Drought in the Amazon

September 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

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Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, and the entire eastern region of the state are suffering the worst drought in more than a century. A government scientist who calls it an “atypical” drought says it is chiefly caused by warmer ocean temperatures.

Scientist Carlos Nobre, of the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), said, “When it comes to the Rio Negro, in Manaus, this drought has no parallel in the last 103 years. That is, since 1902, when the level of the Rio Negro began to be measured,” he said.

In the eastern part of the region, this is the worst drought in the last 50 or 60 years, he estimates. The governor of Amazonas state has declared a crisis due to the drought. Environmental News Service


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More Rain Records

September 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

From Wunderground…

Tropical Storm Matthew continues to dump heavy rains over Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and neighboring regions of Mexico today. Puerto Barrios, in northern Guatemala, has received 4.57″ of rain in the past 24 hours. With Matthew expected to slow down and dissipate by Sunday, the storm’s heavy rains of 6 – 15 inches can be expected to cause severe flooding and dangerous mudslides. The rains are of particular concern for Guatemala, which suffered its rainiest August in its history…


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Poor Paraguay

September 11, 2007 by Leave a Comment

The heat and drought and dried trees that have ravaged Montana, Idaho, California and Greece have combined to consume huge sections of Paraguay.

Paraguay declared a state of emergency in three northeastern provinces on Tuesday due to forest fires that have ravaged thousands of hectares (acres) of forests, crops and grazing pasture.

Paraguay Burns


Filed under Environment, Latin America

Chavez Pulls the Devil’s Tail

September 20, 2006 by Leave a Comment

I happened to catch some of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s speech at the UN this morning. He was waving around a thick paperback by Noam Chomsky, recommending that it be read by all but especially “our brothers and sisters” here in the United States. From this Raw Story report is was Hegemony or Survival.

His speech had all the high color of fine bombast. The line that cracked me up was after he said that the Devil himself had been at the same podium yesterday — President Bush — and the place “still smells of sulpher.” Damn! I bet that didn’t come from a vetted speech writer.

Raw Story on Hugo Chavez

I’ll look to see if the whole speech is posted somewhere. I’d like to see all of Ahmedinejad’s too. It’s odd, reading through all the reports, only to get selected shorts with no ability to read the whole (translated) transcript. (Not that I would read it all myself, but it’s comforting to be able to dig in and test the reporters asserstions with one’s own evaluation.)


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Venezuela Ama A Iran

June 26, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Oh gnashing of teeth in D.C. over this little romance…

CIUDAD BOLIVAR, VENEZUELA — The VenIran tractor factory in remote eastern Venezuela is one of the signs of Iran’s growing presence in Venezuela, which is being monitored by a U.S. government on alert for any evidence that Iran might be exporting terrorism

STLtoday – News – World


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US military sees oil nationalism spectre

June 25, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Now this would be an interesting report to get hold of. Anyone see any mention of it elsewhere>

Future supplies of oil from Latin America are at risk because of the spread of resource nationalism, a study by the US military that reflects growing concerns in the US administration over energy security has found.

An internal report prepared by the US military’s Southern Command and obtained by the Financial Times follows a recent US congressional investigation that warned of the US’s vulnerability to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s repeated threats to “cut off” oil shipments to the US.

FT.com – US military sees oil nationalism spectre


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