GHOST SHIPS: I SERVED in the Royal Navy for ten years and for the last 30 years have been in the Merchant Navy.

I have seen ships being scrapped in appalling conditions in India and Taiwan, so give Able UK the chance to scrap these ships in a professional and safe way and prove to the world that this is the way to scrap ships and not send them to third world counties, where there are deaths every day.

Also, to say that these ships are dangerous is a load of rubbish.

So give Able the chance to bring jobs to the region and prove that we in the North-East can do the difficult jobs, safely and efficiently and with little fuss. - Dean Gardner, Newton Aycliffe.

WHAT lies behind Peter Mandelson's surprise emergence as a champion of the poor and oppressed in the Asian ship breaking industry?

He's a bit late joining Greenpeace and the unions in condemning western shipowners who send redundant craft there.

He must know that the US government threatened to do just that with the US Ghost Fleet if Hartlepool didn't accept them?

That's why the ships are now rotting on the Tees - our Health and Safety Executive heeded the US threat and lifted UK regulations forbidding the import of foreign asbestos.

At the same time, the Americans lifted their own laws that should prevent the export of PCB waste. Then, of course, it all went pear shaped when it turned out that the chosen shipyard hadn't got the clearance (or even the dry dock) to do the job.

The real villains aren't the local ecologists or the townspeople - they're those ruthless people in the US administration who don't give a damn about conditions in Asia. - Peter Goodwin, Bristol.

SEX SHOPS

SADLY last week the Licensing Committee granted a sex shop licence for premises in Grange Road Darlington.

The committee did not exercise its discretion under the 1982 Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act to refuse a licence on the grounds that it would be "inappropriate, having regard to the character of the relevant locality or to the use to which any premises in the vicinity are put".

The objectors believe that close proximity to a church, which works through the week with vulnerable people, addicts and the homeless, nearby schools, a large supermarket and a residential area, do indeed render it "inappropriate".

A licence is granted for one year only and the council may take a fresh look each time, even though there has been no change in circumstances, rather than grant renewal automatically.

This was precisely what happened in Preston last month where renewal was refused.

While the city of Newcastle has only one sex shop and some towns have set as zero the number permitted, Darlington, a town of only 100,000, has three shops with licences to sell pornography.

The council is rightly concerned about the physical environment of the town, fines litter droppers and names and shames them. How sad that they do not show the same regard for the moral environment. - C Prest, Darlington.

MENINGITIS TRUST

THE Meningitis Trust would like to take this opportunity to thank toddlers in the North-East for helping to raise £330,000 towards the fight against meningitis.

Thousands of under-fives throughout the region joined in our special Toddle Waddle sponsored walk and helped to make this the biggest fundraising event ever for the Meningitis Trust.

The money raised will help us continue our fight against meningitis, which still kills more under fives than any other infectious disease. - Rachel Armitage, North-East Regional Development Officer, Meningitis Trust.

US TRAVEL

I WOULD like to say how surprised I was at the US deciding to treat tourists as felons by taking both fingerprints and photographs of incoming travellers.

Unfortunately I was not. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the land of the free is turning into an amalgamation of badly interpreted George Orwell novels with an acute Nazi overture.

Still, having witnessed the unprecedented bombing of Baghdad (despite the lack of resistance) and hearing of the armed guards outside the US embassy in London, I truly can find no shock in their treatment of supposed allies.

The fact that President Bush didn't actually win the election says it all really, his appetite for unlimited power is hardly even concealed and I shudder to think where this may all lead. - Daniel Stasiak, Darlington.

CAPITALISM

MR Winstanley's (HAS, Mar 3) understandable condemnation of vast unaccountable forces being the root cause of global mass starvation and disease makes a common error by confusing capitalism with corporatism.

Capitalism is the collective term for a large collection of small-scale entrepreneurs trading, ideally, in free conditions with each other for mutual benefit. Successful capitalist systems support healthy inter-dependent small and medium sized businesses, which create wealth, employment and all the benefits of a prosperous society.

Corporatisim is vast international business that controls hundreds of billions of pounds and whose economic power is often greater than many nations.

National governments and global agencies constantly struggle to control the international giants whose impact on the less developed communities of our planet is often critical. Last year alone the failed corporate governance of corporate concerns such as Credit Swisse, First Boston, Credit Lyonnais, Mannesmann and of course Enron and World Com devastated many vulnerable communities. In the North-East there have been countless examples of corporations dumping hard working and loyal workforces in favour of cheep labour abroad.

The small business community in the UK accounts for over half the private sector work force. In the developing economies of the world, as well as at home, non-corporate business is the bed rock of society.

The threat to prosperity that concerns Mr Winstanley is unaccountable vast corporate organisations. - Peter Troy, Chairman Darlington Branch, Federation of Small Businesses.