Oiseaux Exotiques

The end of net neutrality may be here

The net neutrality rules, approved by the FCC in 2015, were intended to keep the internet open and fair. Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon were explicitly prohibited from speeding up or slowing down traffic from specific websites and apps.

Le soleil des eaux

Clotilde Rosa (11/5/1930 – 24/11/2017)

Maria Clotilde Belo de Carvalho Rosa Franco (11 May 1930 – 24 November 2017) was a Portuguese harpist, music educator and composer.

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In 1970 Rosa co-founded the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group (GMCL) with composer Jorge Peixinho

Tom Koopman after his concert in Faro

Thug who battered ex-wife with spiked bat walks free after Portuguese judges quote the Bible

The warped judges expressed "some understanding" for the attacker who believed his former wife cheated on him.

Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist

The journalist who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta was killed on Monday in a car bomb near her home.

Daphne Caruana Galizia died on Monday afternoon when her car, a Peugeot 108, was destroyed by a powerful explosive device which blew the vehicle into several pieces and threw the debris into a nearby field.

Spanish Terrorism Against Catalonia

Spanish riot police smashed their way into a polling station in Catalonia on Sunday as they sought to shut down a banned independence referendum and there were reports of officers firing rubber bullets in the regional capital Barcelona.

Uncontacted Tribe Killed By Gold Miners

The killings allegedly took place last month along the River Jandiatuba in western Brazil, but the news only emerged after the goldminers started boasting about the killings, and showing off “trophies” in the nearest town.

[others are criminals in many ways, often in the most blatant ways. The hell in samba fashion...]

In memoriam of Catalonia's terrorist attacks victims

Palm Oil and Gold

Palm oil is extracted from the fruit of the oil palm tree, Elaeis guineensis, which thrives in humid climates. The large majority of palm oil production occurs in just two countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, where huge swaths of tropical forests and peatlands (carbon-rich swamps) are being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations, releasing carbon into the atmosphere to drive global warming while shrinking habitats for a multitude of endangered species. 

The Brazilian president Michel Temer has abolished an Amazonian reserve the size of Denmark, prompting concerns of an influx of mineral companies, road-builders and workers into the species-rich forest. The dissolution of the Renca reserve – which spans 46,000 sq km on the border of the Amapa and Para states – was described by one opposition senator Randolfe Rodrigues of the Sustainability Network party, as the “biggest attack on the Amazon of the last 50 years”.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo died

Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s most famous pro-democracy advocates and political prisoners, just died in Chinese custody at a hospital. He was 61. He is the first Nobel Peace Prize winner to die in state custody since the days of Nazi Germany. 

[Liu Xia is a poet and photographer. She married Xiaobo in 1996 when he was imprisoned in a “reeducation through labor” camp. His “crime” then was to have urged the government to find a peaceful way to unite mainland China with Taiwan, that is, to do so without the dire threats commonly issued by the People’s Republic of China. Liu Xia visited her husband in prison after he was awarded the Nobel Prize. She was then placed under house arrest and deprived of a mobile phone, Internet access, and all but a tiny number of visitors. She was allowed out briefly in 2013 to attend the trial of her brother, Liu Hui—part of what human rights lawyers say is official retaliation against the family. She called out to a crowd of well-wishers: “Tell everybody that I’m not free.”]