São Paulo, 3 December: During the election campaign, president-elect Jair Bolsonaro boasted he would pare the number of cabinet ministers down from its present total of 29 to a mere 15, but he has been overtaken by reality and the number is 22 and counting. The new government includes generals (and an admiral), Cold War warriors, climate deniers and...
30 November 2018
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
LAB News
LAB's new book Amazon Besieged is published on 1 December. We are launching it at a special lunchtime meeting 'Will the Amazon Survive Bolsonaro' within the Latin America Adelante 2018 Conference at TUC Congress House, Great Russell St, London WC1B 3LS. The meeting (in Congress Suite 1-2, Lower Ground Floor) starts...
The Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, is renowned for its extraordinary biodiversity and the vitality of its indigenous and riverine communities. But it is gradually being carved up by highways, hydroelectric dams and railways, built to allow agribusiness, the new powerhouse of the Brazilian economy, to export soya and other products though the Amazon River.
Amazon Besieged...
As LAB prepares to launch its new and powerful book*, co-author Sue Branford issues a stark warning of the implications of a Bolsonaro government for the river-basin and the indigenous and riverine communities who live there. Land-grabbers are already taking the law into their own hands – after January 1 the law will become their own.
Let us have no...
‘Remember Germany, 1934,’ my moderate brother advises, ‘and be explicit’. For forty years, I have written from the threshold between resistance and liberation. I never imagined we would live on the threshold between ‘the least worse’ and fascism. My eyes brim with tears. I don’t want to leave the House of Rivers. ‘In times of fake news and seamless...
São Paulo, October 23. On the eve of the second round of the presidential elections, armed police and officials from electoral tribunals invaded at least 30 state universities up and down the country, confiscating anti-fascist banners and posters, intimidating lecturers and students and interrupting debates. Judges justified these arbritrary actions by saying the materials and activities were pro-Fernando Haddad,...
24 October 2018
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
Brazil on the edge
With all eyes on Sunday (28 October)’s second round of Brazil’s presidential elections, LAB has been trying to keep on top of the torrent of news and opinion sent to us. Jan Rocha, our regular São Paulo correspondent has done an extraordinary job. You can see her blog here,...
This is the second of three Letters from the Amazon, written in recent weeks by LAB collaborator Dan Baron Cohen. Further letters will be published in the next few months. You can see them all here.
Cabelo Seco, Marabá. 2 October 2018. The motorcycle-taxi slows to a halt beside me on the Trans-Amazonia highway, in front of the Headquarters of...
This is the first of three Letters from the Amazon, written in recent weeks by LAB collaborator Dan Baron Cohen. Further letters will be published in the next few months. You can see them all here.
Cabelo Seco, Marabá. 7 September 2018
Our descent into Belém airport is announced. I close my Mac and look past the man beside me at...
This is the Dan Baron Cohen's third letter from the Amazon. Further letters will be published in the next few months. You can see them all here.
Cabelo Seco, Marabá. 18 October 2018.
You know the rivers and forests of the Amazon are our world’s most advanced technology, for living well. Invite everyone, the afraid, the silent and the angry, to...