MEGAPOST: German-Jewish Heritage Around the Globe

Jewish Artists – The Influence of Exiles | Arts 21

Uploaded on Nov 13, 2011
It’s well known that many Jewish scientists and artists fled Nazi Germany. Less well known is their cultural influence in the countries that took them in. A major study by the Moses Mendelssohn Center in Potsdam focuses on just that. We spoke with the Center’s Director, Julius H. Schoeps.

MEGAPOST: Uncontacted Tribes and First Contacts

‘Uncontacted’ tribe found in Brazil’s Amazon

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Jun 22, 2011
Researchers in Brazil say they have found one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes in a remote corner of the Amazon forest.

Aerial pictures revealed by the Brazilian government’s agency of indigenous affairs (Funai) show four large thatched huts fully surrounded by various crops in the Vale do Javari region.

Aloysio Guapindaia, a Funai director, also said they would work to keep the tribe isolated and safe. The tribe is thought to belong to the Pano linguistic group that straddles the border between Brazil, Peru and Bolivia.

Gabriel Elizondo reports from Sao Paulo.

Pictures released of uncontacted Peru tribe

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Feb 1, 2012
One of the most isolated tribes in the world has been photographed in the most detailed pictures ever taken of them. The images of the Mashco Piro tribe, released by Survival International, have sparked the world’s imagination.

The once “lost” tribe live in the jungles of southeastern Peru, near the Manu National Park and are hostile to outsiders. They have been blamed for a number of attacks.

Rebecca Spooner, a Peru campaigner with Survival International, speaks to Al Jazeera from London.

Peru struggles to protect indigenous tribe

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Feb 1, 2012
Peruvian authorities say they are struggling to keep outsiders away from a previously isolated Amazon people.

They have been appearing on a riverbank popular with tourists since May last year. Anthropologists are puzzled over why the tribe would leave the safety of their jungle homes.

Al Jazeera’s Bhanu Bhatnagar reports.

New Brazilian millionaires on the rise

Brazil’s booming economy has helped bring millions of more citizens into the country’s middle class population in the last decade.

According to a new report, the upper class is also rapidly expanding with 19 new millionaires a day in the world’s fifith largest economy.

Gabriel Elizondo reports from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In Brazil, Women’s Changing Roles, Attitudes Leading to Smaller Families

Despite having the most Catholics in the world, 80 percent of Brazilian women of childbearing age are using some form of artificial contraception. In partnership with National Geographic Magazine, special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro examines the declining fertility rate, which has dropped to just 1.9 children per woman.

MEGAPOST: Prison drug-smuggling by air – throw-overs and pigeons

Drugs Thrown over Prison Walls (Footage)
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

A lucrative business on Winnipeg’s streets has turned into a busy enterprise behind bars.

Prison officials at Stony Mountain Penitentiary are seeing a spike in what are called ‘throw-overs’ – people throwing drugs over the prison walls to be picked up by inmates inside.

Sheriff: Tennis Balls With Drugs Thrown Over Jail Walls
New Orleans, Louisiana

An undercover investigation inside the Orleans Parish Prison has led to the arrest of more than a dozen people accused of smuggling contraband into the jail, the sheriff said Friday.

Pigeons smuggling drugs and mobile phones to inmates
São Paulo, Brazil

Inmates have been using pigeons to smuggle drugs and mobile phones into a South American prison, it was revealed today.

Guards at the jail near Sao Paulo had noticed a rise in the amount of narcotics being seized from prisoners and were mystified until they spotted some distressed pigeons struggling to remain airborne.

They found that inmates at the prison in Marilia had been training the birds to fly in goods with the aid of small pouches on their backs, avoiding the high-tech security faced by visitors.

Officials revealed the carrier pigeons had been trained inside the jail and lived on the roof of the building where prisoners would take their deliveries before smuggling the birds out again through friends and family.

The method was foiled after workers noticed some pigeons having difficulty flying due to the weight of the goods.

Prison director Luciano Gamateli told Globo TV: “We have sophisticated equipment to search people when they go in, but they avoided this by finding another way to bring in cell-phones and drugs.”

Brazil’s prisons are notoriously overcrowded and well-known for their lax security, with drug and mobile phone use common among inmates.

Last year prisoners at one Sao Paulo jail used their phones to orchestrate a wave of attacks against police and public property.

Pigeons Used to Smuggled Drugs

ANCHOR:
Brazilian prison authorities have discovered a new smuggling scheme used in jails. Carrier pigeons are being used to deliver drugs and mobile phones to inmates. Here’s more on this story.

STORY:
Brazilian prison authorities have recently discovered inmates smuggling in drugs and mobile phones through an unusual channel. The inmates of Sao Paulo state penitentiary were using carrier pigeons to get the goods inside the jail. The prison is located in Marilia, some four hundred fifty kilometers away from the city of Sao Paulo. Inmates were kept under close surveillance when it was discovered they were somehow getting contraband. The jail’s security guards only began to suspect the pigeons had a connection to the increasing amount of drugs and phones inside the cells after they observed some birds were having difficulty in flying. This was confirmed once prison officers found out that some of the birds had small backpacks attached to them. Wanderlei Gatti, a pigeon breeder, believes the prisoners have been taming the birds themselves.

[Wanderlei Gatti, Pigeon Breeder]:
“Someone is breeding these pigeons inside the cells and they are being tamed inside the prison.”

The penitentiary also intensified the search to relatives before weekly visits after a woman was caught leaving the prison with two carrier pigeons inside a box. Investigations later revealed that one of the inmates had managed to tame the birds and make a nest in his cell. The pigeons would then be passed on to people outside the prison through the visitors. Police chief Paulo de Souza said it was surprising that such old-fashioned methods were still being used.

[Paulo de Souza, Police Chief]:
” In the digital era we still find this situation involving post pigeons.”
Carrier pigeons were first used by the Egyptians and the Persians over three thousand years ago.

Drugs Smuggling Pigeon Caught In Colombia

January 19, 2011

In Colombia, a pigeon has been caught trying to smuggle 45 grams of marijuana into a prison.

Brazilian black and mixed-race people discriminated

REPORTAGE : Brazil is one of the most racially-mixed countries on the planet: half the population has African origins. Yet black and mixed-race people suffer discrimination. Many are fighting for better recognition of this “invisible majority”.

MEGAPOST: School shooting in Brazil

Videos, photos and written documents left by the man who shot dead 12 students in Brazil have been released. 23-year-old Wellington Oliveira killed himself after carrying out the 7 April massacre in the Rio de Janeiro school he attended as a child. The country has been shocked by the magnitude of the killing; there had never been a school shooting like this in Brazil. But the young man’s own words released on Friday did little to help the country come to terms with his actions. In videos and letters, Oliveira mentions God, quotes the Bible extensively, and discusses the quotations in long, rambling passages. He also says the attack was motivated by the bullying and humiliation he suffered as a student and continued to suffer into adulthood. He cites Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho as “a brother” along with a Brazilian teenager who in 2003 shot and wounded six students in the school where he’d studied, then killed himself. Cho was the Virginia Tech student who in 2007 shot 32 people to death and committed suicide. Like Cho, Oliveira blames school officials and bullies for the attacks he is about to commit. “I hope this serves as a lesson, especially to those school officials who stood by with their arms crossed as students were being attacked, humiliated, ridiculed,” Oliveira says in one video. He adds: “If these officials had uncrossed their arms earlier and done something to fight against these types of practices, what happened may not have happened at all. I would still be alive. All those who I killed would still be alive. If you remain with your arms crossed, you will be forcing more brothers to kill and die.”

CCTV video of Brazil school shooting, panic as gunman kills 12 kids in Rio

(WARNING – Some may find scenes in the video disturbing)
This dramatic footage shows children fleeing from a killer who shot 12 kids dead and wounded at least 12 others in Rio de Janeiro school shooting, Brazil. A 24-year old former student of the public school where the tragedy took place, entered the building and opened fire in two classrooms. He shot himself afterwards. The country’s President has declared 7-days of mourning for the victims. The massacre is the first of its kind in Brazil, mirroring school shootings in the U.S.

Gunman kills ‘defenceless’ children in Brazil

Police have released amateur footage and CCTV of a shooting massacre at a Brazil school that left 12 children dead.

Rio Carnival – no comment

Over a million revellers turned out for the “Black Ball” street carnival parade, according to the organisers on Saturday. The legendary samba troop, which has been performing for ninety-three years, attracted people of all ages who celebrated in black and white polka dot outfits in honour of the group’s name….