OPINION

Herbicide not so harmless

In the first lawsuit judgement against the maker of the herbicide glyphosate, a jury awarded the plaintiff US$289 million(9.4 billion baht). Evidence presented during trial showed that the agrochemical company Monsanto fabricated studies showing glyphosate was harmless and colluded with the US Environmental Protection Agency to hide the true facts from the public.

There are 8,000 more lawsuits pending. The Thai government needs to immediately rethink its stance on the use of glyphosate in light of now well-established facts that glyphosate causes cancer.

Re: “Students in shackles”, (PostBag, Sept8). “External Critic” complains that after his or her partner pays rent and other expenses, the salary is all gone and that the reason his or her partner doesn’t pay back their student loan is that they are too poor and their wages are disgraceful. I think this raises two points: Who is in the wrong? The borrower with full knowledge they cannot and presumably have no intention to pay back money they are borrowing, or the lender who, with a minimum of due diligence, lends money to someone who is unlikely or unable to make repayment? In this case, it sounds like the shackles were self-imposed.

I would like to bring to your attention the poor quality work by a subcontractor contracted by the Metropolitan Water Authority for a drinking water pipeline project. The subcontractor in my area usessubstandard pipelines. It appears that the pipelines do not have good protection, with pipe connectionjoints poorly sealed, which could result in excessive water leakages and seepage of dirty water.Despite the poor quality work, the subcontractor has won several contracts from the MWA in a short time. Does this mean there is foul play? The authorities should do something. I care for my country, and want to save Thailand from corruption.

Johnny Waters in his Sept 3 letter, “Too many generals,” is to be commended for a timely reminder of a blatant example of corruption in Thailand’s body politic. No one doubts that some civil politicians have been seriously corrupt, but at least they did not make up a rule of law to whitewash anything on the scale of the amazing number of army generals living off the Thai people. They do little more than furthering thevested interested of army generals and their allies intent on maintaining a status quo that appears to primarily benefit the excess of army generals. A government genuinely intent on reform to eradicate corruption would not promote such an example to the rest of society. Nor is there is any need to imagine the outcry had Thaksin sought to whitewash his corruption by a similar legal whitewash, at least not after he had selfishly betrayed the oligarchy that had until then lauded him as one of its own favoured poster boys.

Re: “Plagiarism is innovation’s cul-de-sac”, (Opinion, Sept 6). Duangrit Bunnag didn’t copy Kuma’sbuilding. The only similarity is that they are constructed of the same material. Kuma or other architects may have inspired him, but borrowing is an accepted part of the work of artists, musicians, writers andarchitects. It’s how we culturally move forward. The attack on Duangrit is really about how the regime punishes those who speak out against it. Duangrit championed a number of crusades against ill-conceived money-grabbing government-backed development projects and now he is paying the price.The lesson here is “shut up and keep your head down”.

Re: “Insider Resistance”, (BP, Sept 7), here’s a thought: What if the op-ed was actually written by a NYT staff member, to throw the White House into a tizzy? In which case, it worked!

Re: “Mediterranean death rate hits 3-year high”, (BP, Sept 5). The NYT article citing UN data on illegal immigration casualties across the Mediterranean states that “The sea journey between North Africa and Italy is now deadlier than at any point” since 2015, blaming the Italian government. But UNHCR data shows the exact opposite. The number of deaths by drowning is at its lowest since 2015, and has more than halved since last year from 2,276 to 1,095 over the same period. On humanitarian grounds, Italy should be applauded for contributing to reducing the number of deaths. There is no reason why toughening up European policies on illegal immigration should not further reduce the number of deaths by drowning.

I enjoyed Mr Bahrt’s comment in his Sept 8 letter about himself, “Still, I admit my life has gotten better since Mr Trump became president. But that’s only because I thrive on hostility!” Mr Bahrt is being modest. At least he admits his life has improved since Donald Trump has become president. Many of us would at least agree to that.

Many lottery vendors refuse to sell certain popular numbers as a single ticket, but offer them as a bundle. Why? Sometimes, those bundled tickets are sold at 100 baht apiece, not 80 baht as required by the authorities. This is a fraud. Yet the authorities never take action.

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