Green anacondas typically grow to around 20 feet (6 meters) in length and weigh around 330 lbs (149 kgs). However, they can grow to more than 30 feet (9 meters) in length, weigh over 500 lbs (226 kgs), and measure 30 centimetres (12 inches) in diameter. Females are significantly larger than males and green anacondas exhibit the greatest size difference between the sexes of any terrestrial vertebrate. Other anaconda species, all from South America and all smaller than the green anaconda, are the yellow, dark-spotted, and Bolivian varieties.

As the name suggests, the green anaconda is olive green in colour, and contains black smudges running across the entire length of its body. The head of the green anaconda snake is narrower than the rest of its body and is characterized by a distinctive orange-yellow striping on either side. Apart from the above mentioned physical features, the green anacondas also have scales. There are claw-like spurs located on either side of the cloaca (the cavity into which the genito-urinary and digestive tracts of the anaconda snakes empty). This is the only region of the green anaconda snake’s body that does not have scales, and which emits a musk with a foul odour that is poisonous to small organisms. Perhaps this is a mode whereby the green anaconda snake prevents leeches and ticks from attaching themselves to its cloaca. Analogous with the fingerprint of a human, the pattern of scales found along the yellow and black underside of the lower tail of the green anacondas is unique to each anaconda snake.

Green anacondas dwell mainly in the marshes and swamps in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of northern South America. They are cumbersome on land, but stealthy and sleek in the water. Their eyes and nasal openings are on top of their heads, allowing them to lay in wait for prey while remaining nearly completely submerged.

They reach their monumental size on a diet of wild pigs, deer, birds, turtles, capybara, caimans, and even jaguars. Anacondas are nonvenomous constrictors, coiling their muscular bodies around captured prey and squeezing until the animal asphyxiates. Jaws attached by stretchy ligaments allow them to swallow their prey whole, no matter the size, and they can go weeks or months without food after a big meal.

Green anacondas are ‘ovoviviparous,’ which means that the females carry the eggs within their bodies until the babies are ready to hatch. Females give birth to two to three dozen live young. Baby snakes are about 2 feet (0.6 meters) long when they are born and are almost immediately able to swim and hunt. From birth to adulthood, the green anaconda undergoes a dramatic 500-fold increase in mass, a greater increase than any other snake species. Their lifespan in the wild is about ten years.

Green anacondas continue to interest and amaze people the world over but they face a number of threats, which could have a significant impact on their population. They are hunted, both legally and illegally, in many parts of its range for its skins and for sale in the growing, illegal pet trade. They are also the victims of human prejudice and ignorance. Local people kill thousands of anacondas every year under the pretext of protecting livestock, pets or even people. However, in many cases, a widespread fear and dislike of snakes results in individuals of this species being persecuted, even when found in remote areas. Habitat loss and degradation are also threatening this species, and even in areas where habitat protection exists, a lack of enforcement is allowing illegal deforestation to occur.

The project costs £725 for 5 weeks. The fee includes a contribution to the cost of materials needed to build a wind turbine, accommodation, food, transport whilst volunteering, trips to tourist sites, and the opportunity to spend a week living in the community where you will install your wind turbine.

Although a male gay couple were married in Argentina in January, Mexico City is the first place in Latin America to pass a law explicitly recognising gay marriage.

The project requires a minimum commitment of 6 months (early August 2010 to at least late January 2011). The project can arrange a visa for up to 12 months if you would like to volunteer for a full year in the Galapagos Islands. The application deadline is Friday 30 April 2010.

Volunteers receive free housing and reimbursement of food expenses.

From these slender elements, the Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo weaves a story that relentlessly draws the reader in, and says more about life as well as death in rural Mexico than many longer and more elaborate works. Rulfo is a story-teller who is well aware that poetry comes from knowing what to leave out as much as what to leave in.

The narrative of Pedro Paramo – the name of the protagonist’s father – consists of some 60 fragments. These fragments are the voices of the ghosts still present in the village of Comala, who between them gradually build up the jigsaw of his father’s life and death. Pedro Paramo, we discover, was the local landowner, who accumulated his lands and power by treachery or by brutally arranged marriages, until at last he fell for a woman he found it impossible to win, as she retreated first into madness and then – inevitably in this novel – death.

The 100 or so pages of the novel are held together not only by the gradually unfolding story, but by repeated images and expressions that broaden out the impact of the local events and endow them with a more general resonance. The voices of the former inhabitants of Comala give a stark impression of life as something suffered rather than created.

Pedro Paramo was originally published in Mexico in 1955. Despite the fact that Rulfo only wrote this novel and the short stories of The Burning Plain, he has been universally acknowledged as one of the masters of recent Mexican writing, both because of the sobriety and resonant understatement that he consistently achieves, and because of the way he uses these gifts to capture the emptiness and despair of rural Mexico. This is a Mexico which has been abandoned to suffering for centuries, but which still retains its capacity to burst into shocking life.

Pedro Paramo is a classic in the truest sense. It is a book that has profoundly influenced the making of literature, and continues to resonate in other books.

But as Bush Versus Chávez reveals, Venezuela’s revolutionary process has drawn more than simply the ire of Washington. It has precipitated an ongoing campaign to contain and cripple the democratically elected government of Latin America’s leading oil power. Bush Versus Chávez details how millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are used to fund groups – such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Office for Transition – with the express purpose to support counter-revolutionary groups in Venezuela. It describes how Washington is attempting to impose endless sanctions, justified by fabricated evidence, to cause economic distress. And it illuminates the build-up of U.S. military troops, operations, and exercises in the Caribbean, that specifically threaten the Venezuelan people and government. Bush Versus Chávez exposes the imperialist machinations of Washington as it tries to “subvert a socialist revolution for the twenty-first century.”

“An essential read for understanding the conflict between the United States and Venezuela” Noam Chomsky.

Featuring a veritable who’s who of the Sao Paulo music scene, from cult soundtrack producer Gui Amabis to Brazil’s most in-demand rhythm section, Dengue and Pupilo, this second album is a testament to the sophistication of current Brazilian music. Nodding to Brazil’s musical past – from plinking samba guitars to Sixties-flavoured horns – the music weaves these elements into a blend of electronic and acoustic textures. Rosa Menina Rosa, with its vibes and vintage synths has a dark, dreamlike feel. And at the centre of it all is that spookily composed voice, at once other-worldly and knowing. This is wonderfully classy music, that will bring a deliciously different sense of now straight into your living room.

It is important for people to realise that Santiago, as well as other tourist areas in northern and southern Chile (Atacama Desert, Pucon, Patagonia, etc), are all fine. Although aftershocks can be felt in Santiago, the city is not damaged significantly like in Concepcion.

The travel industry is vital to the nation’s economy and visiting Chile as a tourist is the best thing you could do to boost the economy and help rebuild the country.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the aftershock early Friday had a magnitude of 6.6 and was centered 41 kilometres northwest of Concepcion, the city hardest hit by last Saturday’s quake. There are no immediate reports of damage or injuries.