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SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro will skip a regional summit on fires that have devastated swaths of the Amazon because doctors want him to get ready for surgery scheduled for next week, a spokesman said Monday. The far-right president has been widely criticized over his support for Amazon deforestation and a delayed reaction to wildfires that have hit the rain forest. Bolsonaro has to go on a liquid diet starting Friday, […]
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) — The number of fires in Brazil’s Amazon basin is still on the rise, even though the government has banned burning, officials said Saturday. In the first 48 hours since the ban was issued, satellite data from the National Space Research Institute (INPE) showed 3,859 new outbreaks of fire, of which some 2,000 were concentrated in the Amazon region. From January to the end of August, 51.9 percent of Brazil’s recorded […]
by Jordi Miro, with Allison Jackson in Rio de Janeiro Agence France Presse PORTO VELHO, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree Wednesday to ban burning throughout the country for two months, government sources cited in local media said, as the authorities scramble to defuse the Amazon fires which have triggered a global outcry. The blazes that have engulfed parts of the world’s largest rainforest — which is crucial for maintaining […]
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AFP) — Fires have destroyed 1.2 million hectares (3.2 million acres) of forest and grasslands in Bolivia this year, the government said on Wednesday, though environmentalists claim the true figure is much greater. The news comes after leftist President Evo Morales suspended his re-election campaign on Monday to direct the government’s response to a growing environmental disaster in the Bolivian portion of the Amazon rainforest, where wildfires have been raging since May. […]
by Jordi Miro, with Allison Jackson in Rio de Janeiro PORTO VELHO, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday repeated a demand for French leader Emmanuel Macron to withdraw recent remarks, as he accused France and Germany of “buying” the Latin American country’s sovereignty with Amazon fire aid. Bolsonaro’s latest comments come amid an escalating diplomatic spat between Brazil and Europe that threatens to torpedo a major trade deal. They also throw into […]
Yokohama, Japan (AFP) — The fires tearing through the Amazon represent a “tipping point” for the health of the rainforest, the head of a top global forestry management body said Wednesday, urging the world to do more to save the trees. The situation in the Amazon is “very urgent,” stressed Gerhard Dieterle, executive director of the International Tropical Timber Organisation, an intergovernmental agency group that promotes sustainable forestry use. “This is something that might affect […]
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil on Monday rejected aid from G7 countries to fight wildfires in the Amazon, with a top official telling French President Emmanuel Macron to take care of “his home and his colonies.” “We appreciate (the offer), but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe,” Onyx Lorenzoni, chief of staff to President Jair Bolsonaro, told the G1 news website. Lorenzoni was referring to a $20 million pledge made at the G7 […]
BIARRITZ, France (AFP) — The G7 will give $20 million (18 million euros) to send firefighting planes to tackle the blazes engulfing parts of the Amazon, the presidents of France and Chile said Monday. “We must respond to the call of the forest which is burning today in the Amazon,” France’s Emmanuel Macron said as President Sebastian Pinera of Chile, a guest of the G7, underlined that “countries of the Amazon are in dire need […]
by Jordi Miro with Allison Jackson in Rio de Janeiro PORTO VELHO, Brazil (AFP) — Hundreds of new fires have flared up in the Amazon in Brazil, data showed Monday, even as military aircraft dumped water over hard-hit areas and G7 nations pledged to help combat the blazes. Smoke choked Port Velho city and forced the closure of the airport for nearly two hours as fires raged in the northwestern state of Rondonia where fire-fighting […]
BIARRITZ, France (AFP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday pledged £10 million ($12.3 million) to help restore the Amazon rainforest which has been ravaged by fires, sparking a wave of global concern. The money would be made available immediately to help restore the habitat, including areas that have been hit by the fires, the British government said in a statement released at the G7 summit in the French resort of Biarritz. The pledge […]
by Carlos Fabal, with Allison Jackson in Rio de Janeiro Agence France Presse PORTO VELHO, Brazil (AFP) — President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday authorized the deployment of Brazil’s armed forces to help combat fires raging in the Amazon rainforest, as a growing global outcry over the blazes sparks protests and threatens a huge trade deal. Plumes of thick smoke rose into the sky above dense forest in the northwestern state of Rondonia, where bright […]
by Giovanna FLEITAS / with Jorge SVARTZMAN in Rio de Janeiro SALVADOR, Brazil (AFP) — Paris and the United Nations called Thursday for the protection of the fire-plagued Amazon rainforest as Brazil’s right-wing president accused his French counterpart of having a “colonialist mentality” over the issue. Official figures show nearly 73,000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of the year — the highest number for any year since 2013. Most […]
