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Brazil has near-record year for Amazon deforestation

AFP

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached near-record levels for the 12 months through July, according to figures released Friday, the latest bleak news for the world’s biggest rainforest under President Jair Bolsonaro.

A total of 8,712 square kilometers (3,364 square miles) of forest cover — an area nearly the size of Puerto Rico — was destroyed from August 2020 to July 2021, according to satellite data from Brazilian space agency INPE’s DETER monitoring program.

That is the second-worst year on record for the program’s August-July reference period, behind only the 9,216 square kilometers deforested the previous year — the worst for the Brazilian Amazon since the monitoring program was launched in 2015.

The latest annual figure is an increase of more than 90 percent since 2017-2018, the last full year before Bolsonaro took office.

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The far-right president has slashed environmental protection programs and pushed to open protected lands to agribusiness and mining.

Environmentalists say that is having a disastrous impact on the Amazon, a critical resource in the race to curb climate change.

“The rainforest’s future is currently in the hands of land speculators, illegal loggers and gold miners,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental groups.

“The Amazon has become a free-for-all for environmental crime, in partnership with the current government,” he said in a statement.

Facing international pressure to improve his administration’s environmental record, Bolsonaro accepted the resignation in June of environment minister Ricardo Salles.

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The regulation-slashing Salles, who was one of Bolsonaro’s most controversial ministers, is under investigation for allegations of involvement in a timber trafficking scheme.

The Climate Observatory said the new minister, Joaquim Leite, “has not yet made a single move to undo his predecessor’s policies.”

Two recent studies have found heavily damaged portions of the Amazon are now emitting more carbon than they absorb, a worrying sign the rainforest may not act as a curb on global warming much longer.

The DETER figure is for the period through July 30, meaning the final number is likely to be slightly higher.

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International

Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.

“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.

Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.

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International

Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.

Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.

However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.

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International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.

“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.

The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.

His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”

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