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 USP (University of São Paulo), Brazil's most renowned university, which is financed by the São Paulo state, has just launched the official project of the Center of Studies on Climate and Sustainable Environments (Cecas), the first environmentally sustainable building in the Armando de Salles Oliveira University City, where the university is headquartered, in São Paulo.
The new building is planned to have zero consumption of energy, reduced environmental impact and should also be part of multidisciplinary research by several units at USP. The center should house the Theme Network on Global Change, the Center for Earth Science and the Environment and the Laboratory of Sustainable Models for Constructions.
According to information provided by the press department at USP, it is a model building, with three floors and an area of 6,000 square meters (64,583 square feet), which was planned to generate all the electric energy to be consumed in the phase of usage and operation through the installation of advanced technologies in the international market. The building should also contemplate projects turned to sustainability and reduced environmental impact.
In the launching ceremony, the USP chancellor, Suely Vilela, announced investment of 5 million Brazilian reais (US$ 2.1 million) in the new building.
"Congregating the USP Theme Network on Climate Change, the Laboratory for Sustainable Models for Constructions and the Center for Earth Science and the Center of Studies on Climate and Sustainable Environments contributes expressively to the discussion of the strategic theme not just for the country but also for the world," she pointed out.
To the director of the Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Science Institute (IAG), Márcia Ernesto, the "center represents multidisciplinarity and integrates several research groups of the university in different areas of knowledge. Whatever the routes followed, this convergence of ideals resulted in a grand, innovative and model project for the University of São Paulo," she explained.
According to the deputy director of the College of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU) of the USP who is also the project director, Marcelo de Andrade Romero, three basic proposition were considered during the construction of the new building in the campus: maximization of the architecture relations versus climate, as a way to reduce the future energy consumption (passive solar technology); the use of active technologies with low energy consumption and the implementation of initiatives turned to sustainability and reduced environmental impact during the phases of construction, usage and operation of the building.
The forecasts, among other aspects, include control of solar radiation by means of automated external protection against solar rays, optimization of natural lighting and shelves of light, natural ventilation with automated control, solar air conditioning at the auditorium and employees room, ground air cooling, collection of rainwater for reuse in toilets and garden irrigation, flat-plate solar collectors for water heating in showers and sinks, as well as use of building material with recycled contents.
Anba
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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.
And the only one ranked in the 200 World Best
Sorry..sorry...sorry...the ranking was not done by me !
Better yet..... but your USP 2008 ranking went DOWN from 175th the previous year !
http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2008/overall_rankings/fullrankings/
No doubt you are going to continue producing for a few more decades.....grains....orange juice, meats, cotton, iron ore, steel... and continue using foreign more advanced technology in seeds, pesticides, fongicides, cars, tractors, harvesters, trucks, software, precision machineries, drugs outside of cocaïne, medical instrumentations....just to name a few !!!!
Viva Brazil....Viva Brazil !!!!!!