October 8, 2022

Haiti asks world for military help to curb chaos

Published
15 hours ago



EPA

Protests and gang violence have rocked Haiti, plunging the country into a worsening political, economic and security crisis.

By Merlyn Thomas
BBC News

Haiti has asked for foreign military support to curb its gang violence crisis which has paralysed the country.

The Haitian government authorised Prime Minister Ariel Henry to request armed help due to "the risk of a major humanitarian crisis".

The US meanwhile urged its citizens in Haiti to leave due to the insecurity.

A group of powerful gangs have blocked the country's main fuel terminal since September, crippling its basic supplies like water and food.

More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-63181481

October 6, 2022

Media Spin Lula Victory as Defeat

OCTOBER 5, 2022

BRIAN MIER



From the way that the Anglo media are treating the October 2 Brazilian first-round presidential elections, a casual news consumer may get the impression that the Brazilian Workers Party suffered a crushing defeat. It takes an incredible amount of spin to create this impression. In order to pull this off, several important facts have to be downplayed or ignored.

Workers Party candidate Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva beat incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by 6.2 million votes. This represents the first time since the return to democracy in 1985 that a challenger has ever beaten an incumbent in a Brazilian first-round presidential election, and no incumbent has ever lost reelection.

There are reasons for this. The incumbent has the entire weight of the state behind them. This enables them to, for example, issue an executive order to bypass constitutionally mandated spending caps during election season to artificially lower the prices of food, cooking gas and gasoline, and dish out billions of reais in pork to fickle center-right allies in Congress, as Bolsonaro did this year.

Political comeback for the ages
Brazil has two-thirds the population of the US, so Lula’s win on Saturday would be the equivalent of a victory by over 9 million votes in a US presidential election—something which has not happened since 2008.

More:
https://fair.org/home/media-spin-lula-victory-as-defeat/

October 5, 2022

Mexico to appeal after US judge dismisses lawsuit against gun manufacturers

The government of Mexico filed the lawsuit in U.S. federal court in Boston in August 2021. DEPOSIT PHOTOS

In its lawsuit, the government estimated that 2.2% of almost 40 million guns manufactured annually in the United States are smuggled into Mexico

Published on Monday, October 3, 2022

The federal government has announced it will appeal the dismissal of its lawsuit against United States gun manufacturers.

The government filed a US $10 billion lawsuit against gunmakers, including Smith & Wesson and Barrett Firearms in August 2021, accusing them of negligent business practices that have led to illegal arms trafficking and deaths in Mexico, where U.S.-sourced firearms are used in a majority of high-impact crimes.

In a claim filed in Massachusetts, it alleged that the companies have undermined Mexican gun laws by designing, marketing and selling high-powered weapons that appeal to criminal organizations in Mexico.

Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor dismissed the claim in federal court in Boston on Friday, saying that U.S. law “unequivocally” prohibits lawsuits that seek to hold gun manufacturers responsible when people use their products for their intended purpose.

More:
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-to-appeal-after-us-judge-dismisses-lawsuit-against-gun-manufacturers/

October 5, 2022

CLIMATE CHANGEOp-Ed: Election In Brazil Is A Fight For The Planet

Your grandkids need Bolsonaro to lose.

ByJo Borrás
Published 3 hours ago

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been called “the world’s most dangerous climate denier,” “a catastrophe for the environment,” and “the man who broke Brazil.” Believe it or not, that’s by people trying to remain professional while they talk about South America’s s**ttiest political leader. Now, the country is facing a constitutional crisis, and the outcome could determine the fate of the Amazon Rainforest — and with it, the planet.

Earlier this week, neo-fascist Bolsonaro — who said last year that only God would remove him from power — lost a general election to leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who earned 48.4% of the vote compared to 43.2% for Bolsonaro. The result has kickstarted a massive four-week campaign ahead of a runoff vote on October 30th, which will decide which candidate will win.

And it’s essential that da Silva wins.

Bolsonaro’s Campaign Promises Are a Horror Show of Evil
During his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro promised he wouldn’t recognize any indigenous land claims during his term, but would approve a number of new pesticides as he opened up more of the critically important Amazon Rainforest to deforestation.

The prick kept his promises, too. During his first three years as President of Brazil, Greenpeace observed a 52.9% increase in deforestation — but that’s just the tip of Bolsonaro’s evil iceberg. “With more destruction of the environment, comes more violence in the field,” writes Greenpeace’s Diego Gonzaga. “Loggers, miners, and land-grabbers are constantly invading protected Indigenous lands and engaging in conflicts with them — often lethal.”

More:
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/10/04/op-ed-election-in-brazil-is-a-fight-for-the-planet/

October 4, 2022

Shoeshine Boy, Union Leader, President Of Brazil: A Portrait Of Lula Da Silva

Wednesday, 5 October 2022, 6:06 am
Article: Scoop.me

Lula da Silva grew up in poverty and became president of Brazil. During the military dictatorship, he fought for democracy and workers’ rights. As president, he helped millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Lula was imprisoned by a rigged trial. After his release, he is campaigning against the far-right Bolsonaro for president of Brazil. He won the first round of voting as the candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT) by a margin of 6 million votes. A runoff election will follow on Oct. 30, 2022.

Lula was born Luiz Inácio da Silva in 1945 in the poor northeast of Brazil. His nickname Lula (pet name for Luiz) was given to him by his mother. He stuck to this name, even in his political career.

Difficult childhood: Lula started working at the age of 12
He grew up in poor circumstances. Lula’s father moved to the industrial belt of São Paulo while he was still a child in order to find work. His mother followed her husband a few years later with Lula and his seven siblings. By then, however, Lula’s father already had a new wife and broke off contact with his family. This further worsened the family’s economic situation. Because the family could not afford the school fees, Lula attended school for only a few years. At the age of 12, he started working to support the family. Lula worked in a laundry, as a messenger boy, and as a shoeshine boy.

After a few years, he was able to get a job in a metal factory, as well as complete an apprenticeship as a metalworker in a state vocational school. As a worker in the metal factory, he had his first contact with the trade union movement. The connection to the unions was to shape the rest of his life.

More:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2210/S00024/shoeshine-boy-union-leader-president-of-brazil-a-portrait-of-lula-da-silva.htm

October 3, 2022

Intricate settlements found in the Llanos de Mojos, Amazonia

25 MAY 2022



Intricate settlements found in the Llanos de Mojos, Amazonia

Newly discovered ancient Amazonian cities reveal how urban landscapes were built without harming nature

A newly discovered network of “lost” ancient cities in the Amazon could provide a pivotal new insight into how ancient civilisations combined the construction of vast urban landscapes while living alongside nature



An array of intricate settlements in the Llanos de Mojos savannah-forest, Amazonia, has been uncovered. Screenshots from a 3D animation of the Cotoca site (Source: H. Prümers / DAI)
A team of international researchers, including Professor Jose Iriarte from the University of Exeter, has uncovered an array of intricate settlements in the Llanos de Mojos savannah-forest, Bolivia – that have laid hidden under the thick tree canopies for centuries.

The cities, built by the Casarabe communities between 500-1400 AD, feature an unprecedented array of elaborate and intricate structures unlike any previously discovered in the region – including 5m high terraces covering 22 hectares – the equivalent of 30 football pitches – and 21m tall conical pyramids.

Researchers also found a vast network of reservoirs, causeways and checkpoints, spanning several kilometres.

The discovery, the researchers say, challenges the view of Amazonia as a historically “pristine” landscape, but was instead home to an early urbanism created and managed by indigenous populations for thousands of years.

More:
https://www.classicult.it/en/intricate-settlements-found-in-the-llanos-de-mojos-amazonia/

~ ~ ~

Lidar exposes the remnants of an overgrown ancient civilization in the Amazon
Devin Coldewey@techcrunch / 2:14 PM CDT•May 27, 2022



Image Credits: Prümers et al.
It’s Friday and the world is falling apart, so let’s just take a short mental health break with some interesting news out of the field of archaeology, where tech is enabling some fascinating new discoveries. A new lidar-powered analysis of land in the Amazon basin has provided evidence of a previously unknown urban center of “mind blowing” complexity.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean ancient aliens or long-lost technology, just that it far exceeds the expected levels of organization and population that scholars considered possible for Amazonians of 1,500 years ago.

“Nobody expected that kind of society in that region … pyramids 20 meters high,” said Heiko Prümers, of the German Archaeological Institute, in a video produced by Nature. “The whole region has been so densely habitated during the pre-hispanic time, that’s incredible to believe. There is a new civilization, new culture, waiting for us to study them.”

Until recently it was thought that the Amazon had nothing but smaller tribes until the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese explorers — a typically Eurocentric view increasingly challenged by new scholarship. In this case Prümers was intrigued by mounds called lomas, hidden beneath the vegetation but hinting at something greater. Excavations showed that these were not rubbish dumps (as some thought) but organized areas for graves, rites and other things indicative of a complex, hierarchical society.

But finding bumps on the ground under the canopy of a rainforest is far from easy, so in 2019 they set out to scan the area by helicopter, using lidar to reconstruct the contours of the surface below the trees. This technique has proved highly fruitful recently, with whole Mayan cities and even a kilometer-long artificial earthwork uncovered that way.



Image Credits: Prümers et al.

More:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/27/lidar-exposes-the-remnants-of-an-overgrown-ancient-civilization-in-the-amazon/

October 3, 2022

WITH LULA IN THE LEAD, BRAZIL'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION HEADS TO RUNOFF

Lula scored 48% of the vote compared to Bolsonaro’s 43%, but underperformed by polling expectations.
BY JAKE JOHNSON
OCTOBER 3, 2022

Leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said late Sunday that “the campaign begins tomorrow” after he fell just shy of clearing the 50% threshold to win the closely watched and globally important Brazilian election outright, setting up an October 30 runoff against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

“Tomorrow we will be on the streets to win the elections. We don’t have a break. We are going to work hard,” Lula said as the results showed a second round would be necessary.

“I love campaigning. And we have 28 more days,” Lula added. “I love doing rallies, getting on a truck. And it will be the first opportunity to have a face-to-face debate with the current president. So that we can make comparisons between the Brazil he built and the Brazil we built.”

Tensions and fears of more political violence in Brazil are likely to remain elevated in the four weeks leading up to another round of voting, with Bolsonaro expected to keep up—and possibly intensify—his attacks on the integrity of the country’s electoral process, rhetoric that has sparked concerns of a possible military coup attempt.

More:
https://therealnews.com/with-lula-in-the-lead-brazils-presidential-election-heads-to-runoff

October 1, 2022

Artificial Islands Around British Isles Were Used by Elites for Ancient Parties to Show Wealth and P

Artificial Islands Around British Isles Were Used by Elites for Ancient Parties to Show Wealth and Power

By Louise Franco Sep 28, 2022 03:34 PM EDT

Artificial islands surrounding the British Isles in Europe could once be a site of ancient parties held by our ancient ancestors, according to archaeologists.

A new study indicates that ancient elites partied on these man-made islands around what is now Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other islets. Also called a crannog, the anthropogenic islands consist of a lake, wetland, and estuary built thousands of years ago.

Artificial Islands and Ancient Parties



(Photo : Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

In the new paper published in the journal Antiquity on Wednesday, September 28, Antony Brown of UiT Arctic University of Norway and his colleagues confirmed that ancient social gatherings which is equivalent to the modern term "partying" were apparently held in some of the hundreds of artificial islands created in Ireland, Scotland, Wales between the year 4,000 B.C. and the 16th century A.D.

The research team believes that elite people in the social hierarchy living in the British Isles gathered in the crannogs to display their power and wealth through the parties.

If proven, the findings will pave the way for evidence showing one of the earliest form social gatherings never seen before from previous anthropological and archaeological studies, as well as from other fields.

. . .

More:
https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/53342/20220928/artificial-islands-around-british-isles-used-elites-ancient-parties-show.htm