Tag: brazil

Take It From Brazil, Biden’s Ban on Flavored Cigarettes and Cigars Will Be a Disaster

The Biden administration’s flavored cigarettes and cigars ban, currently under final review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), will soon make it illegal to buy or sell menthol and flavored tobacco products in the United States. Having announced its intention to prevent people, especially children, from becoming addicted to cigarettes and other drugs, Biden’s FDA will have to grapple with the consequences of their chosen method.

A similar ban in Brazil gives us a window into the probable outcome of Biden’s flavored cigarettes legislation. In 2012, after a series of court battles, Brazil became one of the first countries in the world to fully ban flavored cigarettes, wanting to minimize the demand for cigarette products and curb smoking in the country, particularly among children. 

To enforce the ban, Brazil has used its federal police force and its military police to crack down on the illegal cigarette market—with its government and law enforcement being one of the most vocal proponents of tobacco crackdowns since the mid-1980s. But Brazil quickly faced the fallout from its prohibitionist policy. 

Brazil’s demand for illegal cigarettes, particularly flavored cigarettes, only increased. Illegal actors quickly entered the market, leading the Brazilian government to conduct dangerous raids against illegal cigarette providers, with some resulting in bystanders being killed in the crossfire. The Brazilian government has lost billions of dollars in enforcement and tax revenues, while expenditures on illegal cigarettes rise. 

Brazil now has one of the largest cigarette markets in the world, despite its efforts to rid the country of cigarettes through prohibition. According to the Brazilian Institute for Competition Ethics (ETCO), the illegal cigarette market now represents about half of the entire cigarette market. Illegal cigarette consumption nearly doubled from 2008 to 2013 and in Brazil’s border areas it nearly tripled. 

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BOLSANARO’S BUTCHERY: CIA FINGERPRINTS ARE ALL OVER BRAZIL’S INDIGENOUS GENOCIDE

From April 1964 to March 1985, a military junta ruled Brazil with an iron fist. Its crimes against humanity throughout this period were extensive, including institutionalized torture, imprisonment, forced disappearances and mass murder. Typically, the victims were political opponents of the regime, although the country’s indigenous population was a specific, dedicated target.

In most cases, their crime was objecting to economic “reform” projects that destroyed their homes or simply living in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the backing and direction of the World Bank, the junta forcibly displaced indigenous people and desecrated their lands to extract valuable natural resources for Western capital. Along the way, these communities routinely endured brutal repression, pogroms, and massacres.

Much of this barbarity was doled out by the Rural Indigenous Guard, a lethal elite police force covertly created by the CIA. The Agency also constructed a system of indigenous prisons, which played a pivotal and horrifying role in the junta’s policies of indigenous cleansing.

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Luzio, who lived in São Paulo 10,000 years ago, was Amerindian like Indigenous people now, DNA reveals

An article published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil), was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples, such as the Tupi.

Based on the largest set of Brazilian archaeological genomic data, the study reported in the article also offers an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal communities, the residents of which built the icons of Brazilian archaeology known as “sambaquis,” huge mounds of shells and fishbones used as dwellings, cemeteries and territorial boundaries. Archaeologists often refer to these monuments as shell mounds or kitchen middens.

“After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the ‘kings of the coast’ for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago,” said André Menezes Strauss, an archaeologist at the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and principal investigator for the study.

The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different areas of Brazil’s coast. The fossils were at least 10,000 years old. They came from sambaquis and other parts of eight sites (Cabeçuda, Capelinha, Cubatão, Limão, Jabuticabeira II, Palmeiras Xingu, Pedra do Alexandre and Vau Una).

This material included Luzio, São Paulo’s oldest skeleton, found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley by a group led by Levy Figuti, a professor at MAE-USP. The morphology of its skull is similar to that of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found to date in South America, dating from about 13,000 years ago. The researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians, who settled in what is now Brazil some 14,000 years ago, but it turns out they were mistaken.

“Genetic analysis showed Luzio to be an Amerindian, like the Tupi, Quechua or Cherokee. That doesn’t mean they’re all the same, but from a global perspective, they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago. If there was another population here 30,000 years ago, it didn’t leave descendants among these groups,” Strauss said.

Luzio’s DNA also answered another question. River middens are different from coastal ones, so the find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the huge classical sambaquis that appeared later. This discovery suggests there were two distinct migrations—into the hinterland and along the coast.

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Pendants made from giant sloths suggest earlier arrival of people in the Americas

New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.

Scientists analyzed triangular and teardrop-shaped pendants made of bony material from the sloths. They concluded that the carved and polished shapes and drilled holes were the work of deliberate craftsmanship.

Dating of the ornaments and sediment at the Brazil site where they were found point to an age of 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, the researchers reported. That’s several thousand years before some earlier theories had suggested the first people arrived in the Americas, after migrating out from Africa and then Eurasia.

“We now have good evidence — together with other sites from South and North America — that we have to rethink our ideas about the migration of humans to the Americas,” said Mirian Liza Alves Forancelli Pacheco, a study co-author and archaeologist at the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil.

In the past decade, other research has challenged the conventional wisdom that people didn’t reach the Americas until a few thousand years before rising sea levels covered the Bering land bridge between Russia and Alaska, perhaps around 15,000 years ago.

The ornaments were discovered about 30 years ago at a rock shelter called Santa Elina in central Brazil. The new study is the first to analyze them extensively and rule out the possibility that humans had found and carved them thousands of years after the animals perished.

The team of researchers from Brazil, France and the United States said their analysis shows this handiwork was done within days to a few years after the animals had died, and before the materials had fossilized. The researchers also ruled out natural abrasion and other things that might explain the shapes and holes. They reported their findings Wednesday in Britain’s Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal.

“We think they were personal objects, possibly for personal adornment,” said Thais Rabito Pansani, a co-author and paleontologist at the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil.

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Reporter Who Covered the “Brazilian Roswell” Varginha Incident Comes Forward with New Details


In the span of barely 18 months beginning, in January 2022, a UFO landing and alien encounter in South America has garnished enough attention to have gone from being referred to by many as “Brazil’s Roswell” to being well on its way to turning the New Mexico UFO incident into “America’s Varginha.” The incident occurred in January of 1996 when a large number of people in Varginha, a major metropolitan area in southeastern Brazil, claimed to have witnessed a UFO flying and landing, with a few of them claiming to see one or more extraterrestrials, a sizable number reporting military personnel removing the UFO or its crash debris, and one or possibly more becoming ill from touching an ET or the debris or breathing the air near it. While the military and the Brazilian government have never confirmed the UFO nor the aliens, witnesses, doctors, soldiers and others are suddenly coming forward with more details about the Varginha. This week, a reporter who covered it in 1996 has given an interview and released a book with new information on what she saw behind the scenes of what is becoming the most famous UFO and extraterrestrial incident of the modern era.

Journalist Margarida Hallacoc was born in Poço Fundo, just 50 miles from Varginha in the state of Minas Gerais. In January 1996, Hallacoc was a reporter for Jornal Hoje em Dia (“Today’s Newspaper”) at the Varginha branch – putting her in the perfect location to cover the fast-breaking news about the mysterious incident. To promote her new book on the case, “The ETs of Varginha: Behind the scenes of another world coverage,” Hallacoc sat down for interviews with João Marcelo on his UFO YouTube channel (view it here in Portuguese) and with Noticiar.net. besides being a journalist and author, Margarida Hallacoc was a writing professor in the Journalism and Advertising courses at the Centro Universitário do Sul de Minas (UNIS). As such, she told Noticiar.net that her book takes a different approach to previous ones on the Varginha incident.

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The Man Who Touched an Alien at Brazil’s Roswell – Newly Released Forensic Report Shows a Strange Bacteria Killed Him


On January 20, 1996, the incident that has since become known as ‘Brazil’s Roswell’ began when three young women in Varginha, a major metropolitan city in southeastern Brazil, reported seeing an alien being described as having red eyes, a large head with “spots like veins on the skin” and an unsteady bipedal gait that made them think it was injured or sick. This was followed by more reports of aliens, UFO sightings, military presence, witnesses who allegedly filmed aliens being removed from the area, and one young policeman who claimed to have touched one of the extraterrestrials and was infected with a mysterious disease which soon killed him. Details of his experience and death have remained sketchy at best, but documentary filmmaker James Fox managed to finally get detailed reports from witnesses for his 2022 documentary on the Varginha incident called “Moment of Contact.” Fox returned to Varginha this year and recently announced he has obtained more information from the forensic pathologist who examined the young policeman who allegedly touched an alien. What he found could shed new light on Brazil’s Roswell.

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New Law Sought by Brazil’s Lula to Ban and Punish “Fake News and Disinformation” Threatens the Free Internet Everywhere

A major escalation in official online censorship regimes is progressing rapidly in Brazil, with implications for everyone in the democratic world. Under Brazil’s new government headed by President Lula da Silva, the country is poised to become the first in the democratic world to implement a law censoring and banning, and punishing not only “fake news” and “disinformation” online, but also punishing those deemed guilty of spreading it. Such laws already exist throughout the non-democratic world, adopted years ago by the planet’s most tyrannical regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. 

If one wishes to be generous with the phrase “the democratic world” and include Malaysia and Singapore – at best hybrid “democracies” – then one could argue that a couple other “democratic” governments have already seized the power to decree Absolute Truth and then ban any deviation from it. But absent unexpected opposition, Brazil will soon become the first country unambiguously included in the democratic world to outlaw “fake news” and vest government officials with the power to banish it and punish its authors. 

Last May, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was forced to retreat from its attempt to appoint a “disinformation czar” to oversee what would effectively be its Ministry of Truth. That new DHS agency, at least nominally, was to be only advisory: it would declare truth and falsity and then pressure online platforms to comply by banning that which was deemed false. The backlash was so great that DHS finally claimed to cancel it, though secret documents emerged in October describing the agency’s plans to continue to shape online censorship decisions of Big Tech. 

Brazil’s law would be anything but advisory. Though the details are still yet to be released, it would empower law enforcement officials to take action against citizens deemed to be publishing statements that the government classifies as “false,” and to solicit courts to impose punishment on those who do so.

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Lula’s Brazilian “Indigenous” Charity Embezzled $6.5 Million

The Brazilian NGO which posted images of Yanomami indios from Venezuela, claiming they were victims of Jair Bolsonaro, is a leftist organization which embezzled $6.5 million of taxpayer funds, reveals investigative journalist Oswaldo Eustáquio.

Public data from the Brazilia Federal Court of Auditors reveals that the NGO URIHI diverted R$ 33 million (US$ 6.5 million) from public coffers meant for indigenous health measures in the state of Roraima, according to Oswaldo Eustáquio.

“The public funds that are intended to be used for food, sanitation and health of the indigenous Yanomami instead are being used to enrich the leaders who live far from the villages, leaving their relatives in misery”, Eustáquio said.

URIHI is led by allies of Lula’s  leftist Workers’ Party, and faces several lawsuits for misappropriation of public funds. URIHI president Júnior Hekurari Yanomami lives a life of luxury, as his Instagram posts reveal, showing him flying in private planes and wearing Armani shirts. In April, Júnior Hekurari appeared with now-President Lula da Silva at an event.

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Brazil Military Kills “Red Command” Cartel Leaders, Prepares Take Over

In an unusual step for the military, the Army has invaded favelas of Rio de Janeiro and killed top leaders of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) drug cartel, which supports the Communist criminal Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Observers take this to indicate the beginning of a federal military intervention. The drug gangs were the only ones to celebrate the alleged election victory by criminal Lula Oct. 30, firing automatic weapons in the air in the favelas. President Bolsonaro cracked down hard on the Brazilian drug gangs.

“The heads of drug trafficking of Morro do Juramento and Juramentinho, identified as Rodrigo Barbosa Marinho, known as Rolinha or Titio Rolinha, and Hevelton Nascimento Júnior, the “Bad Boy”, respectively, were killed during a Military Police operation in Vicente de Carvalho on Thursday (1st). Three other suspects died in the action and one, who was also injured, is imprisoned in custody in the hospital” O Dia reports.

The drug cartels are the armed wing of the Communists. Comando Vermelho controls parts of Rio de Janeiro and was formed 1979 as an alliance between cartels and Communists. If they are eliminated, the risk 0f a civil war will be significantly reduced.

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Elon Musk: It Is Likely Twitter Interfered in 2022 Brazilian Election

Elon Musk continues to drop bomb after bomb on the leftist company’s interference in Democratic elections.

On Saturday Elon Musk admitted Twitter likely interfered in the Brazilian presidential elections in favor of convicted felon and Socialist Lula de Silva.

This is BIG, BIG News!

It was already posted this month that Twitter was censoring President Bolsonaro supporters’ accounts.

Twitter and Facebook have been interfering in democratic elections around the world. They have been picking favorites and targeting opposing voices for years now.

And Google also manipulated search results against Jair Bolsonaro.

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