International

‘Progress destroying nature’: Brazil dam fuels fears for river

| By AFP | Carlos Fabal with Joshua Howat Berger in Rio de Janeiro |

Holding a dead fish, Junior Pereira looks grimly at a puddle that used to be part of Brazil’s Xingu river, a mighty Amazon tributary that has been desiccated here by the massive Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.

Pereira, a member of the Pupekuri Indigenous group, chokes up talking about the impact of Belo Monte, the world’s fourth-biggest hydroelectric complex, which locals say is killing one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth and forcing them to abandon their way of life.

“Our culture is fishing, it’s the river. We’ve always lived on what the river provides,” says Pereira, 39, who looks like a man trapped between two worlds, wearing a traditional Indigenous necklace and a red baseball cap.

He gazes at the once-flooded landscape, which Belo Monte’s water diversion has made a patchwork of puddles dotted with stranded fish.

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“We’ve lost our river,” he says.

“Now we have to buy food in the city.”

‘Like a permanent drought’

Stretching nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), the Xingu ebbs and flows with the rainy season, creating vast “igapos,” or flooded forests, that are crucial to huge numbers of species.

They are also crucial to an estimated 25,000 Indigenous people and others who live along the river.

Belo Monte diverts a 100-kilometer stretch of the Xingu’s “Volta Grande,” or Big Bend, in the northern county of Altamira to power a hydroelectric dam with a capacity of 11,233 megawatts — 6.2 percent of the total electricity capacity of Latin America’s biggest economy.

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Built for an estimated 40 billion reais ($7.5 billion) and inaugurated in 2016, the dam diverts up to 80 percent of the river’s water, which scientists, environmentalists and residents say is disastrous for this unique ecosystem.

“The dam broke the river’s flood pulse. Upstream, it’s like it’s always flooded. Downstream, it’s like a permanent drought,” says Andre Oliveira Sawakuchi, a geoscientist at the University of Sao Paulo.

That is devastating fish and turtle populations whose feeding and reproduction cycles depend on the igapos, he says.

Sitting by the Xingu’s breathtaking Jericoa waterfalls, which the Juruna people consider sacred, Indigenous leader Giliarde Juruna describes the situation as a clash of worldviews.

“Progress for us is having the forest, the animals, the rivers the way God made them. The progress white people believe in is totally different,” says Juruna, 40.

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“They think they’re doing good with this project, but they’re destroying nature and hurting people, including themselves.”

Lula under scrutiny

Proposed in the 1970s, Belo Monte was authorized under ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) — who just won a new term in Brazil’s October elections.

As Lula, 77, prepares to take office again on January 1, the project is drawing fresh scrutiny from those hoping the veteran leftist will fulfill his promise to do a better job protecting the Amazon than outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over a surge in deforestation.

Touted as a clean-energy source and engine of economic development, Belo Monte has not exactly lived up to expectations.

According to the company that operates it, Norte Energia, the dam’s average output this year has been 4,212 megawatts — less than half its capacity.

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A recent study meanwhile found its operations tripled the region’s greenhouse gas emissions — mainly methane released by decomposing forest that was killed by the flooding of the dam reservoir.

A new plan

In 2015, researchers from the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) conservation group teamed up with the Juruna to document the devastation.

They have devised a new, less-disruptive way for Belo Monte to manage water, the “Piracema” plan — named for the period when fish swim upriver to spawn.

Researchers say the plan is a relatively small tweak to the dam’s current water usage, adapting it to the natural flood cycles.

Brazil’s environmental regulator is due to rule soon whether to order Norte Energia to adopt it.

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The company declined to comment on the proposal, saying in a statement to AFP that it instead “recognizes the plan established in the plant’s environmental licensing.”

The decision is vital, says biologist Camila Ribas of the federal government’s National Institute for Amazon Research.

“When you completely alter the flood cycle, forests die,” she says.

“These are incredibly intricate, interlinked systems. If Belo Monte and other hydroelectric projects disrupt them too much, it could spell the end of the Amazon.”

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International

French Parliament Moves to Approve Social Media Age Limit for Minors

France’s Parliament is expected to approve legislation on Tuesday banning children under the age of 15 from accessing social media platforms, following an agreement reached Monday between lawmakers on the mechanism to enforce the measure.

The initiative is part of President Emmanuel Macron’s broader effort to strengthen online protections for minors and regulate children’s screen time before the end of his second presidential term in May 2027.

“Tomorrow, France will become the first country in Europe to establish a digital age of majority to better protect our children online,” Digital Affairs Minister Anne Le Hénanff said Monday in a post on X.

If approved, the government plans to implement the restriction in September, when students return to school after the summer holidays.

The United Kingdom has already passed similar legislation restricting social media access for users under the age of 16, although that measure is scheduled to take effect in early 2027.

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Both the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, and the Senate are expected to hold final votes on the legislation Tuesday after a joint committee of seven senators and seven lawmakers reached an agreement on the bill’s final wording.

Under the proposed law, children under 15 years old would be prohibited from accessing online social media services, with limited exceptions for certain platforms, including online encyclopedias.

The legislation would make France the first member of the European Union to introduce a nationwide minimum digital age for access to social media platforms, reflecting a growing international movement to strengthen online safeguards for children and teenagers.

International

WHO to Hold New Round of Talks After Slow Progress on Pandemic Accord

Member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) made limited progress during the seventh session of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) tasked with finalizing a key annex to the global pandemic agreement, prompting negotiators to schedule another round of talks in September.

The session, which opened on July 6 and concluded last week at WHO headquarters in Geneva, focused on drafting and negotiating the annex covering the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System, a central component of the pandemic accord.

Without the completion of the PABS annex, the global pandemic agreement cannot enter into force.

The annex had originally been expected to be finalized before May 2026, but negotiations have progressed more slowly than anticipated.

In a statement, the WHO said member states “advanced negotiations” on the PABS system while acknowledging that additional discussions are required to complete a framework capable of supporting a faster, more effective and more equitable response to future pandemics.

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The organization announced that an eighth round of negotiations will take place on September 14.

Despite the limited progress, delegates succeeded in streamlining the draft text and concentrating discussions on several technical issues.

According to the WHO, negotiators focused on the contractual arrangements underpinning the PABS mechanism, the laboratory networks responsible for handling and sharing pathogens and their genetic sequence data, as well as the framework for distributing the benefits generated through the sharing of those pathogens.

The PABS system is considered one of the most important elements of the future pandemic agreement, as it aims to ensure timely access to pathogens for scientific research while establishing fair mechanisms for sharing the benefits derived from vaccines, diagnostics and other medical countermeasures developed during future global health emergencies.

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International

Iran Says It Is in “Full-Scale War” as U.S. Launches Ninth Consecutive Night of Airstrikes

Iran declared on Monday that it is facing a “full-scale war” against the United States after Washington carried out another wave of overnight airstrikes, including attacks near a city that hosts one of the country’s nuclear facilities.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the country must prepare for the consequences of the ongoing conflict, describing the situation as a broad military confrontation.

“The reality is that today the Islamic Republic of Iran is engaged in a full-scale war,” Pezeshkian said in a statement released by the presidency. “We must be realistic and accept the natural consequences of this resistance.”

The latest U.S. strikes marked the ninth consecutive night of military operations, according to the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which announced the attacks on X.

Since hostilities resumed on July 7, U.S. air operations have expanded well beyond southern Iran, reaching central and northwestern regions of the country, according to local sources.

Local authorities reported that one person was killed and several others injured in Tabriz, in northwestern Iran, more than 1,000 kilometers from the Persian Gulf.

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Additional casualties were reported in the nearby city of Urmia, where several people were wounded during separate strikes.

Washington said the attacks targeted military installations. However, Iranian officials accused the United States of striking populated areas, including Bushehr, home to Iran’s only operational nuclear power plant.

Iran also reported that the Darkhovin nuclear facility, which is still under construction, was among the sites hit during the latest attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the renewed military campaign was carried out in honor of American service members killed in recent days.

Two U.S. soldiers died on Friday during attacks on a military base in Jordan, while another service member was killed on Sunday during the controlled disposal of unexploded munitions from an Iranian drone in northern Iraq.

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According to U.S. figures, 17 American troops have been killed since the conflict began on February 28.

On the Iranian side, the latest official figures released on Friday reported 50 deaths and more than 500 injuries since fighting resumed earlier this month.

A memorandum of understanding signed by Iran and the United States on June 17, which had been intended to pave the way for peace negotiations, collapsed after hostilities resumed over the strategic control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy shipping routes.