Eideard

If you were to come up with a list of places you’re unlikely to stumble across Google’s Street View trike snapping 360 degree panoramics, the banks of the Amazon would surely be pretty close to the top. Yet that’s precisely where the search behemoth’s imaging team is currently focusing its attention. Starting off with a 50 km stretch of the Rio Negro River, the team plans to document life in some our world’s most remote and richly biodiverse regions – visiting local communities, going inside village buildings and floating up and down the waterways to offer virtual visitors a unique insight into the wonders of the Amazon.

Often described as the lungs of the planet, the lush Amazon rainforest has been disappearing at a frighteningly rapid rate at the hands of mankind. Now thanks to Google, much of this immensely important region of the world is about to be saved – albeit digitally. Accepting an invite from the locals, Google’s Brazil and U.S. Street View teams have joined members of the Google Earth Outreach program to share their image collection expertise with non-profit conservation organization Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS).

While in the area, the now-familiar Street View will be seen trundling down the narrow dirt paths that join villages and will capture images of the river, surrounding forests and adjacent river communities. Building interiors will also host an image capture tripod to give us all a sense of what it’s like to live and work in such communities. The teams will also mount the vehicle on a boat and record all-around views of the great river as it floats gently downstream, which will then be stitched together to produce 360 degree panoramas.

On completion of the project, Google will leave behind some technical equipment to allow FAS members to continue their work, and give them the means to share their way of life with the rest of the world.

Rock on!

Gonzalo Esquivel said to be a leader in Nuestra Familia cops a free ride

The authorities in California announced…the arrest of more than 100 people suspected of being gang members in the largely agricultural Central Valley, the latest sweep by law enforcement to stem what they call a growing — and international — menace in the nation’s most populous state.

The announcement, made by California’s attorney general, Kamala D. Harris, capped raids on Tuesday in six towns, many of which have long struggled with gang-related crime.

“This operation was a success,” said Ms. Harris, standing at City Hall in the small farm city of Los Banos, about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco. “And this operation will bear its fruit in terms of public safety for the Central Valley and throughout the state of California.”

The investigation, called “Red Zone,” was conducted over several months and aimed at the leadership of two gangs: Nuestra Familia, a Mexican-American prison-based gang that operates in detention facilities across the state, and the Norteños, which the authorities say often acts as the Familia’s street-level arm…

“This is part of what we’re seeing in terms of the changing face of crime,” Ms. Harris said, adding that the emphasis was going from “purely drug enforcement” to being “equally about gangs, equally about guns, equally about drugs.”

Large amounts of narcotics, firearms and cash were seized in the Central Valley raids, including methamphetamine and crack cocaine and five assault rifles. Charges included assault, mayhem, gun possession and attempted murder.

Throw away the key!

Suspected drug hitmen killed nine people in Tegucigalpa in one of the deadliest attacks in Honduras since Mexican drug kingpins escalated their war over smuggling routes.

Masked men with automatic weapons opened fire in the street in a poor area of the Honduran capital on Saturday night and then burst into two houses, killing seven men and two women, police said. Several bodies lay in the street, oozing blood, police said.

“These deaths were provoked by territorial disputes between drug traffickers,” Tegucigalpa’s police chief Mario Chamorro told reporters.

Since last year, drug violence has been rising in Honduras, a key transit route for Colombian cocaine heading to the United States, as powerful Mexican cartels fight over smuggling corridors through Mexico and Central America.

Some 1,600 people died in drug violence in Honduras in 2009. Honduran authorities say Mexico’s top trafficker, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, is trying to crush rivals from the ruthless Gulf cartel from northeastern Mexico who are also fighting for control in Central America.

Corrupt coppers, corrupt politicians and local officials make a home for drug gangs just about anywhere they wish. As long as money counts for more than human lives, criminals really don’t spend much time worrying about their business.