Brazil's Sao Paulo reports record 1,021 COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours

SAO PAULO - The Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, the country's most populous, registered 1,021 deaths from COVID-19 on Monday, a new daily record, state authorities said on Tuesday.

Sao Paulo's death toll is a worrisome sign that Brazil's total death toll for the day, which will only be released on Tuesday night, could also be a new record.

In Sao Paulo, the previous highest number of daily deaths was 679 last Tuesday.

The spike in the COVID-19 death toll in Sao Paulo comes as Brazil has become the latest epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with overwhelmed hospitals and a shortage of oxygen and drugs in many cities.

Brazil, with a population of 211 million, has recorded roughly 12 million cases of COVID-19 and 295,425 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

-reuters-

To 11 million Brazilians, the Earth is flat

SAO PAULO — Sitting by a model of the Earth shaped like a pancake, Brazilian restaurant-owner Ricardo lets out an exaggerated laugh: "'Hahaha!' That's how people react when you tell them the Earth is flat," he says.

Ricardo, who declines to give his full name for just that reason, is a 60-something man whose restaurant in Sao Paulo has become a meeting place for people who, like him, reject the notion that the Earth is a sphere.

"The only things I know for certain are that I'm going to die someday and that the Earth is flat," he says.

It is a curious but remarkably large club: more than 11 million people in Brazil -- 7 percent of the population -- believe the Earth is flat, according to polling firm Datafolha.

And their influence stretches surprisingly far, in a country currently swept up in the post-truth era and the anti-intellectual, climate-change-skeptic worldview embodied by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

One of Bolsonaro's most prominent ideologues, the writer and former astrologer Olavo de Carvalho, has said he "cannot refute" Flat-Earth theory.

Yet Brazil's Flat-Earthers are also a secretive, at times paranoid, community, communicating via encrypted messages on WhatsApp, invitation-only Facebook groups and especially on YouTube, where their channels have tens of thousands of followers.

There, they are free to state what they believe, without fear of ridicule: that the Earth is a flat, stationary body.

It is an argument they advance with varying interpretations of physics, optics and the Bible, dismissing all evidence to the contrary as a conspiracy.

'HUMANKIND'S GREATEST LIE' 

Brazilians who believe the Earth is flat are mostly men, often Catholics or evangelical Christians, and with relatively low levels of education, according to Datafolha.

But don't confuse education with knowledge, the Flat-Earthers warn.

"Flat-Earthers are the smartest. Write that!" says Anderson Neves, a 50-year-old entrepreneur, who has come to Ricardo's restaurant armed with a pamphlet denouncing the "hoaxes" of Newton and Copernicus.

"A malignant pseudo-science has corrupted the education system around the world," says another text he is carrying.

It calls the idea of a round Earth "humankind's greatest lie, dictated by the global elite."

Next to him, Ricardo's Flat-Earth model shows the sun and Moon as little balls, equal in size, suspended above a disc-shaped planet.

"Just look at the horizon. Climb a mountain and take pictures. You can see the Earth isn't curved," says Neves, clutching a level to illustrate his point.

The Flat-Earthers are brimming with counter-factual questions: If the Earth is rotating at 1,700 kilometers per hour at the equator, why doesn't the movement make everything fly off? If it's a sphere, why can't we see the curve from an airplane?

They give little credit to photographs from space or scientists' answers about gravity, Foucault's pendulum and two millennia of astronomical observation.

"We've known for certain the Earth isn't flat since Galileo, since the early 17th century. But the ancient Greeks had pieced it together more than 2,000 years ago," says astronomer Roberto Costa of the University of Sao Paulo.

"To scientists, this (Flat-Earth theory) seems more like a topic for psychologists or sociologists to study. The Earth's shape isn't a scientific problem to astronomers."

TILTED EIFFEL TOWER 

One of the most prominent of Brazil's Flat-Earthers is Afonso de Vasconcelos, a geophysicist with a PhD from the University of Sao Paulo.

Vasconcelos is based in the United States, which is also home to a large community of Flat-Earthers. One of them died last week attempting to launch himself more than 1,500 meters into the sky in a homemade rocket.

Vasconcelos operates a YouTube channel called "True Science" (Ciencia de Verdade) where he expounds his ideas to 345,000 followers.

Fellow YouTuber Siddhartha Chaibub, "Professor Flat-Earth" (Professor Terra Plana), has nearly 30,000 followers. Last November, Chaibub helped organize the first-ever convention for Brazilian Flat-Earthers, which drew hundreds of people in Sao Paulo.

One of the favorite targets for Flat-Earthers' conspiracy theories is NASA. They accuse the US space agency of pulling a giant fraud.

"Man never landed on the Moon. That was a studio set," says Ricardo.

As for satellite images showing Earth's curvature from space, he demands: "Where's the tilted Eiffel Tower?"

Agence France-Presse 

Brazil president suffers suspected pneumonia: doctors

SAO PAULO - Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro had a fever and possible pneumonia, his doctors said Thursday, 10 days after the far-right leader underwent surgery on the stomach wound he suffered when stabbed last year.

The 63-year-old remains in semi-intensive care in Sao Paulo following a procedure to remove his colostomy bag and reconnect the bowel.

"Last night he had a fever (and) was subjected to a CT scan of the chest and abdomen that showed good intestinal evolution" as well as "an image consistent with pneumonia," Bolsonaro's doctors said in their daily medical bulletin.

The president's spokesman, Otavio do Rego Barros, said the image "confirmed the possibility of pneumonia" but added that doctors "didn't seem more worried" than before.

"Beware of sensationalism," said Bolsonaro in a tweet, while he held up his thumb in a picture also posted to Twitter.

The former army captain is a prolific user of social media, where he conducted large portions of his successful presidential campaign last year.

"We're very calm, well and we're staying the course," he wrote.

Bolsonaro's sons have also been active on social media, posting positive updates on their father's health.

The president was due to leave hospital this week but still hasn't resumed eating normally and continues to be fed intravenously.

He underwent an operation on January 28, his third since the knife attack, to reconnect his bowel so he could resume natural waste evacuation.

It took twice as long as the three to four hours expected due to a number of complications.

Since then he's had several fevers as well as suffered from nausea and vomiting, and has been fitted with a nasogastric tube, a drain and has been given antibiotics.

Officially, Bolsonaro has continued to run the country from his hospital bed.

pt/bc/ft

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Miss Angola was crowned Miss Universe 2011

Miss Angola Leila Lopes, 25 year-old business student from the town of Benguela in her home country was crowned as Miss Universe 2011 in a prestigious ceremony held in Sao Paulo, Brazil- Monday Night of September 12, 2011.

The 60th Annual Miss Universe Pageant was hosted by Bravo's Andy Cohen and NBC Today news anchor Natalie Morales. It was aired live on NBC and delivered to 170 different countries.



Miss Angola beat out candidates from 88 other countries to win the title on the pageant’s 60th year. The first runner-up was Miss Ukraine Olesia Stefanko.

25 year-old Miss Angola was asked which physical characteristic she would change and why?

Her answer was- "Thank God I’m very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn’t change a thing," Lopes said when asked her interview question. "I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principals from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life."



Miss Angola and Miss Philippines' Shamcey Supsup was the crowd favorite and most popular out of five finalists. Both of them got the loudest cheers from the audience. Miss Philippines Shamcey Supsup did better being placed as the 3rd runner up while Venus Raj placed 4th runner up on last year's pageant.


Here is the complete list of Miss Universe 2011 Finalists:

Miss Universe 2011: Miss Angola
1st Runner Up: Miss Ukraine
2nd Runner Up: Miss Brazil
3rd Runner Up: Miss Philippines
4th Runner Up: Miss China


Top 10 Semi-Finalists

Miss Australia
Miss Costa Rica
Miss France
Miss Ukraine
Miss Portugal
Miss Panama
Miss Philippines
Miss Angola
Miss China
Miss Brazil

Top 16 Semi-Finalists

Miss France
Miss Kosovo
Miss Colombia
Miss China
Miss Angola
Miss Australia
Miss Puerto Rico
Miss Brazil
Miss Netherlands
Miss USA
Miss Ukraine
Miss Panama
Miss Costa Rica
Miss Portugal
Miss Philippines
Miss Venezuela