PM to roll back Chinese deals

While becoming the world’s most popular and widely used herbicide, the question of whether it causes cancer has been hotly debated by environmentalists, regulators, researchers and lawyers – even as Monsanto has insisted for decades that it’s perfectly safe.

Jurors awarded Lee Johnson $39m for his losses and $250m to punish the company after finding it liable for a design defect and failing to warn of Roundup’s risks. Monsanto said it will appeal.

Working for a school district in Benicia, California, about 65km east of San Francisco, Johnson mixed and sprayed hundreds of gallons of Roundup.

He was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and in July 2017, after chemotherapy and other treatments, his oncologist gave him six months to live.

Johnson’s lawyers, relying on his testimony and expert witnesses, argued that his exposure, including accidents that soaked him from head to toe in Roundup, caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. – Bloomberg MALAYSIA’S prime minister said yesterday that he will seek to cancel multibillion-dollar Chinese-backed infrastructure projects that were signed by his predecessor as his government works to dig itself out of debt, and he blasted Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims as “grossly unjust.” Mahathir Mohamad made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with AP days before the 93-year-old leader heads to Beijing for his first visit there since returning to power in an electoral upset three months ago. Mahathir said he wants to maintain good relations with China and welcomes its investment. But he took his toughest stance yet on Chinese-backed energy pipelines and a rail project along peninsular Malaysia’s eastern coast that were struck by his predecessor, Najib Razak. – AP ZAMBIA