Belo Monte Dam Auction Proceeds Despite Protests Across Brazil

BRASILIA, Brazil, April 20, 2010 (ENS) - Today's bidding for electricity generated by Brazil's planned Belo Monte Dam in the Amazon rainforest has been marked by protests and legal confusion. A court injunction issued late Monday suspended the dam auction overnight, throwing the bidding process into a state of chaos.

Just moments before the auction was set to begin, a second injunction overturned Monday's suspension, reinstating the auction by the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency, ANEEL. The auction is being conducted electronically from the agency's headquarters in the capital, Brasilia.

When the bidding was concluded, the tender was awarded to Norte Energia, a consortium led by the utility Cia. Hidro Eletrica do Sao Francisco, CHESF, a subsidiary of the state electricity company, Electrobras. The consortium also includes eight private companies.

The generating capacity of the R$19 billion Belo Monte dam would be the world's third greatest behind China's Three Gorges dam and the Itaipu dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border. ANEEL says energy is expected to start flowing from the Belo Monte dam in 2015.


In Brasilia, Greenpeace and indigenous peoples today blockaded the main entrance of the ANEEL office building to protest the dam.

The most recent round of legal battles over the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River took a new twist on Friday, April 16, when a regional appellate court overturned an April 14 decision by Federal Judge Antonio Carlos de Almeida Campelo to suspend the preliminary license for the dam and cancel the auction.

Sitting in the city of Altamira, which will be partly flooded by the dam's reservoir, Judge de Almeida ruled that the dam project presents a "danger of irreparable harm."

Judge de Almeida's decision is based on the lack of a specific law allowing the use of hydraulic potential on Indian lands as required by the Brazilian Constitution.

"It remains proven unequivocally that the Belo Monte hydroelectric will exploit the hydro energetic potential in areas occupied by indigenous people who will be directly affected by the construction and development of the project," Judge de Almeida wrote in his decision.

Today, as the auction proceeded in Brasilia, indigenous, environmental and social groups organized protests in more than nine cities in eight Brazilian states.

Thousands of people including indigenous people, the Brazilian Movement of Dam-Affected People, the Landless Workers Movement, and environmentalists are engaged in simultaneous protest actions in the state capitals of Fortaleza, Florianopolis, Porto Alegre, Porto Velho, Belo Horizonte, Belem, Campina Grande, and the city of Altamira.

Boatloads of indigenous people are arriving on the proposed dam site located on Pimental Island on the Xingu River's Big Bend to establish a permanent village to block dam construction.

In Belem, 700 local people occupied the offices of Electronorte. And near the town of Altamira, the Landless Workers Movement and the Movement of Dam-Affected People blockaded the TransAmazon Highway.

"The Lula government is clearly pressuring the courts to approve Belo Monte against the rights and interests of indigenous people and the local populations of the Xingu, and it's our lives at stake," said Sheyla Yakarepi Juruna of the Juruna people, who met with judges on Monday urging the President of the Appellate Court for Region 1, Jirair Meguerian, to uphold the injunction.

"Even so, the people affected by this dam are united and determined to stop the project, we will not give up this fight," Juruna said.

The Belo Monte controversy attracted worldwide attention earlier this month when "Avatar" director James Cameron and actors Sigourney Weaver and Joel David Moore visited the Volta Grande area of the Xingu River and joined protests by indigenous and locally affected populations in Brasilia against the dam project.

After that visit, Cameron wrote a letter to Brazilian President Lula in which he said, "I met with 80 leaders representing 13 different Indigenous communities that are directly or indirectly threatened by the dam in the Lower Xingu. These leaders had traveled for up to five days by boat to meet at an Arara village on the Volta Grande, and I was privileged to hear their concerns first hand."

"They deeply fear the impact this dam will have on their lives, and are certain that it will end their way of life. They are prepared to do whatever they can to fight the dam, including lay down their lives if necessary. It was a highly emotional meeting, and I felt compelled, from that moment on, to do what I could to prevent the dam from being built," Cameron wrote.

The Belo Monte dam will inundate over 500 square kilometers of land, and divert nearly the entire flow of the Xingu River through two artificial canals to the dam's powerhouse. This river diversion will leave indigenous and traditional communities along a 100 kilometer (60 mile) stretch of the Volta Grande without water, fish, or a means of river transport. Conservationists and indigenous communities fear that if the dam is built, the rainforests in this region would be completely destroyed.

"The violation of indigenous rights is a matter of national and international concern. Brazil doesn't need the Belo Monte Dam. By investing in energy efficiency Brazil could avoid the need for as many as 14 Belo Monte dams and save billions of dollars in the process. Belo Monte Dam just doesn't make sense," said Aviva Imhof, campaigns director of International Rivers, a nonprofit organization based in California.

Two consortia vied for the rights to build the project: Norte Energia, which includes the state-owned CHESF and eight private companies; and Belo Monte Energia, which includes the state-owned Eletrosul, in addition to five private companies, including mining giant Vale.

To build Belo Monte, the winning consortium would dig two canals that would involve moving more earth than was dug for the Panama Canal to divert water from the river to an artificial reservoir.

Atossa Soltani of Amazon Watch, who accompanied Cameron and the Avatar actors in Brazil, says if the river diversion takes place, the Big Bend or Volta Grande, home to the Paquicamba indigenous territory of the Juruna people and the Arara people, would be dried out, gravely affecting the livelihoods of indigenous and riverine families who depend on the water for subsistence.

In total, some 45,000 people are directly affected by the either flooding or diversion of the river.

International groups, such as Amazon Watch and International Rivers, support their counterparts in Brazilian civil society in pressuring the Brazilian government to suspend Belo Monte, as organizations and individuals around the world called local Brazilian embassies to protest the government's plan to build the project despite widespread violations of indigenous rights.

Financially, the conservationists say the Belo Monte Dam is a risky project, which will generate only 10 to 30 percent of its 11,233 megawatts installed capacity during the dry season, and an annual average of 4,462 MW.

To make the project viable in a context of financial uncertainties and pressure from private investors to lower the auction's price ceiling, the government has had to draw from public pension funds and issue US$4 billion of credit from the public Brazilian National Development Bank.

The conservationists warn that to meet the project's 11,233 MW generating capacity, additional costly dams would need to be built further upstream, "threatening a vast area of tropical rainforests and affecting many of the 24 indigenous groups along the Xingu River."



http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-20-01.html

Man Made Global Warming / Climate Change isn't real……coming to terms.….

Man Made Global Warming / Climate Change is not real……coming to terms.….

Not many of my millions of readers know this but Global Warming which is now referred to as Climate Change is a fraud. It’s nothing more than a corporate run mass movement to dupe the environmentalists into focusing all their energy on CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) emissions. CO2 is a beneficial gas used by plants in their growth process. It is also released when hydrocarbon fuels are burnt to create energy. It’s non-toxic and does not effect the warming of the climate. Organisms (including the 6 billion humans on the planet) exhale carbon dioxide during the end phase of their respiratory cycle. Oxygen comes in, gets diffused into the bloodstream, and the waste product is Carbon Dioxide. We exhale it while plants breathe it in; this completes a normal and beneficial gas cycle which has taken place for millions of years. Understandably though since the industrial revolutions Human beings have been using more and more energy to produce their goods and services, this is not a bad thing. The only thing that is unfortunate is that the human race is held hostage by a very small group of oil and coal cartels which wish to halt human progress and technological advances to maintain their grip on the throats of the people. This iron grip has been challenged in many cases around the globe. One example of progress is the sovereign nation state of Brazil. The population of Brazil uses a mix of alcohol and ethanol to power their machinery. This is renewable, clean, and if grown organically will also be sustainable for decades to come.

Now, the reason why they focus the Greenie’s so fanatically on CO2 is that it’s an irrelevant gas in terms of industry. Many of the gasses and substances used by profit based manufacturing corporations to produce their goods are mostly toxic and some of which heavily regulated. Many of their factories need technologically advanced scrubber systems installed in their smoke stacks to prevent harmful heavy metals and synthetic chemicals from being spewed out into the surrounding atmosphere which have the potential to sit at ground level and affect the health of the local population. These harmful chemicals also have the ability to come down in the form of rain water which can harm fish, forests, and wildlife.

A list of potentially hazardous materials and practices that the Global Warming / Climate Change groups do not address:

Sulfur or sulphur pollution
Nitrogen pollution
Adhesives fumes
Volatile Organic Compounds
Cadmium pollution
Mercury pollution
Arsenic pollution
Lead Pollution
Depleted Uranium pollution
Plastics pollution
Electronic Waste pollution
Diesel Fumes
Gasoline Fumes
Chromium pollution
Polybrominated diphenyls ethers
Polybrominated biphenyls
Xylene pollution
Bisphenyl-A contamination
Melamine contamination
Factory Farming - Unsustainable agriculture - (Battery cages, Synthetic Fertilizers, Pesticides, and Herbicides)
Phthalates
Chlorinated solvents
Chlorofluorocarbons

Progressive plans that Global Warming / Climate change advocates choose to consistently ignore:

Renewable energies – (Vegetable oil based fuels, Alcohol fuels, Hydrogen Fuel , Magnetic energy, tidal power, individual household solar and wind power, geothermal)

1. Sustainable agriculture – organic agriculture – traditional agriculture

2. Stricter regulations on the use of hazardous materials for production based goods

3. Substitutes for synthetic hazardous materials used in production based manufacturing

4. Banning of cheap harmful chemicals in industrial and food products

5. Better quality assurance from manufacturers abroad

6. Environmental restoration



Since the whole Global Warming / Climate change movement is privatized, it means that they are pushing an agenda. The most ironic part about this is that instead of multinational corporations attempting to bribe statesmen with lobbyists they instead fool the whole population with “End of the world” hysteria, playing upon their frail emotions, and then demanding for what Wall Street wants. There is a weakness in their strategy which reaches far beyond political and scientific. It’s common sense. If people open their eyes and research the leaders of this so-called movement, find out who really funds them, and what their goals are then anyone who has even the slightest critical thinking abilities can uncover this ruse.

Their corporate goals:

1.Establish a Carbon Tax on the people (Not big business). The revenue obtained by this tax will be given directly to private interests either industrial or financial.

2. Austerity for the people (Higher costing commodities, No hot baths, No vacations, No heating or cooling of homes, no raising of living standards, one child policy, eminent domain)

3.Create a speculative carbon based derivative market

4. Deindustrialization (More jobs lost)

5. Special privileges for the few at the expense of the many (Loosening of regulations on REAL hazardous materials and lowering pollution standards)


Let us not forget that Al Gore’s role in FREE TRADE (Destruction of the USA production base). Many of you reading this may know someone that’s unemployed or are unemployed yourself. One of the reasons for this is because of Mr. Al Gore and his FREE TRADE policies that were supposed to make us rich. Does anyone really believe this shill for corporate interests? No. The answer is blatant and obvious.


This is my view on the hoax. What do you think?

A Call to the People of the World to Support Iceland Against the Financial Blackmail of the British and Dutch Governments and the IMF

January 5, 2010 is a historical day for Icelanders.

The Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson had a tough decision to make, and difficult choices to make. To listen to the 23% of the nation that signed a petition calling on him to put the state guarantee for 5.4 billion dollars to be paid to the British and Dutch governments to a national referendum. Or to ignore the nation and sign the bill for the government, after the bill had been passed through the parliament with a narrow vote on December 30, 2009 after months of acrimonious debate, tainted with secrecy and dishonesty on the part of the government. Every day throughout the debate, new information would emerge and documents would leak to local media or wikileaks. Yesterday, the people of Iceland finally had a chance to have something to say about their fate, because if the state guarantee is accepted it will mean that Iceland will become like a third world country, spending its GDP largely on paying interest on foreign debt. Last summer, a bill for a state guarantee was passed that had a significant meaning not only for Iceland, but also for other nations around the world facing the same problems of private debt being forced on taxpayers. The bill included a reasonable and fair way of handling the interest and the debt: Icelanders would pay, but only a certain percentage of their GDP, and if there were to be another financial black hole, they would not pay during that time. Thus it comes as no surprise that the Dutch and British governments reacted so swiftly with a condemnation of Iceland’s citizens for having the audacity to think they have the right to exercise their democratic rights in deciding for themselves what is in the best economic interests of their nation.

Let’s also put this debt into perspective: 320.000 people live in Iceland, each and every person on the island, including children and the elderly, the disabled and the poor, would have to pay around $30,000 under the bill. The danger if Icelanders will accept this enormous burden is that the entire welfare system would simply collapse with no money to run it. On January 5th the Icelandic president had the courage, backed up by his nation, to place the interest of the people before that of the banks.

Of course there has been an incredible spin by the government controlled media, attacking the nation and the president for this simple and fair demand. The UK and Dutch media were also full of misleading news, saying the nation had demanded not to pay, and that we would become isolated and there were even suggestions that the British navy should flex its muscles against this nation which has no military. As if the terrorist act they imposed on us was not enough during the darkest hour of our crises to bring us further down!

The spin is failing because people around the world are finally starting to hear our side of the story, and other suppressed nations have perhaps seen this as a sign that they can also rise up against the corpocracy in our world where those with the money have as a rule always won. Let’s hope the nation will not been coaxed into fear of isolation and let’s hope the people of the world will join in this experiment of letting the interest of the peoples rise above the interests of banks, corporations, and international bullies such as the IMF. We need your support. I will soon issue a comprehensive report on the entire Icesave saga.

Love and rage from Iceland Birgitta Jónsdóttir Party group chairman for The Movement in the Icelandic Parliament

http://tarpley.net/2010/01/07/a-call-to-the-people-of-the-world-to-support-iceland-against-the-financial-blackmail-of-the-british-and-dutch-governments-and-the-imf/