Free Republic

Here's what happens when a big American media corporation takes over your island and starts getting real: On a small remote island in the Republic of Panama where MTV filmed the next "Real World/Road Rules Challenge", MTV allegedly cleared parts of the rainforest, built an access road through the forest, trashed the beach and left a massive mess for locals to deal with.

U.S. military planners are working on how to deal with another round of major cutbacks, in terms of budgets and manpower. This is because one of the major candidates for Commander-in-Chief (president of the United States), Barak Obama, has a video in circulation, of a short speech he gave earlier this year, about how he planned on handling the Department of Defense. His major points were; "I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as president, I will end it. "Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut...

REMANSO TALISMA, Brazil — The death of a myth begins with stinging eyes and heaving chests here on the edge of the Amazon rain forest. Every year, fire envelops the jungle, throwing up inky billows of smoke that blot out the sun. Animals flee. Residents for miles around cry and wheeze, while the weak and unlucky develop serious respiratory problems. When the burning season strikes, life and health in the Amazon falter, and color drains out of the riotous green landscape as great swaths of majestic trees, creeping vines, delicate bromeliads and hardy ferns are reduced to blackened stubble. But...

<p>News of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode...</p>

Saving the Selva Maya Sunday, June 29, 2003, By JIM WRIGHT Editor's note: As part of his research for a book, Editorial Writer Jim Wright made several recent trips to the tropical forest in Belize, where until a few weeks ago a smoky haze often clouded the skies. WHAT IS THE SELVA MAYA?The Selva Maya consists of mostly contiguous jungle in three Central American nations: Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize. The three nations have created biosphere reserves, national parks, and other conservation areas to protect the jungle, conduct scientific research, and seek sustainable development. Guatemala has the 5-million-acre Maya Biosphere Reserve.Mexico's...