Category Archives: Brazil

Goldmining having big impact on indigenous Amazon communities

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Study calls for more rights for indigenous reserves as rising gold price attracts more miners

A new report has exposed the scale and impact of mining on indigenous reserves in Amazon countries as gold prices soared during the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 20% of indigenous lands are overlapped by mining concessions and illegal mining, it found, covering 450,000 sq km (174,000 sq miles) – and 31% of Amazon indigenous reserves are affected.

The report, released on Wednesday by the World Resources Institute, said indigenous people should be given more legal rights to manage and use their lands, and called for better environmental safeguards. As pressure mounts over the issue, a leading Brazilian thinktank has called for regulations tracing gold sold by financial institutions.

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Amazon near tipping point of switching from rainforest to savannah – study

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Climate crisis and logging is leading to shift from canopy rainforest to open grassland

Much of the Amazon could be on the verge of losing its distinct nature and switching from a closed canopy rainforest to an open savannah with far fewer trees as a result of the climate crisis, researchers have warned.

Rainforests are highly sensitive to changes in rainfall and moisture levels, and fires and prolonged droughts can result in areas losing trees and shifting to a savannah-like mix of woodland and grassland. In the Amazon, such changes were known to be possible but thought to be many decades away.

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Brazil’s Amazon rainforest suffers worst fires in a decade

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  • Satellites record 61% rise in hotspots over September 2019
  • Scientist warns: ‘It could get worse if the drought continues’

Fires in Brazil’s Amazon increased 13% in the first nine months of the year compared with a year ago, as the rainforest region experiences its worst rash of blazes in a decade, data from space research agency Inpe has shown.

Satellites in September recorded 32,017 hotspots in the world’s largest rainforest, a 61% rise from the same month in 2019.

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One million coronavirus deaths: how did we get here?

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Milestone is known toll of months of Covid pandemic that has changed everything, from power balances to everyday life

Though an inevitable milestone for months, its arrival is still breathtaking.

Deaths from Covid-19 exceeded 1 million people on Tuesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University database, the known toll of nine relentless months of a pandemic that has changed everything, from global balances of power to the mundane aspects of daily life.

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Coronavirus live news: France sees 14,000 new cases; police clash with anti-lockdown protesters in London

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France’s total cases now 527,446; London mayor condemns ‘unacceptable’ demonstration. Follow all the developments live

Coronavirus cases in Colombia, which is nearly a month into a national reopening after a long quarantine, surpassed 800,000 on Saturday, a day after deaths from Covid-19 climbed above 25,000.

The country has 806,038 confirmed cases of the virus according to the health ministry, with 25,296 reported deaths. Active cases number 78,956.

Queen Elizabeth II will recognise the work of hundreds of doctors, nurses, fundraisers and volunteers during the pandemic when the her annual birthday honours list is published next month.

The list, which was due to be published in June, was postponed in order to add nominations for people playing key roles in the early months of the outbreak. It will be released on 10 October.

We all have to play our part, but the dedication, courage and compassion seen from these recipients, be it responding on the frontline or out in their communities providing support to the most vulnerable, is an inspiration to us all.

We owe them a debt of gratitude and the 2020 Queen’s Birthday honours will be the first of many occasions where we can thank them as a nation.

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Global Covid report: Rio cancels Carnival for first time in a century as global deaths near 1m

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Landmark event scrapped as Brazil suffers; EU warns pandemic worse now than in March peak for some; Israel further toughens restrictions

As the number of coronavirus deaths worldwide looked set to pass a million within days, Rio de Janeiro delayed its annual Carnival parade for the first time in a century because of Brazil’s continued vulnerability in the pandemic.

The global death toll passed 980,000 on Friday, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. With the number of deaths confirmed daily averaging more than 5,000, it looks likely the toll will pass 1 million within days. There are 32m cases worldwide.

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Volkswagen to pay compensation for collaborating with Brazil’s dictatorship

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Brazilian investigation found company was one of several that secretly worked with 1964-85 military government

The German carmaker Volkswagen has agreed to pay millions in compensation to former employees in Brazil who were persecuted during the country’s military dictatorship.

A Brazilian government-appointed investigation found that Volkswagen was one of several corporations that secretly collaborated with the 1964-85 military government to identify suspected “subversives” and trade unionists.

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Battle of billboards rages between Jair Bolsonaro’s foes and followers

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The arm-wrestle underscores Brazil’s bitter political rupture over a leader critics consider an abomination and supporters a corruption-busting champion

A giant image of Jair Bolsonaro stared down from billboards in the Brazilian town of Ourinhos. “We believe in God and we value the family,” its slogan proclaimed.

But within days of being erected, local dissidents had taken spray cans to the hoardings, dousing Brazil’s nationalist leader with black paint and using their graffiti to declare him a fascist.

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United Nations general assembly: China rejects Trump’s ‘baseless’ Covid accusations – live

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Follow live as Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin – among others – deliver video messages

...and we have photos of Xi Jinping’s background:

Some more analysis, this time from our diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, on Turkey’s talk:

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used his general assembly address to set out Turkey’s bitter objections to its exclusion from the East Mediterranean, but said he was ready to resume talks bound by international law to address their contested maritime claims in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. By his recent rhetorical standards, the speech was one of Erdoğan’s mildest.

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Global preparation: how different countries planned for the second wave of Covid-19

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Lockdowns brought temporary relief to some but, everywhere, test and trace is key

The first wave of coronavirus swept through a world unprepared. Authorities struggled to test for the disease, and didn’t know how to slow the spread of Covid-19.

Lockdowns brought the virus under temporary control in some places, including the UK, buying a window for the revival of education and the economy, and time to prepare for future waves that epidemiologists said were almost inevitable.

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Covid warnings ring out as Latin America bids to return to normality

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The region has seen some of the longest lockdowns in the world but experts are urging countries not to reopen too soon

The scene in Rio de Janeiro was as though much of 2020 had never happened.

The beaches at Ipanema and Copacabana heaved with visitors, the white sand obscured by bronzed bodies, sun loungers and parasols, as locals enjoyed the blistering 38C heat.

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Coronavirus live news: European outbreaks worsen; Australia sees anti-lockdown protests

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Cases hit daily record in Czech Republic; Austria ‘experiencing start of second wave’; 74 people at an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne

An Israeli cabinet minister, who heads an ultra-orthodox Jewish party in Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative coalition, has tendered his resignation in protest at a looming coronavirus lockdown. Housing minister Yaakov Litzman argued the restrictions would unfairly impede religious celebrations of Jewish holidays.

The rules - the most extensive Israel will have imposed since a lockdown that ran from late March to early May - are expected to go into effect on Friday, the Jewish new year Rosh Hashana, and span into the Yom Kippur fast day on 27 September.

This wrongs and scorns hundreds of thousands of citizens. Where were you until now? Why have the Jewish holidays become a convenient address for tackling the coronavirus...?

We have to move on, to make the decisions necessary for Israel in the coronavirus era, and that is what we will do in this session.

India has reported 94,372 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, taking total cases past 4.7 million.

The daily increase was down on the record global spike in the previous 24 hours of 97,570 new cases and came after three days of recording more than 95,000 new cases. Infections have been growing faster in India than anywhere in the world.

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Record-breaking wildfires in Brazil threaten endangered species – video

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Record-breaking wildfires are threatening thousands of acres of one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet, Brazil's Pantanal region.

'Sometimes we are a bit frustrated, but we try to have hope and to rescue the few animals we can,' said 26-year-old vet Karen Ribeiro at one of the shelters, where rescue units and volunteers are bringing in animals including jaguars for evacuation

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Expert on Amazon tribes killed by arrow from uncontacted group

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Rieli Franciscato struck in chest as he approached indigenous group he was seeking to shield

A Brazilian government official and expert on isolated Amazon tribes was killed by an arrow as he approached an indigenous group he was seeking to shield.

Rieli Franciscato, 56, spent his career in the government’s indigenous affairs agency, Funai, working to set up reservations to protect uncontacted tribes.

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Brazil’s ex-president Lula condemns Bolsonaro over Covid in comeback bid

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Lula, who governed from 2003-2011, expected to run for president again at next election

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has accused Jair Bolsonaro of turning the coronavirus pandemic into a “weapon of mass destruction” in a high-profile intervention some have seen as the start of an attempted political comeback.

In a wide-ranging video manifesto – which allies, adversaries and analysts took as a signal Lula would seek to challenge Brazil’s far-right leader in the next presidential election – the leftist condemned Bolsonaro’s handling of a crisis that has killed more than 127,000 Brazilians.

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India becomes country with second highest number of Covid cases

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With 4.1m cases, south Asian nation is now second only to US in terms of number of infections

India has surpassed Brazil to become the country with the second highest number of coronavirus cases, as the virus continues to spread through the country of 1.3 billion at the fastest rate of anywhere in the world.

India recorded more than 90,000 cases overnight, bringing the number of infections in the country past 4.2 million and overtaking Brazil, which with 4.1 million cases had been the second worst-affected country for several months.

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Global report: India overtakes Brazil as second most Covid-infected country

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Seven French departments placed on high alert; UK sees 3,000 cases in one day, the highest figure since May

India has recorded a global one-day record of more than 90,000 positive coronavirus cases, taking the country past Brazil as the second most infected country in the world, with 4.2m confirmed cases.

On Sunday India recorded 90,802 new cases and 1,016 deaths. The worst affected state continues to be Maharashtra, home to the financial capital, Mumbai. It has had nearly a quarter of the country’s total infections, and on Sunday it reported a record 23,350 new cases.

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Coronavirus live news: leading US Democrat Nancy Pelosi pictured without face covering in hair salon

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US rejects global vaccine effort; cases rise in India, Russia and Hungary; Australia enters recession

Greece recorded has recorded the first coronavirus case in the overcrowded migrant camp of Moria on the island of Lesbos, two migration ministry officials said on Wednesday.

A 40-year old asylum seeker has tested positive for the virus and had been put in isolation, one of the officials told Reuters. Authorities were trying to trace the people he had been in contact with, the official said.

I am now handing over the blog to the very capable Amy Walker. Thank you for reading and please do keep us updated on all coronavirus-related tips and stories.

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Turkey seeing second peak of Covid-19 outbreak – as it happened

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US president’s move challenged by Congress; Silvio Berlusconi has Covid-19; Brazil’s death toll appears to be easing. This blog is now closed

We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:

Related: Coronavirus live news: Trump pushes to withdraw WHO funding immediately

Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll appears to be easing for the first time since May, data shows, a sign the Latin American country could be descending from a long infection plateau that has seen it suffer the world’s second-worst outbreak after the United States, Reuters reports.

With nearly 4 million confirmed cases, the virus has killed over 120,000 people in Brazil. But the level of average daily deaths dropped below 900 per day last week - the lowest in three and a half months and below the rate of both the United States and India, according to a Reuters tally.

Researchers at Imperial College London also calculate that the transmission rate in Brazil, at which each person infected with the coronavirus infects another person, is now below 1, the level required for new infections to slow.

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Amazon ‘condemned to destruction’ as fires proliferate across Brazil

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The vast rainforest is experiencing a repeat of last year’s devastating blazes and critics say Bolsonaro bears ultimate responsibility

Jair Bolsonaro smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”.

But 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused global outrage – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin.

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