Folha de S.Paulo aims dig at evangelical Rio mayor after he tried to ban a Marvel comic
Brazil’s biggest newspaper has printed an illustration from a Marvel comic of two men kissing on its front page to attack an attempt at censorship by the evangelical mayor of Rio de Janeiro.
Marcelo Crivella attempted to ban copies of the graphic novel Avengers: The Children’s Crusade from appearing at a book fair on the grounds that it included content unsuitable for children.
Continue reading...Erwin Kräutler says he expects next month’s papal synod to denounce destruction of rainforest
The fires in the Amazon are a “true apocalypse”, according to a Brazilian archbishop who expects next month’s papal synod at the Vatican to strongly denounce the destruction of the rainforest.
The comments by Erwin Kräutler will put fresh pressure on the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, following criticism from G7 leaders last month over the surge of deforestation in the world’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink.
Continue reading...Brazilian president said without the dictator ‘Chile would be a Cuba today’ after Michelle Bachelet criticized rising police killings
Jair Bolsonaro has taunted Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, over the Chilean dictatorship that tortured her and her parents, after she criticised rising police killings and a “shrinking” space for democracy in Brazil.
“She is defending the human rights of vagabonds,” the Brazilian president told reporters on Wednesday. “Senhora Michelle Bachelet, if Pinochet’s people had not defeated the left in 73 – among them your father – Chile would be a Cuba today.”
Continue reading...Footage of gagged child prompts comparisons to treatment of black people during three centuries of slavery
Naked and whimpering, his trousers around his ankles, the black teenage boy jerks and howls with pain as he is whipped with electric cable.
“Are you going to come back?” asks one of his tormentors. The youth shakes his head, unable to speak because he has been gagged.
Continue reading...Volunteers in Salvador’s favelas are collecting data on deadly infections and inequality to help campaign for better sanitation
Wearing crisp, white T-shirts and carrying tablets, the students fan out through Marechal Rondon – a bustling favela spread over hillsides and a valley in Brazil’s north-eastern city of Salvador. As they walk, they map blocked drains and piles of rubbish on their tablets. These are the “infection points” that attract the rats and mosquitoes which, in turn, spread diseases like leptospirosis and the Zika virus, both prevalent here.
Student Alexandre Santos, 20, stops before a weigh-high tangle of wild plants overlooking a housing block. “We look at sewers, rubble, garbage. Now there is high vegetation,” Santos says, tapping in the data. “It goes straight into the data bank.”
Continue reading...Asset managers, pension funds and companies halt deals and stop buying bonds
Financial pressure is growing on Brazil over fires in the Amazon and the far-right president’s belligerent response to them.
Asset managers, pension funds and companies have issued warnings, halted deals and stopped purchases of government bonds.
Continue reading...Fires have been reported in protected indigenous reserves of the Brazilian Amazon, raising fears that loggers and land grabbers have targeted these remote areas during the dramatic surge in blazes across the world’s biggest rainforest.
Blazes have been seen on the Araribóia indigenous reserve in Maranhão state – a heavily deforested reserve on the Amazon’s eastern fringes, which is home to about 80 people from an isolated group of Awá indigenous people, described by the NGO Survival International as the world’s most endangered tribe.
Continue reading...Indigenous community under threat from fire, deforestation and Bolsonaro
Threatened by fire, deforestation and invasion, the Xikrin people of the northern Amazon are fighting back.
While the authorities stand idle and the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, tries to undermine their territorial rights, the indigenous community have taken matters into their own hands by expelling the loggers and ranchers who illegally occupied their land and set fire to the forest.
Continue reading...Forestry expert warns annual burning season had yet to fully play out and calls for urgent steps to reduce potential damage
The fires raging in the Brazilian Amazon are likely to intensify over the coming weeks, a leading environmental expert has warned, despite government claims the situation had been controlled.
Related: Amazon fires: what is happening and is there anything we can do?
Continue reading...Brazilian and French presidents continue feud over G7 aid package for wildfires raging in Amazon rainforest
Brazil’s far-right president and his backers have escalated their row over the Amazon with Emmanuel Macron, attacking the French president’s “lamentable colonialist stance” as fires continued to rage in the world’s biggest rainforest.
As Brazil said it would reject a $20m (£16m) G7 contribution to fight the fires, Jair Bolsonaro spurned Macron’s criticism of his environmental record and flaunted Donald Trump’s support for his far-right administration.
Continue reading...Tensions rose between France and Brazil after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, tweeted that the fires burning in the Amazon amounted to an international crisis and should be made a top priority at the G7 summit. Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president, reacted by accusing Macron of having a ‘colonialist mentality’. The diplomatic row between the leaders escalated when Bolsonaro expressed approval of a Facebook post implying that Macron's wife, Brigitte Macron, was not as good-looking as his own wife
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...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...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.
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