Ecobreves – LATIN AMERICA: Tierramérica Launches International Center

IPS news agency, the United Nations Development Program, United Nations Environment Program and the World Bank on July 31 will celebrate the founding assembly of the Tierramérica International Center for Sustainable Development and Environmental Defense, in the Brazilian Amazon city of Manaus.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: A Green Guide to Businesses and Services

An ecological guide will promote eco-friendly providers of goods and services in Mexico beginning in September.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: More Grassfires

The burning of weeds this month set off a new rash of fires in eight provinces of northeastern Argentina, the environmental group Fundación Proteger has charged.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Uruguayan Thermoelectric Plant Faces Criticism

Environmentalists are fighting Uruguay’s plans to build a coal-fired electrical plant to generate 350 megawatts in Candiota, a town in southern Brazil near the Uruguayan border.

RESILIENCE ECOLOGISTS LOOK TO NATURE FOR STRATEGIES TO STAY AFLOAT IN TURBULENT TIMES

Between floods, droughts, epidemics, food shortages and rising prices, the world seems about to spin off its axis. For all the drama of the past half century, historians and natural scientists tell us that the postwar era has actually been something of an anomaly, a period of relative calm in nature and human events in a world that history has shown to be reliably unpredictable. That hiatus may now be ending. Moreover, they say, we are approaching a threshold moment, a change of phase that will throw every long-held habit and assumption into question. War and revolution are just such moments, but never before have we endured simultaneous transformations of politics, culture and nature, writes Mark Sommer, hosts of A World of Possibilities, an award-winning, internationally syndicated radio program ( www.aworldofpossibilities.com). This transformation is driven in large part by nature's blowback against human misbehavior. And it is to nature that a new school of ecologists say we must now turn for clues about how to survive and thrive in the turbulent times to come. They invoke the term “resilience” to describe the capacity to absorb shocks to the system without losing our ability to function. We're used to seeing resilience in nature and healthy human personalities. But can whole societies become resilient in the face of traumatic transition?

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS ON THE WAY OUT

The 2008 world report on the death penalty from Hands Off Cain confirms that there has been positive movement in the fight to end capital punishment for more than a decade, and highlights the most striking advance yet: the universal moratorium against capital punishment approved by the UN last December, writes Elisabetta Zamparutti, a leader in the Radical Party who prepared the annual report on the Death Penalty in the World for Hands Off Cain. She was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2008 In this analysis, the author writes that there is one manner in which the resolution could be significantly strengthened: the elimination of the secrecy surrounding the death penalty. Many countries, mostly authoritarian, do not provide official figures on executions, and the general public\'s lack of information is a direct cause of their escalation. Accordingly, a provision should be immediately introduced into the resolution requesting that death-penalty states release to the UN and the general public all information regarding the implementation of capital punishment and executions. On closer examination, it becomes clear that in death penalty countries, the problem goes beyond the specific practice of capital punishment; it is a matter of democracy, the rule of law, the promotion of and respect for political rights and civil liberties.

Ingenuity at the Service of Sustainable Business

Businesses of all kinds in Latin America are setting their sights on the pillars of sustainable development: creation of wealth, respect for the environment, and social equality.

War on Pigeons

Pigeons have become a serious environmental problem in many cities. Experts warn that allowing hunting to reduce their numbers is not enough.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Electricity from Garbage

A biogas plant with the capacity to process 21 tons of urban waste daily will be inaugurated in September in Havana. The methane gas produced will be enough to generate 60 kilowatts of energy per hour.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Capital Is Home to 320 Bird Species

The metropolitan area of Caracas, with 1.5 million vehicles and four million people who generate five million kilograms of waste per day, continues to serve as habitat for 320 species of birds, a quarter of the national total.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Amazon Biodiesel for Electricity

Thousands of communities throughout the Brazilian Amazon will have access to electricity as the result of biodiesel made from the oil of the tucumán, a native palm tree.

CUBA: SOCIALIST REALISM

Forty-six years after it was proclaimed, Cuban socialism seems to have finally revived the idea of the value of money as an economic regulator and social catalyst, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, the author writes that real life and political rhetoric are beginning to draw closer to one another. Realism has dawned on the upper echelons of Cuban decision-making, now led by Raul Castro, and was reflected in the President\'s July 11 speech, which focused on the quality and productivity of manual and intellectual labour. Even the government has recognised periodically over the last two years that the wages the state paid were too low. This is realism, and its manifestation can be reduced to this: the people can\'t live only on what the state pays them. The new Cuban government has issued three basic appeals to the country regarding work, saving, and discipline. This is the holy trinity that could provide the system with stability and durability.

BURMA JUNTA EXPLOITS DISASTER TO ADVANCE ITS INTERESTS

Burma\'s military junta is exploiting cyclone Nargis to advance its interests and annihilate supporters of democracy, writes Zin Linn, a former political detainee in Burma who now lives in exile and is presently the media and information director of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma. Unconcerned by the deaths of thousands of citizens, the military leaders\' only want to hold on to power. The people are starting to think that the UN and other international organisations will not be able to help them achieve basic freedoms. Some analysts argue that the UN and ASEAN failed to help the people of Burma in time, instead soothing the generals, who never had any respect for human rights or humanitarian principles. The UN cancelled its planned weekly press briefings at the Bangkok-based Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand because of pressure from the junta. The demeaning of human values so common still in Burma will cause substantial social unrest and political volatility for years to come.

COLD WAR I AND II – SOLUTIONS ANYONE?

Cold War I came and went, and then, in the mid-1990s, Cold War II began, building on the ruins of Cold War I and now gathering strength, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies, founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this analysis, Galtung writes that the Cold War ended because of the non-aligned Helsinki process (1972-75) initiated by Finnish President Kekkonen and because people\'s movements turned against the governments. The Final Act of Helsinki 1975 confirmed borders in Eastern Europe, initiated a mixed economy through investment in the East, and a turn toward human rights in the Soviet Union - all useful. And so the Cold War withered away, devoid of real issues, with no winners and no losers. Solutions today? A Helsinki-style conference. Declare an end - no winner, no loser. The US empire collapses like the Soviet did, and then blossoms. A mixed economy is already there, social if not democratic. Democracy and human rights with self-determination are on the world agenda, in the West too with its numerous Tibets. What we need are non-aligned countries. And massive people\'s movements. Are they coming?

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Kids Sign Charter Against Global Warming

In the schools of the state of Mexico, neighboring Mexico City, there is a charter circulating in which the students commit themselves to 24 actions aimed at halting global climate change.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Climate Threatens Food Production

Excessive rainfall in some areas and prolonged drought in other areas of Honduras threaten agricultural production and food supplies, warn farmers and the International Monetary Fund.

Internet Can Be a Dangerous Pharmacy

Medications that have been stolen or falsified, are expired, or sold without a doctor's prescription are the reality of the online pharmacy.

“Reproductive Rights Can Overcome the Conservative Wave”

Access to birth control is in keeping with the rights of women and helps keep population growth in check, making development policies more feasible and improving food security, says family planning expert Carmen Barroso in this Tierramérica interview.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Detox Bacteria Discovered

Research conducted in Argentina has proved that some bacteria are capable of breaking down and detoxifying otherwise polluting liquid waste from tanneries and paper, textile and chemical industries.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Free Refrigerator Replacement

Brazilian electricity companies are donating more than 30,000 new refrigerators each year to poor families as part of the national plan to eliminate chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which damage the Earth's ozone layer.

CUBA: HEAT AND SCEPTICISM

Whether they hope for the materialisation of certain wishes or are convinced of certain disappointment, a day looms in the near future for Cuban: July 26, anniversary of the beginning of the armed struggle of Fidel Castro and his followers in 1953, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, Padura writes that it was a year ago that Raul Castro, then interim president, raised hopes for change in a short speech he gave during celebrations of this anniversary. The Cuban economy and society are clearly waiting for -and need- new and deeper changes. Months have passed without the oft- mentioned economic liberalisation that would allow for the creation of small private businesses, the longed-for sale of cars and furniture, the elimination of the burdensome exit visas to leave the country, among other changes that have been spoken of - but which the upper ranks of Cuban decision-making have less and less desire for. What is most worrisome is that this Cuban society that lives on hope continues to show signs (recognised by its leaders) of deterioration and a scepticism that in the opinion of many could block or derail the implementation of changes that could lead it into new directions.