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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia has arrested nearly 200 people over vast forest fires ripping across the archipelago, police said Monday, as toxic haze sends air quality levels plummeting and sparks flight cancellations. Jakarta has deployed thousands of personnel to battle blazes that are turning land into charred landscapes and consuming forests in Sumatra and Borneo islands, where thousands of schools have been shut over health fears. The fires — usually started by illegal burning […]
by Mauro PIMENTEL / Carlos FABAL Agence France Presse RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — At least 11 people, many of them elderly, were killed when a fire swept through a hospital in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro as staff and desperate visitors battled to rescue patients from smoke-filled wards. Hospital authorities said the blaze late on Thursday was thought to have been caused by a short circuit in a generator, although […]
PEKANBARU, Indonesia (AFP) — Hundreds of people held a mass prayer for rain in a smoke-filled Indonesian city on Friday, desperately hoping that downpours will extinguish forest fires and wash away the toxic haze covering wide swathes of the country. Illegal fires to clear land for farming are raging on Indonesia’s Sumatra and Borneo islands with firefighters battling round the clock through charred forests, and water-bombing helicopters deployed to douse the flames. Dense smoke has […]
PEKANBARU, Indonesia (AFP) — With fierce blazes raging in jungles from the Amazon to Indonesia, concerns are mounting about the impact as rainforests play a vital role in protecting the planet against global warming. The latest serious outbreak is in Indonesia, where smog-belching fires started to clear land for agriculture are burning out of control, blanketing the region in toxic smog. Why are rainforests important in fight against global warming? Mankind’s reliance on fossil fuels […]
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) — Intrepid Brazilian and British scientists say they have located the Amazon’s tallest tree in northern Brazil, untouched by a spate of wildfires that have raged in the rainforest for weeks. The scientists say they located an unusually large specimen of the giant Dinizia Excelsa species — measuring 88 meters (288-feet) with a circumference of 5.50 meters — in a sanctuary of other Dinizia trees. “The species generally reach a height […]
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Rescue workers have recovered a total of 33 bodies from a scuba-diving boat disaster off the coast of California, authorities said Wednesday, adding that one person remains missing. Search operations for survivors were suspended Tuesday morning, and rescuers have begun an operation to free remains still trapped in the wreckage, which sank 66 feet (20 meters), and to determine the cause of the catastrophe. The remains of 11 women […]
by Jalaa Marey with Mike Smith in Jerusalem KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel (AFP) — Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire along the Lebanese border after a week of rising tensions, sparking fears of an escalation and prompting concern from world powers. Israel said it responded with around 100 artillery shells Sunday after Hezbollah fired two or three anti-tank missiles at a battalion headquarters and military ambulance, hitting both. Israeli officials refuted claims by the Iranian-backed movement that […]
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 […]
by Ignacio Carvajal COATZACOALCOS, Mexico (AFP) — Gunmen burst into a Mexican strip club in a hail of bullets and killed at least 28 people as they trapped revelers inside and started a raging fire, officials said Wednesday. Many of the dead were dancers who worked there, according to managers. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador condemned the “shameful” attack in the city of Coatzacoalcos, and said federal authorities would investigate evidence it may have stemmed […]
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 […]
