In a world of higher electricity demand growth, clean electricity is stepping up to the challenge. Spearheaded by exponential solar expansion, clean power is set to grow faster than demand, marking the start of a permanent decline in fossil generation. 2024 both clarified and consolidated the shape of the global …
Brazil has broken its ban on genetically engineered crops by approving of Monsanto's transgenic Roundup Ready soybean seeds. This decision will open up the world's second largest soybean producer to modified crops. Monsanto's herbicide-resistant seeds will be regulated like any other agricultural product, although a decision has yet to be …
Teenagers in Brazil gave birth to a staggering 900,000 babies in 1997, thus accounting for 26.5 per cent of all live births in the country. According to the ministry of health, girls between the age of 10 and 14 gave birth to 1,3 per cent of babies, while teenagers aged …
Porto Privamera Dam, which is under construction for the last 20 years, may soon be commissioned. The dam will have serious environmental and social implications as it is being commissioned without necessary environmental and social mitigation measures in place, say environmentalists. The total cost of project is expected to be …
Brazil has planned to conserve 2.51 million hectares (ha) of Amazon rain forest. This shows the government's commitment to the faltering preservation of the endangered tropical wilderness. The country would take financial and technical assistance from the World Bank and a conservation group, wwf International. This step would put 10 …
In an age of global competition, small tobacco companies have been swallowed by conglomerates. The remaining decide the prices among themselves, and punish growers who decide to sell elsewhere. This means disaster for the 160,000 tobacco growers of Brazil, the leading exporters of tobacco. Local officials estimate that 35 per …
As the mid-day sun shines red through the smoke rising from dozens of forest fires, the Yanomami Indians say it is a sign of the apocalypse, and environmentalists fear that they may be right. The three-month-old fires have raged out of control, including the one just across the Mucajai river. …
In Brazil's Amazon, in the 30 years following the 1960s, the forests retreated before the onslaught of a government determined to hand over a land without people to its people who did not have land. Huge tracts of forest land in the Amazon vanished, sandwiched between the sawmills and the …
The soybean productivity levels of this South American country are rising sharply, a trend that could drastically increase production if planting continues to expand, a Brazilian researcher said recently. "There is a visible upward tendency in the level of Brazilian soybean productivity,' said Paul Robert Galerani, assistant technical director of …
An aids epidemic is just waiting to explode behind the locked doors of Brazil's prisons. And the situation is worsening every minute. Medical facilities are on the brink of a total breakdown, the jails face near-endemic overcrowding and the authorities are indifferent to the pathetic conditions inside these prisons. Take …
Dutch primatologist Marc Van Roosmalen of the national Amazon research institute has discovered four previously unknown types of monkey while combing the Amazon forests. One of the new monkeys belongs to the callthrix genus and has been baptised "manicore marmoset' by the Dutch primatologist. The squirrel-sized manicore has a greyish …
The World Wide Fund for Nature ( wwf) has said that Brazil has the highest rate of destruction of forests in the world. In its recent report, it estimates that around 3.6 million hectares of forests may have been lost. This, it says, is double of what has been lost …
brazil's floundering space programme suffered another blow when the ground control was forced to destroy the first space rocket launched in Brazil after one of its four engines failed to start. Colonel Thiago da Silva Ribiero, spokesperson of the Brazilian space agency, said controllers destroyed the 20-metre rocket by remote …
At least 20,000 people were rendered homeless when heavy flooding devastated towns and cities in southern Brazil. Civil defence officials said that the situation was worst in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where the Uruguay river broke its banks and submerged the homes of about 15,000 people. "The …
while environmentalists worry about Brazilian rainforests, thousands of acres of lush forests are being cleared away in southern Brazil to make way for tobacco cultivation and production. Brazil is the world's largest exporter of tobacco, with exports touching 282,500 tonnes in 1996, and the world's fourth largest producer after China, …
Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America is to introduce permanent restrictions on the use of cars in an attempt to alleviate the city's growing transport problems and curb pollution. Residents have been banned from using their cars during peak hours in the morning and early evening once a …
The smoke coming out of the south-eastern corner of the Amazon has badly affected the region, causing nosebleeds and forcing airports to close for days. The countless fires in the Amazon rain forest are conducted to make way for cattle pasture. Environmentalists say the fires are a part of increasing …
The Brazilian government is opening its timber reserves in the Amazon rain forest to commercial loggers. Unable to stop the rampant illegal logging, Brazil hopes to combine economic potential with controlled development. While Brazil has in the past opened reserves to logging, the new concessions are the first that will …
The Brazilian acting minister of justice Milton Seligman denied the allegation that the former minister Nelson Jobim had given the instruction that the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous area be reduced in exchange for votes in favour of the presidential reelection bill. This denial was seen as an attempt to retrieve …
