I give up, says Brazilian minister who fought to save the rainforest

[PaulaFarrell]

Source: Independent (UK)

Brazil has been accused of turning its back on its duty to protect the Amazon after the resignation of its award-winning Environment Minister fuelled fresh fears over the fate of the forest. The departure of Marina Silva, who admitted she was losing the battle to get green voices heard amidst the rush for economic development, has been greeted with dismay by conservationists.

...

"Her resignation is a disaster for the Lula administration," said Jose Maria Cardoso da Silva, of Conservation International. "If the government had any global credibility in environmental issues, it was because of minister Marina."

The Latin American giant's supposed progress on environmental protection has unravelled in the past year as revelations of record levels of deforestation, violent land disputes and runaway forest fires have followed in quick succession. The worldwide boom in agricultural commodities has created an unparalleled thirst for land and energy in Brazil, and the result has been a potentially catastrophic land grab into the world's largest remaining rainforest. The Amazon basin is home to one in 10 of the world's mammals and 15 per cent of its land-based plant species. It holds more than half of the world's fresh water and its vast forests act as the largest carbon sink on the planet, providing a vital check on the greenhouse effect.

Since President Lula won a second term Ms Silva found herself a lone voice in a government acutely aware that its own political future depended on the vast agribusiness interests she was trying to rein in. The final breakdown in her relationship with the President came after he gave the green light to massive road and dam-building projects in the Amazon basin, and a plan she drafted for the sustainable management of the region was taken from her and handed to a business-friendly fellow minister.

more...

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/i-give-up-says-brazilian-minister-who-fought-to-save-the-rainforest-828310.html

[krkaufman]

1. Lula's a disappointment. n/t

[otherlander]

47. No kidding.

He let his cops beat the crap out of anti-Bush protesters last year.

[Judi Lynn]

52. There are TONS of photos of heavy protest all over Brazil in 2007

during _Bush's "visit:"

Doesn't look as if the cops beat any of their resistance to _Bush out of them!

[Electric Flag]

56. Thank you for making this thread more difficult to read

with a cell phone, or dial-up for that matter, by posting that heap of off-topic pictures.

[otherlander]

58. This thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2760013#2760059

had pictures of Brazilian cops attacking protesters, but they've turned into red x's because the stories have since been removed from the yahoo website. The captions are still there, though, and you seemed to think they were pretty important at the time. The Brazilian government tries to look socialist while still trying to appease American elites, but you can't have it both ways. Looks like when it comes right down to it, they'd rather turn on their own people.

[ForeignSpectator]

2. Some time in the future, the human race will stand with open mouths...

...staring at the environmental disaster it inflicted on itself.

But there will be distraction by counting the dollars made.

The rainforest, that's so sickening...

[Time for change]

31. Unfortunately, those who are inflicting the disaster are not the ones

who will suffer from it the most.

And therein lies the problem.

[unkachuck]

49. Easter Island....

....on a global scale....

"The end of the moai-building period coincided with Easter Island’s great environmental disaster when the islanders ran out of palm trees around 1400. Without the trees, they could not build canoes for fishing, nor make ropes for moving moai, and they had no wood for fires. With no place to roost, the birds moved on and consequently, there were no birds or eggs to eat."

[shadowknows69]

3. We're so doomed

I doubt I even want to be one of the unfortunate survivors once the shit really starts hitting the fan, within 30 years or so, canabalism and murder aren't really my style.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

41. No shit, shadow.

One might say our stewardship of this planet sucks big time...
:humongous sigh:

[southerncrone]

43. Certainly seems that way. How can we change this attitude towards

planetary destruction?

Are all of the leaders in the world now just money-psycho idiots?

Science doesn't seem to mean a thing to them. Seems they are hell-bent on destroying our world.

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[1776Forever]

5. It will be GREED that brings down this planet - NOT TERRORISTS!

This is one of the BIGGEST issues of our time and no one seems to be listening! I hope that the next President will go forth from here to do what needs to be done to STOP this! It is obvious it is a very important issue in our entire world!

The Rape Of The Rainforest...
And The Man Behind It

by Michael McCarthy and Andrew Buncombe, May 20, 2005

http://www.rainforests.net/therapeoftherainforest.htm

It is stark. It is scarcely believable. But the ruthless obliteration of the Amazon rainforest continues at a headlong rate new figures reveal - and today we reveal the man who more than any other represents the forces making it happen.

He is Blairo Maggi, the millionaire farmer and uncompromising politician presiding over the Brazilian boom in soya bean production. He is known in Brazil as O Rei da Soja - the King of Soy.

Brazilian environmentalists are calling him something else - the King of Deforestation. For the soya boom, feeding a seemingly insatiable world market for soya beans as cattle feed, is now the main driver of rainforest destruction.

Figures show that last year the rate of forest clearance in the Amazon was the second highest on record as the soy boom completed its third year. An area of more than 10,000 square miles - nearly the size of Belgium - was cut down, with half the destruction in the state of Mato Grosso, where Mr Maggi, whose Maggi Group farming business is the world's biggest soya bean producer, also happens to be the state governor.

Mr Maggi sheds no tears over lost trees. In 2003, his first year as governor, the rate of deforestation in Mato Grosso more than doubled.

In an interview last year he said: "To me, a 40 per cent increase in deforestation doesn't mean anything at all, and I don't feel the slightest guilt over what we are doing here. We are talking about an area larger than Europe that has barely been touched, so there is nothing at all to get worried about."

[JohnyCanuck]

10. Mr. Maggi provides another example

of why Professor Albert Bartlett has said: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

A 40% increase in deforestation each year means that the amount of cleared forest doubles every 1.75 years. For anything that's growing by a fixed percentage point, you can easily find the doubling time by dividing the number 70 by the annual percentage increase. 70/40 = 1.75. There is a real problem for our human minds to understand just how quickly these doubling times can ad up in chewing up an apparently plentiful resource, and worse yet, the limits to exponential growth might not become evident until it is too late to stop a runaway growth and development train from running off the end of the tracks. If you haven't yet seen or heard the presentation on exponential growth and its effects on resource consumption by Albert Bartlett (a retired physics prof) then you should take the time to watch it here: http://globalpublicmedia.com/dr_albert_bartlett_arithmetic_population_and_energy (The video is only available in Real Player format, but you can also download an audio only MP3 or get a transcript of the speech at the link above).

Here is an example of microbes growing in a bottle that Bartlett uses in his talk to illustrate how the problems inherent in continuous exponential growth in a finite environment generally don't become evident until it is too late to take effective corrective action.

Bacteria grow by doubling. One bacterium divides to become two, the two divide to become 4, the 4 become 8, 16 and so on. Suppose we had bacteria that doubled in number this way every minute. Suppose we put one of these bacteria into an empty bottle at 11:00 in the morning, and then observe that the bottle is full at 12:00 noon. There's our case of just ordinary steady growth: it has a doubling time of one minute, it’s in the finite environment of one bottle.

I want to ask you three questions. Number one: at what time was the bottle half full? Well, would you believe 11:59, one minute before 12:00? Because they double in number every minute.

And the second question: if you were an average bacterium in that bottle, at what time would you first realise you were running of space? Well, let’s just look at the last minutes in the bottle. At 12:00 noon, it’s full; one minute before, it’s half full; 2 minutes before, it’s a quarter full; then an 1?8th; then a 1?16th. Let me ask you, at 5 minutes before 12:00, when the bottle is only 3% full and is 97% open space just yearning for development, how many of you would realise there’s a problem?

Now, in the ongoing controversy over growth in Boulder, someone wrote to the newspaper some years ago and said “Look, there’s no problem with population growth in Boulder, because,” the writer said, “we have fifteen times as much open space as we've already used.” So let me ask you, what time was it in Boulder when the open space was fifteen times the amount of space we’d already used? The answer is, it was four minutes before 12:00 in Boulder Valley. Well, suppose that at 2 minutes before 12:00, some of the bacteria realise they’re running out of space, so they launch a great search for new bottles. They search offshore on the outer continental shelf and in the overthrust belt and in the Arctic, and they find three new bottles. Now that’s an incredible discovery, that’s three times the total amount of resource they ever knew about before. They now have four bottles, before their discovery, there was only one. Now surely this will give them a sustainable society, won’t it?

You know what the third question is: how long can the growth continue as a result of this magnificent discovery? Well, look at the score: at 12:00 noon, one bottle is filled, there are three to go; 12:01, two bottles are filled, there are two to go; and at 12:02, all four are filled and that’s the end of the line.

Now, you don't need any more arithmetic than this to evaluate the absolutely contradictory statements that we’ve all heard and read from experts who tell us in one breath we can go on increasing our rates of consumption of fossil fuels, in the next breath they say “Don't worry, we will always be able to make the discoveries of new resources that we need to meet the requirements of that growth.”

http://globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/645

[1776Forever]

40. Thank you for the reference to the Bartlett video! I will spread this around!

:thumbsup:

[JohnyCanuck]

42. You're welcome 1776Forever

In case you are interested, here is a link to a paper Bartlett had published in The American Journal of Physics in 1978 called Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis. It covers much of the same ground as his video presentation.

[Lorien]

13. Absolutely correct. Mass panic was created when 3,000 were killed on

9/11. What we are facing now is our own extinction-along with the extinctions of millions of other species- due to stupidity, lack of creativity and outright GREED. Amazing to think that just a handful of politicians worldwide may make the decisions that end it for everyone.

What pisses me off even more is that our so-called "Democratic contenders" have virtually NOTHING to say about this issue! Obama and HRC talk about capping emissions after they are dead, and tout ethanol as the answer to our energy needs (which will only cause greater deforestation). What is it about the fact that we need oxygen to breathe that is so far beyond their grasp??

[DeSwiss]

29. Maggi, is ignorance and arrogance with money....

...the worst possible combinations.



K&R!!!

[rpannier]

6. Gee another worthless politician who caves to big business

Thanks little lulu

[NM Independent]

7. Yeah, that's the way to win...

Give up!

:shrug:

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Sometimes giving up is all that's left.

Just ask anyone who's ever gotten a divorce.

Can you even imagine the psychological pressure of being the lone voice, of having everything you do thwarted by higher-ups, and knowing you CANNOT change it?

Her only real chance to do anything would be to run for, and win, the presidency herself.

[Orrex]

8. I read something about that

Condoleeza Rice is giving the President his daily briefing, and she concludes by noting the near-certainty that Brazilian trees will be utterly gone in a matter of just a few short years. The science, she conceded, is now undeniable.

"That's ridiculous," guffaws the slack-jawed Executive. "You don't know what you're talkin' about."

The Secretary and the assembled staff are silent, dumbstruck at this rude lapse in etiquette. After all, everyone knows that Rice is full of shit, but usually they manage to keep a happy face during staff meetings.

"There aren't even a brazillion trees in the whole world," the President continues.

[bahrbearian]

30. LOL

[Blue_Tires]

9. The reais won out, as usual...

greed will be the destruction of us all...

[The2ndWheel]

11. It's a losing battle

You either have a habitat to live in, or an economic system to live in. We don't get to have both.

[Lorien]

14. You can't live in an economic system

especially when you no longer have oxygen to breathe. We CAN have both if we start using that gray matter between our ears.

[The2ndWheel]

18. Then why has every civilization fallen at some point?

[Lorien]

51. Fallen civilizations are not the same as an extinction of our species.

when civilizations "fall" that generally means that they evolve into a new or different civilization. The Romans aren't extinct; they're descendants just don't rule the world anymore.

[LanternWaste]

54. "Man's governance over man is a human construct-- that is, it is faulty"

"Man's governance over man is a human construct-- that is, it is faulty" (A. Schweitzer). If that is indeed the case (as I believe it to be), then one need not look to conflict between man and nature to explain that every culture has had a beginning. And that all cultures will have an end.

I certainly see no direct reason to believe the Either-Or scenario you've presented us with. It seems to me to be merely a post-hoc-ergo-prompter-hoc argument.

[LynneSin]

17. There is plenty of space in Brazil for all of it's inhabitants without destroying the rain forests..

however, there is not enough land in Brazil to turn Brazil into the agriculturial superpower it wants to be.

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0822-la_times_amazon.html

[raccoon]

33. I think we could, only not the economic system we've got now. nt

[truedelphi]

38. But without the habitat, the economic system won't matter

Unless the Powers that Be gentically modify our species so that we don't need the nuisance called "oxygen"

[The Stranger]

12. I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.

[swag]

15. We are all so fucked.

[LynneSin]

16. You want to do something to help stop this -- BOYCOTT BRAZILLIAN PRODUCE

Brazil has been trying for years to make iteself into the agriculturial leader of exported produced at the cost of it's rainforsest. About a year ago National Geographic did an article about the rainforests and how they're being destroyed for soybean crops. A few years ago LA Times did another article.

First and especially this time of the year, you should try your best to buy local. It's getting warmer out so for me this should pose lil problems (I live in the Northeast US). But when local produce is not availabe, you should check the label on the produce and find out where it's coming from. And if it's coming from Brazil - boycott it.

If we refuse their produce then perhaps they'll start to realize that turning their rainforest into crops is NOT the way to go. I just hope we're not too late for this.

If Brazil wants to become a 'superpower' then perhaps it should switch to manufacturing jobs that can produce jobs without destroying crops.

[iamthebandfanman]

20. wouldnt hurt if

someone set up a website talking about the boycott as well...

its a good idea to have a center point for people to look at ;)

[nam78_two]

This is so sad

:-(

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. We could do that -

but doesn't the government PROHIBIT labeling of produce as to its country of origin?

[PaulaFarrell]

22. I am not sure that would help

For one thing, I believe much of the soybeans go into animal feeds, so there's no direct indication of the link to Brazil. Also, aren't they now getting into sugarcane for ethanol as well? I think they are dreadfully shortsighted but no more so than any of the other developing countries selling out their natural resources to get out of poverty. I think we are going to have to look at incentives for them keeping the rainforests intact - we really can't expect them to do so while we blow the tops off mountains to get at the coal. An encouraging development was the offer by Belize to the UK to essentially turn over the management of its rainforest to the UK in return for development money. I think the UK accepted in principle but I don't know where it's gone from there. I think that is the kind of thing needed - we all benefit from the rainforest.

[BrklynLib at work]

23. Yes. I sadly concur. It will be greed that will destroy this planet..

The human race will make this planet unlivable for itself. How pathetic we are.

[sagetea]

24. What do you mean "Will"...

Greed already has ruined us...We are just now seeing the tip of the iceberg, this all started long ago.
an old Indian woman once told me that as the phoenix rises, the Earth will shake, and human kind will either wake up or die.
Human kind has placed more value on things that are made, not on how things are made. The indigenous peoples around the world have been telling us these things for a century or longer, we haven't listened, this is our own fault.
HO`

[BrklynLib at work]

25. I see you are right. The process has already begun, and we are doing nothing to stop it.

[gristy]

26. Damn

damn damn damn :(

[TechBear_Seattle]

27. "Fuelled fresh fears over the fate of the forest"

The news is bad enough, but alliteration? That just adds insult to grave injury.

[ronnie624]

28. One should not point fingers solely at Brazil.

Powerful global corporate forces provide the incentive behind deforestation, including U.S. conglomerates. Such corporations as, ADM, DuPont, ConAgra, Carlyle, British Petroleum, Mitsubishi, Chevron, Total, Morgan Stanley, George Soros and so on are investing heavily in Brazilian export agriculture. Solving this problem will require some soul searching of our own and a lot of cooperation among the peoples of the world, because clearly, the corporatist elites value profit and power over the long-term survival of humanity and all the other species of the world.

<http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=478>

[Baby Snooks]

34. Deja vu...

This is the second time Brazil has had to deal with the outrage over plans to develop the Amazon basin. The first occured years ago when DK Ludwig planned to develop a lumber business and began clearing large areas of the Amazon basin. But he was an individual. Not a corporation.

Times have changed. Many of Brazil's political leaders are also among Brazil's wealthiest citizens and they have become rich as a result of investment in and by the "multi-national" corporations - only a couple of which you have listed. All of whom have "studies" that of course are contrary to even common sense.

It's not just soy but sugar cane. Brazil is now oil-independent and produces ethanol from sugar cane. And deforested land represents land that can be used for both soy fields and sugar cane fields. And of course, once again, lumber.

The Bush administration of course supports the deforestation. The less oil Brazil uses the more oil Brazil has to export.

The argument, first with DK Ludwig and now with the corporate interests, is that the Amazon basin is so massive that deforestation of sections of the Amazon basin will have no effect on the ecosystem.

That is like saying you will still be able to breathe after they take out parts of your lungs. If you have a globe, slowly spin it around and notice the rainforests along the equator. The rainforests are the lungs of our planet. The effect of deforestation, not only in Brazil but everywhere along the equator, is that the planet at some point will develop emphysema. And eventually will die.

[ronnie624]

36. The problem is so complex and so massive,

it is difficult to imagine how it can be solved.

I hope we can figure it out soon, because time is definitely running out. The biosphere will eventually recover from the damage we have caused, but it will do so without us.

[DU GrovelBot]

32. ## DON'T DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

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==================



This week is our second quarter 2008 fund drive. Democratic Underground is
a completely independent website. We depend on donations from our members
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[tex-wyo-dem]

35. To me, there are certain preeminent places on this earth that MUST be saved...

in order to assure our own survival. The Amazon is one of these places.

The ultimate test to humankind is whether we will act to save what is left for the greater good or if greed will end the existence of the rain forest from the earth forever and, by extension, ensure our own destruction.

So far, it looks like greed is winning the day...



Cattle graze among the scarred remains of what used to be a lush stretch of the Amazon rain forest in the Brazilian state of Rondonia. Cattle ranching is the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, eating away at thousands of square miles of irreplaceable forest lands every year.

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/enlarge/amazoncattlepasture.html

[Sam Ervin jret]

37. Now who will stand with my avatar in Brazil?

Is it better to stay in a system that is recalcitrant, unapologetic and will not see the error of its ways and try to change it from within?
(Edited AAGAIN: The one time I reference my avater in a post and you guys knock the little guy out?!!!
I thought it was a disgruntled poster. I'm leaving the message I wrote when I thought it was such a hack job.I think the message in it still stands.)

Or is it better to take a stand outside of the institution and by the very act of a high profile defection alert the world to the nature of the beast that you so want to help change?

Will Silva's high profile exit do more to bring light and some help or just make a bad situation worse?

I don't know. But I feel her frustration from thousands of miles away.


(edited because someone changed my avatar from my Lorax to a political message about donation to this site. This angers me. Go on the site of a neocon and do some mischief. If your going to be civilly disobedient at least do it for a cause that is worth your talent time and effort. What a waste of energy, honestly. Unless of course you are a neocon in which case the act makes sense.

But don't you neocons have an election to fix?

With some help from our strident "I will not vote for the other guy/gal Democrats" the stealing of an election may not need to be necessary. The divisive nature of the posts in the recent past on this site is a symptom of a disease we must catch and cure before we are stuck with four more years of watching our world die before our eyes without so much as a raised voice from the elected leaders in this country.

I'm all fro civil disobedience but I'm not for biting off my nose to spite my face.)

[truedelphi]

39. Just as people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones,

People who breathe oxygen shouldn't cut down rain forests.

[mdmc]

44. he fought the good fight

[Karenina]

45. She.

[mdmc]

46. she fought the good fight

:toast:

[Judi Lynn]

48. Check the date of your article: Thursday, 15 May 2008. Not LBN.

There have been other articles since that time on this subject, and the plans the new one has for the future.

When I get some time I'll look for something to post on it.

This is NOT LBN.

[Electric Flag]

55. Hey, it's LBN enough for me, it's the first I've read about it

What's with your shitty attitude?

[Judi Lynn]

50. The original article was PUBLISHED MAY 15. There's a NEW minister now,

Many articles have been written during the interim:

Brazil's Lula announces new Amazon protection
Fri Jun 6, 2008 12:24am BST
By Ana Nicolaci da Costa

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, under pressure over his stewardship of the Amazon rainforest, unveiled plans on Thursday to create three protected reserves covering an area the size of the U.S. state of Vermont.

In a speech marking World Environment Day, Lula said the steps aimed at combating a spike in deforestation would take time to work, and foreigners did not have the moral authority to tell Brazil how to manage the world's largest forest.

"It's not easy to discuss the environment, thinking that the mere creation of a law or a decree will solve the problem," he said.

"Sometimes a thing that seems so consensual can take two or three years to materialize because we have to respect institutions."

At least 23 million hectares (89,000 sq miles) of the rainforest are already protected. The new reserves in Para and Amazonas state would expand the area by 2.6 million hectares (10,000 sq miles).

Lula's proposal has to be approved by Congress and could face challenges in the Supreme Court.

~snip~
"Our problem is that we are very far behind in both the conservation initiatives and the development initiatives that we need to undertake," Roberto Mangabeira Unger, minister for strategic affairs, told Reuters.

"But we now have a remarkable opportunity. This is the very first time in Brazilian history that the Amazon lies at the center of national attention," added Unger, who is coordinating the government's strategy to sustainably develop the Amazon.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN0530387420080605?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brazil Protects Vast New Areas of Amazon Rainforest
BRASILIA, Brazil, June 6, 2008 (ENS) - Brazil commemorated World Environment Day yesterday by signing into existence four new protected areas, three of them in the Amazon rainforest.

Following a speech in observance of the special day, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed the documents authorizing the three new protected areas in the Amazon, including Mapinguari National Park in Amazonas state, named after a mythical red furry creature supposedly living in the rainforest.

Mapinguari National Park is designed to preserve savannah areas of the Purus and Madeira river valleys. It is an area of great biological diversity with unique ecosystems that offer great potential for scientific research and eco-tourism, according to the government of Brazil.

In addition, there are two new extractive reserves - Ituxi in Amazonas state and another on the River Xingu in Pará state.

The new areas would expand the extent of protected rainforest by 2.6 million hectares, or 10,000 square miles, an area just slightly smaller than the nation of Belgium.

The protected areas close a green circle that, beyond protecting the biodiversity inside its limits, must draw a line to contain the advance of the agricultural takeover of the Amazon rainforest At least 23 million hectares, or 89,000 square miles, of the Amazon rainforest are already protected.

More:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2008/2008-06-06-01.asp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brazil to Create `Green Barrier' to Protect Amazon (Update1)

By Andre Soliani and Carolina Matos

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil plans to create a ``green barrier'' to deter deforestation in the Amazon and will seize and sell cattle, grains and timber produced illegally in the region, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said.

Minc, who spoke to reporters today in Brasilia, blamed ranchers and farmers seeking to boost beef and soybean output as international prices climb for increasing deforestation.

The government plans to create three new natural reserves in the Amazon to stop farmers from ravaging the forest, Fernanda Carvalho, an adviser to Minc, said. The funds raised in the sale of cattle, grains and timber seized from illegal areas will help finance the government's anti-hunger program, Minc said.

Minc, who took office last week, said the Amazon forest is his priority. He faces the challenge to fight quickening deforestation without becoming an impediment for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's plans to spur economic growth, which include building two hydroelectric plants on the Madeira River in the Amazon to meet rising demand for energy.

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aHBQ40U4DpSY&refer=latin_america

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brazilian government announces new anti-deforestation measures

www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-05 11:20:32

BRASILIA, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's newly-appointed Environment Minister Carlos Minc announced a series of measures to fight illegal deforestation in the Amazon region, local media reported on Wednesday.

Cattle raised illegally in the region will be confiscated, and all illegal lumber and timber that have been c ut down will be confiscated and auctioned off to finance the social program "No Hunger," Minc said.

The grains and foods grown in these areas will also be cut down and auctioned off to aid the program, he said.

The measure demonstrates a "message that we want to send out to all those who are deforesting the area," the minister said.

More:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/05/content_8315825.htm

[Electric Flag]

53. Make the Amazonas a UN protectorate

This area concerns all of the world, so why should Brazil get to govern it by themselves? Especially when considering the appalling result that has come from then failing to do so properly. No, I say take it from them, while there is still something to take.

[riverdeep]

57. Remember when you'd you used to see these people walking around?

Who'd have thought they'd be right? Albeit, for entirely different reasons, but still.