According to recent headlines, new research revealing the genetic code for wheat will pave the way for cheaper bread. The story sounds similar to the biblical miracle of Jesus multiplying loaves of bread to feed the hungry.

Unfortunately the reality is not quite like that. If it were so simple, then shortages in rice and corn would have ceased after the discovery of the complete genetic code of these staples.

The problem is that scientific research into food engineering is financed and controlled by corporations like Monsanto, which have sole property rights on the seeds which have been created in laboratories. These seeds are used to grow food that is sold, or in some cases given as aid, to developing countries where rice and maize have been their main staples for centuries. In other words, people in the developing world are forced to buy the very staples that they themselves have been growing for years.

The news also doesn’t report that thanks to corporate control of seeds and biodiversity in developing countries, millions of small farmers and women are no longer able to use traditional seeds and have lost the know-how to prevent plagues, to store their seeds for future harvests and how to yield crops that do not destroy the earth or “Pachamama”, as the people from the Andes refer to it. And even if small-scale farmers in the developing world are able to produce new varieties of maize, corn, potato, cassava, or wheat, they will have to spend most of their money on insecticides and fertilisers for these new seeds.

The first in a series, Narco News has a chilling feature on Colombia’s brutal network of high security prisons which is funded, and partly managed, by the US government. Focussing in particular on “La Traumacúa”, the first prison to be built under the joint US-Colombia initiative, the articles exposes how in harrowing detail the torture and beatings occurring in Colombia’s jails.

What kind of message is Ban Kin-Moon, the UN Secretary General, sending to the world after appointing as vice chair of the investigation team into the Gaza Flotilla attack Alvaro Uribe, the Colombia's president who has been accused of human rights violations and attacks on human rights defenders? This is the same person that has been linked with paramilitary groups, has exacerbated poverty by prioritising military spending and has approved the establishment of US military bases in Colombia. 

How is it possible for the UN to continue ignoring the situation of millions of Colombian victims of human rights violation in which their president is complicit? What are the moral and legal grounds to support this appointment? Do we believe that we will ever have an independent and transparent investigation into what happened to the victims of the unlawful and outrageous attack by Israel on activists in May 2010?