European Court: The Terra dei Fuochi Case and Consequences

“(…) the European Court also addresses itself to the national legislator, requiring him to introduce criminal laws proportionate to the seriousness of facts that cause damage both to the environment and to the lives of people living in a particular area. It is also crucial, according to the Court, that statutes of limitation are guaranteed to be compatible with the complexity of proceedings and that the government refrains from adopting measures, such as criminal shields, that guarantee the impunity of polluters. In the past, the absence of an effective regulatory framework was one of the causes of the failure of some well-known judicial initiatives, such as the one against Eternit owners for asbestos deaths.”

Uncle Beppo Venosta: an original and unconventional personality

Original and revolutionary Uncle Beppo, my mother Giorgina's brother, was an original and revolutionary type, a great Carlo Marx-like beard and an active participant in Sixty-Eight and the '68ism' that followed. A journalist of great class, foreign correspondent from the Middle East for many years, an ironic and provocative person, he died of cancer, the disease that his father, grandfather Guido Venosta, had fought so long and so effectively with AIRC. Grandfather fortunately did not have to see him, having died the year before.

Food, environment and health: what could happen with the Mercosur-EU agreement

Mercosur: it is obvious that the ‘invasion’ risk of uncontrolled products, without the safeguard clauses, is likely to exacerbate the risks to our health. But the real problem is that in the European Union there are ‘derogation’ authorisations that allow prohibited substances to be used by member countries to compete unfairly with their neighbours. So before lashing out at Mercosur, perhaps we need to put things in order in Europe

Quick Take — Glyphosate: one of the most influential studies ensuring the safety of the herbicide has been withdrawn, twenty-five years after its publication

A 2000 study concluding the safety of the well-known herbicide, widely cited since then, has just been officially refuted by the journal that published it. The scientists who signed the study are suspected of having endorsed a text prepared by Monsanto executives…

In 2017, in part of its investigation into the ‘Monsanto Papers’, Le Monde reported that Monsanto executives exchanged emails in 2015 on how to produce new summaries intended to prove the safety of glyphosate in the scientific literature. The aim was to convince regulatory agencies… According to a count by Le Monde, it is cited about forty times in the 2015 European expert report that led to the reauthorisation of the herbicide in 2017. Source: Le Monde

Monsanto’s Roundup was classified as ‘possibly carcinogenic’

Read about lobbying by Monsanto – now owned by Bayer – here.

Written on 13 December, updated on 16 December 2025. Below: Roundup sold on Walmart shelves.