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Rosemary Mason documents what amounts to a cesspool of corruption surrounding sections of the agrochemicals industry and the regulation of glyphosate (as found in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup). As with all her previous ‘open letters’ to officials, Mason cites ample sources to support her arguments and claims, not least those about the health- and environment-damaging impacts of glyphosate, a highly financially lucrative product for Monsanto. Readers may access these sources by consulting her original 15-page letter to the EPA here: open-letter-to-us-environmental-protection-agency-about-glyphosate-and-the-international-monsanto-tribunal Mason notes that CropLife America, the agribusiness lobby association, put pressure on the EPA to exclude individuals who had in the past expressed a negative opinion of glyphosate from sitting on the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP). EPA immediately bowed to that request and delayed the date of the SAP to find further figures approved by industry. She documents in some detail how Croplife America pressured the FIFRA SAP to rely on assessments of glyphosate tainted by conflicts of interest and wanted to have excluded specific scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (whose negative evaluation of glyphosate had upset the industry) and the Consensus Statement on Glyphosate written by 16 scientists. To keep the pressure on in support of glyphosate, Mason describes how Monsanto commissioned five reviews published in ‘Critical Reviews in Toxicology’ and also funded them. A stunt whereby science took a back seat to crass public relations. — Agrochemicals And The Cesspool Of Corruption: Dr. Mason Writes To The US EPA
Videos of the Day:
U.S.
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
An African Stampede Out of the International Criminal Court? A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford The International Criminal Court has a worldwide jurisdiction, but only indicts Africans. Yet, it has taken 14 years for African nations — first Burundi, and now South Africa — to begin quitting this African Jim Crow Court, “a tool of the United States and the former colonial powers.” Other African nations are expected to begin the process of exiting the ICC before the next African Union Summit, in January.
Freedom Rider: Organizing in the Age of Hillary by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley The resistance to a Hillary Clinton presidency has already begun. Activists gathered in Chicago “to strategize the fight against police violence, neoliberalism and imperialism,” all of which promise to be hallmarks of her administration. The Black Misleadership Class plays its usual, toadying role. “The liars who said they would hold Obama’s feet to the fire are repeating their empty words and hoping no one pays attention.”
An All-American Slaughter: The Youthful Carnage of America’s Gun Culture by Gary Younge “America rationalizes its status as both the most unequal and the most violent industrialized society in the world by dismissing the victims of “gang-related” violence as undeserving of life. “If a shooting was gang related then it’s assumed that the kid had it coming.” But guns make massive death possible. “It seems that the principal reason why gang activity has become so much more deadly is the increasingly easy availability of guns.”
New Layers of Dirt on Charter Schools by Paul Buchheit Despite ever mounting evidence to the contrary, corporate media and corporate-bought politicians continue to proclaim the superiority of charter schools. Meanwhile, “nearly 2,500 charter schools closed their doors from 2001 to 2013, leaving over a quarter million kids temporarily without a school.” The New Orleans school privatization experiment has clearly failed, as has Detroit. Yet, the charter myth persists, backed by big money and lies.
29 Years Ago, Thomas Sankara, the African Che Guevara, was Murdered by Darío Mizrahi Thomas Sankara was a young communist officer who attempted to take Burkina Faso out of the neocolonial orbit of France, but was murdered by his closest comrades. During Sankara’s short time in power, Burkina Faso became self-sufficient in grains. “He was the first to forbid female genital mutilation, and included women in all realms of public administration.” His killer, Blaise Compaoré, ruled for 27 years, until run out of the country in 2014.
Two Anniversaries: The Congo Invasion and Ingabire’s Arrest by Ann Garrison It was 20 years ago this month that Rwanda invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo, setting in motion a genocide that has claimed more than six million lives. Six years ago this month, Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire for attempting to remind the world that Hutus were slaughtered by Paul Kagame’s regime, “a crime that every opponent of this government is accused of.” 
Preventing Cultural Genocide with the Mother Tongue Policy in Eritrea by Thomas C. Mountain Eritrea, a small nation on the African coast of the Red Sea, is home to six million people speaking nine different languages. Despite punishing sanctions imposed by western imperialism, Eritrea has made sure that young people from all nine language groups can read and write in their Mother Tongue, so that their cultures will survive.
Labor:
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World:
Poor Little Rich Haiti to Be Fleeced of Copper-Silver-Gold Via Caracol Deep-Water Port Show me a corporate boss who calls Haiti the “poorest country in the western hemisphere,” and I’ll show you a con artist preparing to fleece Haiti. Likewise, show me a western technocrat who bemoans Haiti’s “dramatic deforestation due to charcoal production” and I’ll show a bio-pirate or vandal preparing to wreck Haiti’s remaining cloud-forest and mangrove-forest ecosystems. By Dady Chery
The Most Dangerous Place in the World: US Pours in Money, as Blood Flows in Honduras by Mark Weisbrot
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare
Quote of the Day: 
A Deep State of Mind: America’s Shadow Government and Its Silent Coup Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law. Say hello to America’s shadow government. A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry. by John W. Whitehead
‘Terrifying’: AT&T Spying on Americans for Profit, New Documents Reveal ‘If companies are allowed to operate in this manner without repercussions, our democracy has no future’ byNadia Prupis
Environment:
EPA Succumbs to Pressure From Monsanto, Delays Glyphosate Cancer Review The agency’s advisory panel meetings were postponed following intense lobbying by Big Ag industry, including Monsanto. By Carey Gillam
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis: