The Brazilian Trump

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An officer traveling with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to the Group of 20 summit in Japan was arrested after he was caught with more than 80 pounds of cocaine. NPR reports police arrested Sgt. Manoel Silva Rodrigues in Seville, Spain, Tuesday after the Brazilian Air Force plane made a stop on its way to the summit. Bolsonaro was on a separate plane following behind but changed its route following the arrest.

Officer on trip with Brazil President Bolsonaro to G-20 summit caught with 86 pounds of cocaine | TheHill

Dozens of gold miners have invaded a remote indigenous reserve in the Brazilian Amazon where a local leader was stabbed to death and have taken over a village after the community fled in fear, local politicians and indigenous leaders said. The authorities said police were on their way to investigate. Illegal gold mining is at epidemic proportions in the Amazon and the heavily polluting activities of garimpeiros – as miners are called – devastate forests and poison rivers with mercury. About 50 garimpeiros were reported to have invaded the 600,000-hectare Waiãpi indigenous reserve in the state of Amapá on Saturday. The men were spotted days after the murder of Emyra Waiãpi, a community leader, whose body was found near the village of Mariry early on Wednesday.

Amazon gold miners invade indigenous village in Brazil after its leader is killed | World news | The Guardian

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The director of Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) has been sacked in the midst of a controversy over its satellite data showing a rise in Amazon deforestation, which the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has called “lies”. Ricardo Galvão, who had defended the institute and criticised Bolsonaro’s attack, was dismissed on Friday after a meeting with the science and technology minister, Marcos Pontes. “The way I expressed myself in relation to the president has caused an unsustainable embarrassment,” Galvão said on Friday morning, according to the Folha de S Paulo newspaper site. 

Created in 2004, the Deter satellite system makes monthly and daily data publicly available on a regularly updated government website. Its data for recent months showed an alarming rise in deforestation in recent months: it soared 88% in June compared with a year earlier. The first half of July was 68% up on the whole of July 2018. Bolsonaro and has ministers have called its release irresponsible and an attempt to stain Brazil’s image abroad. Last month he called INPE numbers “lies” and implied that Galvão was in “the service” of a foreign non-profit group. The next day Galvão said the president behaved “like he is in a bar” and defended the institute’s data.

Brazil space institute director sacked in Amazon deforestation row | World news | The Guardian

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said he hopes criminals will “die in the streets like cockroaches” as a result of hard-line legislation he is pushing to shield security forces and citizens who shoot alleged offenders from prosecution. In an interview broadcast on Monday, Bolsonaro said he hoped Congress would approve his controversial plans to expand the so-called excludente de ilicitude – an article in Brazil’s criminal code that makes some normally illegal acts permissible.

Jair Bolsonaro says criminals will 'die like cockroaches' under proposed new laws | World news | The Guardian

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Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, said the Amazon Fund had been suspended while its rules were under discussion. In response, Ola Elvestuen, his Norwegian counterpart, said an expected payment of about $33.27m (£27.36m) would not take place as Brazil had, in effect, broken the terms of its deal. Norway has been the fund’s biggest donor, and has given about $1.2bn (£985m) over the past decade. “He cannot do that without Norway and Germany’s agreement,” Elvestuen said. “What Brazil has shown is that it no longer wants to stop deforestation.”

Norway halts Amazon fund donation in dispute with Brazil | World news | The Guardian

Brazil's Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, according to new data from the country's space research agency. The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018. It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro sacked the head of the agency amid rows over its deforestation data. Smoke from the fires caused a blackout in the city of São Paulo on Monday.

Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest - space agency - BBC News

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First, some bad news: Bolsonaro and his cabinet do seem to view environmental concerns as an obstacle to development. For instance, the new environment minister, Ricardo Salles, said that the debate over climate change was a “secondary issue” and was recently convicted in court of fraudulently favouring mining companies when he was state secretary for the environment in Sao Paulo. Under Salles’ leadership, the ministry will probably suffer budget cuts, and it has already lost key departments. Furthermore, Bolsonaro has said he wants to restrict the ability of IBAMA, the forest protection agency, to fine individuals and companies that illegally deforest and pollute.

How Brazilians (and Norwegians) can stop Jair Bolsonaro from trashing the Amazon rainforest | The Independent

Brazil’s new president has authorised the dismissal of civil servants who do not share his far-right ideology, it has been reported. Having taken office this week, Jair Bolsonaro has launched a purge of left-wing government officials with approximately 300 people expected to be dismissed.  Officials who are seen as being supportive of the previous left-wing and centrist governments will be removed to “clean the house”, Mr Bolsonaro’s chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni said. “It’s the only way to govern with our ideas, our concepts and to carry out what Brazil’s society decided in its majority,” Mr Lorenzoni said, according to Die Welt.

Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil’s new far right president fires hundreds of ‘left wing’ civil servants | The Independent

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The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has accused environmental groups of setting fires in the Amazon as he tries to deflect growing international criticism of his failure to protect the world’s biggest rainforest. A surge of fires in several Amazonian states this month followed reports that farmers were feeling emboldened to clear land for crop fields and cattle ranches because the new Brazilian government was keen to open up the region to economic activity.

Jair Bolsonaro accuses NGOs of setting fires in Amazon rainforest | World news | The Guardian

Later he appeared to suggest that non-governmental organisations had set fires, as revenge for his government slashing their funding. He presented no evidence and gave no names to support this theory, saying there were "no written records about the suspicions". "So, there could be... I'm not affirming it, criminal action by these 'NGOers' to call attention against my person, against the government of Brazil. This is the war that we are facing," he said on Wednesday, before subsequently denying having blamed the NGOs for lighting the fires on Friday.

It is not the first time Mr Bolsonaro has cast doubt on figures suggesting that the Amazon is deteriorating rapidly. Last month, he accused Inpe's director of lying about the scale of deforestation and trying to undermine the government. It came after Inpe published data showing an 88% increase in deforestation in the Amazon in June compared to the same month a year ago. The director of the agency later announced that he was being sacked amid the row.

Brazil environment minister heckled over Amazon fires - BBC News

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The Amazon rainforest provides 20% of the world’s oxygen, but its destruction could cause it not only to stop helping the planet, but to start releasing carbon and worsening climate change. A “dieback” scenario could see rising temperatures drying trees, meaning they absorb less carbon and become more flammable, eventually turning the rainforest into a savannah that releases billions of tonnes of stored carbon. Researchers debate how likely the scenario is, but fears have heightened under Brazil’s new president, who has advocated for the expansion of industry in the region, which involves burning and cutting down trees.

Fires in the Amazon could be part of a doomsday scenario that sees the rainforest spewing carbon into the atmosphere and speeding up climate change even more

The Amazon is in flames. São Paulo, Brazil’s financial capital and the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, went dark midday Monday because of fires from the rainforest, some 2,000 miles away. Meanwhile, when the Financial Times spoke with the country’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, he said the solution was to “monetize” the rainforest.

Brazil's environment minister just said the solution to wildfires — and possible climate catastrophe — is to 'monetize' the Amazon

The record number of fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has coincided with a sharp drop in fines for environmental violations, BBC analysis has found. Official data from Brazil's environment agency shows fines from January to 23 August dropped almost a third compared with the same period last year. At the same time, the number of fires burning in Brazil has increased by 84%. It is not known how many of these fires have been set deliberately, but critics have accused President Jair Bolsonaro's administration of "green lighting" the destruction of the rainforest through a culture of impunity.

Amazon fires: Fines for environmental crimes drop under Bolsonaro - BBC News

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The Brazilian environment has drawn alarmed headlines around the world every few months in 2019. Right now, it is a giant offshore oil spill with mysterious origins and feeble attempts to control it.  At the end of August, it was unusually numerous and powerful fires in the Amazon. In January, it was the burst Vale tailings dam in Brumadinho. At the end of November, it will be the annual deforestation rates, which are almost certain to show a major leap.  These are very different environmental catastrophes in their details, but they all share an important cause: Jair Bolsonaro’s government has struggled to govern competently in most policy areas. In addition, his government has deliberately dismantled much of Brazil’s existing governing capacity, especially related to the environmental protection...

Two of those eliminated councils were the ones designed to be part of the National Contingency Plan for Incidents of Oil Pollution in Water. Without them, it took the Ministry of Environment a month to activate a National Contingency Plan after this oil spill was noticed. It is exactly the under-funded, under-coordinated response one would expect under these conditions...

The other environmental disasters also could have been foretold. The Brumadinho Dam burst after state actors cut corners with its environmental licenses and monitoring, but the Bolsonaro government still wants to roll back environmental impact assessment in the name of efficiency. The fires and deforestation in the Amazon can be directly traced to slimmed budgets and deliberate reduction of oversight, which the government has again defended and plans to deepen.

This oil spill proves it. We feared Bolsonaro the ideologue, but it's his incompetence that endangers Brazil | The Independent

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Voices from across Brazil’s political spectrum have condemned the son of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, after he suggested hardline dictatorship-era tactics might be needed to crush his father’s leftist foes. An explosion of protest, a howl of rage – but not a Latin American spring Read more Eduardo Bolsonaro made the incendiary remarks – which many observers suspect were a deliberate distraction from renewed media speculation over the family’s links to organized crime – during a softball YouTube interview broadcast on Thursday. In the interview the 35-year-old congressman claimed – without offering evidence – that the recent wave of Latin American protests and the left’s return to power in Argentina were part of a Cuba-funded conspiracy to bring “revolution” to Latin America. “If the left radicalizes to this extent [in Brazil] we will need to respond, and that response could come via a new AI-5,” said Bolsonaro, who is the regional representative of Steve Bannon’s far-right group “The Movement”.

Brazilian president's son suggests using dictatorship-era tactics on leftist foes | World news | The Guardian

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The Mayor of Rio de Janeiro ordered an Avengers comic book to be removed from a book festival because it featured two men kissing. Brazilian politician Marcelo Crivella claimed the book should be confiscated from the Rio International Book Biennial to “protect our children” because it contained “content that is unsuitable for minors”. In a video posted on Twitter, the evangelical bishop said it was not right for children “to have early access to subjects that do not agree with their ages”.

Brazilian mayor orders Avengers comic removed from book festival over gay kiss | The Independent

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For Brazil’s embattled civil society activists, the government’s distortion of truth has taken many forms since the ultra-right militarist Jair Bolsonaro took power at the beginning of this year. But it has hit a menacing new level after last week’s police raid on an Amazonian NGO and the arrest of four volunteer firefighters who are accused of setting alight the forest they risked their lives to protect. Police raid office of Brazil NGO linked to brigade that helped battle Amazon fires Read more Even by the standards of the past 11 months, the detentions in Alter do Chão, and the confiscation of equipment at the headquarters of Saúde e Alegria, or the Health and Happiness Project, in Santarém have proved shocking for those involved – and those who fear they may be next. Until recently, Brazilian NGOs’ greatest fear was being publicly smeared by a president who has baselessly accused Greenpeace of creating oil slicks, environmentalists of starting forest fires and Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the arson. Now activists worry the powers of the state are being used to criminalise their activities.

'Someone has declared war': Brazil NGOs fear crackdown after arrest of firefighters | World news | The Guardian