BRASILIA, BRAZIL/ Brazil’s President Lula has signed a contract allowing the construction of the hugely controversial Belo Monte mega-dam on the Amazonian Xingu River to go ahead.

Experts have warned that the project has serious design flaws. It was described by Walter Coronado Antunes, former Environment Secretary of São Paulo state, as "the worst engineering project in the history of hydroelectric dams in Brazil, and perhaps of any engineering project in the world".

Brasilia,Brazil/ The Amazon is facing an urgent new threat as legislators allied to agribusiness interests and landowners seek to drastically weaken conservationrequirements of the country’s Forest Law, the foundation of several decades ofsometimes impressive progress in reducing deforestation.

The issue could come to a head on June 29, with a so-called “ruralist bloc” trying to push “flexibilisation”of the laws through a Special Committee on Forest Law Change on the back of aparliamentary special commission report claiming the laws are holding backeconomic prosperity.