Ellen Brown writes: In the last two weeks, two federal interest rates hit all-time record lows.  On
December 16, the market was taken by surprise when Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke lowered the federal funds rate (the interest banks pay to
borrow the reserves they need to meet their reserve requirement) to zero.  The
explanation given was that the Federal Reserve was just setting the
rate closer to where banks had already been trading with each other for
weeks.In an even more stunning development, the week before that the federal government itself began borrowing money for free.  “We were all watching it agog,” said a Treasury spokesman of the December 9 auction of three-month Treasury bills.  Investors were so hungry for Treasury debt that they were snatching up the T-bills at zero percent interest.  In the secondary market (investors buying from each other), Treasuries were actually trading at a negative interest rate.  That meant buyers were paying more than they would get back when the Treasuries came due.  Even at these unprecedented rates of non-return, the Treasury was having trouble keeping up with the demand.  Four times as much money wanted in as was sought by the government, indicating much more demand than availability.

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BBC Environment — Twenty years ago Amazon environmentalist Chico Mendes was shot dead in front of his home in the remote Brazilian state of Acre. He had campaigned for years to stop the slashing and burning of the rainforest. Brazil specialist Sue Branford, who met him, reflects on his life and legacy:

I will never forget the death of Chico Mendes. A friend in Brazil phoned early in the morning to tell me that he had been shot dead outside his home.

I felt not surprise but anger and sadness that the Amazon forest, already in 1988 under serious threat from loggers and farmers, had lost such a powerful ally. I had met Chico some two years earlier, on a visit to his home town of Xapuri in the state of Acre in the west of the Amazon basin.

Sitting on a bench in the town’s square, he told me that his parents, like hundreds of others, had been brought from the dry, impoverished north-east of Brazil to Acre so they could collect rubber for the Allies during the World War II.

When the war ended, demand for natural rubber plummeted but few of the families could afford the journey back home of some 2,000 miles (3,200 km).

Most had stayed in Acre, scratching out a living in the forest. Chico himself had been collecting rubber since he was 11 years old and he had only learned to read and write when he was 20.

When I met him Chico was already a legend, at least in the Amazon basin.

In the 1970s, cattle ranchers had begun to move in from southern Brazil and were slashing and burning the forest. Faced with eviction and loss of livelihood, the rubber-tappers had organised themselves. Gathering in large groups, they had confronted the teams of men sent in to fell the forest and had persuaded them to lay down their chain-saws.

As mad about football as other Brazilians, the rubber-tappers had dubbed this tactic the “empate”, the equaliser. By the time I met Chico, they had already used empates to prevent hundreds of acres of land from being cut down.

I had expected someone tough and militant but Chico was surprisingly modest and unpretentious. Yet it was also clear that he was passionate in his political beliefs, driven by a burning sense of social justice. (12/23/08)
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BBC Health — The number of flu cases in England and Wales is heading for a nine-year high, figures suggest. GP surveillance data has shown a 75% rise in cases in a week and a 73% increase on last year’s figures.

It also appears that the number of cases has started to rise among elderly patients and not just in healthy younger groups as previously reported. Experts are urging anyone over the age of 65 or with a chronic condition to make sure they get a flu vaccine.

Flu has been rising sharply in recent weeks, prompting GPs to prescribe antiviral drugs in high-risk patients who fall ill. The latest figures show 69 GP consultations for flu-like illness per 100,000 of the population up from 39.5 per 100,000 on 14 December. Public health officials said 200 cases per 100,000 would signal an epidemic.

In Northern Ireland there has also been a sharp rise in reports of flu and levels are now higher than in recent years but in Scotland cases seem relatively low. Experts believe the unusually cold weather may have contributed to the surge in flu cases. …

Professor Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said he had been doing extra sessions in the surgery to take some pressure off. “We have had people of all ages coming in and we’ve seen quite a lot of patients with quite severe flu-like symptoms.” He added: “It does seem to be affecting the elderly as well as the middle-aged.” It is hard to stop the spread of flu once it takes hold, he said. “We should really try to encourage children and adults to use handkerchiefs and wash their hands - it’s about personal hygiene.” (12/23/08)
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BBC Medical Science — Scientists have discovered that a blind person can navigate through a maze of obstacles unaided using intuition alone. The man, left blind by a stroke, was able to walk around chairs and boxes without bumping into them using hidden pathways in the brain.

The study suggests we all use subconscious brain resources and can do things we think we are unable to do. The Harvard Medical School research is published in Current Biology.

The patient, known only as TN, was left blind after damage to the visual (striate) cortex in both hemispheres of the brain following consecutive strokes. His eyes are normal but his brain cannot process the information they send in, rendering him totally blind. However, he was previously known to have what is called “blindsight” - the ability to detect things in the environment without being aware of seeing them.

For instance, he responds to the facial expressions of others. But he walks like a blind person, using a stick to track obstacles and requiring guidance by others when walking around buildings.

A video recording shows him completing the obstacle course set up by the scientists “flawlessly”, without the aid of his cane or another person.

Lead researcher Dr Beatrice de Gelder of Tilburg University, The Netherlands, and Harvard Medical School, US, said TN was “not aware of doing anything exceptional” and thought all he had done was walk straight ahead along a long corridor. It is an important message for those with brain damage in particular, she said. “You can experience a total loss of your cortical vision but still retain some capacity to move around inside and out without damage to yourself,” she told the BBC. “It shows us the importance of these evolutionary ancient visual paths. They contribute more than we think they do for us to function in the real world.” (12/23/08)
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