My task is to translate, photograph, film and get permission to accompany the Brasilian government's Mobile Group on a rescue mission to release men, women and children being forced to work in sub-human conditions...[by] unscrupulous land owners...since 1995, 30,000 slaves have been freed. Sandy and I were given permission to follow a group in Boca do Inferno...a sugar-cane plantation near to Cuiabá (MT)...home to Usina Itamarati, the largest sugar refinery in the country, owned by...Olacyr de Moraes...Slave labour is mainly found on the borders of the deforested Amazon Jungle. This type of work force [is] used...by major landowners and businesses that aim to cut down on production costs...Cattle breeding and the production of soya, cotton and sugarcane are the...biggest culprits...As soon as the workers arrive at the ranch, they're already in debt...Workers spend two, three months, sometimes up to a year, and never earn a penny...500,000 people working on the cane fields...spend hours out in the blazing sun to produce ethanol and sugar...[T]he government's 2nd Plan to Eradicate Slave Labour...aims to...increase the government's "black list" of establishments involved in slave labour, punishing these organizations by preventing them from drawing up new financial contracts with a range of Brasilian state-run banks.
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Freed Young Leader Energizes Egyptian Protests - 0 views
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A young Google executive who helped ignite Egypt's uprising energized a cheering crowd of hundreds of thousands Tuesday with his first appearance in their midst after being released from 12 days in secret detention. "We won't give up," he promised at one of the biggest protests yet in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Once a behind-the-scenes Internet activist, 30-year-old Wael Ghonim has emerged as an inspiring voice for a movement that has taken pride in being a leaderless "people's revolution." Now, the various activists behind it - including Ghonim - are working to coalesce into representatives to push their demands for President Hosni Mubarak's ouster. With protests invigorated, Vice President Omar Suleiman issued a sharply worded warning, saying of the protests in Tahrir, "We can't bear this for a long time, and there must be an end to this crisis as soon as possible," in a sign of growing impatience with 16 days of mass demonstrations. For the first time, protesters made a foray to Parliament, several blocks away from their camp in the square. Several hundred marched to the legislature and chanted for it to be dissolved.
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