The range of human health problems associated with such exposure is frightening

The range of human health problems associated with such exposure is frightening.”The global study was launched after the foundation became alarmed at the levels of toxins used in Cambodia, where half of farmers said they allowed their children to spray crops. The group quoted evidence from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, which estimated last year that there were 500,000 tons of obsolete pesticides worldwide, including 120,000 tons in Africa.In 2001, the Ministry of Health in Brazil estimated that there were 300,000 poisonings and 5,000 deaths a year from agricultural pesticides. The cost to the economy was estimated at $40m (£26m).Steve Trent, director of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said: “The answer lies in reduced risk, reduced use and reduced reliance on pesticides. Consumers need to question the true cost of agricultural produce and governments need to do more to protect people from these devastating chemicals.”* Spanish spinach bought at a British supermarket contained pesticide levels almost two and a half times the safe level for young children. The Pesticide Residues Committee, which carried out the tests, said that the spinach could have led to headaches and stomach upsets..

Paul Nicholls hinted yesterday that Shotgun Willy is a strong stable fancy for the Grand National. The Somerset trainer confirmed that the horse will run at Haydock on Saturday as part of his Aintree preparation. “Shotgun Willy is in good order and it has always been the plan to start him off in this race,” Nicholls said. “He’s fit enough to do himself justice but obviously we have left something in the tank for Aintree.”He got jarred up at Wetherby last season and then slightly jarred up again at Ayr so we have taken our time with him. But I think he is the type of horse who will do well in the National.” Shotgun Willy is 20-1 for Aintree.Southern Star hardened as favourite for Saturday’s Haydock contest. He was cut to 5-1 by bookmakers Blue Square after being confirmed for the race by his trainer, Henrietta Knight..

After the beast, the beauty. After the anarchist street guerrilla Mike Tyson, the fast-handed dreamer Roy Jones. That, anyway, is the script boxing has, with considerable help from the hero, written for itself here as Jones, at 34 still rated by many as the best pound-for-pound performer still standing, challenges the World Boxing Association’s heavyweight champion, John Ruiz, for his title – and a place in history

After the beast, the beauty. “You know I’m the man.” A man, indeed, who refuses to see himself as just another scuffler of the ring but a “blessed” fighter chosen to follow the journey Bob Fitzsimmons made from the middleweight to the heavyweight title 106 years ago. That’s what people like me live for and that’s what sport is all about. I want to do it because so many people have not been able to do it. That’s why I’m trying it.”Inevitably, Jones’s idea of himself as boxing’s sleek redeemer is coming under considerable scrutiny by some of the harder-nosed members of the boxing cognoscenti.They are pointing out that there are very good reasons why the outstanding light-heavies, Conn, Moore and Foster, all failed to break new ground.

The main one was that after licking everyone in their own division, they were obliged to take on men not only bigger but better.Moore, perhaps the sweetest practitioner of the left hook boxing has ever known, was broken by The Rock Foster lost to both Ali and Frazier. Conn was outmuscled – and outboxed – by the Brown Bomber. Not even Jones, with his mind filled with the epic, is suggesting that John “Quiet Man” Ruiz is within touching distance of the quality that overwhelmed his predecessors, but nor would the 31-year-old from a Massachussets factory town have been a candidate for membership of Louis’s Bum-of-the-Month club.Ruiz may not be an outstanding heavyweight, but at between 40 and 50 pounds heavier than Jones he is good enough, and certainly, committed enough to bring real intrigue to the fight here on Saturday night which is being optimistically seen as an antidote to the attack of competitive palsy which saw Clifford Etienne ransacked by Tyson in just 49 seconds in Memphis.Ruiz certainly escapes the charge that he is cynically exploiting Jones’s desire to make boxing history. While his opponent is guaranteed $10m (£6.3m), Ruiz, who, it is easy to forget, holds the title his opponent craves, will only see a quarter of Jones’s reward if the fight draws more than 400,000 pay-per-viewers. If the draw falls seriously short of that mark, as some students of public taste believe it could, Ruiz will be fighting for no more than $200,000 in training expensesThough Jones is the favourite in the Casino sport books, Evander Holyfield suspects that Ruiz may simply have too much weight and durability for the superstar. Holyfield, who fought Ruiz three times, winning one, losing one, and drawing the other, says: “You look at the video of Ruiz and you say ‘this guy is going to give you so many options, maybe as many as 20, it has to be easy work.’ But then you find yourself coming back to your corner at the end of the fourth round and shaking your head and saying: “What happened to all those options?’ I like Ruiz’s chances.”One sobering fact for Jones, who has a record of 47-1 (the defeat coming with a disqualification against Montell Griffin six years ago) is that Ruiz, who has 27 knock-outs in his record of 38-4-1, is one of only two fighters to knock down Holyfield The other was Riddick Bowe. It is perhaps the significance of the Holyfield knockdown which provoked a rare note of caution from Jones when he said: “When you get closer to the fight you feel a metamorphosis is taking place I’m sure military guys feel the same thing.