Tag Archives | Brazil

Murder Of Indigenous Child Provokes Strong Reaction

By on January 24, 2012 in News 24

Índia da etnia TerenaA follow up to this story, via the Boundary Sentinel:

The murder of an eight year old child from the Awa-Gwajá indigenous community, allegedly burnt alive by loggers in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, has caused outrage throughout the Internet, as well as disbelief by many in the face of such cruelty.

The Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) confirmed that “suspicions indicate that an attack has occurred between September and October against the camp of isolated indigenous” of the Araribóia reserve, and added more information:

The charred body was found in October 2011 in a camp abandoned by the isolated Awá, about 20 km from the Patizal village of the Tenetehara people, a region located in the municipality of Arame (Maranhão). The National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) was informed of the incident in November and no investigation of the case is ongoing.

According to Rosimeire Diniz, CIMI’s coordinator in Maranhão state, “the situation has been reported for a long time.

… Read the rest

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Loggers Allegedly Burn 8-Year-Old Amazon Tribe Girl Alive

By on January 20, 2012 in News 3

File:Brazilian_indians_000Hey, they need their jobs!  Raf Sanchez reports in the Telegraph:

The child was said to have wandered away from her village, where around 60 members of the Awá tribe live in complete isolation from the modern world, and fallen into the hands of the loggers.

Luis Carlos Guajajaras, a local leader from a separate tribe, told a Brazilian news website that they tied to her a tree and set her alight as a warning to other natives, who live in a protected reserve in the north-eastern state of Maranhão .

“She was from another tribe, they live deep in the jungle, and have no contact with the outside world. It would have been the first time she had ever seen white men. We heard that they laughed as they burned her to death,” he said.

Reports of the killing, which was said to have happened in October or November last year, were seconded by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a Catholic group which said it had seen footage of her charred remains…

[continues in the Telegraph]… Read the rest

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How Social Darwinism Really Works

By on December 28, 2011 in News 16
File:Brazilian_indians_000

Author: Lecen (CC)

Via ScienceDaily:

Changes in social structure and cultural practices can also contribute to human evolution, according to a study that has recently been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), contributed to by the lecturer Mireia Esparza and assistant Neus Martínez-Abadías, from the Anthropology Unit of the UB’s Department of Animal Biology.

The study, coordinated by the expert Rolando González-José from the Patagonian National Research Center (CENPAT-CONICET, Argentina), examines physical, genetic, geographical and climatic patterns affecting over 1,200 people from the Baniwa, Ticuna, Yanomami, Kaingang, Xavánte and Kayapó indigenous groups of the Brazilian Amazon and Central Plateau.

According to the experts behind the study, one of the most interesting results is the rapid rate of morphological change in the Xavánte, which is up to 3.8 times faster than in the other groups studied. The changes observed in the Xavánte — who have larger heads, narrower faces and broader noses — follow an integration pattern of human skull shape recently described in the literature.

… Read the rest

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Brazil’s Biggest Bank Sued For Funding Amazon Deforestation

By on May 22, 2011 in News 2

DeforestationBBC News recently reported:

Brazil’s biggest bank — the state-run Banco do Brasil — is being sued for allegedly funding deforestation in the Amazon.

Public prosecutors say the bank lent money to companies that illegally cleared the rainforest and used labour practices bordering on slavery. The smaller state-owned Banco da Amazonia is also being sued.

Brazil says it has drastically reduced the rate of deforestation in the Amazon in recent years.

Prosecutors in the state of Para said they had uncovered 55 loans worth nearly $5m (£3m) that the Banco do Brasil approved to farms that had broken environmental and employment laws. They also said they had uncovered 37 loans worth $11m given to farms with similar violations by the Banco da Amazonia.

The loans violated Brazil’s constitution, environmental laws, banking regulations and international agreements signed by Brazil, the independent prosecutors at the Public Ministry said.

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Brazilian Woman Wins The Right To Watch Porn & Masturbate At Work

By on May 14, 2011 in News 155

Ana Catarina BezerraDodai Stewart writes on Jezebel:

How do you relieve stress and anxiety when you’re on the job? Do some online window shopping? Hit up the vending machine for some chocolate? Take a smoke break? One Brazilian woman masturbates. Eighteen times a day.

Ana Catarina Bezerra, a 36-year-old accountant, has a chemical imbalance. She suffers from severe anxiety and hypersexuality. She finds that masturbating helps… for a little while. According to Guanabee, Bezerra explains: “I got so bad I would to masturbate up to forty seven-times a day. That’s when I asked for help, I knew it wasn’t normal.”

Now Bezerra has seen a doctor, and she’s medicated, so she doesn’t need to jill off as often. But she still needs to. And she had to take her employer to court in order to be allowed to masturbate during the workday. A few weeks ago she won her case, which means she can reach orgasm at work as often as she requires — and use her work computer to look at porn.

… Read the rest

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Twins Mystery In Brazilian Town Solved

By on April 5, 2011 in News 2

15208360Cândido Godói, a Brazilian village with an extreme abundance of blonde twins, has long spawned conspiracy theories. Namely, that infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele (who visited repeatedly in the 1960s and treated locals) created an “Aryan twin town.” However, the New York Times reports that scientists have identified a “twins gene” possessed by residents (who are mostly of German descent and have a high rate of inbreeding), likely putting the matter to rest:

For years, so many twins have been born in the small southern Brazilian town of Cândido Godói that residents wonder whether something mysterious lurks in the water, or even if Josef Mengele, the Nazi physician known as the Angel of Death, conducted experiments on the women there.

But a group of scientists now says it can rule out such long-rumored possibilities. Ursula Matte, a geneticist in Porto Alegre, Brazil, said a series of DNA tests conducted on about 30 families since 2009 found that a specific gene in the population of Cândido Godói appears more frequently in mothers of twins than in those without.

… Read the rest

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Video: Brazil Officers Shoot 14 Year-Old Boy Being Questioned

By on March 25, 2011 in News 24

A 14 year-old boy was shot last August by five military officers in Brazil who claimed they were questioning him about a crime. The officers were arrested on Wednesday after a security camera video was found capturing the incident. The boy was hospitalized for ten days and luckily survived after one of the bullets just missed the boy’s lungs. The video is quite shocking. Via the Associated Press:

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Brazil To Provide Free Diabetes and High Blood Pressure Medications

By on February 7, 2011 in News 8

President Rousseff Photo: Roberto Stuckert Filho/Presidência da República

President Rousseff Photo: Roberto Stuckert Filho/Presidência da República

BBC News reports:

Brazil is to provide free medicines for everyone suffering from high blood pressure or diabetes.

The drugs will be distributed through a nationwide network of budget pharmacies, where many medicines are already heavily subsidised.

President Dilma Rousseff said the measure was part of her campaign to end extreme poverty in Brazil.

About 33 million Brazilians have high blood pressure, and more than seven million have diabetes.

The free medicines will be available to all Brazilians who have a doctor’s prescription, but the authorities say they expect the offer to be taken up mainly by poorer people who use the public health system.

They will be distributed through 15,000 chemist shops that belong to the “Popular Pharmacies” network, where many drugs are already sold at a 90% discount.

[Continues at BBC News]… Read the rest

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Christian Cult Bans USB As Satanic

By on December 10, 2010 in News 30

usb_symbolDid you know that Satan has a presence in all of our homes? For a clue, just take a look at your computer’s USB port — it’s branded with devilish trident symbolism. Luckily, a Brazilian evangelical cult is spreading the warning, the Guardian reports:

The evangelical cult “Paz do Senhor Amado” (“Peace of the beloved Lord”) in the interior of Brazil forbids its followers to use any USB technology by contending that it uses a symbol that shows sympathy for the devil.

Its founder, the “Apostle” Welder Saldanha, says that this is just another symbol of Satan, which is always present in all Christian homes.

“The symbol of that name [a name which he doesn't even like to pronounce] is a trident, which is used to torture souls that go to hell. Use only a symbol of those shows that all users of that vile technology are actually worshipers of Satan,” explains the” Apostle.”

Measures were taken so that all the USB connections of his followers were exchanged for common connections and even the Bluetooth, which according to Saldanha Welder is permitted, for “Blue was the color of the eyes of our savior Jesus Christ.”

… Read the rest

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