Drought Spreads Worldwide

Stories of drought are mostly localized to the affected country. However, this is a global problem...take a look at these news headlines gathered from around the world...all within the last couple of months.

Decade of Drought: A Global Tour of Seven Recent Water Crises

Drought Persists in 13 Provinces:  Bangkok Post

Vancouver Island Fishing Banned as Drought Hits Level 4 : CBC

North Korea Hit Hard by Drought: Korea Times

Dried Up California Lake Shuts as Summer Kicks in: NBC Photos

Puerto Rico, Grappling With Potentially Historic Drought: IBT

Dramatic Photos Show Brazil's Crippling Drought

New Discovery Puts Humans in South America 22,000 Years Ago

Fascinating article...

Researchers here say they have unearthed stone tools proving that humans reached what is now northeast Brazil as early as 22,000 years ago. 

Their discovery adds to the growing body of research upending a prevailing belief of 20th-century archaeology in the United States known as the Clovis model, which holds that people first arrived in the Americas from Asia about 13,000 years ago.

“If they’re right, and there’s a great possibility that they are, that will change everything we know about the settlement of the Americas...

Read more and see video here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/americas/discoveries-challenge-beliefs-on-humans-arrival-in-the-americas.html?_r=0

See more interesting articles here...
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.ca/search/label/Native%20Americans

Carnival 2014 Around the World

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/03/carnival-2014-around-the-world/100691/

Takin' It to the Streets

 

The world is getting angrier and with the prevalence of smartphones, Twitter and FB...Cities will continue to be the battleground between citizens and governments and corporations.  Interesting read.

 
Excerpt:
 
"thanks to the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, Twitter, Facebook and blogging, angry individuals now have much more power to engage in, and require their leaders to engage in, two-way conversations — and they have much greater ability to link up with others who share their views to hold flash protests. 

As Leon Aron, the Russian historian at the American Enterprise Institute, put it, “the turnaround time” between sense of grievance and action in today’s world is lightning fast and getting faster. 

The net result is this: Autocracy is less sustainable than ever. Democracies are more prevalent than ever — but they will also be more volatile than ever. Look for more people in the streets more often over more issues with more independent means to tell their stories at ever-louder decibels." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/opinion/sunday/takin-it-to-the-streets.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Amazon Vs Amazon

When you see the word "Amazon", what's the first thing that springs to mind – the world's biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer – and which do you consider most important?

These questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have lodged objections to a bid made by the US e-commerce giant for a prime new piece of cyberspace: ".amazon".

The Seattle-based company has applied for its brand to be a top-level domain name (currently .com), but the South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses.

Along with dozens of other disputed claims to names including ".patagonia" and ".shangrila", the issue cuts to the heart of debates about the purpose and governance of the internet.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/25/amazon-domain-name-battle-brazil

David Alan Harvey

David's work is incredible to behold...

North Carolina...
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/outer-banks/harvey-photography#/01-post-surfing-avalon-pier-670.jpg

Divided Soul, Living Proof and other Galleries...
http://www.davidalanharvey.com/#a=0&at=0&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=0&p=1

Rio De Janeiro
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/rio/harvey-photography#/01-rio-carnival-celebration-670.jpg

Video of David shooting in Rio De Janeiro...
http://vimeo.com/17855680

Brazil's Secret Slave Societies

Damm...the Continent of the Americas has an amazing history...and it's not the one you learned in history class...exceptional article...

Imagine flying, impossibly, over the Earth in the 17th century—during the time described in American history books as the colonial period, when Europeans swarmed into the New World to dominate an almost empty wilderness. Instead, you would see tens of millions of native people already living in the Americas, joined by an extraordinary flow not of European colonists but of African slaves. Up until the early 19th century, almost four times as many Africans as Europeans came to the Americas. Looking down from above, you wouldn’t know that the tiny numbers of Europeans were supposed to be the stars of the story. Rather, your attention would focus on the two majority populations: Africans and Indians.

You’d have a lot to watch. By the tens of thousands, African slaves escaped the harsh conditions of the European plantations and mining operations and headed for the interior, into lands controlled by Indians. Up and down the Americas, ex-slaves and indigenous peoples fashioned hybrid settlements known as maroon communities, after the Spanish cimarrón, or runaway.

Largely conducted out of sight of Europeans, the complex interplay between black and red is a hidden drama that historians and archaeologists have only recently begun to unravel. Nowhere is the presence of this lost chapter more in evidence than... 

READ MORE HERE...
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/maroon-people/mann-hecht-text

Waste Land

Waste Land begins with an eco-friendly premise, but quickly transforms into an uplifting portrait of the power of art and the dignity of the human spirit.

Watch Full Documentary Here:

http://www.movie2k.to/Waste-Land-watch-movie-553419.html

The Next 100 Years by George Friedman

"Conventional analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long term shifts taking place in full view of the world." - George Friedman

Fascinating insight into the future of America, Mexico, Japan, Turkey, China and Brazil. If you're interested in the shape of things to come...this is a must watch....
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIwZsbBXpNQ&feature=channel

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmzRSUSoShI&NR=1

Read more:

In his book, George Friedman turns his eye on the future -- offering a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the 21st century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century.

The Next 100 Years draws on a fascinating exploration of history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years. Friedman shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, at the dawn of a new era—with changes in store, including:

• The U.S.-Jihadist war will conclude—replaced by a second full-blown Cold War with Russia.
• China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power.
• A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Far East, but armies will be much smaller and wars less deadly.
• Technology will focus on space—both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications.
• The United States will experience a Golden Age in the second half of the century.

Read more...
http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2009/08/power-china-world-japan-poland

Brazilian artist in the frame assassinating the Pope, the Queen and George Bush

Former U.S. President George W. Bush and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II are also among the artist's drawings
The charcoal drawings by Gil Vicente became a focus of controversy when they went on display at the opening of the Sao Paulo Art Biennial on Saturday.

The former US President George W Bush is shown kneeling on the ground with his wrists bound behind him as Vicente pushes a pistol into his temple.

The series, called Inimigos (Enemies), is meant to highlight alleged crimes for which the leaders have been directly or indirectly responsible by imagining that they are being made to pay the price.
Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8027019/Brazilian-artist-in-the-frame-assassinating-the-Pope-the-Queen-and-George-Bush.html

See More of Gil Vincente's drawings here:
http://new.taringa.net/posts/arte/7143052/Controversial_-Gil-Vicente-_y-su-arte-del-asesinato_.html

FIRST EVER OLYMPICS IN RIO AND SOUTH AMERICA!!

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee announced Friday.
It is the first time South America would host an Olympics event. The city has budgeted $14.4 billion to the effort, the largest amount of any of the four finalists, according to IOC figures.
The final vote was down to Rio and Madrid, Spain. In earlier voting, Chicago, Illinois, and then Tokyo, Japan, were eliminated from contention.
After the cities made their presentations to the IOC on Friday, the IOC members sat down to cast their votes in a secret ballot.
Ninety-seven of the IOC's 106 members are eligible to vote in the first round...
Read more at:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/02/olympics.2016/index.html