Right now the lower Las Piedras is not officially protected as a national park or reserve, and we are seeing a massive influx of logging, hunting, gold mining, and drugs—which is all rapidly deteriorating the ancient forest and incredible wildlife that exists in many places there.
Watching a new video by Amazon explorer, Paul Rosolie, one feels transported into a hidden world of stalking jaguars, heavyweight tapirs, and daylight-wandering giant armadillos. This is the Amazon as one imagines it as a child: still full of wild things.
In just four weeks at a single colpa (or clay lick where mammals and birds gather) on the lower Las Piedras River, Rosolie and his team captured 30 Amazonian species on video, including seven imperiled species. However, the very spot Rosolie and his team filmed is under threat: the lower Las Piedras River is being infiltrated by loggers, miners, and farmers following the construction of the Trans-Amazon highway.Continue reading “Saving las Piedras..jaguars, tapirs, monkeys and giant armadillos”
You’re probably familiar with South Korea’s glow-in-the-dark cats. They’re genetically modified cats with fluorescent pigmentation in their skin that causes them to glow red under UV light. The researchers then cloned them, successfully carrying the fluorescent gene to the next generation of kitty clones. For better or for worse, it looks like genetic engineering is here to stay, which begs the question: How will we know when we’ve gone too far? What’s the line between scientific progress and irreversibly changing the DNA of a life form. If that sounds extreme, just check out these 10 insane cases of genetic engineering. Continue reading “10 Insane examples of Genetic Engineering”
Scholar Noam Chomsky told GRITtv this week that Obama is “running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history,” and that this is “understood at the highest level.”
The Obama administration is “dedicated to increasing terrorism throughout the world,” Chomsky said, agreeing with an article last week by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky.
This isn’t your ordinary protest – this is a revolution.
Over one million people have taken the streets of Brasil in all the major cities of Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Rio, Belem, Salvador, and Belo Horizonte. Protests have been a common occurrence in Brasil, but for the past two weeks, the number of protests and people in the streets has been increasing phenomenally. Last time the streets of Brasil were this full for a political cause was for the impeachment of president Collor in 1992. That was twenty years ago. This isn’t your ordinary protest – this is a revolution.
So what is it about? The international media understands the gist of it, but they don’t see it as game changing as brazilians all over the world have come to recognise.
CNN reports “they complain that corruption is driving up the World Cup expenses at the cost of the poor.”
The New York Times reports they are “venting their anger over political corruption.”
Aljazeera reports they want ‘hospitals not stadiums’, and questions this is beyond the fare hikes.
BBC reports “the unrest was sparked by transport price hikes in Sao Paulo but it has now grown into broader discontent over poor public services and corruption.”
The international media doesn’t realise yet the gravity of this upheaval. Let me explain, Brazilians have always had too many reasons the people have for being in the streets but it was unlikely they would go.
CULTURAL CONTEXT
The truth is, Brasil is a self-centered country. The only portuguese speaking country in Latin America, yet you will be hard pressed to someone who speaks spanish. And even with only a year left for the World Cup, foreigners will be sure to struggle. The Brazilians who went go through private schools, learned English all throughout the school and still have a poor grasp of the basics.
Comedy within a nation say a lot about how a nation sees itself: Americans enjoy one-liners portraying the comedian as someone smart, in a heroic position; the British celebrate their failures, portraying the comedian as someone who wants to be taken seriously, but their dignity is continuously compromised; Australians joke of their acceptance in who they are – they have no dignity and are not trying for it; whereas Brazilians make jokes of their misery, they take the edge of their hard lives by changing the title from ‘news’ to ‘joke’. They don’t even have to try hard for comedy.
It is a country where corruption is so common that when it enrages one person it is met with indifference from others who experience the same injustice. People are desensitized. And this is the most surprising element of these protests – over half of the people in the streets are in their 20s. This is the generation that grew up with entertainment at their finger tips, the most distracted generation, so much that they are telling each other to ‘leave Facebook’ and ‘leave Candy Crush’ to join the cause.
This is why they are hashtagging ‘the giant has awoken’; for years they have experienced the same misery and not given a second thought. The country has awoken from its apathy and is asking to #ChangeBrasil.
We denounce the persecution of anarchism and demand the release of five jailed
35days after being arrested by the Catalan police, on orders from Madrid five young anarchists are still imprisoned stillunderdispersion andisolationin the prisons of Soto delReal, Alcala Meco,EstremeraandAranjuez. Thesupport groupin Barcelonahas opened awebsiteexplaining theircurrent situationand how toshow themsupport. (see below) Continue reading “Barcelona march: Free the Facebook Five!”
The Free 