IN THE next 20 years more then 160,000 people in the UK alone will die from exposure to asbestos even though it was completely banned here in 1999.

The GMB, Britain's general union, has now written to every Head of Government, President or Prime Minister in the world asking them to ban the production and use of the substance. Speaking at the Trade Union Congress Rally John Edmonds, GMB General Secretary, said: "Over 4,500 people die each year in the UK alone from contact with this substance -- consider what the figure for the whole world is -- it means millions of workers sentenced to death.

"I have written to every country on earth to demand that the predictable killing of workers by asbestos fibres must stop and the material banned."