In the four weeks since the Haiti earthquake, many – albeit not nearly enough – have expressed outrage over the US military takeover of this tiny country. Among the more well-known are John Pilger and Michael Chossudovsky. In his column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the “swift and crude” appropriation of earthquake-ravaged Haiti by the militarised Obama administration. With George W. Bush attending to the “relief effort” and Bill Clinton the UN’s man, The Comedians, Graham Greene’s dark novel about exploted Haiti comes to mind.
Archive for February, 2010
The Kidnapping of Haiti
Monday, February 15th, 2010Construction of Alternative Route to Machu Picchu
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Peruvian authorities have reportedly commenced the construction of an alternative route to the ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru.
The route leading to the ancient site was damaged two weeks ago after a series of floods and landslides blocked railway access and led to the emergency evacuation of tourists.
Popular trekking route to the ruins, the Inca Trail, has since been closed for the month for maintenance and the National Institute of Culture will decide whether to reopen it in March.
The Hiram Bingham luxury train travel option from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes has also closed and is not expected to be operational until June.
Travel wholesaler South America Tourism Office (SATO) warned that the Machu Picchu Archaeological complex is currently closed to the public and it is not guaranteed it will be re-opened by April.
However, it said the alternative route to Machu Picchu is expected to be completed by March and would combine paved and unpaved roads as well as a train link.
It will take longer than the original train route, between 7.5 – 9 hours from Cuzco, and will pass through Sacred Valley, Ollantaytambo, Malaga, Santa Teresa and Aguas Calientes.
Despite this, SATO said tourist activities in Cuzco and Sacred Valley had resumed with city tours, cathedrals, nearby markets and ruins all operating as usual.
“The floods were concentrated in the Andes area surrounding Cuzco and did not affect other parts of Peru” said SATO Director Delfor Pelletti, urging travellers to not be deterred from visiting Peru.
“Whilst Machu Picchu is a highlight of the continent itself, Peru is a country rich in culture and history with plenty of other attractions including the colonial city of Arequipa, the mysterious Nazca lines and the wildlife sanctuary of the Ballestas islands.”
Bartender Wanted
Monday, February 15th, 2010
A popular hostel is looking for an interesting and responsible traveller to work as a bartender. Responsibilities include running the bar, taking food orders and helping to check-in guests. The hostel is renowned for its great social scene and as such is consistently busy with backpackers from around the world. The hostel is set around a lush garden area which also serves as a restaurant and bar.
The bartender receives a small salary, private room, free internet, all meals and cheap drinks.
Food Inc
Monday, February 15th, 2010
It is a sad truth that much of the North American food system is unappetizing and, frankly, more than a little grotesque. Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner and co-produced by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, is the latest food expose to hit British cinema screens.
The 93-minute documentary is part ‘Our Daily Bread,’ with a dash of ‘The World According to Monsanto’ and a liberal mixing of ‘Fast Food Nation’ and ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ by Michael Pollan.
The result is a haunting look into the North American food system – one of the most corporate controlled, unhealthiest, cruellest food systems on the planet.
If you don’t know much about how most of the food in supermarkets gets to your table, you need to see this film. If you’ve already educated yourself on the horrific practices of America’s food industry, this film will inspire, empower, enrage and connect you with the unsung heroes who are out there doing something about it.
You can too by voting with your mouth three times a day.
Bird Clinic Manager
Friday, February 12th, 2010
The position will include direct involvement and managing volunteers caring for and conducting medical rehabilitation for neo-tropical birds. Daily duties will include intake, feeding, cleaning, food preparation, general care, of avian patients (generally 2 to 20 birds), and working closely with veterinarians who will conduct major medical procedures. Additional duties will often include collecting food (fruits, insects, etc) from a 20-acre protected reforestation area on site, completion of patient records, logging dietary intake, producing an avian cookbook and care manual. NGO activities will include participating in public outreach and assisting with the identification and solicitation of grants and contributions.
The position is set to start between the 1 and 13 January 2011 for a period of no less than 1 year. The application deadline is the 1 November 2010; however, late applications are considered if the candidate is exceptionally suited for the position.
The intern receives room, board, a stipend, periodic use of vehicle, and internet access.
Salvador Carnival, Brazil (11 – 16 February 2010)
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
Salvador Carnival, one of the world’s biggest and most famous, brings out the best of Afro-Brazilian music and dance. The spectacle of the religious groups, known as Afoxé societies, is one of the most striking elements of the celebration.
A far cry from the polished glitz and glamour of Rio de Janeiro’s carnival and the accompanying media feeding frenzy, Salvador has the sultry, intoxicating atmosphere of a true Brazilian street party.
One of the more renowned Afoxé societies at the Salvador Carnival are the Filhos de Gandhy, or Sons of Gandhi. Dressed in the white tunics and blue turbans of their West African ancestors, these members make up one of the many Afro Blocos. Members can number in the hundreds. Tight syncopated drumming with catchy rhythms make it impossible not to dance.
Trios Electricos – large bands that play music close in style to the Afro Blocos through enormous sound systems – dominate the floats at Salvador Carnival, so if percussion, Latin music or just letting your hair down is your thing, then head down to Salvador on Brazil’s north-east coast.
Volunteer in Orphanage
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
This project helps children and youth that previously lived on the streets in vulnerable situations and/or were abandoned by their parents. The orphanage is looking for volunteers who have a basic understanding of Spanish and can volunteer for at least three months. Volunteers live on-site and support the children in their studies, help out in workshops and other specific activities.
Volunteers receive free board and lodging.
Festival of Drumming and African Culture, Mexico City
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
Attend workshops, exhibitions, gastronomic shows, carnival catwalks and more at Mexico City’s annual Festival of Drumming and African Culture. Music groups come from across the world and activities take place in El Zócalo and various cultural centres in the capital. The festival takes place from the 21 – 28 February 2010.
Brazil Approves Controversial Dam in the Amazon
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Brazil has approved the controversial construction of a giant hydroelectric dam in the heart of the Amazon, defying a 20-year protest by indigenous and environmental campaigners who say that the project will devastate the surrounding rainforest and threaten the survival of local tribes.
The Belo Monte project on the Xingu river, an Amazon tributary, was started in the 1990s but abandoned amid widespread protests at home and abroad. The rock star Sting led a campaign against the plan with tribal leaders, and revisited Brazil in November last year to urge the Government to consider the impact of deforestation on greenhouse gas levels and global warming.
The US$17 billion (£11 billion) dam in the northern state of Pará will be the world’s third-largest and could provide electricity to 23 million homes, a supply that the Government says is vital to the country’s economic growth. Critics argue that the flooding of 500 sq km of rainforest will damage fish stocks and wildlife and force the displacement of indigenous peoples.
Carlos Minc, the Environment Minister, said on Monday that the land flooded would be a fraction of the 5000 sq km originally planned. “The environmental impact exists but it has been weighed up, calculated and reduced,” he said. “Not one Indian on indigenous land will be displaced.”
However, groups on land not demarcated as tribal territory – a distinction often labelled a get-out clause by indigenous campaigners – still stand to lose their homes. Mr Minc said that they would be compensated. Indigenous groups complain that they were not properly consulted over the project, which Megaron Tuxucumarrae, a chief of the Kayapo tribe, said would destroy the environment that his people had taken care of for millennia. “We are opposed to dams on the Xingu, and will fight to protect our river,” he said.
The state-run company Eletrobrás is said to be eyeing the project, but a contract has not yet been awarded. The winning company will have to spend US$803 million on measures to minimise its impact and resettle an estimated 12,000 people.
Critics said that the Government had underestimated the potential impact in its attempt to meet political ends in an election year. Even within the Government, the project has been so contentious that in November two senior officials from Ibama, Brazil’s environmental agency, resigned, citing political pressure.
With general elections looming in October, the Government is under pressure to deal with energy infrastructure problems that resulted in large swathes of the country, including São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, being plunged into darkness in November.
Engineering experts have questioned the efficiency of the 11-gigawatt dam, which would be outstripped in size only by China’s Three Gorges and Itaipu on the Brazil-Paraguay border.
Francisco Hernández, an electrical engineer and joint co-ordinator of a group of 40 specialists who analysed the project, said that the dam would generate little electricity during the three to four-month dry season. Describing it as a scheme of “doubtful engineering viability”, he said Belo Monte was an extremely complex project “that would interrupt the flow of water courses over an enormous area, requiring excavation of earth and rocks on the scale of that carried out for digging the Panama Canal”.
Up to 70 dams, roads, gas pipelines and power grids worth more than US$30 billion are to be built to tap the region’s raw materials and transport agricultural products.
The announcement drew a furious reaction from environmental groups around the world. Aviva Imhof, the campaigns director of International Rivers, described it as a “foolish investment”, and said that by investing in energy efficiency, Brazil could cut demand by 40 per cent over the next decade and save US$19 billion. “The amount of energy saved would be equivalent to 14 Belo Monte dams,” she said.
Fiona Watson, research director of the UK-based Survival International, said the dam would be a catastrophe for indigenous people. “The Brazilian Government has driven through the dam with a cavalier disregard to indigenous peoples’ rights,” she said. “Development in Brazil comes at an unacceptable price – the destruction of whole tribes.”
The Secret of Her Eyes (El Secreto De Sus Ojos)
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Benjamin Esposito has spent his entire working life as a criminal court employee. Recently retired and with time on his hands, he decides to write a novel. He does not decide to make up a story. There is no need to. He can draw on his own past as a civil servant for a true, moving and tragic story in which he was once very directly involved. In 1974, his court was assigned an investigation into the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman. At the scene of the crime, Esposito sees the result of the young woman’s rape and murder first hand. He meets Ricardo Morales, who had married the girl a short time before and worshipped her body and soul. Moved by Ricardo’s grief, Esposito tries to help him find the culprit despite having to contend with the apathy and ineptitude of the police and legal system. He knows that for help the can count on Sandoval, an underling at the office yet a close friend, who occasionally seeks release from the routine of his existence by drinking himself unconscious. He can also turn to Irene, his immediate superior and secretary of the court, with whom he is secretly deeply in love, although there is no hope that she will ever love him. The search for the murderer is anything but simple. No clues remain at the scene of the crime and Esposito must rely on guesswork and his own instincts to make any progress. Furthermore, Argentina in 1974 is not a peaceful place. It is a perfect backdrop for the violence, hate, revenge and death that rule people’s lives and fates. To this ever more hostile and dark setting, Esposito’s investigation takes him deep into a world of terrible violence. No longer an observer, he becomes an unwilling central character in a drama in which he is exposed to ever-greater danger. But it is not only the young Esposito of 1974 who is swept along by the storm of events, for that storm also envelops the present-day Esposito, the old would-be writer, and sets him adrift. By deciding to revive and relive his memories, he has set in motion the wheels of the terrible mechanism of memory. And those memories are neither innocent, neutral nor aseptic. Esposito writes, and as he does so, relives a past that rises up before his eyes and awakens all his demons; particularly those involving his past decisions, uncertainties and irreparable mistakes. As he moves forward, Esposito begins to see that it is now too late to stop. Telling a story from the past is no longer just a pastime to fill his empty hours. It becomes a narrow, winding path he must take if he is to understand and find justification for his own life, if he is to give any meaning to the years remaining to him, and if once and for all he is to face up to the woman who, thirty years on, he is still in love with.
El Secreto De Sus Ojos has been nominated for best foreign language film at the upcoming Academy Awards (Oscars).