The uncontacted tribes of the Amazon basin are a reality that many regional governments would prefer not to be true. The existence of these highly susceptible indigenous groups – found in the most remote reaches of Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela – prevents the miners, loggers, and oil from removing the valuable resources that are becoming increasingly easier to extract. While they are protected under international law, the enforcement of those laws is loose at best, shifting with every change in government. Some governments go as far to say that because they are unseen, that the tribes are fictional creations by environmentalists that want to hamper the development of rainforests. Proving that the tribes, who voluntarily choose to be in isolation, do exist without threatening them even more so than they already are is a complicated tasks, as the book The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes by Scott Wallace attests.

I’m not exactly sure of what to think of Ecuadorian Delfin Quishpe’s September 11 tribute. Is it comic genius or just innocently bizarre? I saw the video earlier this year and forgot about it until it was brought to my attention the other day. The singer, who calls his music Andean Techno Folklore, was born in a mud hut speaking Quechua in Ecuador’s province of Chimborazo. Most of his videos begin with him sitting at his house and watching the news on TV. In Torres Gemelas, which has been seen more than 7 million times since it was posted on Youtube in 2006, Quishpe sees the news of the twin towers and he sings about a loved one that he lost in the attack.