Senior official says funds should be spent on reforesting Europe and not on ‘colonialist practices’
A senior Brazilian official has told Emmanuel Macron to take care of “his home and his colonies” as Brazil rejected an offer from G7 countries of $20m (£16m) to help fight fires in the Amazon.
“We appreciate [the offer], but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe,” Onyx Lorenzoni, the chief of staff to President Jair Bolsonaro, told the G1 news website.
Continue reading...Fires are raging across the world’s largest tropical rainforest as farmers, land-grabbers and loggers torch trees and clear land for crops or grazing. According to Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research, the number of fires detected by satellite in the Amazon region this month is the highest since 2010. Bowing to international pressure and a global outcry over the destruction of a vital resource in the fight against climate change, president Jair Bolsonaro authorised the deployment of Brazil’s armed forces to help combat blazes, with warplane dumping water on burning tracts of Amazon. Critics say the large number of fires this year has been stoked by Bolsonaro’s encouragement of farmers, loggers and ranchers to speed up efforts to strip away forest
Continue reading...World leaders offer $20m now plus reforestation plan, but critics want major policy shifts
The G7’s pledge of $20m (£16m) to douse the fires in the Amazon has been dismissed as “chump change” by environmental campaigners, as concerns grow about political cooperation on deforestation and other climate issues.
The summit host, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, told reporters he would try to deal with the long-term causes by creating an international alliance to save the rainforest, with details of a reforestation programme to be unveiled at next month’s UN climate meeting in New York.
Continue reading...Reforms will oblige Cuba to work more closely with its US neighbours – in spite of US President Trump’s frosty attitude
Cuba has introduced sweeping reforms of its fishing laws in a move seen as smoothing the way for possible collaboration with the US on protecting their shared ocean, despite Donald Trump’s policy of reversing a thaw in relations.
The move is the first time the text of an environmental law in Cuba specifies the need for scientific research, which experts say will mean greater reliance on state-of-the-art US technology.
Continue reading...G7 leaders stepped up pressure on president Jair Bolsonaro to tackle destruction of precious rainforest
Brazilian warplanes have begun dumping water on burning forest in the Amazon state of Rondonia, responding to an outcry over the destruction of the world’s largest tropical rain forest.
President Jair Bolsonaro authorised military operations in seven states on Sunday to combat raging fires in the Amazon, responding to requests for assistance from their local governments, a spokeswoman for his office said.
Continue reading...Rubens Ricupero warns the far-right leader is wreaking havoc on Brazil’s environment and its global standing
Jair Bolsonaro’s neglect of the Amazon has made him “the most despised and detested leader” on earth, Brazil’s former environment minister has claimed, as the far-right leader again rebuked French president Emmanuel Macron for challenging his environmental record.
Rubens Ricupero warned Bolsonaro was wreaking havoc on both Brazil’s environment and its global standing, as Bolsonaro used Facebook to scold Macron’s “inappropriate and gratuitous attacks” over the Amazon fires and insult France’s first lady.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron has asked for world powers to help Brazil and its neighbours fight the fires raging in the Amazon and to plan huge replanting programmes. The appeal came as the French president piled pressure on Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who has been accused of fuelling the burning of the rainforest.
As environmental protesters marched nearby, the G7 summit’s, opening meeting was dominated by the spectre of economic repercussions for Brazil and its South American neighbours and showed how the Amazon is becoming a battleground between Bolsonaro and the west. Many governments have become alarmed that vast swathes of the Amazon are going up in smoke, affecting biodiversity and worsening the climate crisis.
Continue reading...President watches rightwing comic as pre-recorded speech to nation on fighting fires airs
While the Amazon burned and Brazilians demonstrated their outrage, Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro went to a comedy club.
As the president’s pre-recorded speech to the nation explaining how he planned to use the army to fight the fires – while simultaneously insisting that the rate of burning of the forest was nothing out of the ordinary – was broadcast on television on Friday night, he was at a standup show in Brasília by right-wing Christian comic Jonathan Nemer.
Continue reading...Jefferson saw Latin America dominated by ‘priests and kings’. Marie Arana’s history is similarly dark – and that’s problematic
Writing in 1811, during the early rumblings of the Spanish American independence movements, Thomas Jefferson harboured little optimism about the “great field of political experiment [that] is opening in our neighbourhood”. He did not believe the people of South and Central America were capable of establishing successful republics.
Related: El Norte review: an epic and timely history of Hispanic North America
Continue reading...President uses TV speech to criticise ‘disinformation’ about fire crisis, saying it cannot be used as pretext for sanctions
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has professed to feeling “profound love and respect” for the Amazon as fires continued to rage in the world’s biggest tropical rainforest and criticism of his environmental policies intensified.
In a televised address to the nation – met with pot-banging protests in several Brazilian cities – Bolsonaro said he was “not content” with the situation in the Amazon and was taking “firm action” to resolve it by deploying troops to the region.
Continue reading...Brazil’s handling of forest fires set to top agenda of G7 countries at meeting in Biarritz this weekend
Amazon fires: what is happening and is there anything we can do?
France and Ireland have said they will oppose an EU trade deal with South American countries unless Brazil takes action to stop the burning of the Amazon.
On the eve of a meeting of the G7 nations in Biarritz, an Élysée source said Emmanuel Macron thought Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, “lied” to him at the G20 meeting in Osaka in June about his climate commitments and therefore France would oppose the Mercosur treaty.
Continue reading...Political storm over rainforest devastation as Ricardo Salles attends summit
The environment minister of Brazil, where wildfires have been sweeping the Amazon rainforest, was booed at a climate event on Wednesday as celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio and Ariana Grande joined an international chorus of criticism.
Videos of Ricardo Salles being booed by demonstrators as he took to the stage at Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week in the north-eastern city of Salvador circulated widely in Brazil. An opposition senator is planning to seek his impeachment at Brazil’s supreme court.
Continue reading...A strict conservation programme is helping protect the tiny country’s marine ecosystems, despite the growing threat of steadily warming waters
Why Belize is a world leader in protecting the ocean
All photographs by Tony Rath
Continue reading...The Brazilian president has said NGOs could be burning down the Amazon rainforest to embarrass his government after he cut their funding. Bolsonaro had no evidence but said 'everything indicates' that NGOs are going to the Amazon to set fire to the forest
Continue reading...Brazilian president claims green groups behind rise in blazes, but offers nothing to support his assertion
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has accused environmental groups of setting fires in the Amazon as he tries to deflect growing international criticism of his failure to protect the world’s biggest rainforest.
A surge of fires in several Amazonian states this month followed reports that farmers were feeling emboldened to clear land for crop fields and cattle ranches because the new Brazilian government was keen to open up the region to economic activity.
Continue reading...Shocking act in Tepexco is just one example of wider malady blighting countries from Bolivia to Brazil
Socorro Muñoz fled indoors as the laurel-lined square outside her shop became a public execution ground one sunny afternoon in early August.
“I didn’t want to see,” the 62-year-old storekeeper explained as she relived the moment a tide of Latin American lynchings swept into Tepexco’s picturesque Plaza de la Constitución, leaving seven alleged kidnappers dead.
Continue reading...‘Various contacts’ made, says embattled president, amid reports he is negotiating a way to stand down
Nicolás Maduro has confirmed top Venezuelan officials have been talking to members of Donald Trump’s White House, after reports his second-in-command had been negotiating his downfall with the United States.
“I confirm that for months there have been contacts between senior officials from Donald Trump’s government and from the Bolivarian government over which I preside – with my express and direct permission,” Venezuela’s authoritarian leader said in a televised address on Tuesday night.
Continue reading...Julien Gauthier, 44, was on an expedition recording sounds of nature for his music
A French artist who used sounds of nature in his music has been killed by a bear in Canada.
Friends said Julien Gauthier, 44, was the victim of an attack after a bear entered a camp near the village of Tulita, in the Northwest Territories, in the early hours of Thursday last week. The police have not yet publicly identified the victim.
Continue reading...A young woman who was suspected of having an abortion and charged with homicide after having a stillborn child has been acquitted by a judge at a retrial in a case that drew international attention to El Salvador’s strict abortion laws. Evelyn Beatriz Hernández, now 21, had served 33 months of a 30-year prison sentence when her conviction was overturned in February for lack of evidence
Continue reading...Mobile phone footage reportedly shows Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky saying goodbye and describing last wishes
A mobile phone with a video shot by Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky could hold the key to why they embarked on a killing spree in Canada.
The two teenagers suspected of killing Australian tourist Lucas Fowler, his US girlfriend Chynna Deese, and Canadian botanist Leonard Dyck, left a “last will and testament” video message, according to the Toronto Star.
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