A team of archaeologists from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) has discovered a spectacular tomb containing more than eighty individuals of different ages. This discovery — provisionally dated to around 1000 years ago — was made at the site of Pachacamac, which is currently under review for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Pachacamac, situated on the Pacific coast about thirty kilometres from Lima, is one of the largest Prehispanic sites in South America. Professor Peter Eeckhout — under the auspices of the ULB — has been carrying out fieldwork at the site for the past 20 years. The 2012 season resulted in some particularly remarkable discoveries.

The Ychsma Project team undertook to record and excavate a series of Inca storage facilities (15th-16th c. AD), as well as a more ancient cemetery which had been detected during exploratory work in 2004.

It was here — directly in front of the Temple of Pachacamac — that the most important discovery was made. A scatter of later period burials was found to conceal an enormous burial chamber 20 metres long ; miraculously, it had survived the pillaging of the colonial period — which was particularly intensive on this site — and was completely intact.

CONTINUED at Science Daily.

Colombia’s Chamber of Representatives has approved a bill that would legalize the cultivation of drugs that grow as plants, bringing to fruition the start of more legislative drug reform efforts to come, as promised by South American leaders during the recent Summit of the Americas.

Colombia’s drug crop legalization bill would make growing marijuana, opium, coca and poppies legal, but drug trafficking, including sales, would remain a severe crime, according to Colombia Reports.

The U.S. is a strong ally of Colombia’s and the Obama administration has provided military support to the country, even going so far as to station U.S. soldiers and drone aircraft at Colombian military bases, ostensibly to help combat drug trafficking networks. The country has historically been a key U.S. asset in the region, so much that they’ve even accepted prior U.S. administrations sending aircraft over Colombian poppy and coca fields to spray the indigenous population with herbicide.

CONTINUED at The Raw Story.

President Hugo Chavez’s revelation that his cancer may have returned has plunged Venezuela into a period of deep uncertainty as it ramps up for what many expect to be the most closely contested presidential elections in years.

Less than 24 hours after Chavez disclosed that doctors have found a new lesion that is likely cancerous in the same area where a malignant tumor was removed last year, what-next scenarios have begun to proliferate in the local media and among analysts.

Chavez could still tap a successor to run in his place, the October 27 elections could be delayed, or he could just muddle through with a campaign message that shifts attention from the state of his health to the legacy of his Bolivarian revolution.

But underlying the speculation are deeper fears of the unpredictable consequences of a vacuum of power in a country that has been dominated byChavez, 57, since he came to power in 1999.

“No one needs to be alarmed, and no one should start celebrating: because independent of what my personal fate may be, this revolution is on its way and nobody and nothing is going to stop it,” Chavez said Tuesday.

The opposition response to the news has been muted, with its unified candidate Henrique Capriles setting a gentlemanly tone by wishing Chavez a speedy recovery.

“To my opponent, as a child of God that I am, I wish him a successful operation, a quick recovery and a long life,” Capriles wrote in his Twitter account@hcapriles.

The 39-year-old governor of the populous state of Miranda, which includes a large swath of Caracas, was elected sole candidate of the opposition by an overwhelming margin in February 7 primaries that drew a large turnout.

So far, Capriles has refused to rise to bait thrown out by Chavez, who in campaign appearances last week called the younger man a “pig” and vowed to “pulverize” him in the elections.

Recent opinion polls have given him a lead over Capriles – a center-left moderate — but around a third of Venezuelans say they are still undecided.

CONTINUED at Breitbart.

In South America, newspapers published in their headlines: Descubren momia con características no humanas en la ciudad peruana de Cusco (Discovery mummy with not-human characteristics in the Peruvian city of Cusco IN Tribuna Latina); and – Cusco: estudian osamenta de momia con características “no humanas” (IN La Republica).

The news were about the of two small mummies discovered in the district of Andahuaylillas, Quispicanchi province, Cuzco region [or Cuzco], Peru. It happened two years ago. The mummies were in a “Apu”, that is a mountain sacred belonging to a deity, at a place located more than two thousand meters above sea level. In this case, the mountain, a domain of the god Viracocha, is scenery of frequent UFO sightings.

Recently, the finding was publicized to the press by the director of the museu Ritos Andinos (Andean Rites Museum), Renato Davila Riquelme which, on occasion – described one of the mummies as having characteristics of non-human. He said that: The bones of the ribs and lower limbs are very thin, delicate. It (one of the mummies) has an opening at the top of the forehead and the molars are of an adult

A spanish doctor and two russian scientists* examined the mummy and they observed that ‘it is not a human being.’ A definitive proof or at least, significant, would be a DNA analysis of mummified remains. * (Mrs. Andrianova and Mrs. Popova)

The other specimen is even smaller and strange, with only 30 cm in length and features similar to first mummy. However, this other has no face and his body is covered by a thin membrane similar to a placenta.

Source: Brazil Weird News.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I was late watching this debate, as I had to check the replay. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home and I was unable to take serious notes on it. I was at my boss’ house due to it being the annual national sales meeting for my real job and between the alcohol and festivities, this thing was hard to watch in any serious sort of manner. I regret not being able to give it my full attention but the whiskey and wine were flowing, the girls were distracting to say the least and the copious amounts of food transplanted from several of the world’s most exotic regions somehow took precedence over watching the most recent episode of ‘Three Tyrants and a Wizard’. I do apologize as I have been trying to chronicle every damn one of these things but there are just so many, seven this month alone, and turning down a chance to literally spend the night at a party thrown at the mansion of the Indian version of Caligula is incredibly hard to pass up. Bourbon soaked tits are better to stare at than three dudes arguing over their dicks and the fourth shaking his head because America’s fallen so far that we’re literally having a debate about three dicks.

Now I did go back and read the transcripts from the debate and I did watch Ron Paul’s highlights – the only important parts, as the other three’s highlights would’ve put me to sleep in my hungover stupor. If it wasn’t for my boss’ brother handing me a Bloody Mary when I walked through the office door this morning, I’d probably be curled up in a ball under my desk hiding from the flickering power-draining headache-inducing fluorescent lights over my head. Needless to say, I am not a Bloody Mary fan by any stretch of the word, as it just conjures up the thought of drinking vodka with some ketchup spilled in it, but that fucking cocktail hit the spot today and I’m about 70 percent recovered from guest-starring in the Bollywood version of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’.

I know I’m rambling about my drunken escapades and that might disinterest you, as you came to this article to experience my certain style of critique on these things, so for that I’m sorry. I will do my best to give you the rundown of the debate, as I saw it between nude champagne showers and Chilean sea bass dodgeball.

So I’m just going to go down the line and analyze the candidates one-by-one starting with Rick Santorum. He started by talking about illegal immigration, border fences and telling the story about his immigrant family for the umpteenth time. He got into it with Ron Paul on foreign policy and failed miserably as he tried to cover up the fact that he’s a goddamned idiot on the affairs of Central and South America. I’ll write more on this when I get to Ron Paul, who owned Santorum like a twenty dollar prostitute. Santorum goes on to bitch about Fannie and Freddie and in turn blasts Newt and Mitt for playing personal politics and distracting everyone from discussing the real issues. On the subject of space, Santorum said that America is a frontier country and space is the next frontier to conquer. He calls for the private sector to be more involved with NASA but doesn’t fully support government being out of it. On health care he goes on and on about how awesome he is for trying to create health savings accounts. If you were so awesome, you would’ve got it done pal! He then gets into a health care argument with Romney that is neither interesting or worth writing about but what the hell, I’ll give you the nutshell version. Basically it went something like this:

Rick Santorum: “Fuck Romneycare”
Mitt Romney: “But it was only at the state level Ricky Baby!”
Rick Santorum: “I don’t care Mitt! You’re a bitch and you gave Obama the blueprints to evil!”
Mitt Romney: “Ricky Baby, you’re so silly!”
Rick Santorum: “Jesus Bible! No health care for the gays!”

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spent most of their time arguing about who was a bigger bastard while both looked like big bastards. Mittens talked about “self-deportation” again. If these guys believe in such a thing as an effective way of handling a situation, can we get them to believe in “self-governance”? If they trust those illegal immigrants to leave on their own accord after sneaking in here in an effort just to come back in a way that is much more difficult, they’ve got to believe that we’re all capable of managing every other aspect of our lives? I mean, they are putting blind faith into something so farfetched that they’ve got to be down with just saying “fuck it” and letting us run our own shit, right?

On the immigration subject, Newt says that Romney is the most anti-immigrant candidate out of the four. Romney gets all pissy and pulls his two Latino cards. The first he pulls is Marco Rubio, the Cuban American senator that came to his defense on immigration. The second card Mitt pulled was Mexico, as his father was born there. I was born in a hospital bro, that doesn’t make me a doctor!

Romney and Gingrich argue about immigration for awhile and then they argue about Fannie and Freddie and who is the biggest crook. Newt, once he gets away from the lame feud for a minute, goes on some tangent about making a moon base. Newt later said that Jacksonville was going to get big pimpin’ because the Panama Canal was widening and would bring them more boat traffic. Shortly after that we were treated to a Santorum-Gingrich-Romney three-way which was like stumbling upon a middle-aged homosexual version of Cinemax at three in the morning. It was a bitch and rant fuck fest that no one in their right mind needed to see, unless of course you’re into middle-aged gay men. If you are, I mean absolutely no disrespect. Do ya thang homegirl!

Fuck all these queens, let’s get to Ron Paul, the only adult in the room. On immigration, he says that if we had a working healthy economy we wouldn’t be so worried about the immigration issue as we’d be looking for workers to fill jobs. He adds that the way we are handling our borders is actually harming our economy. He points out that we don’t have the right amount of resources on the border and that we should pay more attention to our border instead of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On the Latin America issue, Ron Paul says, “Free trade is the answer.” He throws in the fact that we’d be a lot better off if we practiced free trade with Cuba. He adds that he doesn’t like the idea that America thinks that they can go down to Central and South America and try to dictate which kind of leaders they need down there, as it is none of our business. He says that the best way to influence other nations isn’t by telling them what to do, it is by practicing friendship and free trade. Paul then references Santorum who said that we have to stand up for these nations. Paul explains that standing up for nations often times comes with us imposing ourselves on the people of these countries while picking their dictators, undermining their government and sending them a lot of money. He warns that this sort of tactic always backfires and the people we are “supporting” end up hating us. Ron Paul calls Rick Santorum’s ideas on foreign policy the “bully way”. Paul adds that he knows a better to way to work with people other than using force. Santorum shakes his head, mumbles some stupid crap and then changes his tampon while wiping his bitch tears. Checkmate Paul!

Ron Paul is asked if Mitt and Newt should return the money they’ve made off of Fannie and Freddie and he responds to thunderous applause when he says, “That subject doesn’t interest me a lot.” Paul says that Fannie and Freddie should have been auctioned off right after the crash came. He said that if it was sold, the problem would’ve been “cleansed” by now. Ron Paul says that he’s been trying to prevent this stuff which is why we need to end the Federal Reserve.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asks says that Ron Paul, if elected, would be the oldest president ever. He asks Paul if he would make his medical records public to show the people that he is healthy. Blitzer basically wants to paint Ron Paul as a geezer who could croak tomorrow and I find the question to be repugnant, just as I found it distasteful when the same issue was brought up with Ronald Reagan years ago. Paul said that he’ll prove how healthy he is by delivering an open challenge to all the other candidates to face him in a 25 mile bike ride in the heat of Texas. Ron Paul face-palmed the shit out of Wolf Blitzer and the other candidates with that answer. He also took a shot at Wolf himself when he jokingly pointed out that there are laws against age discrimination and that Blitzer should be careful. Wolf, after getting bitchslapped, tries to cover up the stupid question by asking the other candidates if they’d release theirs. What a tool.

On space spending, Ron Paul says that he would only approve funding on stuff that fits under defense. He says that going to the Moon and Mars is fantastic but that it could be done better by the private sector if their hands weren’t tied. Ron Paul then takes a shot at Newt, saying that he has stretched the truth with all his “balanced budget” claims from the days when he was Speaker of the House. Ron Paul is taking solid shots backed by facts and there is nothing that can be done about it when he brings these guys a dose of the truth. Strangely, Newt Gingrich was very polite and gracious to Ron Paul all night and gave him props for his ideas in several areas.

In the end, the debate was lightyears better than the NBC debate a few days prior. CNN does the best job, in my opinion, and I’ve watched every single one of these debates. Kudos to Wolf for rocking the house, even with a few prickish questions. Ron Paul owned the motherfucker, Santorum did decent if you are into his religio-fascist bullshit while Newt and Mitt looked like a few bickering Tinas arguing over the last pack of Lee Press-On Nails at K-Mart.

And that’s all I got because I immediately returned to my whiskey-scented orgy on the south lawn.

Grading Scale:
Grade A+: Ron Paul
Grade C-: Rick Santorum
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Mitt Romney

*Best debate moment in recent memory:

*Taken from Sky News.

British journalist Gerrard Williams has told Sky News he and co-author Simon Dunstan found an “overwhelming amount of evidence” to suggest Hitler died an old man in South America.

Many historians say the Nazi leader died in his Berlin bunker in 1945 – but Williams claims their research, looking at newly de-classified documents and forensic tests, challenges this.

“We didn’t want to re-write history, but the evidence we’ve discovered about the escape of Adolf Hitler is just too overwhelming to ignore,” he said.

“There is no forensic evidence for his, or Eva Braun’s deaths, and the stories from the eyewitnesses to their continued survival in Argentina are compelling.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Fox News.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez likely has less than two years to live, his former doctor said, as the ailing firebrand traveled to Cuba for a checkup following cancer treatment.

Chavez, 57, has been through four rounds of chemotherapy in Cuba since revealing he had a cancerous tumor removed in June. But Venezuela has provided few details about the exact nature of the cancer, aside from that it was in the pelvic area.

Salvador Navarrete, his former personal surgeon, told Mexican newspaper Milenio Semanal on Sunday that the leader’s condition likely was worse than publicly admitted.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Huffington Post.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday he will nationalize the gold industry, including extraction and processing, and use its output to boost the country’s international reserves.

The move follows a dispute between his government and foreign miners who say the rules limiting the amount of gold that can be exported from the South American nation hurt their efforts to secure financing and create jobs.

Toronto-listed Rusoro, owned by Russia’s Agapov family, is the only large gold miner operating in Venezuela. It produced 100,000 ounces last year.

The gold industry will be just the latest part of the economy to be put under state control by the socialist leader, who said he would issue the necessary decree in the coming days and called on the military to help control the sector.

CONTINUED..

My Two Cents: Fuck those hippie Bolivians! What a bunch of retarded nonsense. The Earth isn’t a living entity, at least not equal to humans. I tried to ask it a question once and just like Jesus, it didn’t answer. The Earth is stupid, so I take water from it and wipe my ass with its foliage. Damn right I exploit the motherfucker. End Two Cents.

*Taken from Canada.com.

Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.

The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to “dominate and exploit” — to the point that the “well-being and existence of many beings” is now threatened.

The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia’s Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Bolivian President Evo Morales enacted in January.

That document speaks of the country’s natural resources as “blessings,” and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution.

It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature’s complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.

“If you want to have balance, and you think that the only (entities) who have rights are humans or companies, then how can you reach balance?” Pablo Salon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the UN, told Postmedia News. “But if you recognize that nature too has rights, and (if you provide) legal forms to protect and preserve those rights, then you can achieve balance.”

The application of the law appears destined to pose new challenges for companies operating in the country, which is rich in natural resources, including natural gas and lithium, but remains one of the poorest in Latin America.

But while Salon said his country just seeks to achieve “harmony” with nature, he signalled that mining and other companies may come under greater scrutiny.

“We’re not saying, for example, you cannot eat meat because you know you are going to go against the rights of a cow,” he said. “But when human activity develops at a certain scale that you (cause to) disappear a species, then you are really altering the vital cycles of nature or of Mother Earth. Of course, you need a mine to extract iron or zinc, but there are limits.”

Bolivia is a country with a large indigenous population, whose traditional belief systems took on greater resonance following the election of Morales, Latin America’s first indigenous president.

In a 2008 pamphlet his entourage distributed at the UN as he attended a summit there, 10 “commandments” are set out as Bolivia’s plan to “save the planet” — beginning with the need “to end capitalism.”

Reflecting indigenous traditional beliefs, the proposed global treaty says humans have caused “severe destruction . . . that is offensive to the many faiths, wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures for whom Mother Earth is sacred.”

It also says that “Mother Earth has the right to exist, to persist and to continue the vital cycles, structures, functions and processes that sustain all human beings.”

In indigenous Andean culture, the Earth deity known as Pachamama is the centre of all life, and humans are considered equal to all other entities.

The UN debate begins two days before the UN’s recognition April 22 of the second International Mother Earth Day — another Morales-led initiative.

Canadian activist Maude Barlow is among global environmentalists backing the drive with a book the group will launch in New York during the UN debate: Nature Has Rights.

“It’s going to have huge resonance around the world,” Barlow said of the campaign. “It’s going to start first with these southern countries trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation, but I think it will be grabbed onto by communities in our countries, for example, fighting the tarsands in Alberta.”

Ecuador, which also has a large indigenous population, has enshrined similar aims in its Constitution — but the Bolivian law is said to be “stronger.”

Ecuador is among countries that have already been supportive of the Bolivian initiative, along with Nicaragua, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.

*Taken from My Fox NY.

A 12-year-old Dutch girl gave birth while on a school trip, sparking a police search Wednesday for the father of the child.

The girl, from Groningen, 114 miles northeast of Amsterdam, complained of stomach pains March 22, during a day out with classmates.

Teachers realized the girl was in labor and called an ambulance. Medics rushed to the scene, and the 12 year old delivered a healthy baby girl in a nearby building. The young mother was then taken to the hospital but has refused to name the father.

Family members said that the schoolgirl’s father previously sexually abused another older daughter and served two years in jail for the sex crime, according to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

The girl was living with her father and brother after he won custody following a divorce from their mother, who was originally from Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America.

The girl’s stepsister, 30, told the newspaper, “I warned him. I am shocked about what happened.”

Dutch police said in a statement Wednesday, “The girl got pregnant when she was 11, which in itself means there has been a criminal offense. Article 244 of the Penal Code, sex with a minor under 12, is punishable. In addition, there are now [circumstances] reported by the Child Protection Board. Taking these two circumstances, the police is now investigating who the father [of this baby] is.”

The girl was due to go into foster care once she was released from the hospital.