The votes are in! Vale, the Brazilian mining company, has been voted the worst company in the world. Vale received 25,042 votes edging out Tepco, Japan’s large energy company which blatantly disregarded structural safety of its nuclear plants resulting in the post-tsunami disaster.
Transcription of the talk by João Pedro Stedile, of the MST, in the meeting between Dilma and representatives of civil society held on January 26 2012 during the Thematic Social Forum in Porto Alegre.
While visiting the MST Agrarian Reform Store in the public market of Porto Allegre (RS), Jose Graziano da Silva, General Director of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) saw the successful products derived from settlements for agrarian reform and family farming.
By Luiz Felipe Albuquerque
Agriculture has undergone a major transformation in Brazil over the past 10 years, with the advancement of the agribusiness model. This model is based on: the production of monocultures on large estates; in an alliance of capitalist farmers, transnational corporations and financial capital; a mechanization that promotes expelling families from the countryside; and in an excessive use poisons, the agro-toxins.
The year is ending and again we have the feeling of accomplishment for all the struggles, activities, and alliances that we’ve built and engaged in with all the various sectors of the working class. In another difficult year we had to carry out great struggles against agribusiness that continues its offensive against our lands, natural resources, and public investments.
With 15 votes, five requests for diligence and two abstentions, the National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) approved on the 
morning of Thursday (September 15, 2011), the commercial release of transgenic soya, developed by researchers at Embrapa [Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation].
Everywhere in the world large multinationals determine the political game. One of the biggest global players is Bayer AG, present in all countries. The former subsidiaries of IG Farben (BASF, Bayer and Hoechst) dominate the European chemical industry and have an annual volume of 90 billion euros. No government or political institution, can escape the influence of this powerful mechanism.
by Gerson Teixeira
Groups representing rural workers are negotiating measures with the government which would ease rural-credit debts owed by settled and family farmers.
In Amazonia, 299 square kilometers of forest were degraded in March of this year, an increase of 35% compared to the same period of 2010, when the area affected was 220 square kilometers. This data from the Deforestation Alert System (Sistema de Alerta de Desmatamento or SAD) was included in the last report from the Imazon Institue.
By Vivian Fernandes
