Tag Archives: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

New Study Warns Swaths of Amazon Have Already Passed Key ‘Tipping Point’

“The tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,” note researchers.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 9-5-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Amazônia Real/flickr/CC

Indigenous leaders and scientists on Monday revealed research showing that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest is so advanced that some swaths may have hit a key tipping point and never recover.

While experts have long warned of human activity causing portions of the massive, biodiverse rainforest to shift to savannah, the new findings were unveiled on the Global Day of Action for the Amazon and the launch of the 5th Amazon Summit of Indigenous Peoples: Solutions for a Living Amazon in Lima, Peru. Continue reading

Share Button

Green Groups Blame Bolsonaro Policies as Amazon Deforestation Sets New Monthly Record

“The Bolsonaro administration is abetting deforestation and environmental crime,” said one campaigner, “and what we harvest are these terrible, scary, revolting numbers.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 5-6-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Amazon Watch/Twitter

Brazil’s space research agency revealed Friday that deforestation in the country’s Amazon rainforest last month shattered the previous record for April, a development one conservation campaigner called “very scary” and an indication of the criminal level of environmental destruction occurring under the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

The National Institute for Space Research said nearly 400 square miles of the world’s largest rainforest was destroyed in Brazil last month, an area the size of 1,400 soccer fields and by far the biggest loss for April since record-keeping began in 2015, Agence France-Presse reports. Continue reading

Share Button

‘Major Political Crisis’ in Brazil as Military Chiefs Quit Amid Bolsonaro Purge of Top Ministers

A leading opposition figure said the country “can’t overcome” Covid-19 with Bolsonaro, because “he is the crisis incarnate.

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-30-2021

Brazil’s political stability was in doubt Tuesday after the heads of all three military branches resigned following President Jair Bolsonaro’s dismissal of his defense minister, one of six Cabinet officials who have recently left or been forced out of an administration whose popularity has plummeted amid soaring Covid-19 deaths in South America’s largest nation.

Folha de São Paulo reports Gen. Edson Leal Pujol, Adm. Ilques Barbosa, and Lt.-Brig. Antônio Carlos Bermudez—respectively commanders of the army, navy, and air force—resigned a day after Bolsonaro fired Defense Minister Gen. Fernando Azevedo e Silva. Continue reading

Share Button

‘Embarrassing Nepotism’: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro Appoints Son as Ambassador to US

One critic said that it’s “only a matter of time now before the son of Brazil’s wannabe despot has an official meeting with the daughter of America’s wannabe despot.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-12-2019

Eduardo Bolsonaro (L) joined his father, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, for a March 2019 meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House. (Photo: Eduardo Bolsonaro/Instagram)

In a move critics condemned as “embarrassing nepotism,” right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday appointed his son Eduardo to serve as ambassador to the United States.

Though the appointment still needs approval from Brazil’s Federal Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a confirmation vote by all members of the upper house, Eduardo has said he would resign from his current post in the lower house of the country’s National Congress to serve as ambassador. As Eduardo put it, according to Reuters, “If it is a mission given by the president, I would accept.” Continue reading

Share Button