The Fur Industry - Geisa

Since the 18th century, human beings have worn animal fur to be protected from the cold weather and, as time passed by, these kinds of clothes became popular among richer people and it became a status symbol.
Therefor, from that time up to the 20th century, the fur industry has been increasing and lots of animals were killed in a tremendously suffered way. Fur farmers used to practice the cruelest kinds of killing such as suffocation, electrocution and a method named steel-jaw traps, which closes on animal´s legs violently, often cutting their bone.
Consequently, some kinds of animals went through extinction, such as the tigers.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the tiger population was more over 100,000, but this number has been getting smaller, between 1,500 and 3,500.
Because it was so used in the name o fashion, some animals rights organisations, such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and famous people, such as Gisele Bündchen and Paul McCartney, started some campaigns against the use of fur clothes and thousands of counterparts all over the world have joined this movement.
It is clear, therefore, that not only animal rights organisations and famous people need to be engaged on this campaign, but also that the fur industry needs to be more aware of their work against the environment.
Only when people change their way of buying clothes and become more conscious of animals lives, will the fur industry stop producing fur clothing and the extinction will decrease.

Describing yourself - Lyvia

From: Lyvia (lyvia.sousa@gmail.com)

To: Obama (obama@whitehouse.com)

Subject: Hi from Brazil

Hi Obama,

My name's Lyvia Sousa. It's a Roman name, but the choice of my name is not related to this nationality. I'm Brazilian and so is my family. I live in São Paulo and my family lives in Sergipe. I live with my boyfriend. I am 26 years old, I’m a geologist and I finished the geology course at university 3 years ago.

I'm going to tell you about myself. As you can see from the photo, I have long hair – it is brown - and green eyes. I have never worn glasses. Maybe in the future I’ll need it.

I'm a friendly person and quite extroverted. My boyfriend says I’m very talkative and I know that he means that I talk too much!

In my free time I read about the culture of other countries and nowadays I'm planning my trip to the United States. I love going to the cinema and listening to some music.

Please write soon and tell me about you and your life.

I know that you're a very busy man, but I'll wait for your answer.

Best wishes,

Lyvia Sousa

Election systems - Arthur

Functionality of Brazil and United States voting system

Brazil and US election systems have their similarities and differences, being the ones with the better vote system in the world, but at the same time they have corrupt governments, making the theft of public money inevitable everywhere.

In the US election system, the political parties (Republicans and Democrats) have to choose a candidate who they want as president between January and June. The society votes for people who are called 'delegates' (who are supporting a candidate). If a candidate wins the election in a state they get all that state's delegates. Each state has a certain number of delegates depending on how many people live there. The person from each party with the most delegates then becomes their candidate and turns into a president.

In my country’s election system, people vote directly for the candidate they want for president that is picked out from each party without choosing delegates and the president is chosen when most of the population votes for him/her.

I prefer to vote directly for the candidate without choosing a delegate, but I think that the number of candidates should be smaller than they are for president and for the other sectors, consequently reducing the number of parties for only 2, just like the US does, to decrease the corruption.

Political manifesto - Arthur

Nowadays we are facing some problems in all social and political sectors such as health, security, transport and other systems that are decreasing. In this regard we have only one way to reverse the situation: set up projects to improve our retrograde government and the life of our population. So we made some five-year projects for all the sectors:

Education: In the first five years we will increase the teachers’ wages and give them a better work condition, improving class equipment and punishing the people who violate the school laws, as well as putting police in the most dangerous places where there are schools and reinforce the students and employees security, building new schools and federal universities with easy access for the people.

Health: More hospitals will be set up near the poorest areas, the supervision will be intense and the professionals will be constantly evaluated, more equipment will be produced and used in the hospitals and the employees will have an increase in their wages as a motivation, besides, more medical universities will be created to encourage more doctors to enter the labor market to supply their lack.

Transport: Reducing the public transport cost or suspending rates and adopting the same English bus with two floors to make the transportation of all the workers better and more comfortable besides using more technology in the subway and expand this for all the country will be priorities in my government.

Prison system: The people who are arrested go to camps and after doing their time there they get out and keep doing the same things without opportunities to change, so I argue that prison has to be privatized giving people job chances with a strong oversight to move the economy instead of just spending money on them.

Police: Increasing the policemen’s wage and increasing their patrol in the cities to protect the citizens.

Others: creating more parks and leisure areas, as well as investing more in the sports area building more modern practice places; motivating the use of electric cars and public transport to reduce the pollution; motivate the strong oversight to punish the corrupt people and the people who commit serious crimes; changing some details and failures in the legislation making it better.

A postcard - Lyvia

Hello Bi,

I am talking from Dubrovinik, city of Croatia. We are having a really good time here, the city is very beautiful. We arrived last Monday and we are staying in a hotel quite near downtown. The hotel is called Villa Dubrovinik. Yesterday we visited a beautiful beach and a very old castle. At the moment we are on the Lokrun Island taking really great pictures and having a great lunch.

Dubroviniki was Named UNESCO World heritage site and there are great beaches and a medieval center surrounded by walls. In the evening, we usually have dinner in a restaurant close to the sea and after that we visit some famous tourist points near the hotel, like the Dubrovinik Garden.

You would like it.

Kisses and see you next month.

Lya and Di.

The world's English mania - Arthur

The last time I saw a pandemonium was in the 2013 Santo André manifestations for more investments and better conditions in our public sector. I assume I have never seen and felt something like that. Everybody was in the streets screaming, somebody had Brazil flags, posters expressing their ideas and feelings, all people connected into one idea: fight for a better country. It was awesome, because I saw a lot of people that still believe and love Brazil and together we have the power to change what we want and reach the pure democracy and equality. I am sure that this day was one of the best days in my life!

The world's English mania - Fernando

Well, I remember when I was backing from my work to home and was in course the Metro employes strike. All lines reduced your functionalities, and installed a truly chaos. The bus service could not absorb the great flow of people trying to back to your homes without subway service, and the main terminals and bus stops were entirely fully. In the middle of my way to home, I was in the Tatuapé station, where there were a great concentration of people triyng, like me, to find a better way to go home. In there exists a shopping center, where I, in middle of the pandemonium, decided to relax and wait more a little to back home.. so, I enter in the shop, walk a little inside, stops to take a coffee and buy some cereal bars and water, and about 2 hour later I go back to try go home. In this time, the things stay a little more calm, and I find an alternative way to finally arrive in my home, a little later, it's true, but is ok, at least I have not got so irritated..

Follows a link to a news report that time:

http://ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/brasil/sp/2014-06-05/onibus-e-trens-da-cptm-tem-operacao-especial-com-greve-do-metro-em-sao-paulo.html