Brazil

Three Things That Will Definitely Happen In 2019

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Dollar Collapse

Much about 2019 is uncertain. But a few things are pretty much guaranteed, including the following:

Government debt will rise at an accelerating rate

Like a life-long dieter who finally gives up and decides to eat himself to death, the US is now committed to trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see. And that’s – get this – assuming no recession in the coming decade. During the next downturn that trillion will become two or more, but in 2019 another trillion-plus is guaranteed.

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Why We’re Ungovernable, Part 17: In Latin America, Soaring Population + Soaring Debt = “Brutal Justice”

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Dollar Collapse

There are two ways of looking at the intersection of debt and population. One way says that if debt is rising population should also rise to allow future workers to pay for the retirement of today’s. More people thus make debt easier to manage.

The other point of view is that debt and population soaring simultaneously creates a negative feedback loop that eventually destroys a culture.

Today’s Latin America appears to validate the second thesis. Debt and population are both soaring, and big parts of the culture seem to be collapsing.

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Termite colony the size of Great Britain ‘has been being built since the dawn of the Pyramids’

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By Rob Waugh– Re-Blogged From Yahoo

It’s a construction project unlike any on our planet: it’s the size of Great Britain, and has been going on for 3,820 years, since the Pyramids were first built.

But no humans have been involved in the huge landscape of 200 million mounds in Brazil – it was all built by termites.

Researchers in northeast Brazil sampled soil in 11 locations and found that some of it began nearly four thousand years ago.

Millions of termite mounds built by a single species are as old as the pyramids and cover an area bigger than Great Britain (PA)

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Venezuelan Crisis Bringing Back Major Diseases Thought Long Gone

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By Kathy Burke – Re-Blogged From Newsmax

Contagion from Venezuela’s economic meltdown is literally spreading to neighboring nations — in the form of potentially deadly diseases among millions of refugees, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Medical officials in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela told the news outlet the collapse of Venezuela’s health system has turned the country into an incubator for malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue and tuberculosis, as well as the virus that causes AIDS.

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80 Percent of Venezuelans Short of Food

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By Ben Kew – Re-Blogged From Breitbart

Around 80 percent of Venezuelans are now short of food, according to the new data compiled by NGO Human Rights Watch on Tuesday.

Following a trip to the Venezuelan border with Brazil by a team of health experts from John Hopkins University, researchers found that malnutrition continues to rise aggressively, with 80 percent of households unable to access enough food and rates of malnutrition among five years now over the World Health Organization’s crisis limit. In 2017, the average person lost around 11 kilos (24 pounds). In 2016, that number was 19 pounds; it is expected to have risen in 2018.

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Brazil President-Elect Vows to Move Embassy to Jerusalem

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By Jason Devaney – Re-Blogged From Newsmax

The president-elect of Brazil signaled his desire to follow in President Donald Trump’s footsteps by relocating his country’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Jair Bolsonaro posted on Facebook on Thursday he will follow through on a campaign promise regarding the embassy after he takes office.

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In Brazil, Any Anti-Corruption Mandate Will Meet Political Obstacles

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Re-Blogged From Stratfor.com

Highlights

  • The next Brazilian administration will come to power with a mandate to deepen anti-corruption probes and deliver greater results against perceived graft.
  • Brazil’s new government will have two general choices at its disposal: create institutions to more effectively detect and deal with corruption, or work within the existing institutions to indirectly target corruption through legislative amendments, including enacting stricter criminal penalties.
  • Obtaining funding to support extensive institutional reforms, balancing anti-corruption pursuits against competing political priorities, negotiating for legislative change with Brazil’s highly fragmented National Congress and other bureaucratic obstacles will shape the next administration’s anti-corruption policy.

A picture showing Brazilians rallying against far-right populist presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo on Oct. 20.

(NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)

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