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 Technological innovation, science in general and entrepreneurial initiatives turned to the Amazon region should be among the highlights of the Amazontech 2008, to take place in São Luís, in Maranhão state, starting November 25 and ending on Saturday, November 29, at the Pedro Neiva de Santana convention center.
The event, at its sixth edition, opens space for the generation of sustainable business, exchange of scientific and technical knowledge and diffusion of information that may guarantee self-sustainability of the region.
The Access to Innovation and Technology manager at the National Sebrae, Paulo Alvim, pointed out that Amazontech is one of the opportunities for diffusion of adequate technology to the Amazon region, within the logic of sustainable development.
"The event has been evolving in the line of national and international partnerships and expanding the space for discussion and visibility of what is being done in technology and innovation for the region," he pointed out.
In this year's edition, the expectation is for the audience to reach 30,000 people from several states in the country. Other highlights are the business roundtables that already count on the presence of 100 companies from the Amazon.
These companies offer herbal medication, handicraft, textile products, honey and honey products, as well as wooden products in the areas of sustainable management. Eight anchor companies, interested in the purchase of these products, are also confirmed, among them organizations from Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay and Spain.
The Project Roundtables should include six institutions to finance social or entrepreneurial projects capable of creating work posts and generating income for the community in the Amazon. The expectation is that up to 50 projects be financed.
Important support for the event comes from the federal universities of the Legal Amazon, which are mobilized and engaged with Amazontech. The organizers of the event also count on the presence of universities from Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia. In the sidelines of the event, there should be a Forum of Readers of the Universities of the Amazon.
Another event in the sidelines should be the Forum of Governors of the Amazon. In this space, topics discussed should include policies for cross-border relations and business, educational and cultural exchange between the countries.
Amazontech has already contributed greatly to the debate regarding the Amazon region. The superintendent of the Sebrae in Rondônia state, Pedro Teixeira, who accompanied the previous events, pointed out that "one of the great feats was the creation of this space to bring together all institutions in the Amazon." "Since the first edition of the event, Embrapa has been presenting solutions for the region," he added.
According to him, an example of solutions is the study of forestry management and of how to work on the non-wood management, which expands opportunities in sectors like pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food. "Standing, a tree is more profitable than lying down. With a tree standing, we can add value to the product," said Teixeira.
Another important point is that the discussions and solutions presented benefit the communities in the region and cooperates for them to work with the potentials of the area in a sustainable manner. "Since 2001 we have been managing to develop technological and intellectual institutions so that the countries included in the Amazon may work together," he says.
Participation of fostering banks in the Amazontech events also plays an important part as they are responsible for financing to producers. "Due to these resources, we currently have enterprises breeding forest animals, like alligators and turtles, for consumption in the whole country and mainly in the South or Southeast. They are being bread legally and are helping avoid the extinction of these animals. The business sector has been investing in the preservation without leaving trade aside."
Pedro Teixeira also pointed out that the debate that began in previous editions of the Amazontech caused universities in the Amazon region to offer courses to those working with the local potential. Courses like Forestry Engineering, Biotechnology, Geology, Veterinary Medicine and Biology were implemented.
Before that, the offer was restricted to Law, Business Administration and Accounting. "This generated awareness in youths and the search for education to provide tools to operate making use of the potential of the Amazon," he explained.
Sebrae
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
But if you are talking about more and more coroneis from the south coming here and trying to make a fortune off the forest, then take the fortune back to Santa Catarina, or if you are talking about the politicians wishing the Amazon was like São Paulo, that's another question.
There was very little crime here before the Belem-Brasilia and Pará-MA highways were built.
Whereas every inch of land in the NE has an owner and a fence, there is still land in the Amazon with no one on it, no fence, never titled. Used to be one could hear lawyers on an elevator, or businesspeople, discussing deals gone sour, and just before the door opened, one of them would say something like, Bem, se perdemos tudo, sempre podemos ir para a roça.
Can´t do that in Rio.