Reblogged from tumblrisforlulz
No, no, no!!!!!!!!!
© Survival International
razil’s President Lula has signed a contract allowing the construction of the hugely controversial Belo Monte mega-dam on the Amazonian Xingu River to go ahead.
Lula said, ‘I think this is a victory for Brazil’s energy sector’.
Belo Monte, if built, will be the third largest dam in the world. It will devastate the local environment and threaten the lives of the thousands of indigenous people living in the area, whose land and food sources will be seriously damaged.
Experts have warned that the project has serious design flaws. It was described by Walter Coronado Antunes, former Environment Secretary of São Paulo state, as ‘the worst engineering project in the history of hydroelectric dams in Brazil, and perhaps of any engineering project in the world’.
Indians, together with human rights and environmental organizations have traveled to Brazil’s capital, Brasília, to protest against Lula’s signing of the contract. They said, ‘The government has signed a death warrant for the Xingu river and condemned thousands of residents to expulsion’.
Brazilian and international organizations have published a Declaration against the Belo Monte dam, describing the signing of the contract as a ‘death sentence for the Xingu River’, and a ‘scandalous affront to international human rights conventions, Brazilian law and the Brazilian constitution’.
Marcos Apurinã of the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), said, ‘Our government is presenting itself as an example to the world. But here in Brazil, at least for indigenous peoples, it is not exemplary at all!’.
They have organized several protests against the project. Hundreds of Indians are currently participating in a protest, alongside experts, human rights and environmental organizations, and Brazil’s Public Ministry, against the Belo Monte dam, as well as the dams on theMadeira, Teles Pires and Tapajós rivers.
Survival International recently published a report highlighting the devastating impacts that dams are bringing to tribal peoples worldwide.
This is a sad reality. Good luck to anyone working against his efforts. I’ve only gone so far as to sign a petition.
The International Law Institute (my current co-op) in a nutshell. Seriously.
1. One in three women die or are seriously injured as a result of gender-based violence. Violence against women results in more deaths among women ages 15 to 44 than the total number of women who die because of war, malaria and cancer.
2. An estimated four million women and girls are bought…
(in alphabetical order)
- Abigail Adams: “Remember the ladies!” she wrote to her husband, though John Adams and the Founding Fathers still managed to forget.
- Jane Addams: the founder of Hull House became the second woman to win the Nobel Prize for Peace.
- Madeleine Albright: the first woman to become Secretary of State.
- Marin Alsop: the first female conductor of a major American symphony (the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) and a regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
- Marian Anderson: the celebrated contralto whose open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial galvanized the conscience of the country.
- Maya Angelou: the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author who became the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost in 1961.
- Susan B. Anthony: called “the Napoleon” of the women’s movement, she spent 60 years leading the fight for suffrage.
- Sheila Bair: the current chairperson of the FDIC, she was one of the first government officials to recognize the problem of subprime loans.
- Clara Barton: called “the angel of the battlefield” for her ministrations during the Civil War, she went on to found the American Red Cross.
- Regina Benjamin: the current Surgeon General of the United States, and only the fourth woman to serve in that position.
Sometimes I post articles that I think would be beneficail to read at a later time. This is one such example.
hahah
Watch Obama do stand-up at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Hilarity ensues.
