GMO Mosquitos Engineered To Kill – Their Own Children – RELEASED In Brazil, Cayman, Islands And Malaysia

Flashback:

Scientist Investigating How Mosquitoes Transmit Diseases Dies From Ingested Cyanide

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Funds Sweat-Triggered Vaccines

Gates Foundation: Funding for a proposal to turn mosquitos into ‘flying syringes’ delivering vaccines

What could possibly go wrong?


Concerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes (New York Times, Oct. 30, 2011):

These mosquitoes are genetically engineered to kill — their own children.

Researchers on Sunday reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood.

The results, and other work elsewhere, could herald an age in which genetically modified insects will be used to help control agricultural pests and insect-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

But the research is arousing concern about possible unintended effects on public health and the environment, because once genetically modified insects are released, they cannot be recalled.

Read moreGMO Mosquitos Engineered To Kill – Their Own Children – RELEASED In Brazil, Cayman, Islands And Malaysia

Hedge funds withdraw 50% of their deposits in the UK

Financial institutions based in the Cayman Islands have halved their deposits in UK banks over the past 12 months

Cayman Islands
Banks in Cayman islands pull their deposits from UK banks. Photograph: PR

Hedge funds and financial institutions based in the Cayman Islands have been pulling their money out of Britain as they are hit by the credit crunch, according to figures from the Bank of England.

The low-tax regime and limited ­regulation of the Cayman Islands – with a population of 52,000 – has attracted 80% of the world’s $1.3tn (£790bn) hedge fund industry.

Those institutions have almost halved their deposits in UK banks over the past 12 months, from $356bn at the end of the first quarter in 2008, to $173bn at the end of March, Bank of England data shows. The drop in Cayman Islands’ deposits comes as hedge funds are being forced to return money to investors who have made big losses from the financial crisis. It also reflects fund losses from falling markets.

The outflow of funds from Britain puts the spotlight on hedge fund threats to abandon the UK because of higher taxes, tighter regulation and potential caps on executive pay and bonuses.

Read moreHedge funds withdraw 50% of their deposits in the UK

Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore

kbr1

CAYMAN ISLANDS – Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation’s top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq – including about 10,500 Americans – are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars.

Read moreTop Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore