Orange Clouded Cover

A mix of rain and rain-clouds, light pollution, Red Label scotch whiskey and Charalambides have turned Barcelona into Houston on a late Sunday night. It almost feels like a crime to speak in geographic terms about this weather and atmosphere, since more than either of those cities, it is a place in my imagination, on the border of my subconscious, which I sense being transported to. And yet here it is now, the place where mud is made, where white light shows its presence through the grey of low-hanging clouds. Where the water from above is unfit to drink. Here is where I watch a terror enter the scene at my beckoning.

Charalambides - Black Bed Blues

She wears red to alarm, kneels to pick something from the ground and is promptly led off-scene by a determined hand. She did not see the blinds part slightly, low in the window of the house she has her back to. Why’s she just out like that, in the middle of the street with her good heels on, he asks, looking out over the yard his father does not keep. He knows the rain will make the weeds even bigger than they are now, their base more like a tree’s, so that pulling them seems so violent, but not as much as when Dad uses the shears. It’s just not right unless you get the roots, too.

Well, it’s a

delicate balance.

It’s not always the

right note when

you first

hear

it.

'While planes flew over the plantations, leaving a wake of glyphosate in the air, and the helicopters escorted them to prevent guerrilla attacks, the soldiers went into the forest to search for peasants who fled,' a coca grower, who requested his name withheld, told IPS.

On the Ecuadorian side, farmers reported that approximately six hours after the spraying they saw extensive areas of yucca, or manioc, with burned leaves.

Glyphosate, one of Monsanto's most important chemical herbicides, was introduced in Latin America 25 years ago, marketed principally under the name Roundup with annual sales of 1.2 billion dollars.

It is an herbicide classified as a Category III Toxin, which calls for caution in handling because it can cause gastro-intestinal problems, vomiting, enlargement of the lungs, pneumonia, mental confusion, and destruction of the red corpuscles in mucus membrane tissues.

But the Ecuadorians also fear that in the eradication of coca, the Colombian military is using the transgenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum. The fungus is an alternative Washington proposed to the Colombian government, but has been denounced by scientists and environmentalists around the world because of the dangers posed by its release into the environment.

Lucía Gallardo, of the Acción Ecológica organisation, conducted research on the potential environmental consequences of Plan Colombia in Ecuador and stresses that “Fusarium oxysporum would threaten the biodiversity of the entire Amazon region.''

“It causes damage to various cultivated plants, leading to different types of diseases and wilting of the leaves, rotting fruit and even killing the plant. It can also cause illness in humans, especially in patients with depressed immune systems, with cancer or AIDS,'' she added.

Gallardo also says the fungus has the ability to genetically mutate and scatter itself, killing other crops - it is an organism that easily adapts to its surroundings.

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But what's really making me nervous is the green liquid in the tube.

Over the past three years, rumors of a new strain of coca have circulated in the Colombian military. The new plant, samples of which are spread out on this table, goes by different names: supercoca, la millonaria. Here in the southern region it's known as Boliviana negra. The most impressive characteristic is not that it produces more leaves - though it does - but that it is resistant to glyphosate. The herbicide, known by its brand name, Roundup, is the key ingredient in the US-financed, billion-dollar aerial coca fumigation campaign that is a cornerstone of America's war on drugs.

source