions make clear, Kallman's contribution to the libretto was substantial and included the joke in Act III that Seckerson ascribes to Auden.

Dr Kathleen Bell

Principal Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, De Montfort University, Leicester

Homage to Carroll

The photograph of the nude little girl illustrating the article "Is this art or abuse?" (8 July) is practically identical to Lewis Carroll's photograph of Beatrice Hatch. The portrait and background are similar, and the only major difference is that in the Australian picture the girl is looking straight at the camera rather than out to sea and in profile. What's more, the chalk cliffs – rare in Australia – are a straight copy of those in Carroll's portrait. Surely this is homage rather than anything else?

Patricia Rodriguez

London SW1

M&S clothing

I'd like to thank Virginia Ironside not to call an elderly and eminently sensible Marks & Spencer shareholder "an old bat" (11 July), but rather listen to what that woman and many others, including octogenarians like myself, are saying. We entirely agree when she says "There are not enough designs in the shops for older people". I and my friends who are still leading active lives know we look our best in stylish, dignified clothes appropriate to our activities, and sleeveless dresses with plunging necklines do not come into that category.

Rachel Cundall

Newcastle upon Tyne