Tag: Brazil

43 million went hungry in Latam, Caribbean last year: UN

SANTIAGO, Nov 9, 2023 (AFP) – Hunger affected some 43.2 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2022, about 6.5 percent of the region’s population, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said Thursday. While an improvement from 2021, the figure was higher than pre-Covid — representing some six million extra hungry people from 2019, the agency said in a regional overview of food security and nutrition. The FAO cited the pandemic, the climate […]

Brazil sends emergency aid to drought-hit Amazon state

    BRASÍLIA, Sept 29, 2023 (AFP) – Brazil announced Thursday it will send emergency aid to an Amazon state that is enduring severe drought, with low water levels killing many fish, a key source of food for the Indigenous people who live there. The state of Amazonas in northwest Brazil is the country’s largest by surface area, includes much of the Amazon rainforest and is home to some four million people, the vast majority […]

Investigators probe Brazil plane crash that killed 14

MANAUS, Brazil, Sept 17, 2023 (AFP) – Investigators traveled Sunday to a remote town in the Brazilian Amazon to probe a plane crash that killed 14 people and left no survivors, as authorities brought the bodies to be identified. The small turboprop plane was flying a group of Brazilian sport fishermen into the northern town of Barcelos Saturday when it crashed in stormy weather, apparently after starting its descent too late and skidding off the […]

Escaped Brazilian murderer evading US police steals rifle

NEW YORK, Sept 12, 2023 (AFP) – Schools near Philadelphia were closed and residents told to lock their doors Tuesday after an escaped Brazilian murderer dodged gunfire to steal a rifle from a home and was declared “extremely dangerous.” Danelo Cavalcante, who made a daring escape from Chester County Prison nearly two weeks ago, has become the subject of fear and fascination for Americans as he continues to avoid police dogs, drones, helicopters and special […]

Eight killed in Brazil silo blast, 11 injured

BRASÍLIA, Brazil (AFP) — Eight people were killed and 11 injured in a series of silo explosions at the site of an agricultural cooperative in Brazil’s southern Parana state, authorities said Thursday. The blasts Wednesday on the premises of the C. Vale agro-industrial company in the municipality of Palotina also left a “last victim” still “under corn and debris from the explosion,” state firefighting officials said in a statement Thursday night. “Firefighting teams are propping […]

Aluminum recycling in Brazil: Scraping by in a billion-dollar

By Luján Scarpinelli SAO PAULO, July 20, 2023 (AFP) – Shirlei Aparecida de Souza uses her foot to crush the empty cold drink cans she collects in the alleys of a poor Sao Paulo neighborhood: a precarious livelihood critical to Brazil’s environmental protection goals. It is thanks to about a million collectors like her that the country recycled as many aluminum cans as it produced for the first time in 2022, according to data from […]

Amazon deforestation down sharply under Brazil’s Lula: govt

BRASÍLIA, Brazil (AFP) — Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon fell by one-third in the first six months of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration compared to the same period of last year, the government said Thursday. The 33.6 percent drop is based on satellite images captured by the National Institute of Space Research, which said that from January through June a total of 2,649 square kilometers (1,020 square miles) of rainforest were felled. That’s […]

First judge votes to bar Bolsonaro from office in Brazil trial

By Marcelo SILVA DE SOUSA Agence France-Presse BRASÍLIA, June 28, 2023 (AFP) – One of seven judges in Jair Bolsonaro’s abuse of power trial voted on Tuesday to bar the former Brazilian president from running in the 2026 elections, as the country held its breath for other judges to deliver their rulings later this week. The Superior Electoral Tribunal is trying the far-right former leader over a televised meeting he held with foreign diplomats in […]

Football pitch of tropical forest lost every 5 seconds

PARIS, June 27, 2023 (AFP) – Earth lost an area of carbon-absorbing rainforest larger than Switzerland or the Netherlands in 2022, most of it destroyed to make way for cattle and commodity crops, an analysis of satellite data released Tuesday revealed. That is nearly a football pitch of mature tropical trees felled or burned every five seconds, night and day, and 10 percent more than the year before, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). […]

Bolsonaro faces political ban at Brazil trial

By Marcelo SILVA DE SOUSA Agence France-Presse BRASÍLIA, June 22, 2023 (AFP) — Far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro risks losing his right to run for office for eight years, as Brazil’s electoral court begins delivering its ruling Thursday on charges stemming from his unfounded allegations against the voting system. The Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is trying the former president on charges he abused his office and misused state media when, in July 2022, he convened foreign […]

Cyclone leaves 13 dead in Brazil

NOVO HAMBURGO, Brazil, June 19, 2023 (AFP) — A cyclone which tore through southern Brazil has killed at least 13 people and forced thousands from their homes, authorities said Sunday. Torrential rain and strong winds on Thursday and Friday caused damage in dozens of towns in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, including its capital Porto Alegre — the latest in a string of weather-related disasters to hit South America’s biggest country. Two more […]

Cyclone leaves 11 dead, 20 missing in southern Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 18, 2023 (AFP) – At least 11 people were killed and 20 were missing after a cyclone tore through southern Brazil, local authorities said Saturday. “According to the state branch of Protection and Civil Defense, 11 people died from the effects of the cyclone,” the government of Rio Grande do Sul state, which borders Argentina and Uruguay, said in a statement. “Eighteen people are still missing in Caraa and two in […]