Soviet irrigation plan coulc

95 million acres to be drained

LONDON (UPI) - A Soviet plan to divert the flow of major Siberian rivers south, away from the Arctic Ocean and towards new agricultural lands, may have ap impact on the climate of the northern hemisphere. The Climate Research unit of the University of East Anglia, with a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research, is examining the vast Soviet project as part of a study into the possibility of predicting climatic changes. An article in New Scientist relates the work to the crop failures of the early 1970s when panic Soviet buying doubled the world wheat pnce. That crop disaster underlined the fact

that —

world food reserves are adequate only to cover a month or so, and would not be sufficient if there were poor harvests for a year on a global scale. ©

The article said the Soviets are making great efforts to overcome this problem, as far as their own needs and commitments to Eastem Europe are con- cerned, by tripling grain production in Kazakhstan and Central Asia with the aid of largescale irrigation.

In the next five years the Soviets plan to spend 40 billion roubles officially about $60 billion — to drain and irrigate 25 million acres ‘of land.

By the mid-1980s_ there

A bad day on the Ystad force

YSTAD, Sweden (UPI) - Legal authorities in Ystad were unhappy because three policemen were examining the evidence in a smuggling case too closely and often.

The evidence in question was pornographic film shown nightly by the officers in the police station cafeteria of this Baltic port.

So the top brass rang down the curtain Thursday and spent the nightly coffee break debating the previous day's court case in which the policemen were accused of unauthonzed activities and illegal use of confiscated goods.

The films had been taken away from a Polish citizen

too

suspected of currency smuggling.

Prosecutor Carl-Olov Hagberg told the court the three policemen showed them nightly to their 12 colleagues, including

supenior officers.

“We had no idea that we-

were committing a cmme when we showed the films. lt can't be any worse than showing a vacation movie,” said one of the accused polcemen. .

“It could be sand that we needed to see the films to

check whether they were stolen,” said another.

“One wonders why you had to show them more than once in that case,” replied Hagberg.

Judgment will be passed next month.

It was not a good day for the Ystad force. A fourth policeman was accused of shooting a pistol while drunk. The bullet hit a friend’s shoe but caused no injury. He was fined 50 days’ pay.

Now you know By United Press International

Namatode sea-worms are believed to be the most

plentiful animal in the world.

FORWARD TO SUCCESS

BUSINESS OFFICE TRAINING

Capilano College offers a comprehensive 6-month business training program

with Clerk- Typist, Stenagrapher,

and Bookkeeper options.

Monthly intakes

Applications for Mafch 3 now being accepted

REGISTER NOW

Cali Martha Mckay

986-1911 local 235

wil be 37 million acres under the plough, producing more than one-third of the total agricultural output of the USSR.

“But such grand schemes bring problems of a com- parable scale,” the article said.

Irrigation demands on Asian rivers have senously depleted the Aral Sea, which may disappear unless alternative water sources are found. The level of the Caspian Sea also is falling because of the drain of water from the Volga.

To counter this, Soviet

planners envision diverting three great rivers — the Ob, the Yenisei and the Pechora — to replenish the seas. One factor in the plan is a 1,600 mile canal 700 to 1,000 feet wide. “Clearly have

such schemes important en- vironmental repercussions,” the article said. “The key factor in the roll of the Siberian rivers, and especially the Ob and the Y enisei, is in maintaining the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean. The presence of an ice-covered polar sea is, many climatologists believe,

NO VVORRY

AROW Owe A. Fee lo whee. D DIE

A19-Sunday News, February 24, 1980

alter climate

a key factor in maintaining from the Kara Sea drifts into

the patterin of ice ages and the open Arctic and interglacials which has_ eventually into the North dominated the climatic Atlantic via the East history of the Earth for the Greenland current. The past few million years.” extent of the ice is con-

Stressing that the Ob and sidered important in

the Yenesei are among the greatest rivers on Earth, the research team said at- mospheric data at least hints that diminishing their flow may decrease rainfall in the very regions being irrigated.

determining climatic conditions over the Eurasiaiu continent.

The article said the Soviets certainly are con- cerned about the potential environmental impact but an

In addition there are other independent assessment far-reaching implications in outside thé Soviet Union, the Soviet plan which may such as the Climate not yet have occurred to Research Unit study, them, the article said. Ice definitely was needed.

tal

RSP COSTS.

You pay no fees of any kind when you invest in a Retirement Term Deposit or a

Retirement Savings Deposit a

Every dollar you contribute in the RTD and the RSD builds retirement income at attractive

interest rates

Get the good feeling | lo open a new plan or to transfer existing plans to The Permanent. Come in and see us today

ce the Permanent |

€ nada Permanent Trust Camp ary € anada Permanent Mortgage! owgarat

© A0aGd Deoose bes ula

t The Permanent.

tS easy

“oral

CONTENTMENT IS A PERMANENT RSP.

Archie W. Sullivan

Branch Manager

Park Royal Shopping Centre South Mall, West Vancouver

926-5461

Gordon Kishiuchi fsranch Manager

1604 Lonsdale Ave. North Vancouver 986-1311