RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 9 (Tierramérica) - Television advertising is one of the main factors behind the rise of obesity in Brazil, says a University of Sao Paulo doctoral thesis.

After studying 640 hours of TV commercials, psychologist Paula Carolina Nascimento says in her thesis that 57.8 percent of the foods promoted are high in sugar, fat and salt.

The study evaluated the nutritional status of 816 impoverished primary school students, and found 11.4 percent obese and 12.4 percent overweight. It also found that their parents buy foods "based on the commercials they see on TV, without shopping lists that would indicate better planning of expenses," Nascimento told Tierramérica.

The data indicate that television is "an environmental factor associated with excess weight," but do not necessarily show a causal relation, she concludes.

SANTIAGO, Apr 9 (Tierramérica) - The Transgenic-Free Chile Network opposes a project of the agribusiness transnational Monsanto to plant 5,000 hectares of genetically modified soybeans beginning in October 2007, and increasing to 20,000 hectares in 2010.

In Chile it is only legal to produce genetically modified (GM) seeds for export. There are currently 13,000 hectares of GM seed planted, 300 with soy.

"We met with Agriculture Minister Alvaro Rojas, to tell him it is a threat to Chile's export products and organic farming. We need a biosecurity law and ensure the application of environmental impact studies to initiatives for seed production," Network spokeswoman María Isabel Manzur told Tierramérica.

According to Manzur, Rojas pledged to create an interdisciplinary panel to discuss biotechnology and to advance the environmental impact studies.

CARACAS, Apr 9 (Tierramérica) - The Nazarene of St. Paul procession that takes place each year on Wednesday of Catholic Holy Week in the city center of Caracas, was this year adorned with 5,000 orchids that are endangered in Venezuela.

This annual tradition coincided with the 62nd Annual Orchid Expo, which showcased 2,000 plants of 200 species, with the top award going to a "Cattleya mossiae semi-alba" (white with a lilac-colored center), "a rarity," Brenda Hutton, of the Venezuelan Society of Natural Sciences, told Tierramérica.

The Cattleya mossiae, known here as the flower of May, "is among the most threatened orchids in our territory, due to the plundering for its sale, and the destruction of its habitat," says Alejandro D'Hers, one of the expo's organizers.

GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, Apr 9 (Tierramérica) - Some 60 homes in the Guantánamo community of Los Cerezos, some 1,000 km from Havana, will be supplied with electricity from photovoltaic cells by May.

Each house in this mountainous zone with semi-desert soils will be set up with a solar panel with five points of illumination, a color television, and radio, at a cost of about 3,000 dollars per home.

José Luis Rodríguez, delegate from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, told Tierramérica the plan will benefit 28,000 people in the region's mountain communities as part of a program to fight desertification and drought.

The initiative is financed by the non-governmental organization from Spain, Sodepaz, and carried out by the Cuban government's Center of Applied Technology for Sustainable Development.