Peaks of Amazon deforestation in Brazil, according to photographs of the space agency in the country

By Paulo Prada

Rio DE JANEIRO, 10 Sept (Reuters) – published on Tuesday by the space agency of Brazil preliminary data indicate the deforestation of the Amazon heel by more than one third last year, reversing a steady decline in the destruction of the world's largest rain forest.

If backed by tracking data typically compiled by the end of the year, the increase would confirm fears by scientists and environmental activists who warn that the agriculture, mining and Amazon infrastructure projects, coupled with changes in environmental policies long of Brazil, are investing progress against deforestation.

Last year, the deforestation of the Amazon was shown to be at an all-time low.

The likely increase of deforestation has led to concerns that Brazil may lower its guard and provides an opening for the loggers, ranchers and others eager to develop parts of a forest that is seven times the size of France.

The space agency of Brazil, whose destruction of the rainforest track using monthly satellite imagery, detected almost 2.766 square kilometers (1,067 square miles) of the forest from August 2012 until July of 2013. The total area, more than twice the size of the city of Los Angeles, is 35 percent greater than the cleared area in the previous year, the Agency said.

The measurement year ends in July, when the visibility is better, because the clouds meet often in the region of much of the rest of the year, making it difficult to pick up the satellite images.

A more complete count for the period is compiled, using data from additional satellites and field research provided by researchers in the Government. Additional data will help determine if clear are the result of deliberate destruction or natural degradation caused by drought, fire, or other factors.

Data collected by Imazon, a private Research Institute, also point to an increase in deforestation in recent years. The group, the other source of regular data Amazon considered reliable by many scientists, recently said destruction over the past year have almost doubled. (Edition of Stacey Joyce)

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'Cowboy' Jack Clement Dead: Country Hall Of Famer Dies at Age 82

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — "Cowboy" Jack Clement, a producer, engineer, songwriter and beloved figure who helped birth rock `n' roll and push country music into modern times, died Thursday at his home. He was 82.

Dub Cornett, a close friend of Clement's, said his hospice nurse confirmed Clement passed away surrounded by family after declining treatment for liver cancer.

His death came just months after he learned he would be joining the Country Music Hall of Fame, a fitting tip of the hat to the man whose personal story is entwined with the roots of modern music like few others. He was to be inducted at a ceremony this fall.

"I've been walking around for the last hour thanking God for the privilege of knowing Cowboy Jack Clement," singer Marty Stuart said in an email. "He was one of my dearest friends. To know the Cowboy was to know one of the most original people to ever walk the Earth."

At the top of his official Country Music Hall of Fame bio was one of Clement's favorite quotes: "We're in the fun business. If we're not having fun, we're not doing our job."

Clement could claim as much fun as anyone after a colorful career that left him a famous figure in Nashville, known as much for his colorful personality and storytelling as his formidable place in music history.

A tribute benefit concert to Clement last winter drew video salutes from first lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton, U2's Bono and pop star Taylor Swift, as well as performances and appearances by an all-star lineup of fans including Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys and Jakob Dylan.

Clement's career included stops in Memphis at Sun Records as an engineer for Sam Phillips, where he discovered Jerry Lee Lewis and recorded greats like Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison. He also came through Nashville, where he was a close collaborator of Johnny Cash and many of his fellow hall of fame members, including fellow 2013 inductee Bobby Bare.

As the hall of fame noted, he was a catalyst who always seemed to bring the best out of those he worked with.

For instance, he convinced Lewis to put aside the country material he brought to Sun Records and stretch out with something a little more upbeat. The result? "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On."

And how about this? He convinced Kristofferson to move to town, changing just about everything in Music City.

Kristofferson wrote in an email that Clement was the first person he met when he arrived in Nashville, still wearing his Army uniform.

"He introduced me to Johnny Cash by showing him a letter my mother had written disowning me for resigning my commission to be a songwriter," he wrote. "To me Jack will always be the embodiment of the Nashville songwriter's love of the song, regardless of who the writer was."

Speaking of Cash, it was Clement who came up with the idea of putting Mariachi horns on Cash's "Ring of Fire," transforming a fairly sedate love song into an ascendant pop culture moment that would endure time.

"He was the maestro, the ringleader of tomfoolery, and I know Johnny Cash and Sam Phillips are ready to get back to work now that he's in heaven," said Cornett, who produced the benefit concert.

Born in Memphis in 1931, Clement picked up music in his late teens and continued to perform after joining the Marines at 17. He invited a young Elvis Presley to sit in his band occasionally after returning to Memphis to attend college, where he picked up the nickname "Cowboy" for his role in a radio show.

He eventually built a garage recording studio with a partner. He took the first records he made to Sun to master and was hired on the spot by Phillips in 1956.

Like with the Lewis sessions, which were conducted when Phillips was away, nimble thinking helped Clement insert himself into another historic moment – the fleeting few hours when Presley, Cash, Lewis and Perkins found themselves together in the store-front Union Avenue studio and decided to mess around a little.

The result was "The Million Dollar Quartet."

"After a while, Sam went next door to Taylor's restaurant," Clement said in a 2010 interview with The Commercial Appeal of Memphis. "And I was sitting in the control room, turning up some knobs and I heard what they were doing. I remember I stood up and said, `I'd be remiss if I didn't record this.' So I stuck a tape on, walked out in the studio and moved a few mics around, and I just let it run for about an hour and a half or so. Nobody seemed to object."

He'd run across Elvis and Cash again in Nashville where he served as a producer, engineer and talent scout in Nashville for Chet Atkins during some of country music's most important years before going out on his own.

Along the way, he boosted George Jones' career with his composition "She Thinks I Still Care" and had songs recorded by Ray Charles, Waylon Jennings, Tom Jones, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner.

As a producer, he helped break through the color barrier in country music through his discovery of minor league baseball player and aspiring singer Charley Pride, established Jennings with their work on "Dreaming My Dreams" and touched the legendary careers of Louis Armstrong, Albert Collins, Townes Van Zandt and Hank Williams Jr., among others.

He also helped mark a turning point in the career of U2, recording the Irish band's multiplatinum roots tribute "Rattle and Hum."

___

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Bible in Norway is Bestseller; "The Scriptures" is surprising strong in the largely Secular country

OSLO, Norway - may sound like an unlikely best-seller not. 1 for any country, but in Norway - one of the most secular Nations in an increasingly godless Europe - popularity beyond control of the Bible has caught the country by surprise. The Scriptures, in a version of new Norwegian language, even surpassed "Fifty shades of gray" to become the Best Seller of Norway.

The sudden explosion of interest in the word of God has been extended also to the stage, with a six-hour game, called "Bibelen," Norwegian for "the Bible", drawing 16,000 people in a run that just ended in one of the most important theatres in Oslo for three months.

Officials of the Lutheran Church of Norway have left to call it a spiritual awakening, but come the new interest in the Bible as proof that still resonates in a country where only 1 percent of the 5 million residents regularly attends church.

"Thoughts and images of the nature of the Bible have an impact on how we experience reality", said Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of several famous authors of Norwegians are enlisted to help with the translation.

The scholars not surprised by the success of the games or the new translation of the Bible, explaining that faith is a deeply personal matter in this Scandinavian nation taciturn regularly removed from the life of the city for holiday cottages remote in the solitude of the forest, fjords and mountains.

"Church attendance is a poor measure of the Norwegian State of faith," said post-doctoral Thorgeir Kolshus at the University of Oslo. "Religion is a very private thing for Norwegians".

Anne Veiteberg, editorial director of the Bible Society of Norway, said that probably also increased immigration has been a factor.

More than 258,000 immigrants have settled in the country during the last six years only, adding diversity of race and religion. The Church of Norway estimates that around 60 percent of immigrants are Christian, while the rest are Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus.

"Now that we are exposed to other religions, Norwegian have gotten more interested in their own faith," said Veiteberg.

Launched in October of 2011 by Norway of the Bible Society, the new translation replaces an edition of 1978, with the aim of improving the accuracy and legibility. For example, in the previous version, Maria was called "Virgin". In the new translation it is known as a "young". The Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States also made this change in its most recent translation of the Bible in 2011, saying that change does not alter the teaching about Mary, but it was meant to deal with the possible meanings of the Hebrew word "almah" in the text.

The Bible Society of Norway promotes new translation as a novel of pop fiction, stirring anticipation giving teasers of Bible stories before its release.

It turned to poets and authors as Knausgard to sing and echoes the text for a new generation. And it was packaged in a variety of ways, targeting adolescents with pink leather or denim-covered and adults with bridal or sophisticated literary covers.

"It's easier to read," says Helga Haugland Byfuglien, Presiding Bishop of the Church of Norway. "There is no lack of the text".

Almost 160,000 copies sold and was a bestseller in Norway in 2012. Church officials acknowledge that strong marketing campaigns helped to explain the strong sales.

Like many other European Nations, Norwegians have suffered decades of secularization as religion has taken a step back to other activities. Fiercely bet by the interference of the weekends with skiing, hiking and other outdoor activities, leaving little time other than Christmas or Easter to fill the pews.

Last year, Parliament decided unanimously to put an end to the situation of the Lutheran Church as the official religion of the State.

Erik Ulfsby, artistic director of Det Norske Teatret, who put in scene the work 'Bibelen', said that although the Norwegians do not go to church, still see the Bible as an important part of its literary heritage.

"(The Church) wants that you agree with your interpretation, but the theater gives you the opportunity to think out loud and discuss the Bible," he said.

Certainly, the play, directed by Stein Winge, offered a non-traditional interpretation.

For example, instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was confined to a mental hospital and finally executed by lethal injection. And, at the wedding at Cana, show attendees saw that Jesus is portrayed as being drunk when he changed water to wine.

"Bible" is not the first religious production than Norwegians at the edge of their seats. Renowned actor Svein Tindberg has organized three monologues based on the Bible, each more successful than the previous.

In the mid-1990s, "The Gospel" was scheduled to run for 20 nights, but was such a success that made 220 nights Tindberg. His most recent production, "Children of Abraham", opened last year and has sold 52,000 tickets, compared with 1,000 expectations - surpassing "Evita" in Norway.

Despite the little Orthodox artistic interpretations that arise, the religious authorities in Norway are adopting the concept of living religion through art.

"Even if you don't believe that the core of the message, the Bible has a rich and meaningful stories", Byfuglien said. "Culture breaks religious shyness that people have in association with the Church and is a way for those who have distanced themselves to experience in an interesting way".

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