Before you book anything “Brazil” this summer: Read and digest and internalize the following report and realize that any visitor to the “games” will contribute to the ongoing genocide and ecocide in Brazil. – – pls distribute wide and far. Nothing Expected from Government, but “We Will Always Be!” – Report from the Lands of […]
Brazil: Sugar Cane Farming Bill Puts Amazon at Risk
Written by Luciane Salles · Translated by David Bond Brazil has opened the door to the cultivation of sugar cane for the first time in areas of the Amazon forest and surrounding wetlands and savanna, causing concern among environmentalists. Federal Bill number 626/2011 [1] [pt], approved by the Brazilian Federal Senate on May 15, 2013, […]
Brazil: Violence Sparked By Privatization of Public Space
By Raphael Tsavkko Garcia On October 4, 2012 hundreds of students and activists met at the Montevideo Plaza and in the Glênio Peres Square in Porto Alegre, to protest against what they called the privatization of public space [1]. They protested against the banning of use of that square by street performers and by the […]
Brazil: ‘Hands That Cure, Words That Heal’
Written by Paula Góes With their herbs, gestures, prayers and comforting words, the “doctors of the people” are an important element of Brazilian popular culture and religious syncretism. Folk healers are found throughout the country, but play a special role in remote areas, where medical professionals are scarce and allopathic medicine is inaccessible. In a […]
Brazil’s National Program for Human Rights
The recently released third edition of the National Program for Human Rights (PNDH-3) has met with a storm of criticism from many different sectors of society, and even from members of the president’s own cabinet. The project comprises reform in amnesty law, abortion, same-sex civil union, media regulation and land reform, in addition to a […]
Brazil mulls over controversial bill to legitimize land-grab in Amazon
Brazil’s president Lula da Silva has a controversial bill on his hands: it is his call to approve or veto a law that will grant land title to 300,000 properties illegally established across some 600,000 square kilometres of protected Amazon forest. As per Global Voices Online, the bill passed through Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies last […]