Brazil: In The Eye Of The Storm

Michel De Souza · June 15, 2013

Durante os protestos essa semana no Rio eu fiz um registro do registro das minhas fotografias.
É um video que conta exatamente momentos antes de cada fotografia tirada, acho que além disso, conta a história de algo que parece estar marcando nosso país.
Confesso que me emocionei ao final.
Assistam, compartilhem, multipliquem.

Fotografias, imagens e edição por Michel de Souza
Trilha original “Changes” por Pedro Curvello

http://twitter.com/micheldesouza

___________________________

Related articles

• Brazil sees largest protests in decades as unrest hits second week
• Massive clashes as Brazilians protest over World Cup spending
• Brazil: 30,000 People Displaced for Sports Events
• US robots, Israeli drones to help make 2014 World Cup in Brazil ‘one of safest sporting events ever’

Brazil sees largest protests in decades as unrest hits second week

RT | June 17, 2013

Mass protests continued throughout Brazil on Monday, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators converging in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, the capital of Brasilia and other cities.

Protests initially began last week following a government announcement of an increase in public transportation costs, which brought out students and young workers and led to more than 250 arrests.

According to reports by Brazilian media such as Jornal do Dia, the initially peaceful demonstrations last week became heated, and led to clashes with Brazil’s riot police that left at least 100 injured in the major cities of Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte.

Though the protests initially began following the announcement of bus fare increases, they have evolved to include a wide range of groups that have grown dissatisfied over everything from government corruption and income inequality, as well as to outrage over the police’s harsh response to protesters last week.

In a sign that public dissatisfaction was still simmering, soccer fans booed president Dilma Rousseff on Monday during the opening of a two-week tournament at a stadium in the capital Brasilia. The heckling only intensified when the president of the global soccer body, FIFA, reprimanded the crowed for failing to show the president “respect.”

Though Rousseff was able to ride on her predecessor’s popularity, Brazil’s economic growth has slowed considerably since she took over from Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is widely credited with lifting 40 million Brazilians out of poverty. Brazil’s economy has posted its worst two-year performance in over a decade, and inflation rose to 6.5 per cent in May.

At least 20,000 Brazilians were expected to demonstrate in Sao Paulo on Monday, with organizers placing the figure closer to 30,000.

Protesters climb atop the capitol building in Brazil. #ChangeBrazil pic.twitter.com/Tb6CblQ5T0

Related articles

• Massive clashes as Brazilians protest over World Cup spending
• Brazil: 30,000 People Displaced for Sports Events
• US robots, Israeli drones to help make 2014 World Cup in Brazil ‘one of safest sporting events ever’

Professor Bob Carter torpedoes the “scientific consensus” on the climate HOAX

May 7, 2011

An excellent presentation disputing man-made global warming using nothing but pure science and statistics by Professor Bob Carter (Australian geologist). It would be very difficult to dispute his facts. In this video he pretty much proves that over 10,000 years the earth has been cooling. Looking at shorter periods of time one can find whatever they want in the numbers. There have been many periods of rapid warming and cooling over this period.

He examines the data concerning climate change, Global warming, the problems with the idea that CO2 is driving climate change and global warming, & examples of the scientific data being ignored over popularist views about CO2 causing climate change and Global warming;… the hypothesis fails the test.

Related articles

• No significant warming for 17 years 4 months
• Climate Science Goes Megalomaniacal

Ron Paul Blasts NSA Defenders On Piers Morgan: ‘You’re Justifying Dictatorship!’

Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on CNN tonight to tell Piers Morgan why he objects to the NSA surveillance program. Morgan directly asked Paul if he would have actually ended surveillance programs if he were president. Paul said he would still want intelligence gathering, but it would be done in a more transparent way, maintaining that the current surveillance program are unquestionably unconstitutional. He directly told NSA defenders that they are simply “justifying dictatorship.”

Paul dismissed the use of a FISA court as a significant enough of a check on the executive branch. He said this program is undeniably “destroying the Constitution,”, and posed a question to anyone who defends the widespread surveillance.

“What should the penalty be for the people who destroy the Constitution? They’re always worrying about how they’re going to destroy the American citizens who tell the truth, to let us know what’s going on, but we ask the question: what is the penalty for people who deliberately destroy the Constitution and rationalize and say, ‘Oh, we have to do it for security.’ Well, frankly, you end up losing–you lose your security and you lose your freedoms too.”
He told NSA defenders that the nation is on a “very dangerous course,” and when they try to say there’s nothing wrong with such massive intelligence gathering, “you’re justifying dictatorship!”

Courtesy of CNN: Video

Related articles

• Ron Paul Praises Edward Snowden (reason.com)
• NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden May Be a Ron Paul Supporter (and Libertarian?) (reason.com)

The “Congress knew” defense

left i on the news | June 07, 2013

President Obama defends his super-snooping program, claiming that “they’re not secret in the sense that when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program.” First of all, I note he also says that “the relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs,” which suggests that “every member of Congress”, to whom the word “fully” isn’t applied, may or may not know very much at all. But even if every member of Congress were in fact fully briefed, there’s a little problem with that. Because they were briefed in secret and unable to convey that information to their constituents. So if they wanted to, say, campaign for reelection on the grounds of supporting (or opposing) that policy, they couldn’t do so. Furthermore, no challenger could campaign against them on a platform of ending these policies, because no challenger would have known about the policies.

On a related issue, talking to FOX’s Shep Smith earlier today (actually being grilled by Smith, who was having none of his double-talk and evasions), the former deputy director of the NSA claimed that the program was ipso facto Constitutional because “all three branches of government” were involved with it. But the “FISA Court” is a special, secret court. Not only have they never denied a single government request, but no citizen can challenge a decision they make, because their decisions are all secret. Therefore the Constitutionality of the court itself, or of any decision it has made, is not subject to review by the Supreme Court, the only institution which can actually rule on the Constitutionality of a law.

~

Related video:

Related articles

• The NSA Black Hole: 5 Basic Things We Still Don’t Know About the Agency’s Snooping
• NSA Document Leak Proves Conspiracy To Create Big Brother Style World Control System
• DOJ launches criminal probe of NSA leaker
• US security officials said NSA leaker, journalist should be ‘disappeared’ – report
• Government Spying: Should We Be Shocked?
• Boundless Informant: NSA’s complex tool for classifying global intelligence
• The NSA’s Favorite Weasel Word To Pretend It’s Claiming It Doesn’t Spy On Americans
• NSA memo pushed to ‘rethink’ 4th Amendment

Poetry for Palestine | Poetic Injustice with Remi Kanazi

breakingtheset · May 31, 2013

Abby Martin looks back at the third anniversary of the Gaza flotilla siege, and presents Remi Kanazi, Palestinian-American poet and activist, who uses his educational art to perform the poems ‘Normalize This’ and ‘Refuse’. Abby speaks to Remi about the Palestinian plight, grassroots activism, and his artistic inspirations.

Related articles

• G4s annual meeting stormed by human rights activists
• South African bodies call for Israel to be excluded from diamond processing over ‘war crimes’
• Canadian church boycotts companies in Israeli settlements

The Village Under The Forest

Documentary Trailer

May 10, 2013

Unfolding as a personal meditation from the Jewish Diaspora, The Village Under The Forest explores the hidden remains of the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya, which lies under a purposefully cultivated forest plantation called South Africa Forest.

Using the forest and the village ruins as metaphors, the documentary explores themes related to the erasure and persistence of memory and dares to imagine a future in which dignity, acknowledgement and co-habitation become shared possibilities in Israel/Palestine.

The Village Under The Forest is co-directed by Emmy-winner Mark Kaplan and scholar and poet Heidi Grunebaum. Captivating music by Gilad Atzmon is featured.

Farming in Khuza’a, Gaza Strip

Gal.la | June 5, 2013

Gaza, Occupied Palestine – Farmers are working in Gaza buffer zone under threat of Israeli soldiers, tanks, bullets, etc. This video shows the difficulty of daily life for farmers in Khuza’a, south of Gaza Strip.

Spanish captions

German drone nearly hits 100-passenger Airbus jet – leaked video

RT | June 4, 2013

Nine years ago a German drone nearly collided with a passenger plane over Afghanistan. The classified drone camera footage drew public attention after the German defense ministry scrapped a drone program for its lack of anti-collision technology.

Footage taken by an EMT Luna X-2000 reconnaissance drone as it passed mere meters under the left wing of an Airbus A300 passenger plane surfaced on YouTube several years ago. After the encounter, the drone was caught in the plane’s wake turbulence, lost control, and crashed over the Afghan capital Kabul, Der Spiegel reported.

The Ariana Afghan Airlines plane was carrying about 100 people on board, the magazine said. The manufacturer of the 40kg drone has claimed that the near-collision occurred after the passenger jet veered off-course without informing ground control.

The video was leaked a week after German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière decided to scrap the $652 million EuroHawk program – meant to be a replacement for existing reconnaissance aircraft – including the Luna drones. EuroHawk is part of the NATO Global Hawk project, under which Germany was to buy Northrop Grumman RQ-4B drones and fit them with customized sensors.

However, the German military would not be able to certify the drone for use in European airspace without an anti-collision system, which would make the aircraft too expensive, de Maizière said, adding that even with such a system installed certification would not be guaranteed. German media also reported that EuroHawk suffered from technical problems and cost overruns.

Germany has bought one drone from the US manufacturer of the EuroHawk program, and was expected to purchase four more. If given the green light, the contract would be worth $1.3 billion.

De Maizière came under criticism recently for the drone program after a leaked defense ministry report showed that the drone’s flaws were apparent as early as 15 month ago. Critics have accused the minister of failing to act and continuing to spend taxpayer money on the doomed project. De Maizière will appear before the German Parliament this week to report on the issue.

Advancements in unmanned weapons systems have become a global controversy in recent years. Militaries have praised the weapons for not endangering the lives of operators, and for being generally more cost-effective than older manned hardware.

But critics are expressing increasing concerns over the collateral damage caused by drone strikes, the vague legal justifications for their use, and the potential creation of weapons that would remove human judgment altogether from the decision to pursue a target.

There is also the perception that nations with advanced drone technology – specifically the US and Israel – have an unjust capability to enforce their policies on other countries.

Chicago Closes 50 Public Schools, Spends $100 Million on Private College Stadium

TNR | May 29, 2013

Mideast Masters of Jazz

Gilad Atzmon – Alto Sax
Zane Musa – Soprano and Tenor Sax
Mahesh Balasooriya – Keyboard
Tony Austin – Drums
Hamilton Price – Bass

Recorded at The Mint, Los Angeles, May 17, 2013

Gilad Atzmon website

IMF chief escapes indictment in corruption case

PressTVGlobalNews · May 25, 2013

The Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) has not pressed criminal charges against International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde after days of investigation into a corruption case, Press TV reports.

Lagarde walked out of the court after two days of court hearings looking into her involvement in fraud and misappropriation of public funds.

The French court was probing Lagarde’s handling of a dispute in 2007 that resulted in a 400 million-euro (USD 515 million) payment to former politician and controversial business figure, Bernard Tapie.

On Friday, the former finance minister was given the status “assisting witness”. This means she will be regarded as a witness in future related questioning.

The IMF chief was France’s finance minister under the government of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Reports indicate Sarkozy had promised Tapie benefits if he agreed to become a major funder in his 2007 presidential election campaign.

Some say the court’s decision is an unfair one.

“Christine Lagarde’s behavior in this affair is unacceptable, because she allowed one of France’s biggest businessmen to bypass traditional public justice and gave him a private arbitration… her decision greatly favored Mr. Tapie,” Copernic Fondation’s Pierre Khalfa said.

In 2007, Lagarde asked a panel of judges to arbitrate in a row between Tapie and the partly state-owned Credit Lyonnais over his sale of sports group Adidas in 1993.

She has been accused of “numerous anomalies and irregularities.”

The criminal charges are regarded as the second straight scandal for an IMF chief since Lagarde succeeded Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who quit over allegations of an assault on a hotel maid in New York.

Follow our Facebook on:
https://www.facebook.com/PRESSTV

Follow our Twitter on:
http://twitter.com/presstv

Follow our Tumblr on:
http://presstvchannel.tumblr.com

Related articles

• France investigates IMF chief over 2007 payout (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Prosecutors grill IMF chief (morningstaronline.co.uk)