News stories by Fabiana Frayssinet, page 15

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 12 (IPS) - A host of academic, legal, health, political and social figures are joining together to back a campaign to decriminalise drug use in Brazil, as tens of thousands of consumers uninvolved in the drug trade are currently jailed.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 07 (IPS) - Far from the plush surroundings which hosted Rio+20, the most ambitious global conference on the environment of the past two decades, events in a fishing village in the state of Rio de Janeiro show the cost of fighting environmental crime can be as high as life itself.

China's voracious demand for energy has prompted it to embrace Brazil as a major oil partner, fuelling the dramatic expansion of Chinese companies in this South American country. But while some see this as a boost to the Brazilian economy, others fear that it poses a risk to this country’s future self-sufficiency.

As the host of Rio+20, the Brazilian government has defined guidelines for achieving success at the upcoming world summit, whose aim is to assess and strengthen what has been done since the 1992 Earth Summit, the first global meeting on sustainable development.

María dos Prazeres de Souza has lost count of the number of births 'without a single death' she has attended as a midwife, an occupation that there is renewed interest in strengthening in traditional communities in Brazil where state services are not available or are not entirely acceptable for cultural reasons.

Women in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of this city 40 km north of Rio de Janeiro no longer have to spend money on vegetables, because they have learned to grow their own, as organic urban gardening takes off in Brazil.

Former ministers, lawmakers and environmental experts in Brazil are urging the government to take a more proactive stance to prevent the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development the country will host in June from falling short of the standard set by the preceding summit.

The history, daily life and folk artistry as well as spectacular views of this southeastern Brazilian city are all part of a living museum created by community leaders in a favela that is displaying its cultural heritage as well as its wounds.

The government of Brazil, which will host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June, defended itself from ecologists who lambasted its performance on the environmental front.