Jonathan Watts in Altamira Cows, dust and smoke. That was what greeted me on my return home to Altamira, after several weeks on the road. An unusually fierce dry season has taken a horrific toll on the Amazonian landscape, swathes of which are already denuded by cattle ranches. Together, they threaten the integrity of the world’s… Read More ‘Everything is parched’: Amazon struggles with drought amid deforestation
Ideology is the most devilish variation of the lie: Hannah Arendt, Approaches to the “German Problem”; in Essays in Understanding, 1994 NB: The American establishment, its allies and a vast section of its media use the word evil with Nelsonian vision. As someone who has observed evil with both eyes and no national, religious, or… Read More Evil, with one eye
By TIK ROOT August was another month of relatively good news for the Amazon rainforest: The rate of deforestation has continued to decline significantly. Earlier this week, Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, announced a 66.1 percent decrease in Amazon deforestation compared to last August. That amounted to a loss of about 217 square miles, according to… Read More Amazon deforestation continues to plummet
Chile is a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica – Henry A. Kissinger. By Melvin Goodman / CounterPunch Our 240 years of history have not produced a more controversial secretary of state than Henry A. Kissinger. There are enormous achievements associated with Kissinger, including the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in… Read More More Evidence Regarding Henry Kissinger’s Lies About Chile
Water levels at Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world and South America’s largest – are dropping precipitously after an unprecedented winter heat wave. The shocking decline is affecting tourism, fishing and agriculture, which locals rely on to make a living. “We don’t know what we will do from now until December because the… Read More Titicaca: the world’s highest navigable lake is drying out
NB: This story is heartbreaking as well as wondrous, it leaves me speechless. Nothing can be said aside from wonderment at the joy and tragedy of human life. God bless you María Angélica, God bless you Jimmy Lippert Thyden, enjoy the miracle of finding each other after four decades. We all love you too. DS… Read More ‘Hi, Mom. I love you’: US man kidnapped as a baby in Pinochet’s Chile reunited with family
Jonathan Watts in Altamira Like mechanised Valkyries, nine helicopters filled with armed men and women in camouflage uniforms swoop over dense forests and remote rivers – but this is not a scene from Apocalypse Now, it is a Brazilian government mission to forestall catastrophe in the Amazon rainforest. The aircraft from the country’s two main environmental agencies,… Read More Driving out the rainforest invaders: crackdown on illegal mining brings hope after Bolsonaro
the high-profile assassination on Wednesday of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio could be a turning point for the country Tara John Ecuadorians have found themselves in the middle of a bloody turf war as rival criminal organizations mete out brutal and often public shows of violence, battling to control drug trafficking routes that cross the Andean nation. Reports of dismemberments,… Read More How corruption and gang warfare transformed Ecuador
Hipólito Mora’s death in a hail of bullets is just the latest murder as the country’s brutal crime conflict shows no sign of abating More than 150,000 people have been murdered since Mexico’s current president took power and Hipólito Mora suspected he would join them. “I knew this day would come,” the lime farmer turned… Read More Mexico vigilante leader’s killing highlights failure to curb violence
Over 100,000 people have been disappeared in the course of the destructive drug war waged in Mexico over the past two decades. Among the deceased are more than 150 journalists murdered for their work to expose the dense network of corruption and violence that links government officials, police, and the military with organized crime. The… Read More Chris Hedges: Mexico’s Epidemic of Murdered Journalists is an Ominous Warning to the Press
After the truth-shower 