21/May/20

 

Evidence has emerged that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, working in collaboration with scientists in the USA, have been genetically engineering bat viruses for the past several years to investigate infectivity – using undetectable methods. The WIV is just a few miles from the Chinese city where the COVID-19 pandemic is thought to have originated and is the chief suspect in the possible scenario that the virus emerged from a lab. The evidence rebuts claims by journalists and some scientists that the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic could not have been genetically engineered because it lacks the “signs” or “signatures” that supposedly would be left behind by genetic engineering techniques. GMWatch

 

 

South Australia's decision to overturn a ban on planting GM crops will benefit multinational agrichemical firms more than local farmers, and communities and councils must act quickly to stop them taking root, argues Green MP Mark Parnell. Parnell writes, "You don’t have to be anti-science to see GM crops as the wrong direction for agriculture. It’s a bit like fracking for gas. You can accept the science but still think it’s a really bad idea." InDaily

 

 

During the US-Colombia War on Drugs, attempts by the Colombian government and USAID to eradicate coca involved crop duster planes flying low over fields and forests, spraying Monsanto’s herbicide glyphosate. A mural in La Hormiga, Putumayo, Colombia depicts life before and after years of aerial fumigation with glyphosate. Penn Today