Brazil

=SEE BRAZIL 2 220see marielle franco assassination lgbt<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 8 22in Brazil, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has been a scathing critic of environmentalism — not unlike his American ally, former U.S. President Donald Trump, and other MAGA Republicans — while encouraging the use of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-06/bolsonaro-throws-a-15-year-lifeline-to-thermal-coal-in-brazil#xj4y7vzkg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fossil fuels</a>, including coal, over green energy. Bolsonaro has made no secret of the fact that he believes <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-talks-emissions-with-brazils-climate-denying-president/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">climate change</a> is a myth, and he doesn’t view deforestation in the Amazon as a problem.But journalist Terrence McCoy, in an in-depth article published by the Washington Post on August 30, lays out some reasons why the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/brazil-amazon-deforestation-enforcement/?itid=hp-top-table-main" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">destruction of the Amazon</a> is an environmental disaster that Bolsonaro’s policies have encouraged.“The violent and lawless erasure of the Amazon is perhaps the world’s greatest environmental crime story,” McCoy explains. “Scientists warn that the forest, seen as vital to averting catastrophic global warming, is at a tipping point. But in Brazil, home to about 60 percent of the Amazon, nearly one-fifth has already been destroyed. And virtually no one, law enforcement officials say, has been held accountable.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/record-deforestation-amazon-tipping-point/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Record deforestation pushing Amazon Rainforest toward 'the tipping point of no return': report</a>Bolsonaro, McCoy stresses, has treated deforesters in the Amazon “not as criminals, but as honest workers oppressed by authoritarian environmentalists.” And environmental inspector Ivan de Jesus Pereira de Araújo e Silva told the Post that under Bolsonaro, Brazil’s environmental agencies “have been shrunk so much.”Bolsonaro is up for reelection in 2022, and his critics fear that his environmental policies will grow even worse if he wins a second term.One of Bolsonaro’s left-wing critics in the United States is Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/23/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-coup-bernie-sanders/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">column published on August 23</a>, liberal Washington Post opinion writers Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman reported that Sanders had met with Brazilian activists who fear that even if he loses the 2022 presidential election in Brazil, Bolsonaro won’t accept defeat and will try to stage a coup d’état.“Such fears have prompted Sanders and his staff to draft a resolution that would seek to get ahead of any such eventuality,” Sargent and Waldman reported. “It would express the view of the Senate that if Bolsonaro loses and refuses to step down, the United States will view it as an unacceptable outcome. The resolution — which we have viewed in draft form — declares that the United States will immediately recognize the election outcome that international monitors deem free and fair. And it warns that the United States will reevaluate its relationship with any government that assumes power through undemocratic means, including a military coup. It says this could imperil future U.S. aid.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/brazils-military-role-destruction-amazon/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">How Brazil’s military has played a role in the destruction of the Amazon</a>During an interview, Sanders told Sargent and Waldman, “It is absolutely imperative that the U.S. Senate make it clear, through a resolution, that we support democracy in Brazil. We look forward to a free and fair election.”In mid-August, Brazilian pollster Datafolha found that Bolsonaro’s left-wing rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had a <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/lulas-lead-against-bolsonaro-narrows-215919419.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">15 percent lead over him</a> — and Sanders believes that Bolsonaro, like Trump and his MAGA allies in the U.S., is quite capable of trying to steal a presidential election.Sanders told Sargent and Waldman, “What we are seeing all across the world are massive attacks and rollbacks to democracy…. where people are giving up on democracy and moving toward authoritarianism. We have groups that have done that right here in the United States.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/genocide-of-his-people-complete/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'The genocide of his people is complete': Last member of remote Brazilian tribe found dead</a>
Activists and conservationists worldwide mourned Monday following news that a man believed to be the last of a remote Brazilian tribe was found dead after years of resisting all efforts by the outside world to contact or interfere with him.Known by defenders of Indigenous rights as "Indian of the Hole" or "The Man of the Hole" (Índio do Buraco)—a name given due to pits he dug for shelter, concealment, and possibly hunting—he was the only inhabitant of Tanaru Indigenous Territory in Rondônia state, in the western Brazilian Amazon. First encountered 26 years ago, the man—believed to be approximately 60 years old at the time of his death—lived reclusively in the remote region after other members of his tribe were thought to have been poisoned by ranchers who wanted to develop the land where they lived.OPI, the Observatory for the Human Rights of Uncontacted and Recently-Contacted Peoples, issued <a href="https://povosisolados.org/2022/08/27/nota-do-opi-o-que-significa-a-morte-do-indio-do-buraco-e-quais-medidas-devem-ser-adotadas/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a statement</a> (translated here into English) bemoaning that "another Indigenous person, the last representative of his people, has died.""In the recent past," the group continued, "he was the victim of an atrocious extermination process, as a result of the installation of large state-sponsored farms. He witnessed the death of his people, lost his territory to pastures and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a small portion of forest interdicted by justice, surrounded by large farms in the region of the Corumbiara River in Rondônia.""For resisting with extreme determination to any endeavors of contact," OPI added, the man "died without letting know which ethnicity he belonged to, nor the motivations of the holes he dug inside his house."As The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/28/amazon-activists-mourn-death-of-man-of-the-hole-last-of-his-tribe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">reports</a>, "Officials know very little about the man, but his determined independence and evident solace helped create a mystique around him that captured the attention of activists and media across Brazil and around the world."Survival International, which advocates for Indigenous rights and autonomy in Brazil and elsewhere around the world, called the death of the man—whose remains were recently found in a state of decomposition in the Tanaru territory—a symbol of genocide against the Amazon's Indigenous peoples. The group called the region where he lived as "a small island of forest in a sea of vast cattle ranches, in one of the most violent regions in Brazil."Fiona Watson, research and advocacy director for Survival International who <a href="https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3105-the-last-of-his-tribe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">visited the man's territory in 2004</a> with a government monitoring team, commented on the man's passing."No outsider knew this man's name, or even very much about his tribe—and with his death the genocide of his people is complete," said Watson. "For this was indeed a genocide—the deliberate wiping out of an entire people by cattle ranchers hungry for land and wealth."[twt]what the man symbolized, said Watson, was "both the appalling violence and cruelty inflicted on Indigenous peoples worldwide in the name of colonization and profit, but also their resistance. We can only imagine what horrors he had witnessed in his life, and the loneliness of his existence after the rest of his tribe were killed, but he determinedly resisted all attempts at contact, and made clear he just wanted to be left alone."Watson also invoked the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who is notorious for his antagonism toward the Indigenous people of Brazil and his wanton destruction of the Amazon rainforest by backing the logging, cattle, and mining interests who have sought massive profits from the region's land and natural resources."If President Bolsonaro and his agribusiness allies get their way," warned Watson, "this story will be repeated over and over again until all the country's Indigenous peoples are wiped out. The Indigenous movement in Brazil, and Survival, will do everything possible to ensure that doesn't happen."<a href="https://yokad.com/the-man-in-the-hole-died-the-indigenous-in-brazil-who-spent-almost-30-years-isolated-and-without-contact-with-anyone/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">According to</a> government officials with Funai, which monitored the man from a distance, it appeared the man had prepared for his death and that neither foul play nor a violent end was suggested. A forensic doctor with the nation's federal police is expected to carry out an autopsy and anthropologists and other researchers are expected to try to learn more about how he lived.Following the man's death, OPI renewed its called for the Tanaru reserve where he lived his final years to be permanently protected as a memorial to Indigenous genocide.=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ref many lnx grafsuneaRTHEDINVESTIGATION
A tea plantation worker sprays pesticides at Tata's Periakanal estate in Kerala, India. Photo: Vivek M. / Greenpeace
Revealed: The pesticide giants making billions on toxic and bee-harming chemicalsGroundbreaking joint investigation reveals enormous sales of ‘highly hazardous pesticides’ by leading members of the CropLife International lobby groupThe world’s five biggest pesticide manufacturers are making more than a third of their income from leading products selling chemicals that pose serious hazards to human health and the environment, a joint investigation by Unearthed and Public Eye has found.  
Analysis of a huge database of 2018’s top-selling “crop protection products” has revealed the world’s leading agrochemical companies made more than 35% of their sales from pesticides classed as “highly hazardous” to people, animals or ecosystems. 
The investigation identified billions of dollars of income for agrochemical giants BASF, Bayer, Corteva, FMC and Syngenta from chemicals found by regulatory authorities to pose health hazards like cancer or reproductive failure.  
It also found more than a billion dollars of their sales came from chemicals – some now banned in European markets – that are highly toxic to bees. Over two thirds of these sales were made in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India.
By far the most valuable markets for the highly hazardous pesticides sold by these companies were the commodity crops soya and corn, grown in large part to provide animal feed for the meat industry.
Visualisations by Nadieh Bremer]Industry database
The database, obtained from leading agribusiness intelligence firm Phillips McDougall, covers $23.3bn in pesticide sales across 43 different countries. These sales represent the leading products in the world’s highest-spending pesticide markets, and amount to around 40% of the global agrochemical market. 
Unearthed and Public Eye, an NGO that investigates human rights abuses by Swiss companies, combed this dataset for sales of chemicals on the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) International list of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs).
The investigation found that close to half (41%) of the leading products of the agrochemical giants BASF, Bayer, Corteva, FMC and Syngenta contained at least one HHP.
There is a huge disconnect between what those companies are saying and what they are actually doing
Between them these companies control close to two thirds of the global agrochemicals market, and comprise five out of six members of the influential lobby group CropLife International. Of the $13.4bn of sales by the CropLife companies in the dataset, $4.8bn went on chemicals found by regulatory agencies to pose hazards like acute poisoning or chronic illness in people, or high toxicity to bees and other wildlife. The group’s full annual income from these chemicals will be billions of dollars greater, because the data analysed covered less than half of total global sales.
The investigation’s key findings include that:The CropLife members made 10% of their leading products income ($1.3bn) from chemicals classed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as highly toxic to bees. These include neonicotinoids produced by Germany’s Bayer and Switzerland-based Syngenta, which were permanently banned from outdoor use in the European Union in 2018. Brazil was their main market for these chemicals.CropLife members made almost $3bn (22% of sales) from chemicals found by regulators to pose chronic health hazards. Among their top sellers were BASF’s weedkiller glufosinate and Corteva’s fungicide cyproconazole, both classed by EU regulators as damaging to fertility, sexual function or the unborn child. But by far CropLife’s biggest seller was glyphosate, classed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a “probable human carcinogen”. Glyphosate manufacturer Bayer and various regulators have rejected this classification.CropLife members made $596m (4%) of sales from pesticides classed as highly toxic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) or as fatal if inhaled. Syngenta accounted for a large majority of these sales, with its top sellers including paraquat, a herbicide so toxic that a single sip can kill, which has long been banned in Europe and Switzerland.The CropLife group made the majority of its highly hazardous pesticide sales in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India, where experts say the risks posed by using these chemicals are greatest.These companies’ biggest markets for highly hazardous pesticides were the commodity crops soya and corn. These two crops alone accounted for around half of CropLife HHP sales.These five companies alone accounted for almost half (48%) of all HHPs identified in the Phillips McDougall database.Meriel Watts, a senior science and policy advisor to PAN, told Unearthed: “This investigation shows that there is a huge disconnect between what those companies are saying in the international policy arena and what they are actually doing.”
What is CropLife International?CropLife International is an influential trade association and lobby group for the world’s major agrochemical and agricultural biotech companies. Its members Syngenta, Bayer Crop Science, BASF, Corteva Agriscience, and FMC are the five biggest pesticide companies in the world by agrochemical turnover. CropLife’s sixth member is the Japanese company Sumitomo Chemical, the world’s 8th biggest pesticide company. Sumitomo is not included in this investigation.
In international negotiations on pesticide regulation, the CropLife International lobby group is a well-funded and influential voice. Its members include the five leading agrochemical companies by turnover, plus the Japanese company Sumitomo.
CropLife argues that HHPs are an “important tool to fight against crop losses” and should be used as a last resort to help farmers “produce enough food for a growing population”. 
But the group says the majority of HHPs sold in developing countries are not manufactured by its members, and that its own members have “led by example” with measures like training millions of people in risk reduction techniques, such as wearing protective equipment.Soya, corn and cotton make Brazil world leader for hazardous pesticidesHowever, Baskut Tuncak, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on toxic substances and human rights, rejected the idea that the risks posed by HHPs could be managed safely.
The impacts are unquestionable, but the system is rigged so that they are also unprovable
“There is nothing sustainable about the widespread use of highly hazardous pesticides for agriculture,” Tuncak told Unearthed. “Whether they poison workers, extinguish biodiversity, persist in the environment, or accumulate in a mother’s breast milk, these are unsustainable, cannot be used safely, and should have been phased out of use long ago.”
Unearthed and Public Eye’s investigation found that the CropLife companies made on average 27% of sales income from HHPs in high-income countries; but for low- and middle-income countries the proportion rose to 45%. In their most important LMIC markets, Brazil and India, HHPs made up 49% and 59% of sales respectively.
Tuncak commented: “We are in the midst of an invisible explosion of pesticide use in low-and middle-income countries that are ill-equipped to manage such hazards.
“Governments do not have enough capacity to monitor conditions on countless farms and plantations, analyse food and environmental samples, track the health of seasonal and migrant workers, investigate allegations of gross misconduct on farms and plantations, or verify the integrity of the information being provided by industry-funded scientists.
“From the testimonies of workers to the collapse of biodiversity, the impacts are unquestionable, but the system is rigged so that they are also unprovable.”CropLife itself says that its members reviewed their entire portfolios between 2015 and 2016 and concluded that only 15% of their products were HHPs. Further, they found that 10% were HHPs “that can be used safely and responsibly” and only 2.5% “required risk mitigation measures or were withdrawn from the market”.
What are highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs)?The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) define HHPs as “pesticides that are acknowledged to present particularly high levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or the environment according to internationally accepted classification systems”. Environmental hazards include problems like water source contamination, or “disruption of ecosystem functions” like pollination. However, they have never produced a list of HHPs. To fill this gap Pesticide Action Network International produces the only consolidated list, which is based on classifications made by the WHO, the European Chemicals Agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the US EPA.
CropLife International declined to tell Unearthed which of its members’ products it classed as HHPs. However, its director of international regulatory affairs Christoph Neumann said their analysis had probably differed because they used different criteria to the Pesticide Action Network for defining HHPS. 
In particular the group objects to the use of what it calls “environmental” criteria by PAN.
“The criteria cited by PAN are often environmental criteria that are not agreed or yet endorsed” by the FAO and the WHO, he explained.
Driven toward extinction
The only detailed classifications the UN agencies have so far agreed for HHPs concern effects on human health, like acute poisoning or cancer.This has led pesticide companies to argue that there are in effect no globally agreed standards for classing a pesticide as highly hazardous on environmental grounds. This argument may not last. A 2019 publication by the FAO and the WHO suggests there are strong grounds for classing neonicotinoid insecticides as highly hazardous. 
We are losing wildlife, particularly insects. The crisis is driven by a combination of factors but there is no doubt that pesticides are harming pollinators
There is, it states, a “rapidly growing body of evidence” that “existing levels of environmental contamination” by neonicotinoids “are causing large-scale adverse effects on bees and other beneficial insects”.
“The need to severely restrict their use and prevent future registration is gaining a large consensus,” it continues. “The European Union has already issued a complete and permanent ban on all outdoor uses of the three most commonly used neonicotinoid pesticides: clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam.”
Three quarters of the world’s food crops depend at least in part on pollinators, and a growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being “driven towards extinction”, according to a global 2016 study. 
UN special rapporteur Baskut Tuncak told Unearthed that the threat neonicotinoid pesticides “present to our food security and our biodiversity is a human rights concern, in and of itself”.A dead bee. There is growing evidence that the use of neonicotinoids is adversely affecting bees on a large scale. Photo: GreenpeaceThe neonicotinoid thiamethoxam was Syngenta’s biggest selling HHP in 2018, our investigation found, accounting for 7% of the company’s sales ($242.5m). Similarly, imidacloprid was in Bayer’s top ten biggest selling HHPs, with sales of $101m. In both cases, the main market was Brazil – a country that hosts up to 20% of the world’s remaining biodiversity.
In addition to these neonicotinoids, Unearthed and Public Eye identified a further 37 chemicals sold by the CropLife companies that are classed as highly toxic to bees. Among them were chlorfenapyr and fipronil – another chemical linked to mass bee deaths – manufactured by the German chemicals giant BASF.
Syngenta and BASF both declined to comment directly for this story. Syngenta – which was responsible for close to half (42%) of CropLife’s $1.3bn of bee-toxic pesticide sales – has recently argued that journalists are “overstating the science that clearly exists” on insect declines.
However, University of Sussex biology professor Dave Goulson told Unearthed: “There is overwhelming evidence that we are in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, with extinction roughly 1,000 times the natural rate. 
“We are losing wildlife, particularly insects. The crisis is driven by a combination of factors but there is no doubt that pesticides are harming pollinators.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">amazonwatch 1219</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="">We have been holding back industrial development and resource extraction in the Amazon all decade: from <strong open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">stopping the Tapajos mega-dam<span open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=""> on the last free-flowing Amazon River tributary in Brazil, to <strong open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">backing Sarayaku's precedent-setting legal victory<span open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> when the Inter-American Court ruled that Ecuador had violated their rights by allowing oil drilling on their land, to <strong open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">winning the historic $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron<span open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for deliberately polluting the Ecuadorian Amazon, to <strong open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">standing with the U’wa people of Colombia<span open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" justify="justify" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> who successfully dismantled the Magallanes gas project on their sacred lands.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>guk no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>Environmental activist murders double in 15 years</div><div>
</div><div>Death toll almost half that of US troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, data shows</div><div>
</div><div>Jonathan Watts</div><div> @jonathanwatts</div><div>Mon 5 Aug 2019 11.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Aug 2019</div><div>
</div><div>Michelle Campos, whose father, grandfather and teacher were killed for opposing mining in Mindanao, the Philippines]</div><div>
</div><div> Michelle Campos, whose father, grandfather and teacher were killed in September 2015 for opposing mining in Mindanao, the Philippines. Photograph: Tulda Productions</div><div>Killings of environmental defenders have doubled over the past 15 years to reach levels usually associated with war zones, according to a study that reveals how murders of activists are concentrated in countries with the worst corruption and weakest laws.</div><div>
</div><div>At least 1,558 people in 50 states were killed between 2002 and 2017 while trying to protect their land, water or local wildlife, says the analysis, which calculates the death toll is almost half that of US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.</div><div>
</div><div>The rate of deaths in this period increased from two to four a week, which the authors attributed to rising environmental stress as the global demand for resources pushes mining, farming and other extractive industries into ever more remote regions.</div><div>
</div><div>The study, published in Nature Sustainability, attempts to identify the most important drivers for the murders of environmental and land defenders.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Philippines is deadliest country for defenders of environment</div><div> Read more]</div><div>
</div><div>The strongest correlation was with rule of law. Almost all of the killings occurred in the countries that scored lowest for corruption, fundamental rights, government powers, transparency and legal oversight. Most of these were in tropical and subtropical countries, particularly in Central and South America.</div><div>
</div><div>Only 10% of defender murders results in a conviction, compared with an average of 43% for all global homicides, says the paper.</div><div>
</div><div>“The toll is unbelievable,” said Nathalie Butt, the lead author and a researcher at the University of Queensland. “Conflict over resources is the issue, but it is corruption that is the problem.”</div><div>
</div><div>She said companies and consumers in wealthy countries in the northern hemisphere should take more responsibility for products sourced in the south. “We need to make ethics and transparency an important part of the supply chain. We need to ensure that there is no blood on our hands.”</div><div>
</div><div>The researchers say the tally is likely to be a conservative estimate because many deaths were unreported, particularly in authoritarian states where the media and NGOs are restricted.</div><div>
</div><div>The data is provided by the watchdog NGO Global Witness, which reported a fall in killings – closer to three a week – in its latest annual survey. But the authors say the long-term trend remains higher, particularly with regard to killings of indigenous people, who make up a disproportionately large proportion of the victims.</div><div>
</div><div>“We think attacks on indigenous people are likely to increase, particularly in Brazil where [president] Jair Bolsonaro has taken power with a promise that indigenous people must adapt to the majority or disappear. He is putting exploitation of the environment first,” warned the report’s co-author, Frances Lambrick, a co-founder and director of the Not1More NGO.</div><div>
</div><div>Such concerns increased last month with the killing of the indigenous leader Emyra Waiãpi in an area rife with illegal gold mining.</div><div>
</div><div>On Monday the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, called on the Brazilian authorities to investigate the incident and bolster efforts to halt illegal land seizures by miners, loggers and farmers.</div><div>
</div><div>“The Brazilian government’s proposed policy to open up more areas of the Amazon to mining could lead to incidents of violence, intimidation and killings of the type inflicted on the Waiãpi people last week,” Bachelete said.</div><div>
</div><div>“I call on the government of Brazil to reconsider its policies towards indigenous peoples and their lands, so Emrya Waiãpi’s murder does not herald a new wave of violence aimed at scaring people off their ancestral lands and enabling further destruction of the rainforest, with all the scientifically established ramifications that has for the exacerbation of climate change.”</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/4/paulo_paulino_guajajara_amazon_indigenous_killings">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/4/paulo_paulino_guajajara_amazon_indigenous_killings</a></div><div>
</div><div>indigenous forest protector named Paulo Paulino Guajajara was shot dead in the Amazon by illegal loggers on Saturday. It is the latest incident in a wave of violence targeting indigenous land protectors since the election of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro last year. Guajajara was killed when he and another forest protector were ambushed by a group of illegal loggers inside the Araribóia reservation in the northeastern state of Maranhão. We speak with João Coimbra Sousa, a field coordinator and legal adviser for Amazon Watch, in São Luís in the northeastern state of Maranhão. And in San Francisco, we speak with Christian Poirier, program director at Amazon Watch.</div><div>=</div><header style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 165px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; position: relative;"><div class="article--header" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; float: none; line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/monsanto-wins-7-7b-lawsuit-in-brazil-but-farmers-fight-to-stop-its-amoral-royalty-system-will-continue-125471" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">Monsanto wins $7.7b lawsuit in Brazil – but farmers’ fight to stop its ‘amoral’ royalty system will continue</a></h2><p class="byline" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.2; clear: both;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/karine-eliane-peschard-856062" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">Karine Eliane Peschard</a>, <span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)</div></header><div class="content" data-raw="" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 165px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Farmers worldwide say Monsanto's policy of charging for every use of its genetically modified seeds violates their planting rights. But judges in these patent law cases aren't so sure.</div>B<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/bring-brazils-bolsonaro-to-heel/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px;">ring Brazil’s Bolsonaro to heel</a><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/joe-conason/" title="Posts by Joe Conason" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Joe Conason</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/creators-syndicate/" title="Posts by Creators Syndicate" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Creators Syndicate</a>August 29, 2019</div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">Democratic values and environmental sanity both will be well served by bringing Bolsonaro to heel. He has certainly earned it.no lnx
Written by Joe Conason / Creators Syndicate August 29, 2019The most predictable thing about authoritarian government is that it will eventually exceed our worst expectations. With Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right president of Brazil, we didn’t have to wait long. Not only has the Brazilian president failed to protect the Amazon rainforest but he also seems madly determined to destroy that most vital planetary resource.
The only pertinent question now is what the rest of us will do about his ongoing depredations – and about him. Amid the wave of extremists swept to power in recent years, Bolsonaro was among the most repellent even before this literal firestorm struck. He rose from obscurity by fomenting hatred against Brazil’s indigenous minorities, gay Brazilians and feminists. He despises democracy and speaks fondly of the military dictatorships that long oppressed his own country and its neighbors. Indeed, he openly admires their barbaric history of torture and mass murder.
So nobody should be surprised that this deformed character would oversee violent destruction in the Amazon basin. His presidential campaign emphasized the massive development of agribusiness in previously protected lands as well as the breaching of indigenous preserves – all to serve the interests of his rural political base. He threatened repeatedly to pull Brazil out of the Paris climate accord and appointed as foreign minister an eccentric bureaucrat who thinks climate change is a “conspiracy by cultural Marxists” to limit growth.
Bolsonaro’s own response to the record number of rainforest fires this year is appalling: He dismissed a space agency official who revealed the extent of the inferno; he repudiated data that proved increased burning as “lies”; and he accused nonprofit organizations of setting the Amazon fires to make him look bad. His record of paranoia and deception has won him the admiration of President Donald Trump, who praises him frequently.
Before Bolsonaro took office, Brazil had notched important achievements in protecting the Amazon, encouraging renewable energy and reducing its carbon emissions. Years of progressive policy initiatives had reduced deforestation by as much as 80 percent, while the Brazilian transportation and energy sectors increasingly relied on wind, solar and ethanol. But the new government appears determined to snuff out all such hopeful signs.
Over the past several months – well before intense conflagration engulfed the Amazon – European governments had sought to discourage Bolsonaro’s most destructive impulses by threatening to withhold aid and trade. His response has been defiant; he told the Norwegians to take their aid and “reforest Germany” with it.
That isn’t his worst idea — planting tens of billions of trees should be a top priority for every government – but it is also beside the point. Preserving the rainforests that remain is the only way to ensure an inhabitable planet.
With a fascistic thug holding Earth by the throat, it is tempting to imagine more forceful solutions. But a military incursion against Brazil’s sovereignty would undoubtedly polarize small and large nations and provoke cries of imperialism. Indeed, Bolsonaro complains incessantly about the “colonialism” supposedly imposed by environmental leaders, even as he invites major U.S. financial outfits like the Blackstone Group to profit from destructive development in the Amazon. Of course, it is the less developed countries that will suffer the most immediate consequences of climate change.
What can be done about this flashpoint of environmental crisis? Nations led by sane politicians – a category that sadly doesn’t include the United States today – should exert maximum diplomatic and economic pressure on Bolsonaro’s regime. Members of the European Union should continue to use the Mercosur trade agreement, which will include Brazil, to leverage his cooperation on dousing the fires.
Public sentiment in Europe and the United States is powerfully aroused by the footage of burned forest. Brazil can defy global opinion only at significant risk to its economy.
If the fate of future trade agreements is not enough to persuade Bolsonaro, then the threat of an international boycott may yet concentrate his tiny mind. The Brazilian president’s agribusiness allies already have confessed a deep fear of consumer action against their companies. They know that activists everywhere are urging people to shun Brazilian products. Now those capitalists should pull his leash very hard to put the fires out immediately and keep them extinguished.
Democratic values and environmental sanity both will be well served by bringing Bolsonaro to heel. He has certainly earned it.
To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.</div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/how-youtube-radicalized-brazil/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/how-youtube-radicalized-brazil/</a>no lnx
How YouTube radicalized Brazil
Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly August 14, 2019Max Fisher and Amanda Taub have spent two years researching and reporting on the internet’s role as a force for radicalization. But as Fisher said on Twitter, nothing has disturbed him more than their recent story about how YouTube radicalized Brazil.Most of us have been exposed to the fact that individuals like the El Paso shooter were engaged with white supremacists in online forums. We’ve heard about how people like Steve Bannon used Cambridge Analytica to psychographically target young white men with racial messages. But Fisher and Taub decided to ask a different question.Wherever we looked, the rate and consequences of online radicalization seemed far beyond what we’d anticipated, and were growing fast. So, in January, we decided to ask the question in a different way: Could the consequences of online radicalization go beyond a few extremists and, in ways that might be less obvious but perhaps just as consequential, radicalize large swaths of an entire society?
That is what led them to travel to Brazil.Brazil’s politics have experienced a sudden, world-shaking shift, with Jair Bolsonaro, the once-fringe, far-right politician, becoming president this year. Years of political corruption crises had undoubtedly played a role. But something else was clearly happening there.And Brazil is the second-largest market for YouTube, after the United States. YouTube has not received as much scrutiny as, say, Facebook. But experts say the platform has the power to radicalize people and communities in ways we are only beginning to understand.
Here is what they found that was so disturbing.Members of the nation’s newly empowered far right — from grass-roots organizers to federal lawmakers — say their movement would not have risen so far, so fast, without YouTube’s recommendation engine.New research has found they may be correct. YouTube’s search and recommendation system appears to have systematically diverted users to far-right and conspiracy channels in Brazil.A New York Times investigation in Brazil found that, time and again, videos promoted by the site have upended central elements of daily life.Teachers describe classrooms made unruly by students who quote from YouTube conspiracy videos or who, encouraged by right-wing YouTube stars, secretly record their instructors.Some parents look to “Dr. YouTube” for health advice but get dangerous misinformation instead, hampering the nation’s efforts to fight diseases like Zika. Viral videos have incited death threats against public health advocates.And in politics, a wave of right-wing YouTube stars ran for office alongside Mr. Bolsonaro, some winning by historic margins. Most still use the platform, governing the world’s fourth-largest democracy through internet-honed trolling and provocation.Renan Santos, the national coordinator of a group that used YouTube videos to agitate for the 2016 impeachment of the left-wing President Dilma Rousseff, made a chilling statement: “Reality is shaped by whatever message goes most viral.”On Monday I wrote about how tyranny takes hold via a process of malignant normalcy. Here is how Dr. John Gartner explained the process.Malignant normality is when a malignantly narcissistic leader takes control of society and gradually changes reality for everyone else. So their crazy internal reality becomes enacted in the lived true external reality of that society. This is how a leader can come in and change the mores of their society.What Fisher and Taub found in Brazil is that social media platforms like YouTube can advance malignant normalcy in their quest to maximize watchtime (i.e. make money).In the wake of the El Paso shooting, Beto O’Rourke wrote an opinion column for CNN titled, “It’s America’s Moment of Truth.” This is the portion that caught my eye.When President Donald Trump describes Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “bringing crime,” or refers to undocumented immigrants as individuals who “infest our country” — he speaks not as America’s President but as an emissary of hate. And his vilification and fear-mongering connect with those who are open to receiving it.The seeds of terror we saw that August day are transmitted day and night on Fox News, the most watched cable news channel in the country. They are amplified by right-wing websites like Breitbart, and in messages forced onto local news broadcasts by Sinclair Media.They metastasize on Facebook. And they filter up from grotesque online havens for white supremacists who preach intolerance and worship violence.What O’Rourke just described are the forces that have aligned to make a profit off of hate—gaining either political power or money, perhaps even both. As O’Rourke said, our moment of truth has arrived. Silence is complicity.<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/gold-miners-murder-indigenous-leader-amazon-2639458840.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/gold-miners-murder-indigenous-leader-amazon-2639458840.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>Gold Miners Murder Indigenous Leader, Force Villagers in Brazil’s Amazon to Flee</div><div>
</div><div>Olivia Rosane Jul. 29, 2019 01:57PM EST POLITICS</div><div>
</div><div>[A Waiapi man looks at a boy picking fruits from a Geninapo tree at the Waiapi indigenous reserve in Amapa state in Brazil on Oct. 13, 2017. APU GOMES / AFP / Getty Images]</div><div>
</div><div>Gold miners invaded indigenous territory in Brazil's Amazon, killing one leader and prompting villagers to flee for safety, The New York Times reported Saturday.</div><div>
</div><div>The violence confirms fears that right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro's promises to open protected lands to mining and other extractive industries will have devastating consequences for indigenous communities.</div><div>
</div><div>"The president is responsible for this death," opposition Sen. Rodolfe Rodrigues told The New York Times.</div><div>
</div><div>Rodrigues received an urgent voice message from leaders of the Wajãpi tribe, who live in the state of Amapá in Northern Brazil.</div><div>
</div><div>"They are armed with rifles and other weapons," community leader Jawaruwa Waiãpi said in the message. "We are in danger. You need to send the army to stop them."</div><div>
</div><div>Federal police arrived in the area Sunday, and both police and the federal prosecutors' office said they would investigate the incident, BBC News reported.</div><div>
</div><div>The murdered leader was identified as 68-year-old Emyra Wajãpi. His body was found with stab wounds in a river Wednesday, according to Brazil's indigenous rights agency Funai.</div><div>
</div><div>Reports of what happened next are mixed. Armed miners entered the village of Yvytotõ Friday, occupying a home and prompting the villagers to flee 40 minutes on foot to Mariry village, according to accounts from BBC News and Survival International. The Guardian reported that villagers fled Mariry to the larger village of Aramirã, where shots were fired on Saturday. BBC News reported that 10 to 15 miners invaded, while The Guardian and The New York Times put the number at dozens.</div><div>
</div><div>"The garimpeiros [miners] invaded the indigenous village and are there until today. They are heavily armed, they have machine guns. That is why we asking for help from the federal police," 26-year-old tribe member Kureni Waiãpi, who lives in Pedra Branca do Amapari, said, as The Guardian reported. "If nothing is done they will start to fight."</div><div>
</div><div>As the villagers sent their message pleading for help Saturday, Bolsonaro once again expressed his desire to open indigenous reserves to mining, speaking of the resources located in the Raposa Serra do Sol and Yanomami reserves, where mining invasions are common.</div><div>
</div><div>"I'm looking for the 'first world' to explore these areas in partnership and add value. That's the reason for my approximation with the United States. That's why I want a person of trust in the embassy in the USA," Bolsonaro said, according to the O Globo newspaper, as The Guardian reported. Bolsonaro has come under fire for his plan to appoint his son Eduardo as the U.S. ambassador.</div><div>
</div><div>Rodrigues said the weekend's incident was the first invasion of Waiãpi land in 30 years, according to BBC News.</div><div>
</div><div>Invasions like this one are "encouraged by the irresponsible, authoritarian and prejudiced stance of the current government — especially President Bolsonaro — and its attack on the rights of this country's first peoples," the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon said in a statement reported by Survival International.</div><div>
</div><div>The Waiãpi were first contacted in 1973 when Brazil's military dictatorship built a highway through part of their land, bringing miners and deadly diseases. Their territory was officially recognized in 1996. Today, around 1,500 Waiãpi live in the protected area, according to Survival International.</div><div>
</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>Amazon gold miners invade indigenous village in Brazil after its ... </div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div>=<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/29/headlines/brazilian_president_bolsonaro_threatens_glenn_greenwald_with_imprisonment">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/29/headlines/brazilian_president_bolsonaro_threatens_glenn_greenwald_with_imprisonment</a>
Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro threatened journalist Glenn Greenwald with possible imprisonment Saturday, following recent reporting by Greenwald’s news website The Intercept implicating Justice Minister Sérgio Moro in a possible plot to smear and convict former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Speaking to a reporter, Bolsonaro said Greenwald could not be deported because he was married to a Brazilian, but that he might be imprisoned instead. Journalists and press freedom activists blasted Bolsonaro’s threats, and Greenwald responded via Twitter: “Contrary to what the president says, he is not (yet) a dictator. He doesn’t have the power to order people to stop. To detain someone, you need to present evidence to a court showing that a crime was committed. That evidence does not exist.” <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/12/secret_files_show_how_brazils_elites" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Click here to see our interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Glenn Greenwald on The Intercept’s exposé of Sérgio Moro and the Operation Car Wash scandal</a>.=<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/29/headlines/miners_raid_tribe_in_brazil_killing_leader_as_amazon_suffers_mass_deforestation_by_illegal_loggers">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/29/headlines/miners_raid_tribe_in_brazil_killing_leader_as_amazon_suffers_mass_deforestation_by_illegal_loggers</a><div class="headline_body" itemprop="articleBody" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="headline_summary" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: calc(100% - 95px); display: inline-block; line-height: 27px; vertical-align: top;">In northern Brazil, residents of a remote indigenous village say at least 10 heavily armed gold miners in military uniforms raided their community last week, stabbing a leader to death. The assault on the Wajãpi village came as new government data show that deforestation in the Amazon has dramatically increased since President Bolsonaro took office in January, losing more than 1,300 square miles of forest cover—a 39% increase over the same period last year. The drastic change is due to Bolsonaro’s rolling back of regulations and punitive measures on illegal logging. In May, a group of former Brazilian environment ministers warned, “We’re facing the risk of runaway deforestation in the Amazon.” One former minister said that Brazil was becoming an “exterminator of the future.”</div></div><div>=</div><div><div>=</div><div>trump faLLOUT:</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-deforestation-unrecoverable-tipping-point-2639358982.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-deforestation-unrecoverable-tipping-point-2639358982.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is being clear cut so rapidly — a rate of three football fields per minute — that it is approaching a "tipping point" from which it will not recover, according to the Guardian.lnx]As trees are lost, researchers said there is a risk that large areas could transition from rainforest to savannah as they lose the ability to make their own rainfall from evaporation and from plants giving off water vapor, according to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/brazil-bolsonaro-illegal-deforestation-amazon-rainforest-tipping-point-1451270" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Newsweek</a>.<div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="1" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem1">A transition on that scale could have significant implications for global warming since the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rainforests" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">rainforest</a> absorbs vast amounts of atmospheric carbon. Recent <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/76?hwshib2=authn%253A1562396078%253A20190704%253Ac3ad5971-c185-4942-9acd-92aa24c51c06%253A0%253A0%253A0%253AS1lvoYPtq07c7tMzRommqA%253D%253D" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">research</a> has shown the potential for massive tree plantings to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere."It's very important to keep repeating these concerns. There are a number of tipping points which are not far away," said Philip Fearnside, a professor at Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research, as the Guardian reported. "We can't see exactly where they are, but we know they are very close. It means we have to do things right away. Unfortunately that is not what is happening. There are people denying we even have a problem."The alarming rate of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">deforestation</a> and its acceleration confirms suspicions that new president <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Jair Bolsonaro</a> has allowed illegal land invasion, logging and burning. Bolsonaro has called his <a href="http://terrabrasilis.dpi.inpe.br/app/dashboard/alerts/legal/amazon/aggregated/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">own government's satellite data</a> lies. The president's comments followed preliminary satellite data that showed more than 400 square miles of the rainforest had been cleared in the first half of July — an increase of 68 percent from the entire month of July last year, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49052360" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">BBC</a>.Bolsonaro, the far right politician who has said he is fulfilling a mission from God, dismissed concerns expressed by European Union members and called it hypocritical since so many European forests have been wiped out."You have to understand that the Amazon is Brazil's, not yours," Bolsonaro said, as the Guardian reported. "If all this devastation you accuse us of doing was done in the past the Amazon would have stopped existing, it would be a big desert."</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="2" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem2">The DETER-B satellite system that the Brazilian government started to use in 2015 to track deforestation has shown that the record setting July deforestation is on pace to clear enough forest to fit New York City twice by the end of the month.The DETER satellite data is considered preliminary. Detailed figures are released at the end of the year when data from other satellites and observatories is also collected, according to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/brazil-bolsonaro-illegal-deforestation-amazon-rainforest-tipping-point-1451270" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Newsweek</a>."Unfortunately, it is absurd, but it should not catch anyone by surprise. President Jair Bolsonaro and minister Ricardo Salles are dismantling our socio-environmental policies," said Carlos Rittl, the executive secretary of the <a href="http://www.observatoriodoclima.eco.br/en/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Climate Observatory</a>, an NGO formed by a coalition of environmental groups, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/amazonian-rainforest-near-unrecoverable-tipping-point" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">the Guardian</a> reported.After years of conservation, Brazil's environmental track record has nose-dived in the first seven months of Bolsonaro's administration. He has given environmental oversight to the agriculture minister, who is the leader of a farming lobby. His foreign minister called climate science a part of a global Marxist plot.The government has invited businesses to register land counter-claims in areas that are protected nature reserves, indigenous territories and areas dedicated to sustainable production by native forest people, according to the Guardian.</div></div></div><div></div><div><div></div><div>ref</div><div>
</div><div>https://yyy.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/amazonian-rainforest-near-unrecoverable-tipping-point</div><div>
</div><div><div>guk no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>Amazon deforestation accelerating towards unrecoverable 'tipping point'</div><div>Data confirms fears that Jair Bolsonaro’s policy encourages illegal logging in Brazil</div><div>
</div><div>Jonathan Watts in Altamira</div><div>
</div><div> @jonathanwatts</div><div>
</div><div>Thu 25 Jul 2019 17.40 BST Last modified on Thu 25 Jul 2019 21.37 BST</div><div>
</div><div> Amazon rainforest turned into farmland. An area the size of Greater London has been lost this month. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters</div><div>
</div><div>Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has surged above three football fields a minute, according to the latest government data, pushing the world’s biggest rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which it cannot recover.</div><div>
</div><div>The sharp rise – following year-on-year increases in May and June – confirms fears that president Jair Bolsonaro has given a green light to illegal land invasion, logging and burning.</div><div>
</div><div>Clearance so far in July has hit 1,345 sq km, a third higher than the previous monthly record under the current monitoring system by the Deter B satellite system, which started in 2015.</div><div>
</div><div>With five days remaining, this is on course to be the first month for several years in which Brazil loses an area of forest bigger than Greater London.</div><div>
</div><div>The steady erosion of tree cover weakens the role of the rainforest in stabilising the global climate. Scientists warn that the forest is in growing danger of degrading into a savannah, after which its capacity to absorb carbon will be severely diminished, with consequences for the rest of the planet.</div><div>
</div><div>“It’s very important to keep repeating these concerns. There are a number of tipping points which are not far away,” said Philip Fearnside, a professor at Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research. “We can’t see exactly where they are, but we know they are very close. It means we have to do things right away. Unfortunately that is not what is happening. There are people denying we even have a problem.”</div><div>
</div><div>It may also complicate ratification of Brazil’s biggest ever trade deal with the European Union if EU legislators decide the South American nation is not keeping its side of the bargain, which includes a commitment to slow deforestation in line with the Paris climate agreement.</div><div>
</div><div>The official numbers from the National Institute for Space Research are a growing embarrassment to Bolsonaro, who has tried to fob them off as lies and criticised the head of the institute. Earlier this week, the president insisted the numbers should be screened by the ministry of science and technology and shown to him before being made public so that he did not get “caught with his pants down”.</div><div>
</div><div>This has raised fears that the data could be vetted in future rather than automatically updated online each day as is currently the case.</div><div>
</div><div>In his first seven months in power, Bolsonaro, who was elected with strong support from agribusiness and mining interests, has moved rapidly to erode government agencies responsible for forest protection.</div><div>
</div><div>He has weakened the environment agency and effectively put it under the supervision of the agricultural ministry, which is headed by the leader of the farming lobby. His foreign minister has dismissed climate science as part of a global Marxist plot. The president and other ministers have criticised the forest monitoring agency, Ibama, for imposing fines on illegal land grabbers and loggers. The government has also moved to weaken protections for nature reserves, indigenous territories and zones of sustainable production by forest peoples and invited businesspeople to register land counter-claims within those areas.</div><div>
</div><div>This has emboldened those who want to invade the forest, clear it and claim it for commercial purposes, mostly in the speculative expectation it will rise in value, but also partly for cattle pastures, soya fields and mines.</div><div>
</div><div>Earlier this month, it was reported that thousands of gold miners illegally invaded Yanomami indigenous territory near the border with Venezuela. Elsewhere, illegal loggers have mounted at least two attacks in response to Ibama enforcement operations, according to the Folha newspaper. On 4 July, they reportedly burned an Ibama truck in Espigão d’Oeste, Rondônia state and last week they were said to have burned bridges in Placas, Pará state.</div><div>
</div><div>Rather than defend his officials, the environment minister Ricardo Salles appeared to side with the loggers when he gave a speech to a group of them in Rondônia soon afterwards, in which he reportedly told them: “The timber industry deserves to be respected … What happens today in Brazil, unfortunately, is the result of years and years and years of a public policy of producing laws, rules, regulations that are not always related to the real world. What we are doing now is precisely bringing the legal part of the real world that happens in every country from north to south.”</div><div>
</div><div>During a recent G20 meeting, Bolsonaro told the German chancellor Angela Merkel that she had no right to criticise because Brazil’s conservation record was superior to that of Europe’s. This is a dubious claim, according to Climate Observatory, which cites World Bank data that shows Germany has given protected status to a bigger share of its land than Brazil.</div><div>
</div><div>Brazil is also going backwards fast. After an 80% reduction in the rate of deforestation between 2006 and 2012, successive governments have relaxed protections. Clearance has been creeping up. Last year, deforestation rose 13% to the highest level in a decade. This year is on course to be far worse and the trend is back towards the dark days of the early 2000s.</div><div>
</div><div>“Unfortunately, it is absurd, but it should not catch anyone by surprise. President Jair Bolsonaro and minister Ricardo Salles are dismantling our socio-environmental policies,” said Carlos Rittl, the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, an NGO formed by a coalition of environmental groups.</div><div>
</div><div>He said Salles had eradicated the department responsible for policies to combat deforestation, that no leaders have been appointed in eight of the nine Ibama regional offices, and that operations to combat environmental crimes declined 70% between January and April 2019 compared with the same period last year.</div><div>
</div><div>The Deter satellite data is considered preliminary, but it is usually a guide to the longer-term trends. More detailed annual figures are usually released towards the end of the year, after the National Institute for Space Research has calculated data from the more powerful Prodes satellite system.</div><div>
</div><div>Trees are considered essential to climate stability. Earlier this month, a study indicated that planting a trillion trees could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities. But scientists say maintaining existing forests, particularly in the tropics, is far more important.</div></div></div>=<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-archive-operation-car-wash">https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-archive-operation-car-wash</a>
<div data-reactid="258" style="box-sizing: border-box;">INTERCEPT BRASIL today published <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/procuradores-tramaram-impedir-entrevista-lula/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">three</a> <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/chat-moro-deltan-telegram-lava-jato/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">explosive</a> <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/dallagnol-duvidas-triplex-lula-telegram-petrobras/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">exposés</a>showing highly controversial, politicized, and legally dubious internal discussions and secret actions by the Operation Car Wash anti-corruption task force of prosecutors, led by the chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, along with then-Judge Sergio Moro, now the powerful and <a href="http://time.com/collection-post/4302096/sergio-moro-2016-time-100/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">internationally celebrated</a> justice minister for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.These stories are based on a massive archive of previously undisclosed materials — including private chats, audio recordings, videos, photos, court proceedings, and other documentation — provided to us by an anonymous source. They reveal serious wrongdoing, unethical behavior, and systematic deceit about which the public, both in Brazil and internationally, has the right to know.<a class="InstreamPromo InstreamPromo--promo" href="https://theintercept.com/series/secret-brazil-archive/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); margin: 40px 0px 40px -20px; padding: 20px 0px; display: inline !important; width: auto !important;"><span class="InstreamPromo-text-callout" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TIActuBetaMono-Regular_web, Consolas, " andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" font-weight="font-weight" normal="normal" color="color" rgb="rgb" display="display" inline="inline" important="important" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" line-height="line-height" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" text-transform="text-transform" capitalize="capitalize">Read Our Complete Coverage</a></div><a class="InstreamPromo InstreamPromo--promo" href="https://theintercept.com/series/secret-brazil-archive/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); display: block; margin: 40px 0px 40px -20px; padding: 20px 0px; width: auto !important;">Secret Brazil Archive</a><div data-reactid="260" style="box-sizing: border-box;">These three articles were published today in The Intercept Brasil in Portuguese, and we have synthesized them into <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-car-wash-prosecutors-workers-party-lula/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">two English-language</a> <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-lula-operation-car-wash-sergio-moro/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">articles for The Intercept</a>. Given the size and global influence of Brazil under the new Bolsonaro government, these stories are of great significance to an international audience.This is merely the beginning of what we intend to be an ongoing journalistic investigation, using this massive archive of material, into the Car Wash corruption probe; Moro’s actions when he was a judge and those of the prosecutor Dallagnol; and the conduct of numerous individuals who continue to wield great political and economic power both inside Brazil and in other countries.Beyond the inherent political, economic, and environmental importance of Brazil under Bolsonaro, the significance of these revelations arises from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/01/brazil-operation-car-wash-is-this-the-biggest-corruption-scandal-in-history" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">incomparably consequential actions</a> of the yearslong Car Wash corruption probe. That sweeping scandal implicated numerous leading political figures, oligarchs, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/world/americas/brazil-car-wash-corruption-temer.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Bolsonaro’s predecessor as president</a>, and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/former-president-of-peru-shoots-self-in-head-as-police-close-in" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">even foreign leaders</a> in corruption prosecutions.Most importantly, Car Wash was the investigative saga that led to the imprisonment of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last year. Lula’s conviction by Moro, once it was quickly affirmed by an appellate court, <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2018/09/high-court-bars-lula-candidacy.shtml" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">rendered him ineligible to run for president</a> at a time when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/04/16/lula-da-silva-is-in-jail-and-hes-still-brazils-leading-candidate-for-president-here-are-3-ways-that-could-turn-out/?utm_term=.b565bbe7a708" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">all polls showed that Lula</a> — who was twice elected president by large margins in 2002 and in 2006 before being term-limited out of office in 2010 with <a href="http://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2010/12/popularidade-de-lula-bate-recorde-e-chega-87-diz-ibope.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">an 87 percent approval rating</a> — was the frontrunner in the 2018 presidential race. Lula’s exclusion from the election, based on Moro’s finding of guilt, was a key episode that paved the way for Bolsonaro’s election victory.Perhaps most remarkably, after Bolsonaro won the presidency, he created a new position of unprecedented authority, referred to by Brazilians as “super justice minister,” to oversee an agency with consolidated powers over law enforcement, surveillance, and investigation previously interspersed among multiple ministries. Bolsonaro created that position for the <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2018/11/bolsonaro-will-offer-superministry-to-operation-carwash-judge.shtml" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">benefit of the very judge who found Lula guilty</a>, Sergio Moro, and it is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46063656" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">the position Moro now occupies</a>. In other words, Moro now wields immense police and surveillance powers in Brazil — courtesy of a president who was elected only after Moro, while he was a judge, rendered Bolsonaro’s key adversary ineligible to run against him.The Car Wash prosecutors and Moro have been highly controversial in Brazil and internationally — heralded by many as anti-corruption heroes and accused by others of being clandestine right-wing ideologues masquerading as apolitical law enforcers. Their critics have insisted that they have abused and exploited their law enforcement powers with the politicized goal of preventing Lula from returning to the presidency and destroying his leftist Workers’ Party, or the PT. Moro and the prosecutors have, with equal vehemence, denied that they have any political allegiances or objectives and have said they are simply trying to cleanse Brazil of corruption.But, until now, the Car Wash prosecutors and Moro have carried out their work largely in secret, preventing the public from evaluating the validity of the accusations against them and the truth of their denials. That’s what makes this new archive so journalistically valuable: For the first time, the public will learn what these judges and prosecutors were saying and doing when they thought nobody was listening.Today’s articles show, among other things, that the Car Wash prosecutors spoke openly of their desire to prevent the PT from winning the election and took steps to carry out that agenda, and that Moro secretly and unethically collaborated with the Car Wash prosecutors to help design the case against Lula despite serious internal doubts about the evidence supporting the accusations, only for him to then pretend to be its neutral adjudicator....</div>=<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243);"><li class="hidden-xs" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px 0px 23px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/29/headlines/deforestation_of_amazon_up_by_20_over_9_months" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; border: 0px;">Deforestation of Amazon Up by 20% Over 9 Months</a></li></ul>==<div><a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-long-strange-love-affair-with-the-confederacy-ignites-racial-tension-115548">https://theconversation.com/brazils-long-strange-love-affair-with-the-confederacy-ignites-racial-tension-115548</a></div><div>
</div><div>the aroma of fried chicken and biscuits roused my appetite as the country sounds of Alison Krauss, Alan Jackson and Johnny Cash played over the loudspeakers.</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">This might have been a county fair back home in Tennessee, but it wasn’t. I was in a cemetery in rural Brazil, at the “<a href="http://festaconfederada.com.br/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Festa Confederada</a>” – the “Confederate Party” – an annual celebration of southern U.S. heritage held each April in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, in São Paulo state.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">A sign explaining “What the Confederate Flag Really Means” in both English and Portuguese greeted the roughly 2,500 visitors – most of them white – at the entryway of the American Cemetery. Inside, women wearing Antebellum-style hoop skirts square danced with men clad in gray Confederate uniforms. Couples in T-shirts were doing the two-step.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">Just outside cemetery grounds stood black activists protesting the April 28 party with signs and banners saying, “Down with the Confederate flag.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">How did an American debate about racism make its way to Brazil? That’s a tangled question I’m unraveling in my dissertation research on <a href="https://scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=aahQqKkAAAAJ&hl=en" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">the history and meaning of Confederate symbols in Brazil</a>.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">The Confederacy comes to Brazil</h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">Brazil has a long, strange relationship with the United States Confederacy.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">After the Civil War ended in 1865, ending slavery in the United States, some <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/blar.12202" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">8,000 to 10,000</a>Southern soldiers and their families left the vanquished Confederacy and went to Brazil.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">There, slavery was still legal. Roughly <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Transatlantic_Slave_Trade_The#start_entry" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">40%</a> of the nearly 11 million Africans <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slave_Ships_and_the_Middle_Passage" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">forcibly brought across the Atlantic</a> between 1517 and 1867 went to work on sugarcane plantations in Brazil. It was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to formally abolish slavery, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">in 1888</a> – 23 years <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/slavery-abolished-in-america" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">after the United States</a>.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">Legal slavery may have been a draw for the Confederate soldiers who migrated to Brazil after abolition.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">Brazilian <a href="http://repositorio.unicamp.br/bitstream/REPOSIP/285977/1/Silva_CelioAntonioAlcantara_D.pdf" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">political economist Célio Antonio Alcântara Silva</a> analyzed letters sent to Brazilian consulates and vice-consulates in the United States at the end of the Civil War and found that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/blar.12202" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">74% of Southerners inquiring about emigration were slaveowners</a>.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">At the time, <a href="https://eh.net/encyclopedia/slavery-in-the-united-states/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">25% of white Southern households owned slaves</a>. That means the people interested in moving to Brazil in the 1860s disproportionately represented a relatively small, slaveholding slice of the free Southern population.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">Because the exact number of Confederate families that migrated to Brazil is unknown, it is impossible to state with certainty how many rejoined the slave trade upon arrival. Silva’s research finds records of 54 Confederate families that purchased, in total, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/blar.12202" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">536 enslaved Africans</a> in Brazil.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">The Brazilian historian <a href="https://ufrb.academia.edu/LucianaBrito" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Luciana da Cruz Brito</a> has also found evidence in the 150-year-old Confederado journals she dug up that <a href="https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/RevistaHistoriaComparada/article/view/2354" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">slavery attracted white Southerners to Brazil</a>.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">In one, an American named Charles Gunter wrote about his desire to purchase enslaved people in Brazil at a lower price than he could in the U.S. Another Confederado, James Gaston, expressed disappointment that he couldn’t bring recently freed African Americans to Brazil.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif">...<div></div>=no lnx twit<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-pesticides-2636194015.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-pesticides-2636194015.html</a>
JAIR BOLSONAROBrazil's Bolsonaro Green-Lights 150+ Pesticides This Year Mongabay  May 03 POLITICSIsac Nóbrega / PR / FlickrBy Sue Branford and Thais Borges
With the ruralist lobby now in control of key sectors of the federal government, Brazil is rapidly approving new pesticides for use, some of which critics say are either unnecessary or excessively toxic. During the first 100 days of the Jair Bolsonaro administration, the Agriculture Ministry authorized the registration of 152 pesticides, putting Brazil on course to authorize more pesticides this year than in any previous year. Brazil is already the world's largest user of pesticides.
The number of pesticides authorized each year has risen rapidly, from 139 in 2015 under the Dilma Rousseff administration, to 450 in 2018 under the Michel Temer government (see graph). An even higher number is expected to enter the Brazilian market this year, as the Agriculture Ministry considers registration of roughly another 1,300 pesticides. Most of these requests are coming from foreign multinational companies, mainly based in the U.S., Germany and China, which is increasingly becoming an important supplier.
IBAMA / Mongabay]
An employee from Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources surveys a heap of emptied pesticide containers on a farm.]
Pro-Pesticide Government vs. EnvironmentalistsDespite the rapid rise in authorizations, Bolsonaro's agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, said "there is no general liberation" of new pesticide registrations.According to her ministry, the products will merely give farmers a greater choice of existing pesticides, and access to new chemicals and there is no reason to be concerned: "The use [of pesticides] is completely safe, provided they are applied as instructed, within a context of good farming practice and with the use of individual protective equipment," said the government.
Events within Brazil seem to deny the truth of Cristina's claims. Brazil has a higher per capita consumption of pesticides than any other country in the world — 7.3 liters per year per person — and it is already facing a serious problem with pesticide intoxication.
According to Guilherme Franco Netto, an Environment, Health and Sustainability Specialist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, one of the world's top public health research institutions, about 100,000 cases of intoxication are recorded in Brazil each year. According to Alan Tygel, from the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and for Life, this figure seriously underestimates the real situation, as many rural workers fail to report pesticide intoxications.
Brazil: Pesticide Poisonings in Rural AreasIn July 2018, the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, published a report documenting acute intoxication at seven locations in Brazil, including indigenous communities, schools and quilombolas — communities of runaway slave descendants.
"Pesticides sprayed in large plantations intoxicate children in schoolrooms in many parts of Brazil," said Richard Pearshouse, assistant director of the environmental and human rights division of Human Rights Watch. But the report found that many local inhabitants were too frightened to speak out.
In five of the seven impacted communities, people said they were afraid of suffering reprisals if they complained. In 2010 a rural farmer was shot dead after putting pressure on local government to forbid aerial spraying of pesticides — a common application practice in Brazil, even though it allows wind-carried toxic sprays to settle far from crops in surrounding communities and natural areas.

New Formulations Raise AlarmsMany of the requests given the go-ahead this year are for new formulations of already authorized pesticides."Once the initial manufacturer loses its patent, other companies start requesting registration so they can use the [same] active ingredients to produce new agricultural products," said Murilo Souza, from the State University of Goiás.
Leonardo Melgarejo, vice-president of the Brazilian Association of Agroecology, believes that this practice is harmful as it will inevitably lead to a big increase in consumption nationwide. "We are approving several variations of the same pesticide," he said. "We're heading for a situation in which farmers will be able to 'self-medicate,' with two pesticide shops on every block." Little research has been done to see how hundreds of various pesticides might interact to become more damaging.
The torrent of new approvals is also making it easier for Brazil's farmers to gain access to toxic pesticides with which the global community has serious concern. One such case is that of 2,4-D, an active ingredient in controversial defoliant Agent Orange, used by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and whose use is increasingly being controlled in other countries, after the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it in 2015 as "possibly carcinogenic to humans."
The latest wave of Agriculture Ministry authorizations seen on 10 April, gave the go-ahead to 31 products via an official federal decree — Act 24 — including three new formulations of 2,4-D requested by multinational pesticide makers and distributors. One request came from the Chinese company, Rainbow Defensivos Agrícolas, while the other two were initiated by Dow AgroSciences for formulations to be manufactured in South Africa and exported to Brazil.
These new Brazilian authorizations took place at a time when the Rio Grande do Sul Public Ministry, a group of independent public litigators, was carrying out an investigation into an allegation made by the Brazilian Wine Institute that last year the state lost almost a third of its grape harvest as a result of the aerial spraying of pesticides containing 2,4-D. Farmers spray this pesticide before they sow soy — also a time when grape, apple and olive trees are flowering, and when the spray can easily drift over neighboring farms.
"The data from our survey [that showed a loss of almost a third of the grape harvest] is a conservative figure, as it relied only on information spontaneously offered by farmers," said Helio Marchioro of Brazilian Wine Institute. In fact, grape farmers themselves are calling for a 2,4-D ban, even as the Bolsonaro administration approves new 2,4-D formulations.

Controversial Pesticides Approved for First Time in BrazilSeveral of the pesticides authorized this year will be entirely new to Brazil. Some have already been classified by Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency as "extremely toxic." These include: mancozeb, a broad-spectrum fungicide used in agriculture and horticulture; the fungicide fluazinam; and the insecticide chlorpyrifos. In 2018 the Pest Management Regulatory Agency banned the use of mancozeb in Canada, except for foliar use on potatoes, due to "unacceptable risks to human health." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the use of chlorpyrifos in 2018 after its use had been associated with development disabilities in children.
One particularly controversial newly approved chemical is sulfoxaflor. This pesticide was one of several believed to have caused an outbreak in Brazil of colony collapse disorder — the catastrophic sudden disappearance of worker bees from a bee colony, leading to the death of hives. According to a survey carried out by Agência Pública and Repórter Brasil, half a billion bees were found dead in four Brazilian states in the first quarter of 2019 — a staggeringly large die off posing a threat to the pollination of fruits and vegetables and to native vegetation.
But at a press conference on April 9, Agriculture Minister Cristina seemed unaware that Brazil has already authorized sulfoxaflor. "The problem with the bees is that a product called sulfoxaflor was used. This [toxin] is not registered in Brazil," she said. "It probably entered Brazil illegally and is being used incorrectly and thus caused the death of the bees." In fact, sulfoxaflor was authorized at the end of last year by the Temer administration, though the official decree was only issued in January of this year under the Bolsonaro government.
Sulfoxaflor is classified by Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency as "averagely toxic," but this evaluation is challenged abroad. Dow Chemical initially developed sulfoxaflor as a safer alternative to neonicotinoids, known to be harmful to bees. It was initially approved by the US EPA in 2013, a decision reversed in 2015 when studies found that sulfoxaflor was also dangerous to bees. Today sulfoxaflor can still be used in the U.S., but only in restricted circumstances.

Pesticide Deregulation in the WorksEnvironmental activist Alan Tygel believes that the rapid rise in the number of pesticide authorizations is directly linked to the growing power of the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby in Congress. This lobby, he said, made its support for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 dependent on government backing for pro-agribusiness measures. "From then on, the counterweight that came from progressive sectors, from family farming and from agroecology, was lost, and today the ruralist agenda faces fewer obstacles in its drive to have more pesticides approved and to push through more permissive laws," Tygel said. The Bolsonaro presidential campaign greatly benefited from ruralist support, and it greatly helped sweep the former Army captain and legislator to victory last October.
The next goal of the ruralist agenda — more permissive laws — may well get a major boost this year with congressional approval of PL 6299/2002, dubbed as the "poison package" by critics. The legislation, which would greatly deregulate pesticides, was endorsed by a Chamber of Deputies commission in June 2018 and it now awaits plenary debate. The Temer government justified the bill, presented to Congress by then Agriculture Minister and dedicated ruralist, Blairo Maggi, claiming that the country desperately needed to simplify the complicated process of getting new pesticides authorized in order to help farmers.
But Castro Moreira, president of the prestigious Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science, representing more than 100 scientific societies, disagreed strongly. He said at the time that the bill, "could have very serious consequences for the health of the Brazilian population and the environment … Its approval would be a backward step, because it follows the logic of mechanized agriculture, with high investments in fertilizers and pesticides, which is an outmoded way of thinking, dating from the end of the Second World War."
Current Agriculture Minister Cristina is a strong proponent of PL 6299/2002, but there is bound to be opposition to the bill's approval, though it will likely be difficult for critics to block the measure. The ruralists have never had a stronger grip on both the legislative and executive branches, and they seem determined to press their agribusiness agenda.
As President Bolsonaro ended his first 100 days in office, his popularity was slipping fast, with 30 percent of the population already assessing his administration as "very bad" and the markets believing the government is becoming unstable. However, that very perception of growing uncertainty seems to have only caused the ruralists to move forward with greater urgency. Meanwhile, conservationists and food experts continue to warn of the national and global environmental and health repercussions of Brazil's deregulated pesticide use — permissiveness likely to soon outstrip that seen among other major agricultural nations.
Reposted with permission from our media associate Mongabay.
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visit w/ trump AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about U.S.-Brazil relations, we’re joined by Maria Luísa Mendonça, the director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil, visiting scholar at City University of New York Graduate Center.Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. The significance of the meeting yesterday, Bolsonaro’s first as president, the former Army captain coming to meet with Trump, and what came out of it?MARIA LUÍSA MENDONÇA: I think that, basically, Brazil gave out many things and didn’t receive anything back. For example, Bolsonaro promised that now U.S. citizens will not need a visa to travel to Brazil anymore, and that won’t be the case for Brazilians coming to the U.S., which is a big change in foreign policy. Brazil has a history of reciprocity in its foreign policy, and independent of the government. It’s part of the Brazilian diplomacy.Also, Brazilian diplomacy has a history of resolving conflicts through a peaceful process of negotiation. And the discourse about Venezuela is very different than how Brazil has dealt with conflicts in the region historically. Venezuela is being used as an external enemy in Latin American countries as a way to help elect far-right political leaders. That was the case of Bolsonaro in Brazil and also in Colombia. And that’s very dangerous, because a war in Venezuela will have catastrophic consequences in the region.Another issue that they both talked about is looking at Venezuela as a country that needs humanitarian aid. But that doesn’t make any sense. For example, President Maduro offered to buy agricultural products from Brazil, so they don’t need aid from Brazil. Also, Venezuela is a very strategic partner for Brazil, because Brazil exports industrial products to Venezuela. So, even from a pragmatic perspective, it doesn’t make any sense not to have good relationships with Venezuela and other Latin American countries. Historically, Brazil always had good relationships with Latin American countries.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about President Bolsonaro’s family connections to militia groups in Brazil and the fact that you have a sitting president who some of his family members have been connected to groups—for instance, the killing of Marielle Franco was linked to one of those militia groups. Could you talk about that?MARIA LUÍSA MENDONÇA: Yes. Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro, who was a state legislator in Rio de Janeiro, employed the mother and the daughter of one of the heads of this militia group that is being accused of killing Marielle Franco. Also, the two suspects who were arrested in connection to the case, one of them is a neighbor of Bolsonaro. They live in a very luxurious condo in Rio. They are both neighbors, although he’s a former police officer, so how he was able to live in such an expensive condo, that’s something to be investigated. Also, one of the suspects, his daughter dated one of Bolsonaro’s sons, as well. And Bolsonaro himself appeared in a photo with one of the suspects. And he himself and his sons also have praised members of these militia groups in the past. So there are several connections that need to be investigated.AMY GOODMAN: And why would they want her dead? I mean Marielle Franco, a member of the Rio de Janeiro City Council, human rights activist, LGBTQ activist, who challenged police brutality in one of the world’s most notorious police forces.MARIA LUÍSA MENDONÇA: Well, she was one of the city councilmembers that was investigating the militia groups. They had a very long investigation, a detailed report, accusing the militia group—this militia group and other groups—of several crimes. So, I think this investigation was probably part of the problem, you know, that—the reason why people wanted her to be killed....son eduardo pal of bannon<div> headlines for white-collar crime this year have largely been grabbed by special counsel Robert Mueller, who has uncovered a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/manafort-convicted-8-counts-n901231" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">huge array of financial crimes</a> in President Donald Trump’s inner circle. But though Mueller’s revelations have shocked the American public consciousness, they were probably not the biggest financial scandals of the year.On Monday, David P. Weber, a law professor and certified fraud examiner who reviewed the <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Panama Papers</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2013/06/11/sec-settles-whistleblower-case-with-580k-payment-to-assistant-ig/?utm_term=.f9ca04663bc1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">blew the whistle</a> on investigative misconduct as an assistant inspector general for the Securities and Exchange Commission, wrote an <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/423238-the-largest-corporate-scandals-of-2018" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">op-ed</a> for The Hill outlining some of the most significant corporate scandals of 2018 — and how they prove Congress needs to ensure greater oversight of the financial system.Weber specifically points to the scandals at <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-24/how-malaysia-s-1mdb-scandal-shook-the-financial-world-quicktake" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">1Malaysia Development Berhad</a>, a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund accused of a $4.2 billion embezzlement and fraud scheme with help from legal and auditing firms and a Department of Justice lawyer; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/americas/brazil-dilma-rousseff-impeached-removed-president.html?module=inline" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Operation Car Wash</a>, the gigantic Brazilian money laundering scandal that has implicated hundreds of politicians including multiple presidents; and the ongoing <a href="https://www.riskscreen.com/kyc360/news/hsbc-expects-to-pay-1-5-billion-in-fines-over-tax-evasion-money-laundering/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">revelations</a> about how European banks involved in the Panama Papers scandal helped oligarchs and tax evaders steal money around the world.Though these scandals all occurred overseas, Weber notes, they have all in some way landed on U.S. shores by implicating American businessmen and officials.The 1MDB scandal, for instance, involved <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/malaysian-financier-low-taek-jho-also-known-jho-low-and-former-banker-ng-chong-hwa-also-known" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">three Goldman Sachs bankers</a>, resulting in criminal charges against the U.S. investment banking giant by Malaysian authorities, and according to The Wall Street Journal, a firm linked to the wife of former RNC official Elliott Broidy was allegedly <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-ally-was-in-talks-to-earn-millions-in-effort-to-end-1mdb-probe-in-u-s-1519919321" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">in talks</a> for a $75 million lobbying contract to persuade the Justice Department to back off investigating 1MDB (Broidy and his wife are not mentioned by name in any of the criminal proceedings). In the Operation Car Wash saga, meanwhile a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4501518-J-amp-F-Complaint.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">lawsuit</a> alleges that a U.S. law firm improperly held a “strategy session” with a Brazilian prosecutor.And perhaps most shockingly, in the E.U. banking scandal, <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/423238-the-largest-corporate-scandals-of-2018" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">multiple legal officials</a> with the federal government, including the former chief of top financial crimes investigation team FinCEN and the former Treasury undersecretary for counterterrorism, are now providing legal counsel to HSBC and Deutsche Bank, two institutions implicated in the scheme.“When will Congress act to curtain misconduct by professionals?” laments Weber.In general, white-collar crime has <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/why-manafort-and-cohen-thought-theyd-get-away-with-it" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">gone underinvestigated for years</a> — which is arguably why Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen and campaign chair Paul Manafort thought they could get away with bank fraud and tax evasion. But there is likely far more misconduct going on below the surface than we know. This year’s scandals reveal the need for a strong, serious enforcement regime, for the integrity of the financial system and the confidence of the public

</div><div>=</div>=<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/humanrights?src=hash" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://twitter.com/hashtag/humanrights?src=hash</a>4x/week kia<a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/photo-series-highlights-plight-environmental-rights-defenders" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/photo-series-highlights-plight-environmental-rights-defenders</a><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/2017-deadliest-year-environmental-activism-report-180722174539780.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/2017-deadliest-year-environmental-activism-report-180722174539780.html</a><h1 class="post-title" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.14; word-break: break-word; clear: both; margin-bottom: 15px !important;">2017 was deadliest year for environmental activism: report</h1>At least 207 activists were killed, with Brazil, the Philippines and Colombia named as the most dangerous countries.arly four land and environmental activists were killed each week in 2017, making it the deadliest year on record, according to a new report by <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Global Witness</a>.  In the report, <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/at-what-cost/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">published on Tuesday</a>, the UK-based watchdog said 207 people lost their lives last year in their fight against companies and governments that seize land and harm the environment.<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/regions/latin-america.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Latin America</a> was once again the most dangerous region for environmental activism, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total killings.<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/brazil.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Brazil</a> remained the country with most registered deaths, the report said.At least 57 people were killed in 2017, marking the most deaths of land and environmental defenders ever registered in one year in any country.<div class="article-also-read article-embed-tb-block article-embedded-card " style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 263px; float: right; margin: 6px 0px 15px 30px; clear: both; border-top: 3px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom: 3px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 252);"><div class="topic-label" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 0px !important;">READ MORE</div><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; word-break: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a class="article-embed-title" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/colombia-social-leaders-scared-surge-murders-180723073240153.html" style="font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.14; text-decoration-line: none !important;">Colombia's social leaders 'very scared' amid surge in murders</a></h4></div>President Michel Temer and his predecessor <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/people/dilma-rousseff.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Dilma Rousseff</a> weakened laws and institutions designed to protect environmental defenders and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/activists-decry-temer-amazon-deforestation-bill-170722042156015.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">made it easier for industries</a> to proceed with projects without consent from affected communities. Despite the country's constitution recognising the rights of indigenous people to their ancestral land, there has been a drastic decrease in demarcations. Under Rousseff, the average number shrank from 13 to three per year. There have been none since <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/brazil-senate-strips-dilma-rousseff-presidency-160831133704441.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">she was removed from office in August 2016</a>, the report found. John Knox, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, said Latin America's population and endemic corruption make it a particularly dangerous area for environmental activists."You see indigenous peoples who are still directly dependent on natural resources in forests or sometimes fisheries who are already discriminated against or marginalised," he said."When conflicts between the companies and governments that want to profit from natural resources and the people who depend upon them occur in countries or regions that have a weak rule of law, then they are much more likely to result in violence and killing," he told Al Jazeera. <div style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 252);"><div class="imagecontainer item" data-image-url="/mritems/Images/2018/7/22/e840be95d11f47889603af9b440d0910_18.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-top: 6px; float: none;"><table class="image" border="0" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; border-spacing: 0px; background-color: transparent;"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="padding: 0px 0px 8px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">
</td></tr><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><td class="caption" style="padding: 0px 0px 8px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-table; line-height: 1.5;">Of the 10 most dangerous countries, seven are in Latin America [Thom Pierce/Guardian/Global Witness/UN Environment] </td></tr></tbody></table></div></div>In <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/colombia.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Colombia</a>, at least 24 environmental activists were killed in 2017, according to the report. The 2016 <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/colombia-signs-revised-peace-deal-farc-rebels-161124163848718.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">peace agreement</a> between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/organisations/farc.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">FARC</a>) has led to a worsening situation for environmental activists as rival actors vie to fill the power vacuum in the countryside, competing for land and natural resources once controlled by the FARC, the report said. According to the country's ombudsman's office, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/colombia-social-leaders-scared-surge-murders-180723073240153.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">more than 300 rights defenders</a> - including environmental, land and human rights activists - have been killed since the beginning of 2016. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/mexico.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Mexico</a> saw the largest year on year increase in deaths, surging from three in 2016 to 15 in 2017. The attacks took place in a context of impunity, with increased violence against activists in areas where drug cartels operate, according to the report....The<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/philippines.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;"> Philippines</a> recorded the highest number of killings ever seen in an Asian country, Global Witness said. The combination of bountiful natural resources, a large indigenous population and high levels of corruption, as well as the residue of colonial-era land disputes, provide fertile ground for violence against activists in the island nation, the report said. "The Philippines has traditionally been the worst-hit country in Asia but there's a clear worsening of the situation under President [Rodrigo] Duterte," said Ben Leather, a senior campaigner at Global Witness and the author of the report."His aggressively <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/rodrigo-duterte-human-rights-160806211448623.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">anti-human rights discourse</a> and his use of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/philippines-extends-martial-law-eradicate-isil-171213054746303.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">martial law</a>, which has put the army into areas which are resource-rich, have meant that a bad situation in the Philippines has got drastically worse under his rule," Leather told Al Jazeera. <div class="infogram-embed" data-id="290d3881-8eaf-4c53-98c4-57f17ee07f08" data-type="interactive" data-title="Killings by year" data-processed="1" id="ig-5dbd06fe-1be1-a95e-a555-c1773c80f1c6" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 252); min-height: 1px;"></div>In December 2017, more than 200 people were forced to flee a village near the southern town of Lake Sebu, after the military killed eight people and wounded five others in a dispute over the expansion of a coffee plantation, according to an investigation by human rights groups. In his annual State of the Nation address on Monday, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/people/rodrigo-duterte.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Rodrigo Duterte</a>, who has come under heavy criticism over his human rights record and deadly anti-drug crackdown, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/philippines-duterte-vows-continue-chilling-war-drugs-180723180900751.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">hit back at critics</a>, claiming his tactics were justified as they were saving lives. <div class="article-also-read article-embed-tb-block article-embedded-card " style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 263px; float: right; margin: 6px 0px 15px 30px; clear: both; border-top: 3px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom: 3px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 252);"><div class="topic-label" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 0px !important;">READ MORE</div><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; word-break: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a class="article-embed-title" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/intimidation-murder-brazilians-fight-unequal-land-ownership-180725032455226.html" style="font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.14; text-decoration-line: none !important;">Intimidation and murder: Brazilians fight unequal land ownership</a></h4></div>"Your concern is human rights, mine is human lives," he said.<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 10px; word-break: break-word; width: 710px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 252);">Culture of impunity </h2>According to Global Witness, violence against activists is made possible due to impunity and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/issues/corruption.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">corruption</a>.The report states that 92 percent of those responsible for these killings are never brought to justice. Global Witness also found that that seven "massacres" - which it defines as any incident in which more than four people were killed at the same time - took place in 2017, more than ever before. <div class="article-opinion-bodySideBlock article-embed-tb-block article-embedded-card" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 263px; float: right; margin: 6px 0px 15px 30px; clear: both; border-top: 3px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom: 3px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 252);"><a class="topic-label" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; display: block; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 0px !important;">OPINION</a><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><img src="https://www.aljazeera.com/assets/images/quote.png" alt="" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%; width: 18px; height: 15px; margin: -4px 3px 0px 0px;" /><a class="article-embed-title" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/06/criminalising-standing-rock-environmental-activism-170619090436488.html" style="font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.14; text-decoration-line: none !important;">Criminalising Standing Rock</a></h4><div class="article-bodySideBlockOpinion-author-wrap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 10px;"><div class="article-bodySideBlockOpinion-author-img" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/profile/frank-barat.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/profilemed/mritems/Images/2011/9/7/201197114040832580_8.png" alt="Frank Barat" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: middle; display: block; max-width: 100%; height: 30px; border-radius: 100%; width: 30px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s; float: left;" /></a></div><div class="article-bodySideBlockOpinion-author-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin: 4px 0px 0px 10px; line-height: initial !important;">by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/profile/frank-barat.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer;">Frank Barat</a></div></div></div>"The fact that very few of the cases of past killings of defenders have ever been prosecuted gives would-be perpetrators the green light to attack without consequence, leading to increasingly flagrant attacks and massacres," Leather said. "In many cases, governments and corrupt officials within them are colluding with big business to impose development projects and other business ventures onto communities without their consent."So, when those communities take a stand, both the interests of the business and the corrupt officials are threatened, which means there's less of an incentive for those governments to bring the killers to justice," he told Al Jazeera. 
...<div class="moveable_w" data-element-id="chart_162710376" data-object-id="44dcb5a0-b3d4-4536-84da-b8aed3cf421a" data-object-type="chart" data-content-type="23" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; margin-left: 0px;"><div class="moveable chart ig-theme-group-text" id="chart_162710376" style="direction: ltr; outline: 0px; position: relative; top: 0px; left: 0px; margin-bottom: 30px !important;"><div id="Chart_162710376" class="inner notranslate" style="line-height: normal;"><div class="igc-root" role="tabpanel" style="line-height: normal;"><div class="igc-textual-entry" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal;"><div class="igc-textual-text innertext" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="igc-textual-figure" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: initial; zoom: 1;">207</div><div class="igc-textual-fact" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 10px; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Environmental and land activists killed in 2017</div></div></div><div class="igc-textual-entry" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; margin-top: 20px;"><div class="igc-textual-icon" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); padding-right: 20px; float: left; padding-top: 8px; text-align: center; line-height: normal;"><svg width="50" height="50" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 29 32" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" /><path class="igc-textual-path" fill="#8fcbea" 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/></div><div class="igc-textual-text innertext" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="igc-textual-figure" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: initial; zoom: 1;">60%</div><div class="igc-textual-fact" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 10px; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Of those killed were in Latin America</div></div></div><div class="igc-textual-entry" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; margin-top: 20px;"><div class="igc-textual-icon" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); padding-right: 20px; float: left; padding-top: 8px; text-align: center; line-height: normal;"><svg width="50" height="50" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 29 33" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" /><path class="igc-textual-path" fill="#41a1a2" transform="translate(0, 0)" d="M28.961,14.48C28.961,6.496,22.465,0,14.48,0C6.496,0,0,6.496,0,14.48C0,14.48,0,20.559,0,20.559C0,23.516,2.406,25.922,5.363,25.922C6.595,25.922,7.598,26.924,7.598,28.157C7.598,28.157,7.598,31.196,7.598,31.196C7.598,31.64,7.958,32,8.402,32C8.402,32,20.558,32,20.558,32C21.003,32,21.363,31.64,21.363,31.196C21.363,31.196,21.363,28.157,21.363,28.157C21.363,26.924,22.365,25.922,23.598,25.922C26.555,25.922,28.961,23.516,28.961,20.558C28.961,20.558,28.961,14.48,28.961,14.48C28.961,14.48,28.961,14.48,28.961,14.48M23.598,24.313C21.479,24.313,19.754,26.038,19.754,28.157C19.754,28.157,19.754,30.391,19.754,30.391C19.754,30.391,18.324,30.391,18.324,30.391C18.324,30.391,18.324,28.157,18.324,28.157C18.324,27.713,17.964,27.353,17.519,27.353C17.075,27.353,16.715,27.713,16.715,28.157C16.715,28.157,16.715,30.391,16.715,30.391C16.715,30.391,15.284,30.391,15.284,30.391C15.284,30.391,15.284,28.157,15.284,28.157C15.284,27.713,14.924,27.353,14.48,27.353C14.036,27.353,13.676,27.713,13.676,28.157C13.676,28.157,13.676,30.391,13.676,30.391C13.676,30.391,12.245,30.391,12.245,30.391C12.245,30.391,12.245,28.157,12.245,28.157C12.245,27.713,11.885,27.353,11.441,27.353C10.997,27.353,10.637,27.713,10.637,28.157C10.637,28.157,10.637,30.391,10.637,30.391C10.637,30.391,9.206,30.391,9.206,30.391C9.206,30.391,9.206,28.157,9.206,28.157C9.206,26.038,7.482,24.313,5.363,24.313C3.292,24.313,1.608,22.629,1.608,20.559C1.608,20.559,1.608,14.48,1.608,14.48C1.608,7.382,7.382,1.608,14.48,1.608C21.578,1.608,27.352,7.382,27.352,14.48C27.352,14.48,27.353,20.558,27.353,20.558C27.353,22.629,25.668,24.313,23.598,24.313C23.598,24.313,23.598,24.313,23.598,24.313M15.243,19.851C15.134,19.523,14.827,19.301,14.481,19.301C14.135,19.301,13.827,19.522,13.718,19.851C13.718,19.851,12.198,24.41,12.198,24.41C12.116,24.655,12.157,24.924,12.308,25.134C12.46,25.344,12.702,25.468,12.961,25.468C12.961,25.468,16,25.468,16,25.468C16.259,25.468,16.501,25.344,16.652,25.134C16.804,24.925,16.844,24.655,16.763,24.41C16.763,24.41,15.243,19.851,15.243,19.851C15.243,19.851,15.243,19.851,15.243,19.851M7.948,13.835C5.829,13.835,4.105,15.559,4.105,17.679C4.105,19.798,5.829,21.522,7.948,21.522C10.068,21.522,11.792,19.798,11.792,17.679C11.792,15.559,10.068,13.835,7.948,13.835C7.948,13.835,7.948,13.835,7.948,13.835M21.012,13.835C18.893,13.835,17.169,15.559,17.169,17.679C17.169,19.798,18.893,21.522,21.012,21.522C23.132,21.522,24.856,19.798,24.856,17.679C24.856,15.559,23.132,13.835,21.012,13.835C21.012,13.835,21.012,13.835,21.012,13.835" /></div><div class="igc-textual-text innertext" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="igc-textual-figure" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: initial; zoom: 1;">115</div><div class="igc-textual-fact" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 10px; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Killings linked to government security forces</div></div></div><div class="igc-textual-entry" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; margin-top: 20px;"><div class="igc-textual-icon" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); padding-right: 20px; float: left; padding-top: 8px; text-align: center; line-height: normal;"><svg width="50" height="50" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 19 32" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" /><path class="igc-textual-path" fill="#69c8c9" transform="translate(0, 0)" d="M5.81,18.335C6.093,19.103,5.875,14.966,5.398,13.64C4.921,12.315,4.323,10.909,5.713,9.762C7.103,8.614,5.964,6.424,5.964,6.424C5.964,6.424,5.616,5.899,5.616,5.899C5.616,5.899,2.958,5.503,3.297,7.507C3.636,9.511,2.634,10.828,2.489,11.79C2.352,12.655,2.465,13.64,3.434,14.545C4.533,15.58,5.689,18.012,5.81,18.335C5.81,18.335,5.81,18.335,5.81,18.335M1.131,14.077C1.131,14.077,-1.842,18.166,2.44,19.16C2.44,19.16,3.305,15.119,3.305,15.119C3.305,15.119,1.131,14.077,1.131,14.077C1.131,14.077,1.131,14.077,1.131,14.077M17.834,14.077C17.834,14.077,20.808,18.166,16.525,19.16C16.525,19.16,15.661,15.119,15.661,15.119C15.661,15.119,17.834,14.077,17.834,14.077C17.834,14.077,17.834,14.077,17.834,14.077M1.98,13.099C1.98,13.099,2.271,12.784,2.271,12.784C2.23,12.461,2.238,12.121,2.295,11.766C2.327,11.547,2.4,11.313,2.497,11.063C2.497,11.063,1.834,10.796,1.834,10.796C1.834,10.796,0.8,12.097,0.8,12.097C0.8,12.097,1.147,11.782,1.147,11.782C1.147,11.782,1.01,12.59,1.01,12.59C1.01,12.59,1.632,12.032,1.632,12.032C1.632,12.032,1.495,12.84,1.495,12.84C1.495,12.84,2.149,12.299,2.149,12.299C2.149,12.299,1.98,13.099,1.98,13.099C1.98,13.099,1.98,13.099,1.98,13.099M18.933,13.091C18.933,13.091,18.457,12.485,18.457,12.485C18.457,12.485,14.958,14.319,14.958,14.319C14.958,14.319,14.796,13.519,14.796,13.519C14.796,13.519,15.313,14.077,15.313,14.077C15.313,14.077,15.16,13.325,15.16,13.325C15.16,13.325,15.741,13.875,15.741,13.875C15.741,13.875,15.604,13.091,15.604,13.091C15.604,13.091,16.218,13.624,16.218,13.624C16.218,13.624,16.048,12.865,16.048,12.865C16.048,12.865,16.582,13.422,16.582,13.422C16.582,13.422,16.469,12.646,16.469,12.646C16.469,12.646,16.978,13.196,16.978,13.196C16.978,13.196,16.857,12.444,16.857,12.444C16.857,12.444,17.503,12.937,17.503,12.937C17.503,12.937,17.374,12.178,17.374,12.178C17.374,12.178,17.972,12.711,17.972,12.711C17.972,12.711,17.859,11.927,17.859,11.927C17.859,11.927,18.392,12.412,18.392,12.412C18.392,12.412,16.962,10.699,16.962,10.699C16.962,10.699,12.525,12.541,12.525,12.541C12.525,12.541,11.046,8.8,11.046,8.8C11.046,8.8,8.057,8.8,8.057,8.8C8.057,8.8,6.659,12.509,6.659,12.509C6.659,12.509,5.01,11.798,5.01,11.798C5.099,12.21,5.349,12.945,5.511,13.382C5.535,13.446,5.56,13.511,5.584,13.576C5.859,14.327,6.004,15.782,6.053,16.372C6.093,16.873,6.125,17.366,6.125,17.745C6.133,18.4,6.077,18.481,6.044,18.529C6.004,18.586,5.939,18.618,5.875,18.618C5.875,18.618,5.875,18.618,5.875,18.618C5.721,18.618,5.657,18.457,5.64,18.4C5.527,18.093,4.606,16.162,3.653,15.038C3.653,15.038,2.497,20.347,2.497,20.347C2.497,20.347,16.485,20.347,16.485,20.347C16.485,20.347,15.305,14.99,15.305,14.99C15.305,14.99,18.933,13.091,18.933,13.091C18.933,13.091,18.933,13.091,18.933,13.091M3.297,14.683C2.853,14.271,2.554,13.818,2.392,13.317C2.392,13.317,2.392,13.317,2.392,13.317C2.392,13.317,1.98,13.099,1.98,13.099C1.98,13.099,1.487,12.84,1.487,12.84C1.487,12.84,0.582,12.364,0.582,12.364C0.582,12.364,0,13.099,0,13.099C0,13.099,3.556,14.949,3.556,14.949C3.467,14.844,3.386,14.764,3.297,14.683C3.297,14.683,3.297,14.683,3.297,14.683M2.392,13.309C2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309C2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309C2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309C2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309,2.392,13.309M3.046,9.261C3.046,9.261,2.238,10.287,2.238,10.287C2.238,10.287,2.691,10.473,2.691,10.473C2.828,10.101,2.966,9.705,3.046,9.261C3.046,9.261,3.046,9.261,3.046,9.261M6.505,8.8C6.4,9.212,6.182,9.608,5.81,9.915C5.253,10.376,5.034,10.877,5.018,11.402C5.018,11.402,6.465,11.984,6.465,11.984C6.465,11.984,7.677,8.8,7.677,8.8C7.677,8.8,6.505,8.8,6.505,8.8C6.505,8.8,6.505,8.8,6.505,8.8M6.707,32C6.707,32,6.707,32,6.707,32C6.416,32,4.752,31.758,4.752,31.467C4.752,31.467,4.752,30.182,4.752,30.182C4.752,29.891,4.994,29.648,5.285,29.648C5.285,29.648,8.137,29.648,8.137,29.648C8.428,29.648,8.671,29.891,8.671,30.182C8.671,30.182,8.671,31.467,8.671,31.467C8.671,31.766,6.998,32,6.707,32C6.707,32,6.707,32,6.707,32M11.749,32C11.749,32,11.749,32,11.749,32C11.459,32,9.794,31.758,9.794,31.467C9.794,31.467,9.794,30.182,9.794,30.182C9.794,29.891,10.036,29.648,10.327,29.648C10.327,29.648,13.18,29.648,13.18,29.648C13.471,29.648,13.713,29.891,13.713,30.182C13.713,30.182,13.713,31.467,13.713,31.467C13.705,31.766,12.04,32,11.749,32C11.749,32,11.749,32,11.749,32M10.4,0.76C10.4,0.76,10.473,0.687,10.473,0.687C10.473,0.687,10.554,0.752,10.554,0.752C10.57,0.768,12,1.891,13.18,2.497C12.59,1.034,11.16,0,9.487,0C7.612,0,6.044,1.293,5.632,3.038C6.731,2.723,9.301,1.875,10.4,0.76C10.4,0.76,10.4,0.76,10.4,0.76M10.489,0.986C9.269,2.158,6.61,2.998,5.584,3.289C5.543,3.507,5.527,3.733,5.527,3.968C5.527,6.158,7.305,7.935,9.495,7.935C11.685,7.935,13.463,6.158,13.463,3.968C13.463,3.564,13.398,3.168,13.285,2.796C12.178,2.271,10.828,1.244,10.489,0.986C10.489,0.986,10.489,0.986,10.489,0.986M12.679,11.984C12.679,11.984,16.752,10.343,16.752,10.343C16.752,10.343,15.515,8.8,15.515,8.8C15.515,8.8,11.467,8.8,11.467,8.8C11.467,8.8,12.679,11.984,12.679,11.984M2.368,20.929C2.368,20.929,2.214,21.616,2.214,21.616C2.214,21.616,2.424,22.255,2.424,22.255C2.424,22.255,2.804,21.236,2.804,21.236C2.804,21.236,3.135,22.255,3.135,22.255C3.135,22.255,3.572,21.236,3.572,21.236C3.572,21.236,3.863,22.255,3.863,22.255C3.863,22.255,4.137,21.236,4.137,21.236C4.137,21.236,4.469,22.255,4.469,22.255C4.469,22.255,4.76,21.236,4.76,21.236C4.76,21.236,5.042,22.255,5.042,22.255C5.042,22.255,5.422,21.236,5.422,21.236C5.422,21.236,5.754,22.255,5.754,22.255C5.754,22.255,6.077,21.236,6.077,21.236C6.077,21.236,6.36,22.255,6.36,22.255C6.36,22.255,6.618,21.236,6.618,21.236C6.618,21.236,6.909,22.255,6.909,22.255C6.909,22.255,7.289,21.236,7.289,21.236C7.289,21.236,7.62,22.255,7.62,22.255C7.62,22.255,8,21.236,8,21.236C8,21.236,8.331,22.255,8.331,22.255C8.331,22.255,8.76,21.236,8.76,21.236C8.76,21.236,9.059,22.255,9.059,22.255C9.059,22.255,9.333,21.236,9.333,21.236C9.333,21.236,9.665,22.255,9.665,22.255C9.665,22.255,9.956,21.236,9.956,21.236C9.956,21.236,10.238,22.255,10.238,22.255C10.238,22.255,10.618,21.236,10.618,21.236C10.618,21.236,10.941,22.255,10.941,22.255C10.941,22.255,11.273,21.236,11.273,21.236C11.273,21.236,11.547,22.255,11.547,22.255C11.547,22.255,11.814,21.236,11.814,21.236C11.814,21.236,12.105,22.255,12.105,22.255C12.105,22.255,12.477,21.236,12.477,21.236C12.477,21.236,12.816,22.255,12.816,22.255C12.816,22.255,13.196,21.236,13.196,21.236C13.196,21.236,13.527,22.255,13.527,22.255C13.527,22.255,13.956,21.236,13.956,21.236C13.956,21.236,14.255,22.255,14.255,22.255C14.255,22.255,14.529,21.236,14.529,21.236C14.529,21.236,14.861,22.255,14.861,22.255C14.861,22.255,15.152,21.236,15.152,21.236C15.152,21.236,15.426,22.255,15.426,22.255C15.426,22.255,15.814,21.236,15.814,21.236C15.814,21.236,16.137,22.255,16.137,22.255C16.137,22.255,16.469,21.236,16.469,21.236C16.469,21.236,16.743,22.255,16.743,22.255C16.743,22.255,16.824,21.939,16.824,21.939C16.824,21.939,16.598,20.929,16.598,20.929C16.598,20.929,2.368,20.929,2.368,20.929M17.051,22.958C17.051,22.958,16.897,22.255,16.897,22.255C16.897,22.255,16.743,22.255,16.743,22.255C16.743,22.255,16.137,22.255,16.137,22.255C16.137,22.255,15.426,22.255,15.426,22.255C15.426,22.255,14.861,22.255,14.861,22.255C14.861,22.255,14.255,22.255,14.255,22.255C14.255,22.255,13.527,22.255,13.527,22.255C13.527,22.255,12.816,22.255,12.816,22.255C12.816,22.255,12.105,22.255,12.105,22.255C12.105,22.255,11.547,22.255,11.547,22.255C11.547,22.255,10.941,22.255,10.941,22.255C10.941,22.255,10.238,22.255,10.238,22.255C10.238,22.255,9.665,22.255,9.665,22.255C9.665,22.255,9.059,22.255,9.059,22.255C9.059,22.255,8.331,22.255,8.331,22.255C8.331,22.255,7.62,22.255,7.62,22.255C7.62,22.255,6.909,22.255,6.909,22.255C6.909,22.255,6.36,22.255,6.36,22.255C6.36,22.255,5.754,22.255,5.754,22.255C5.754,22.255,5.042,22.255,5.042,22.255C5.042,22.255,4.469,22.255,4.469,22.255C4.469,22.255,3.863,22.255,3.863,22.255C3.863,22.255,3.135,22.255,3.135,22.255C3.135,22.255,2.424,22.255,2.424,22.255C2.424,22.255,2.077,22.255,2.077,22.255C2.077,22.255,1.923,22.958,1.923,22.958C1.923,22.958,17.051,22.958,17.051,22.958M1.802,23.531C1.802,23.531,0.541,29.317,0.541,29.317C0.541,29.317,18.448,29.317,18.448,29.317C18.448,29.317,17.172,23.531,17.172,23.531C17.172,23.531,1.802,23.531,1.802,23.531" /></div><div class="igc-textual-text innertext" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="igc-textual-figure" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: initial; zoom: 1;">25%</div><div class="igc-textual-fact" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 10px; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Of those killed were from indigenous groups</div></div></div><div class="igc-textual-entry" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; margin-top: 20px;"><div class="igc-textual-icon" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); padding-right: 20px; float: left; padding-top: 8px; text-align: center; line-height: normal;"><svg width="50" height="37.5" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 32 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" /><path class="igc-textual-path" fill="#0098cc" transform="translate(0, 0)" 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/></div><div class="igc-textual-text innertext" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="igc-textual-figure" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: initial; zoom: 1;">46</div><div class="igc-textual-fact" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 10px; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Killings linked to agribusiness</div></div></div><div class="igc-textual-entry" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; margin-top: 20px;"><div class="igc-textual-icon" 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/></div><div class="igc-textual-text innertext" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="igc-textual-figure" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: initial; zoom: 1;">57</div><div class="igc-textual-fact" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 10px; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Activists killed in Brazil, the worst year on record for any country</div></div></div><div class="igc-textual-entry" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; margin-top: 20px;"><div class="igc-textual-icon" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); padding-right: 20px; float: left; padding-top: 8px; text-align: center; line-height: normal;"><svg width="50" height="45.3125" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 32 29" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" /><path class="igc-textual-path" fill="#006699" transform="translate(0, 0)" 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/></div><div class="igc-textual-text innertext" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); overflow: hidden; line-height: normal; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="igc-textual-figure" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: initial; zoom: 1;">92%</div><div class="igc-textual-fact" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 10px; letter-spacing: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Of killings went unpunished</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="moveable_w" data-element-id="particle_601a4223-7d6d-41f7-a81d-05fec4b6e12c" data-object-id="601a4223-7d6d-41f7-a81d-05fec4b6e12c" data-object-type="particle" data-content-type="captiontext" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; margin-left: 0px;"><div class="moveable particle caption-text ig-theme-group-text" id="particle_601a4223-7d6d-41f7-a81d-05fec4b6e12c" style="outline: 0px; position: relative; top: 0px; left: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px !important;"><div class="captiontext"><div class="innertext" data-placeholder="" style="line-height: 1.5; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Source: Global Witness</div></div></div></div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/world/bolsonaro-brazil-slayer-amazon">https://www.alternet.org/world/bolsonaro-brazil-slayer-amazon</a>judge who jailed lula promoted<h2 class="no_coverage" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/heres-why-roger-waters-using-his-tour-urge-voters-oppose-far-right-brazilian" style="text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; line-height: 26px; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: right;">Roger Waters Is Using His Tour to Urge Voters to Oppose Far-Right Brazilian Presidential Candidate Jair Bolsonaro</a></h2><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" text-align="text-align" center="center" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li class="hidden-xs" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/10/11/headlines/brazil_protesters_take_to_streets_to_denounce_right_wing_candidate_jair_bolsonaro" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;">Brazil: Protesters Take to Streets to Denounce Right-Wing Candidate Jair Bolsonaro</a></li></ul><div>=</div><div>lost mod rt, went hard right</div><div>
</div><div>soft coup, hollow out norms and institutions?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/20/dilma_rousseff_lulas_imprisonment_is_part">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/20/dilma_rousseff_lulas_imprisonment_is_part</a></div><div>
</div><div><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; padding-top: 30px !important;">And what has happened? The coup mongers today do not have any political expression. They were condemned by the population. And so they don’t have a relevant situation for the upcoming elections in 2018. What they have done, actually, is to open up a Pandora’s box, a box of the monsters. And they took out of this box the extreme right, which today is represented by president candidate Captain Jair Bolsonaro, who on the day that my impeachment was voted on in the Lower House, he voted in favor of torture and a military dictatorship.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;">So what is the situation in Brazil? There is a strengthened far right, and the center right, in going along with the coup, has dissolved itself and has a minimal political expression today. They were our greatest adversaries in the last four presidential elections. Today, they’re no longer politically significant, because not only did they help carry out the coup, but they were also discovered to be involved in situations of corruption. The Workers’ Party and President Lula were to be destroyed. But they weren’t. President Lula, from the beginning of last year, in every opinion poll, has twice as many votes as the candidate Captain Jair Bolsonaro. Lula has more than 30 percent, and Bolsonaro has less than 16 percent support. And there is not a center. The center gets 5 percent, 4 percent, sometimes 6 percent, of the support in the polls.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;">So why have they convicted Lula? The political reason is because if a coup d’état is carried out, if a president who is legitimately elected is removed, if a set of illegalities are carried out, including the coup, one cannot not allow the election of Lula to be closed off. So what do they do? They removed Lula from the presidential campaign, accusing Lula, falsely, of having committed a crime of corruption.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;">What is the crime of which they accuse Lula? They accuse Lula of committing a crime of passive corruption, which entails a 280-square-meter apartment or a home with three floors. They say that he committed a crime in order to receive that house. Now, Lula is not the owner of that house. He does not have possession of the house. He doesn’t use the house. He has never been in that house....</blockquote></div><div>
</div><div>lgbt assasination?</div><div>=</div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/slave-labor-starbucks-certified-brazil-coffee-plantation-2606260085.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Investigators Find Slave Labor on Starbucks-Certified Brazil Coffee Plantation</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2606260085" data-authors="Mongabay" data-headline="Investigators Find Slave Labor on Starbucks-Certified Brazil Coffee Plantation" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief">By Daniela Penha and Roberto Cataldo, TranslatorThis story was produced via a co-publishing partnership between Mongabay and Repórter Brasil and can be read in Portuguese <a href="http://reporterbrasil.org.br/2018/08/fazenda-de-cafe-certificada-pela-starbucks-e-flagrada-com-trabalho-escravo/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">here</a>.
At first sight, the Córrego das Almas farm in Piumhi, in rural Minas Gerais state, seems to be a model property. "No slave or forced labor is allowed," reads one of several signs that display international certifications—including one linked to the U.S. based company Starbucks corporation.</div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms ease 0s; height: 0px; overflow: hidden; opacity: 0;"><div class="widgetshow-more with-primary-color js-keep-reading js-page-view-and-reload-embeds" style="cursor: pointer; border-radius: 15px; float: left; padding: 7px; font-weight: 600; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 240);">Keep reading...</div></div></div>

</div><div></div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/animal-abuse-worlds-largest-meat-company-2604025784.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Investigation Exposes Animal Abuse at U.S. Supplier to World's Largest Meat Company</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2604025784" data-authors="Truthout" data-headline="Investigation Exposes Animal Abuse at U.S. Supplier to World's Largest Meat Company" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widget__brief">By Reynard LokiWarning: This article contains graphic descriptions and images of animal abuse.In September of last year, two executives of JBS, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazils-jbs-says-legal-issues-may-delay-ipo-of-international-unit-1494953638" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">world's largest meat producer</a>, based in Brazil, were arrested and <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/09/14/jbs-batista-brazil-temer-corruption-insider-trading/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">charged with insider trading</a>. In May 2017, the billionaire siblings—Wesley Batista, JBS's CEO, and his younger brother Joesley, the firm's former chairman—admitted to bribing more than 1,800 politicians and government officials, including meat inspectors, in an effort to avoid food safety checks....</div></div></div></div><div>=<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazilian-judge-orders-glyphosate-suspension-2593579666.htm">https://www.ecowatch.com/brazilian-judge-orders-glyphosate-suspension-2593579666.html</a><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">Federal Judge Bans Use of Glyphosate in Brazil</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2593579666" data-authors="Lorraine Chow" data-headline="Federal Judge Bans Use of Glyphosate in Brazil" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description">A federal judge in Brazil ordered the suspension of products containing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glyphosate" style="text-decoration-line: none;">glyphosate</a> until the government re-evaluates the chemical's toxicology, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/07/reuters-america-update-1-brazil-judge-suspends-use-of-agrochemical-glyphosate.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Reuters</a> reported Monday, citing legal papers.The decision prohibits the registration of new products containing the herbicide and suspends existing registrations within the next 30 days, the report said.The ruling affects <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/monsanto" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Monsanto</a>, the maker of glyphosate-based weedkillers such as Roundup and "Roundup Ready" seeds that are genetically modified to resist the chemical. Brazil happens to be the world's largest soybean producer and exporter and plants Monsanto's herbicide-tolerant soybeans on a wide scale, Reuters noted."I think the judge is wrong and that the decision will be revoked somehow," Director Luiz Lourenço of agribusiness industry association Abag told the news service. "It is impossible to do agriculture without these products."Glyphosate is the world's most popular herbicide and has been at the center of controversy since 2015, when the chemical was classified as a "probable human carcinogen" by the <a href="http://www.who.int/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">World Health Organization'</a>s <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a>.In the U.S., Monsanto is facing roughly 4,000 lawsuits from plaintiffs claiming that exposure to the herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The lawsuits also allege that the company <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-papers-2467891575.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">suppressed</a> scientific evidence related to the health risks of its weedkillers.Monsanto, which was recently purchased by German pharmaceuticals giant Bayer for $62.5 billion, has adamantly defended the safety of its products.In a statement given to Reuters, Monsanto said that glyphosate has been used for four decades in Brazil and that reviews worldwide have concluded the herbicide can be used safely. It also respects the procedures used by Anvisa, Brazil's national health authority, to ensure the chemical's safe use, the statement added...</div></div>
</div><div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/7/headlines/brazils_workers_party_nominates_lula_as_presidential_candidate">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/7/headlines/brazils_workers_party_nominates_lula_as_presidential_candidate</a></div><div>
</div><div></div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/6/brazils_popular_ex_president_lula_ordered">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/6/brazils_popular_ex_president_lula_ordered</a></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/6/brazils_popular_ex_president_lula_ordered">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/6/brazils_popular_ex_president_lula_ordered</a></div><div>
</div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/19/exclusive_brazilian_presidential_candidate_lula_on">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/19/exclusive_brazilian_presidential_candidate_lula_on</a>cont<div class="story_summary" style="box-sizing: border-box;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><div class="text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 27px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"> conversation with former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the highly popular former union leader who is running for president in this year’s election even as he is facing a possible prison term on what many believe to be trumped-up corruption charges tied to the sprawling probe known as “Operation Car Wash.” Lula was convicted of accepting a beachside apartment from an engineering firm vying for contracts at the state oil company Petrobras. But many of Lula’s supporters say the conviction was politically motivated. President Lula responds to the charges against him. “We’re awaiting for the accusers to show at least some piece of evidence that indicates that I committed any crime,” he notes.</div><hr class="hidden-xs" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 1px; margin: 40px 0px; border: none; clear: both; background: rgb(236, 238, 239);" /></div><div class="mobile_anchor_target" id="transcript" style="box-sizing: border-box;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><h5 class="transcript" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; line-height: 1;">Transcript</h5><div class="grey_description fine_print" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-style: italic; line-height: 19px;">This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.</div><div class="text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 27px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;">AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, as we continue our exclusive, a conversation with Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula. The highly popular former union leader is running for president in this year’s election but is facing a possible prison term on what many believe to be trumped-up corruption charges tied to a sprawling probe known as “Operation Car Wash.” Lula was convicted of accepting a beachside apartment from an engineering firm vying for contracts at the state oil company Petrobras, but many of Lula’s supporters say the conviction was politically motivated.The Intercept recently <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/01/24/lula-brazil-corruption-conviction-car-wash/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border: 0px;">reported</a>, quote, “The indictment against Lula is rife with problems. The apartment’s title was never transferred to Lula or his associates; he and his wife never used the property; the prosecution could not identify an explicit quid pro quo or benefit related to Petrobras; no official or internal documentation linking Lula to the apartment was produced; and the case rests almost entirely on the testimony of the executive who hoped to gain sentencing leniency for his cooperation,” unquote.During the interview on Friday, President Lula responded to the charges and conviction against him.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243);">LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA: [translated] I was not accused of corruption. I was accused because of a lie in a police investigation, a lie in an indictment by the Office of the Attorney General, and in the judgment of Judge Moro, because there is only one evidence, of my innocence, in this entire trial, which my defense counsel explained in a magisterial manner. We are awaiting the accusers, for the accusers to show at least some piece of evidence that indicates that I committed any crime during the period that I was in the presidency.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">Now, what is behind that is the attempt to criminalize my political party. What is behind that is the interest in a part of the political elite in Brazil, together with a part of the press, reinforced by the role of the judiciary, in preventing Lula from becoming a candidate in the 2018 elections. And I continue challenging the federal police, the Office of the Attorney General. I continue challenging Judge Moro and the appellate court to show the world and to show Brazil a single piece of evidence of a crime committed by me. The behavior of the judiciary in this instance is a political form of behavior.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">AMY GOODMAN: Mr. President, last year, the ousted President Dilma Rousseff said, “The first chapter of the coup was my impeachment. But there’s a second chapter, and that is stopping President Lula from becoming a candidate for next year’s elections.” Do you see it the same way, that this is the final chapter of the coup, if your conviction is upheld, that you will be prevented from running in the October elections?</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA: [translated] Amy, the Workers’ Party, in 12 years in the government, at the helm of the government in Brazil, was able to do many things that had never been done at any time in the 20th century. In this country, in 12 years, we brought 40 million people into the middle class. We drew 36 million people out of poverty. While Europe was shedding 62 million jobs as of the 2000 date, we created 20 million jobs in the formal sector in this country. For 12 years, all Brazilian workers were able to overcome inflation. It was the time of the greatest economic growth in the history of Brazil. It was the most distribution of income in the history of Brazil. To give you an idea, in 12 years, 70 million people began to use the banking system who had never walked into a bank.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">And when they got rid of Dilma, they did want Lula to come back, because they know that the relationship between the Brazilian people and President Lula was the strongest relationship that the people of Brazil had ever had with a president in the entire history of the country. And even more important, they know I am absolutely certain that the best way to ensure economic recovery in Brazil is to lift up the working people of this country. They know that I know how to do that. Now that the poor people had jobs, had a salary, were studying, were eating better, were living—had better housing, when that happens, the economy grows again, and we can become the most optimistic country in the world and the happiest people in the world. And, Amy, that is why I want to be candidate for the presidency of Brazil, to show that a mechanic who doesn’t have a university degree knows better how to take care of the Brazilian people than the Brazilian elite, who never looked after the welfare of the Brazilian people.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">AMY GOODMAN: President Lula, why did you decide to run for president again?</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA: [translated] The truth is, I have still not decided, Amy. The ones who are deciding are the Brazilian people. Look, all of the public opinion polls in Brazil, month after month—and there are several of them—in all of them, I’m in first place. And so, I’m beginning to be the candidate who has the lowest negatives and the possibility of becoming a candidate and winning on the first round, and this is making my adversaries very uncomfortable. And I am sure, Amy, that at the Supreme Court I will be acquitted and that I will be candidate, and Brazil could once again be a protagonist in international policy, the economy could grow again, create jobs and improve the quality of life of the people. This is something I know how to do very well.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">AMY GOODMAN: If the case does not go well for you in the Supreme Court, would you consider stepping aside?</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA: [translated] First of all, Amy, I’m very optimistic, very optimistic. Now, if that were to happen and I was not able—were not able to be a candidate, if my name is not on the ballot, I think that the party would call a convention and discuss what to do. I am going to require that and call for justice to be done in the country.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); padding-top: 30px !important;">Now, if my innocence is proven, then Judge Moro should be removed from his position, because you can’t have a judge who is lying in the judgment and pronouncing as guilty someone who he knows is innocent. He knows that it’s not my apartment. He knows that I didn’t buy it. He knows that I didn’t pay anything. He knows that I never went there. He knows that I don’t have money from Petrobras. The thing is that because he subordinated himself to the media, I said, in the first hearing with him, “You are not in a position to acquit me, because the lies have gone too far.” And the disgrace is that the one who does the first lie continues lying and lying and lying to justify the first lie. And I am going to prove that he has been lying.</blockquote></div></div><a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2013/0307/Chavez-vs-Lula-Two-distinct-approaches-to-poverty-reduction-in-Latin-America">https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2013/0307/Chavez-vs-Lula-Two-distinct-approaches-to-poverty-reduction-in-Latin-America</a><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 1.5em 0px 1.8em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">— For those with merely a passing interest in Latin American politics, just 10 years ago it was easy to see <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Brazil" target="self" class="inform_link" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: none;">Brazil</a> and <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Venezuela" target="self" class="inform_link" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: none;">Venezuela</a> as identical tropical states with charismatic presidents leading their countries toward socialism.<p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 1.8em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The reality, however, is much different, and goes way beyond the rivalries of Portuguese vs. Spanish, samba vs. salsa, or soccer vs. baseball.<p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 1.8em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Both <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Hugo+Chavez" target="self" class="inform_link" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: none;">Hugo Chávez</a> in Venezuela and <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Luiz+Inacio+Lula+da+Silva" target="self" class="inform_link" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: none;">Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva</a> in Brazil dramatically reshaped their societies, reducing inequality to its lowest level in decades. But to many observers, the differences in their approach may have long-lasting implications: While Chávez boosted the poor at the expense of the economy and the country’s democratic institutions, they argue, Lula took a more moderate and potentially sustainable route.<p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 1.8em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">...https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/16/health/brazil-obesity-nestle.htmlinequality<a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/03/19/just-as-u-s-media-does-with-mlk-brazils-media-now-trying-to-whitewash-and-exploit-marielle-francos-political-radicalism/">https://theintercept.com/2018/03/19/just-as-u-s-media-does-with-mlk-brazils-media-now-trying-to-whitewash-and-exploit-marielle-francos-political-radicalism/</a>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/global-firms-accused-importing-timber-linked-amazon-massacre">https://www.alternet.org/environment/global-firms-accused-importing-timber-linked-amazon-massacre</a>
=<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/11/lee_fang_on_how_a_little">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/11/lee_fang_on_how_a_little</a>
A new investigation published by The Intercept exposes how a libertarian think tank called the Atlas Network is remaking Latin American politics with the help of powerful conservative institutions and funders in the United States, some of whom you may recognize, such as the Koch brothers. The Intercept reports the Atlas Network is behind dozens of prominent groups that have supported right-wing forces in the anti-government movement in Venezuela, as well as those who ousted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. We are joined by The Intercept’s Lee Fong, who covers the intersection of money and politics. His new piece is tilted, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/atlas-network-alejandro-chafuen-libertarian-think-tank-latin-america-brazil/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Sphere of Influence: How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American Politics.</a>
---refFOR ALEJANDRO CHAFUEN, the gathering this spring at the Brick Hotel in Buenos Aires was as much a homecoming as it was a victory lap. Chafuen, a lanky Argentine-American, had spent his adult life working to undermine left-wing social movements and governments in South and Central America, and boost a business-friendly version of libertarianism instead.It was a lonely battle for decades, but not lately. Chafuen was among friends at the 2017 Latin America Liberty Forum. The international meeting of libertarian activists was sponsored by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a leadership-training nonprofit now known simply as the Atlas Network, which Chafuen has led since 1991. At the Brick Hotel, Chafuen was reveling in recent victories; his years of work were starting to pay off, thanks to political and economic circumstances — but also because of the network of activists Chafuen has been working for so long to cultivate.Over the past 10 years, leftist governments have used “money to buy votes, to redistribute,” said Chafuen, seated comfortably in the lobby. But the recent drop in commodity prices, coupled with corruption scandals, has given an opportunity for Atlas Network groups to spring into action. “When there is an opening, you have a crisis, and there is some demand for change, you have people who are trained to push for certain policies,” Chafuen noted, paraphrasing the late Milton Friedman. “And in our case, we tend to favor to private solutions to public problems.”Chafuen pointed to numerous Atlas-affiliated leaders now in the spotlight: ministers in the new conservative government in Argentina, senators in Bolivia, and the leaders of the Free Brazil Movement that took down Dilma Rousseff’s presidency, where Chafuen’s network sprang to life before his very eyes.“In Brazil, I have been in the street demonstrations, and I’m like, ‘Hey, this guy I met when he was 17, 18 — he is up there on the bus leading this. This is crazy!’” Chafuen said, excitedly. Those in Atlas’s orbit were no less excited to run into Chafuen in Buenos Aires. Activists from various countries stopped Chafuen intermittently to sing his praises as he walked through the hotel. For many, Chafuen, from his perch at Atlas, has served as a mentor, fiscal sponsor, and guiding beacon for a new political paradigm in their country.Ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya, left, looks down inside a car on his way to the airport where he will board a flight to Nicaragua on the outskirts of San Jose, Sunday, June 28, 2009. Soldiers seized Honduras' national palace and sent the President Zelaya into exile in Costa Rica on Sunday, hours before a disputed constitutional referendum. Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said he was victim of a coup. Honduras' Congress sworn in Sunday congressional leader Roberto Micheletti as the country's new President. (AP Photo/Kent Gilbert)Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, left, looks down inside a car on the outskirts of San Jose on his way to the airport to board a flight to Nicaragua, June 28, 2009. Photo: Kent Gilbert/APA RIGHTWARD SHIFT is afoot in Latin American politics. Triumphant socialist governments had once swept the region for much of the 21st century – from Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to land reform populist Manuel Zelaya in Honduras – championing new programs for the poor, nationalizing businesses, and challenging U.S. dominance in hemispheric affairs.In recent years, however, leftist leaders have fallen one after another, sometimes in spectacular fashion. Zelaya was led from the presidential palace in his pajamas in a military coup; in Argentina, a real-estate baron swept to the presidency and Kirchner was indicted for corruption; and in Brazil, the ruling Workers’ Party, facing a growing corruption scandal and a mass protest movement, was swept out of office via impeachment over charges of budget chicanery.This shift might appear as part of a larger regional rebalancing, merely economic circumstances taking hold. And yet the Atlas Network seems ever-present, a common thread nudging political developments along.The story of the Atlas Network and its profound impact on ideology and political power has never been fully told. But business filings and records from three continents, along with interviews with libertarian leaders across the hemisphere, reveal the scope of its influential history. The libertarian network, which has reshaped political power in country after country, has also operated as a quiet extension of U.S. foreign policy, with Atlas-associated think tanks receiving quiet funding from the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy, a critical arm of American soft power.Though recent investigations have shed light on the role of powerful conservative billionaires, such as the Koch brothers, in developing a business-friendly version of libertarian thought, the Atlas Network, which receives funding from Koch foundations, has recreated methods honed in the Western world for developing countries.The network is expansive, currently boasting loose partnerships with 450 think tanks around the world. Atlas says it dispensed over $5 million to its partners in 2016 alone.Over the years, Atlas and its affiliated charitable foundations have provided hundreds of grants to conservative and free-market think tanks in Latin America, including the libertarian network that supported the Free Brazil Movement and organizations behind a libertarian push in Argentina, including Fundación Pensar, the Atlas think tank that merged with the political party formed by Mauricio Macri, a businessman who now leads the country. The leaders of the Free Brazil Movement and the founder of Fundación Eléutera in Honduras, an influential post-coup neoliberal think tank, have received financial support from Atlas, and are among the next generation of political operatives that have gone through Atlas’s training seminars.The Atlas Network spans dozens of other think tanks across the region, including prominent groups supporting right-wing forces behind the unfolding anti-government movement in Venezuela and the campaign of Sebastián Piñera, the right-of-center candidate leading the polls for this year’s presidential election in Chile.FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2015 file photo, people demonstrate against the government as they take part in protest in favor of impeaching Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, in front of the National Congress, in Brasilia, Brazil. The country has seen a vicious circle of ballooning crises over the past year. Major scandals, some of which are connected to Rousseff, have combined with tanking commodity prices to deliver blows to the powerhouse economy, including credit-rating downgrades, a sharp currency devaluation and 10-percent annual inflation. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)People demonstrate in favor of impeaching Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff in front of the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, Dec. 2, 2015. Photo: Eraldo Peres/APNOWHERE HAS THE Atlas method been better encapsulated than in a newly formed network of Brazilian free-market think tanks. Recently formed institutes worked together to foment anger at socialist policies, with some cultivating academic centers, while others work to train activists and maintain a constant war in the Brazilian media against leftist ideas.The effort to focus anger solely at the left paid dividends last year for the Brazilian right. The millennial activists of the Free Brazil Movement, many of them trained in political organizing in the U.S., led a mass movement to channel public anger over a vast corruption scandal against Dilma, the left-of-center president popularly known by her first name. The scandal, nicknamed Operação Lava Jato, or Operation Car Wash, is a still-unfolding tale of bribery involving leading politicians from all of Brazil’s major political parties, including the right-wing and center-right parties. But the social media-savvy Free Brazil Movement, known by its Portuguese initials, MBL, managed to direct the bulk of outrage squarely at Dilma, demanding her ousting and an end to the welfare-centric policies of her Workers’ Party.
The uprising, which has drawn comparisons to the tea party movement, especially considering the quiet support from local industrial conglomerates and a new conspiracy-minded network of far-right media voices, ended 13 years of rule by the Workers’ Party by removing Dilma from office through impeachment in 2016.
The landscape that MBL sprang from is a new development in Brazil. There were perhaps three active libertarian think tanks 10 years ago, said Helio Beltrão, a former hedge fund executive who now leads Instituto Mises, a nonprofit named after the libertarian philosopher, Ludwig von Mises. Now, he said, with the support of Atlas, there are close to 30 such institutes active in Brazil, all working collaboratively, along with groups, such as Students for Liberty and MBL.
“It’s like a soccer team. Defense is the academia. The forward guys are the politicians. We’ve scored a few goals,” he said, referring to Dilma’s impeachment. The midfield, he said, are the “cultural guys” that shape public opinion.
Beltrão explained that the think tank network is hoping to privatize the national post office in Brazil, calling it “low-hanging fruit” that could lead to a larger wave of free-market reforms. Many of the conservative parties in Brazil embraced libertarian campaigners when they showed they could mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to protest against Dilma, but haven’t yet adopted the fundamentals of supply-side theory.
Fernando Schüler, an academic and columnist associated with Instituto Millenium, another Atlas think tank in Brazil, made the case another way.“Brazil has 17,000 unions paid by public money, one day of salary per year goes to unions, completely controlled by the left,” said Schüler. The only way to reverse the socialist trend has been to out-maneuver them. “With technology, people could by themselves participate, organize at low cost — WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, using networks, a kind of public manifestation,” he continued, explaining the way libertarian organizers mobilized a protest movement against left-leaning politicians.
Organizers against Dilma had created a daily barrage of YouTube videos mocking the Worker’s Party government, along with an interactive scoreboard to encourage citizens to lobby their legislators to support impeachment.
Schüler noted that the Free Brazil Movement and his own think tank receive financial support from local industrial trade groups, but the movement had succeeded in part because it is not identified with the incumbent political parties, most of which the general public views with suspicion. He argued that the only way to radically reshape society and reverse popular sentiment in support of the welfare state was to wage a permanent cultural war to confront left intellectuals and the media.ONE OF THE founders of Schüler’s Instituto Millenium think tank, Brazilian blogger Rodrigo Constantino, has polarized Brazilian politics with hyperpartisan rhetoric.Constantino, who has been called the “Breitbart of Brazil” for his conspiratorial views and acidic right-wing commentary, chairs yet another Atlas think tank, Instituto Liberal. He sees the Brazilian left’s every move as a veiled attempt at subverting democracy, from the use of the color red in the country’s World Cup logo to the Bolsa Família cash assistance program to poor families.
Constantino is credited with popularizing a narrative that Worker’s Party supporters are limousine liberals, wealthy hypocrites that flock to socialism to claim the moral high ground while snubbing the working classes they claim to represent.The Breitbartization of public discourse is but one of the many ways the Atlas network has subtly influenced political debate.
“It’s a very paternalistic state. It’s crazy. It’s a lot of state control, and that’s the long-term challenge,” said Schüler, adding that despite recent victories, libertarians had a long way to go in Brazil. He hoped to copy the model of Margaret Thatcher, who relied on a network of libertarian think tanks to push unpopular reforms. “This pension system is absurd. I would privatize all education,” Schüler, rattling off a litany of changes he would make to society, from defunding labor unions to repealing the law that makes voting compulsory.
Yet the only way to make all that possible, he added, would be to build a network of politically active nonprofits all waging separate battles to push the same libertarian goals. The existing model — the constellation of right-wing think tanks in Washington, D.C., supported by powerful endowments — is the only path forward for Brazil, Schüler said.
Atlas, for its part, is busy doing just that. It gives grants for new think tanks, provides courses on political management and public relations, sponsors networking events around the world, and, in recent years, has devoted special resources to prodding libertarians to influence public opinion through social media and online videos.
An annual competition encourages Atlas’s network to produce viral YouTube videos promoting laissez-faire ideas and ridiculing proponents of the welfare state. James O’Keefe, the provocateur famous for needling Democrats with his undercover videos, has appeared before Atlas to explain his methods. Producers from a Wisconsin group that worked to create online videos to discredit teacher protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s law busting public sector unions have also provided instructions for Atlas’s training sessions.
Crowd members burn a puppet of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez at Plaza Altamira in protest against the government. Photo: Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images
 AMONG ITS OTHER exploits of late, Atlas has played a role in a Latin American nation roiled by the region’s most acute political and humanitarian crisis: Venezuela.Records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by author and activist Eva Golinger, as well as State Department cables disclosed by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, reveal U.S. policymakers’ sophisticated effort to use Atlas think tanks in a long-running campaign to destabilize the reign of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez.As early as 1998, Cedice Libertad, Atlas’s flagship think tank in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, received regular financial support from the Center for International Private Enterprise. In one grant letter, NED funds marked for Cedice are listed to help advocate “a change in government.” The director of Cedice was among the signatories of the controversy “Carmona Decree” supporting the short-lived military coup against Chávez in 2002.A 2006 cable laid out a strategy from U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield for funding politically active nonprofits in Venezuela: “1) Strengthening democratic institutions, 2) penetrating Chávez’s political base, 3) dividing Chavismo, 4) protecting vital U.S. business, and 5) isolating Chávez internationally.”In Venezula’s current crisis, Cedice has promoted the recent spate of protests against President Nicholás Maduro, Chávez’s embattled successor. Cedice is closely affiliated with opposition figure María Corina Machado, one of the leaders of the massive anti-government street demonstrations in recent months. Machado has publicly recognized Atlas for its work. In a videotape message delivered to the group in 2014, she said, “Thank you to the Atlas Network, to all freedom fighters.”
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has recognized Atlas for its work: “Thank you to the Atlas Network, to all freedom fighters,” she said in 2014.AT THE ATLAS Network’s Latin American Liberty Forum in Buenos Aires, young leaders buzzed back and forth, sharing ideas on how to defeat socialism at every level, from pitched battles on college campuses to mobilizing an entire country to embrace impeachment.
Think tank “entrepreneurs” from Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras competed in a format along the lines of “Shark Tank,” an America reality show where start-up businesses pitch to a panel of wealthy, ruthless investors. Instead of seeking investments from a panel of venture capitalists, however, the think tank leaders pitched policy marketing ideas for a contest that awarded $5,000. In another session, strategies were debated for attracting industry support to back economic reforms. In another room, political operatives debated arguments “lovers of liberty” can use to respond to the global rise of populism to “redirect the sense of injustice many feel” toward free-market goals.
One young leader from CADAL, a think tank in Buenos Aires, presented on an idea to rank each Argentine province using what he called an “economic liberty index,” which would use the level of taxation and regulation as the main criteria to generate buzz for free-market reforms. The idea is consciously modeled on similar strategies from the U.S., including the Heritage Foundation’s “Index of Economic Freedom,” which measures countries based on criteria that includes tax policies and regulatory barriers to business formation.
Think tanks are traditionally associated with independent institutes formed to develop unconventional solutions. But the Atlas model focuses less on developing genuinely new policy proposals, and more on establishing political organizations that carry the credibility of academic institutions, making them an effective organ for winning hearts and minds.
Free-market ideas — such as slashing taxes on the wealthy; whittling down the public sector and placing it under the control of private operators; and liberalized trade rules and restrictions on labor unions — have always struggled with a perception problem. Proponents of this vision have found that voters tend to view such ideas as a vehicle for serving society’s upper crust. Rebranding economic libertarianism as a public interest ideology has required elaborate strategies for mass persuasion.
But the Atlas model now spreading rapidly through Latin America is based on a method perfected by decades of struggle in the U.S. and the U.K., as libertarians worked to stem the tide of the surging post-war welfare state.
Map of Atlas group locations in South America. Map of Atlas group locations in South America. Map: The InterceptANTONY FISHER, A BRITISH entrepreneur and the founder of the Atlas Network, pioneered the sale of libertarian economics to the broader public. The tack was simple: Fisher made it his mission to, in the words of an associate, “litter the world with free-market think tanks.”
The basis for Fisher’s ideals came from Friedrich Hayek, a forbearer of modern thought on limited government. In 1946, after reading the Reader’s Digest version of Hayek’s seminal book, “The Road to Serfdom,” Fisher sought a meeting with the Austrian economist in London. As recounted by his close colleague John Blundell, Fisher suggested Hayek enter politics. But Hayek demurred, replying that a bottom-up focus on shifting the public discourse could better shape society.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., another free-market ideologue, Leonard Read, was entertaining similar notions after leading the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Los Angeles branch into bruising battles with organized labor. To counter the growth of the welfare state, a more elaborate response would be necessary to share popular debates around the direction of society, without the visible link to corporate interests.
Fisher was propelled forward by a fateful visit to Read’s newly formed nonprofit, the Foundation for Economic Education, in New York, which was founded to help sponsor and promote the ideas of free-market intellectuals. There, libertarian economist F.A. Harper, at the time working at FEE, advised Fisher on methods for creating his own nonprofit in the U.K.
During the trip, Fisher also traveled with Harper to Cornell University to observe the latest animal industry breakthrough of battery cages, marveling at the sight of 15,000 chickens housed in a single building. Fisher was inspired to bring the innovation home with him. His factory, Buxted Chickens, grew rapidly and made Fisher a substantial fortune in the process. Some of those profits went into the other goal fostered during his New York trip: In 1955, Fisher founded the Institute of Economic Affairs.
IEA helped popularize the once-obscure set of economists loosely affiliated with Hayek’s ideas. The institute was a place to showcase opposition to British society’s growing welfare state, connecting journalists to free-market academics and disseminating critiques on a regular basis through opinion columns, radio interviews, and conferences.
Businesses provided the bulk of funding to IEA, as leading British industrial and banking giants — from Barclays to BP — pitched in with annual contributions. According to “Making Thatcher’s Britain,” by historians Ben Jackson and Robert Saunders, one shipping magnate remarked that, since universities were providing ammunition for the unions, the IEA was an important source of bullets for business.
As the economic slowdown and rising inflation of the 1970s shook the foundations of British society, Tory politicians gravitated more and more to the IEA to provide an alternative vision — and IEA obliged with accessible issue briefs and talking points politicians could use to bring free-market concepts to the public. The Atlas Network proudly proclaims that the IEA “laid the intellectual groundwork for what later became the Thatcher Revolution of the 1980s.” IEA staff provided speechwriting for Margaret Thatcher; supplemented her campaign with policy papers on topics as varied as labor unions and price controls; and provided a response to her critics in the mass media. In a letter to Fisher after her 1979 victory, Thatcher wrote that the IEA created “the climate of opinion which made our victory possible.”
“There’s no doubt there’s been enormous progress in Britain, the Institute of Economic Affairs, which Antony Fisher set up, made an enormous difference,” Milton Friedman once said. “It made possible Margaret Thatcher. It made possible not her election as prime minister but the policies that she was able to follow. And the same thing in this country, the developing thought along these lines made possible Ronald Reagan and the policies he was able to follow.”
IEA had come full circle. Hayek set up an invitation-only group of free-market economists called the Mont Pelerin Society. One of its members, Ed Feulner, helped found the conservative Washington think tank the Heritage Foundation, drawing on IEA’s work for inspiration. Another Mont Pelerin member, Ed Crane, founded the Cato Institute, the most prominent libertarian think tank in the U.S.
Austrian-British economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek (1899 - 1992) with a class of students at the London School of Economics, 1948. (Photo by Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images) Austrian-British economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek with a class of students at the London School of Economics, 1948. Photo: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty ImagesIN 1981, FISHER, who had settled in San Francisco, set out to develop the Atlas Economic Research Foundation at the urging of Hayek. Fisher had used his success with IEA to court corporate donors to help establish a string of smaller, sometimes regional think tanks in New York, Canada, California, and Texas, among other places. With Atlas, though, the scale for Fisher’s free-market think tank project would now be global: a nonprofit dedicated to continuing his work of establishing libertarian beachheads in every country of the world. “The more institutes established throughout the world,” Fisher declared, “the more opportunity to tackle diverse problems begging for resolution.”
Fisher began to fundraise, pitching corporate donors with the help of letters from Hayek, Thatcher, and Friedman, including an urgent call for donors to help reproduce the success of IEA through Atlas. Hayek wrote that the IEA model “ought to be used to create similar institutes all over the world.” He added, “It would be money well spent if large sums could be made available for such a concerted effort.”
The proposal was sent to a list of high-level executives and soon, money began pouring in from corporate coffers and Republican mega-donors, including Richard Mellon Scaife. Companies, such as Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, and Shell, all gave to Atlas. But their influence would need to remain cloaked for the project to work, Fisher contended. “To influence public opinion, it is necessary to avoid any suggestion of vested interest or intent to indoctrinate,” Fisher noted in a proposal outlining the purpose of Atlas. Fisher added that IEA’s success hinged on the perception that it was academic and impartial.
Atlas grew rapidly. By 1985, the network featured 27 institutions in 17 countries, including nonprofits in Italy, Mexico, Australia, and Peru.
And the timing could not have been better: Atlas’s international expansion came just as the Reagan administration was doubling down on an aggressive foreign policy, hoping to beat back leftist governments abroad.
While in public, Atlas declared that it received no government funding (Fisher belittled foreign aid as just another “bribe” used to distort market forces), records show the network quietly worked to channel government money to its growing list of international partners.
In one 1982 letter from the International Communication Agency, a small federal agency devoted to promote U.S. interests overseas, a bureaucrat at the Office of Private Sector Programs wrote to Fisher, in response to an inquiry about acquiring federal grants. The bureaucrat said he was barred from giving “directly to foreign organizations,” but could cosponsor “conferences or exchanges with organizations” hosted by groups like Atlas. He encouraged Fisher to send over a proposal. The letter, sent one year after Atlas’s founding, was the first indication that the network would become a covert partner to U.S. foreign policy interests.
Memos and other records from Fisher show that, by 1986, Atlas had helped schedule meetings with business executives to direct U.S. funds to its network of think tanks. In one instance, an official from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the principal foreign aid arm of the federal government, recommended that the head of Coca-Cola’s subsidiary in Panama work with Atlas to set up an IEA-style affiliate think tank there. Atlas’ partners also drew funding from the coffers of the National Endowment for Democracy, a government-charted nonprofit, founded in 1983, that is funded largely by the State Department and USAID to build U.S.-friendly political institutions in the developing world.
Alejandro Chafuen, of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, back right, shakes hands with Rafael Alonzo, of Venezuela's Freedom Center for  Economic Studies, CEDICE, left, as Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa applauds during the opening of the "Freedom and Democracy" international  forum in Caracas, Thursday, May 28, 2009.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)Alejandro Chafuen, of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, back right, shakes hands with Rafael Alonzo, of Venezuela’s Freedom Center for Economic Studies, CEDICE, left, as Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa applauds during the opening of the “Freedom and Democracy” international forum in Caracas, May 28, 2009. Photo: Ariana Cubillos/APWITH CORPORATE AND U.S. government funding pouring in, Atlas took another fortuitous turn in 1985 with the arrival of Alejandro Chafuen. Linda Whetstone, Fisher’s daughter, remembered in a tribute that, in 1985, a young Chafuen, then living in Oakland, showed up to Atlas’s San Francisco office “and was willing to work for nothing.”
The Buenos Aires-born Chafuen hailed from what he described as “an anti-Peronist family.” They were wealthy and, though raised in an era of incredible turmoil in Argentina, Chafuen lived a life of relative privilege. He spent his teenage years playing tennis, dreaming of becoming a professional athlete.
Chafuen credits his youthful ideological path to his appetite for devouring libertarian texts, from Ayn Rand to booklets published by FEE, the Leonard Read group that had originally inspired Fisher. After studying at Grove City College, a deeply conservative Christian liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, where he served as the president of the student libertarian club, Chafuen returned to his home country. The military had stepped in, claiming a threat from communist revolutionaries. Thousands of students and activists would be tortured and killed in the crackdown on left-wing dissent following the coup d’etat.
Chafuen remembers the time in a mostly positive light, later writing that the military had acted out of necessity to prevent a communist “takeover of the country.” While pursuing a teaching career, Chafuen encountered “totalitarians of every style” within academic life. After the military coup, he wrote that he noticed that his professors became “gentler,” despite their differences with him.
In other Latin American countries, too, libertarianism was finding a receptive audience among military governments. In Chile, after the military swept out the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, Mont Pelerin Society economists quickly flocked to the country, setting the stage for widespread libertarian reforms, including the privatization of industry and the country’s pension system. Throughout the region, under the watch of right-wing military leaders that had seized power, libertarian economic policies began to take root.
For his part, Chafuen’s ideological zeal was on display as early as 1979, when he published an essay for FEE titled “War Without End.” He described the horrors of leftist terror, “like the Charles Manson family, or in regimental strength, like the guerilla troops in the Middle East, Africa, and South America.” There was a need, he wrote, for the “forces of individual freedom and private property” to fight back.
His enthusiasm garnered attention. In 1980, at age 26, Chafuen was invited to become the youngest member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He traveled to Stanford, an opportunity that put him in direct contact with Read, Hayek, and other leading libertarians. Within five years, Chafuen had married an American and was living in Oakland. He began reaching out to Mont Pelerin members in the Bay Area, including Fisher.
Throughout the region, under the watch of right-wing military leaders that had seized power, libertarian economic policies began to take root.According to Atlas’s board meeting notes, Fisher told his colleagues he had made a $500 ex gratia Christmas payment that year to Chafuen, and hoped to hire the young economist full-time to develop Atlas think tanks in Latin America. The following year, Chafuen organized the first Atlas summit of Latin American think tanks in Jamaica.
CHAFUEN UNDERSTOOD THE Atlas model well and worked diligently to expand the network, helping to launch think tanks in Africa and Europe, though focusing his efforts in Latin America. Describing how to attract donors, Chafuen once noted in a lecture that donors cannot appear to pay for public surveys because the polls would lose credibility. “Pfizer Inc. would not sponsor surveys on health issues nor would Exxon pay for surveys on environmental issues,” Chafuen noted. Libertarian think tanks, such as the ones in Atlas’s network, however, could not only present the same survey with more credibility, but do so in a way that garnered coverage in the local media.
“Journalists are very much attracted by whatever is new and easy to report,” Chafuen said. The press is less interested in quoting libertarian philosophers, he contended, but when a think tank produced a survey people would listen. “And donors also see this,” he added.
In 1991, three years after Fisher died, Chafuen took the helm of Atlas and would have the opportunity to speak to donors with authority about Atlas’s work. He quickly began to rack up corporate sponsors to push company-specific goals through the network. Philip Morris contributed regular grants to Atlas, including a $50,000 contribution to the group in 1994, which was disclosed years later through litigation. Records show that the tobacco giant viewed Atlas as an ally for working on international litigation issues.
Journalists in Chile, however, found out that Atlas-backed think tanks had worked to quietly lobby against smoking regulations without disclosing their funding from tobacco companies, a strategy similar think tanks repeated across the globe.
Corporate giants, such as ExxonMobil and MasterCard, were among Atlas’s donors. But the group also attracted leading figures in libertarianism, such as the foundations associated with investor John Templeton and the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lavished Atlas and its affiliates with regular contributions.Chafuen’s fundraising prowess extended to the growing number of wealthy conservative foundations that were beginning to flourish. He was a founding member of Donors Trust, a secretive donor-advised fund that has doled out over $400 million to libertarian nonprofits, including members of the Atlas Network. He also serves as a trustee to the Chase Foundation of Virginia, which was founded by a Mont Pelerin Society member and similarly sends cash to Atlas think tanks.
Another wellspring of money came from the American government. Initially, the National Endowment for Democracy encountered difficulty setting up U.S.-friendly political nonprofits. Gerardo Bongiovanni, the president of Fundación Libertad, an Atlas think tank in Rosario, Argentina, noted during a lecture with Chafuen that the early seed money from NED’s grant partner, the Center for International Private Enterprise, totaled $1 million between 1985 and 1987. The think tanks that received those initial grants quickly folded, Bongiovanni said, citing lack of management training.
Atlas, however, managed to turn U.S. taxpayer money coming through the NED and Center for International Private Enterprise into an important source of funding for its growing network. The funding vehicles provided money to help boost Atlas think tanks in Eastern Europe, following the fall of the Soviet Union, and, later, to promote U.S. interests in the Middle East. Among the recipients of the Center for International Private Enterprise’s cash is Cedice Libertad, the group thanked by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 09:  White House Deputy Assistant To The President Sebastian Gorka participates in a television interview outside the White House West Wing June 9, 2017 in Washington, DC. A former national security editor for Breitbart, Gorka has hard-line stands on Islam and terrorism and past involvement in right-wing Hungarian politics.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Sebastian Gorka, White House deputy assistant to the president, participates in a television interview outside the West Wing on June 9, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesAT THE BRICK HOTEL in Buenos Aires, Chafuen reflected on the last three decades. Fisher “would be overall pleased, and he would not believe how much our network grew,” Chafuen said, noting that perhaps the Atlas founder would not have expected the level of direct political engagement the group is involved in.
Chafuen lit up when U.S. President Donald Trump came up, offering praise for the president’s appointees. And why not? The Trump administration is littered with alumni of Atlas-related groups and friends of the network. Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s Islamophobic counterterrorism adviser, once led an Atlas-backed think tank in Hungary. Vice President Mike Pence has attended an Atlas event and spoken highly of the group. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Chafuen were close through their leadership roles at the Acton Institute, a Michigan think tank that develops religious arguments in favor of libertarian policies — which now maintains an affiliate in Brazil, the Centro Interdisciplinar de Ética e Economia Personalista.Perhaps Chafuen’s most prized figure in the administration, however, is Judy Shelton, an economist and senior fellow at the Atlas Network. After Trump’s victory, Shelton was made the chair of the NED. She previously served as an adviser to the Trump campaign and transition effort. Chafuen beamed when he talked about it. “There you have the Atlas people being the chair of the National Endowment for Democracy,” he said.
Before ending the interview, Chafuen intimated that there was more to come: more think tanks, more efforts to overturn leftist governments, and more Atlas devotees and alumni elevated to the highest levels of government the world over. “The work is ongoing,” he said.
Later, Chafuen appeared at the gala for the Latin America Liberty Forum. Along with a panel of Atlas experts, he discussed the need to ramp up libertarian opposition movements in Ecuador and Venezuela.
Listen to reporter Lee Fang discuss his investigation of the Atlas Network on our podcast Intercepted:=<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michel-temer-president-brazil_us_57c8788ce4b0a22de094ced7">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michel-temer-president-brazil_us_57c8788ce4b0a22de094ced7</a>Brazil has a new president after the country’s Senate <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dilma-rousseff-impeached-brazil_us_57c6f89ee4b0e60d31dc8599" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" plid="plid" us_57c6f89ee4b0e60d31dc8599="us_57c6f89ee4b0e60d31dc8599" style="box-sizing: inherit;">voted to oust</a> Dilma Rousseff from office on Wednesday, bringing an end to a monthslong impeachment process. The contentious move allowed Rousseff’s ally-turned-rival Vice President Michel Temer to assume power as the country’s leader.Temer, of the conservative PMDB political party, was Brazil’s interim leader for 111 days, but now officially holds the state’s highest office. He takes over at a time when the country is in the midst of a disastrous economic and political crisis, and has seen support for his government dwindle since he became interim president. Temer was booed when he appeared during the Rio Olympics last month, and in June was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-corruption-idUSKCN0Z126P" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" plid="plid" http="http" www.reuters.com="www.reuters.com" article="article" us-brazil-corruption-iduskcn0z126p="us-brazil-corruption-idUSKCN0Z126P" style="box-sizing: inherit;">forced to deny</a> allegations he accepted a $300,000 bribe in relation to nuclear energy company contracts.But despite Temer’s unpopularity ― an opinion poll in April showed that 58 percent of Brazilians <a href="http://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2016/04/61-apoiam-impeachment-de-dilma-e-58-de-temer-diz-datafolha.html" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" plid="plid" http="http" g1.globo.com="g1.globo.com" politica="politica" noticia="noticia" apoiam-impeachment-de-dilma-e-58-de-temer-diz-datafolha.html="apoiam-impeachment-de-dilma-e-58-de-temer-diz-datafolha.html" style="box-sizing: inherit;">wanted him impeached</a> ― he has managed to rise from the shadows of the country’s politics and seize its top job. He is set to serve out the remainder of Rousseff’s term, which lasts until Brazil’s 2018 elections....==coup 5/15 all white male cab
http://www.globalpossibilities.org/amid-dilma-rousseffs-impeachment-brazil-prepares-to-roll-back-environmental-laws/
SÃO PAULO—Taking advantage of Brazil’s

present political turbulence, as the battle to impeach President Dilma

Rousseff reaches its climax, reactionary politicians are quietly rolling

back environmental and indigenous protection laws in defiance of the

country’s commitments under the <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php" target="_blank">Paris Agreement</a>.

Environmentalists say that if the bill

known as PEC 65/2012, now at the Senate committee stage, is approved, it

means that major infrastructure projects will be able to go ahead

regardless of their impacts on biodiversity, indigenous areas,

traditional communities and conservation areas.

Instead of a careful if somewhat slow

licensing process which involves scientific assessments including

biological, botanical, anthropological and archaeological studies,

developers will merely have to present a proposed study of environmental

impact to be allowed to begin—without actually having to carry out the

study. And once a project is under way it cannot be cancelled or

suspended by the environmental protection agencies.

Environment organisations, both

governmental and non-governmental, have protested strongly at the bill’s

implications. For Marilene Ramos, the president of the official agency

for the environment and renewable resources, <a href="http://www.ibama.gov.br/" target="_blank">IBAMA</a>,

(in Portuguese only) it means Brazil is going in the opposite direction

to developed countries and will no longer be able to control

infrastructure  projects.

<h3 class="p2">“It is completely absurd; it is as though

the act of applying for a driving license

entitled you to drive a lorry.”</h3>

</blockquote>

Indigenous leader Nara Baré, of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_of_the_Indigenous_Organizations_of_the_Brazilian_Amazon" target="_blank">COIAB</a>—the

Coordination of Indian organisations in the Brazilian Amazon—said:

“Brazil presented targets in Paris but doesn’t do its homework,

protecting the forest and us who live in it.”

Carlos Bocuhy, the president of PROAM, an

environmental NGO, says the effect of the bill will be to end

environmental licensing: “It is completely absurd; it is as though the

act of applying for a driving licence entitled you to  drive a lorry.”

The <a href="http://www.observatoriodoclima.eco.br/" target="blank">Climate Observatory</a> (in Portuguese only) sees the bill as “a bad joke”,  even more so in a country that has just suffered<a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/brazilian-drought-adds-to-dam-collapses-impact/" target="blank"> the worst environmental disaster in its history</a>, the bursting of a dam of toxic mud in Minas Gerais state on 5 November last year. The calamity destroyed all animal and plant life and a major river nearby, and could be the world’s worst disaster after Chernobyl.

Greenpeace director Marcio Astrini said of the bill that “if it becomes law, it will act as a factory of tragedies”

<h3 class="p2">Personal stake</h3>

Its author, Senator Acir Gurgacz, has a

personal interest: his family owns a transport company which would

benefit hugely from the paving of the 900 km BR319 highway, linking two

Amazon capitals, Porto Velho and Manaus. At present the project cannot

go ahead because IBAMA has embargoed the work, alleging environmental

damage. The road runs through conservation areas, indigenous lands and

areas of largely unspoiled rainforest.

The bill´s rapporteur is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blairo_Maggi" target="_blank">Senator Blairo Maggi</a>,

a soya magnate, who has cleared thousands of hectares of rainforest in

his home state of Mato Grosso, and is tipped to be the minister of

agriculture in the new government that will take over once President

Rousseff is suspended from office this week.

Environmentalists are already expressing

deep concern about the government planned by vice-president Michel

Temer, who will become Brazil’s president on 12 May if the impeachment goes through.They note that his policy paper, A bridge to the future, which laid out his plans for government, made no mention of the environment, climate change or the Amazon rainforest.

Instead the big farmers’ and ranchers’ lobby, FPA, or <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/08/brazil-land-indigenous-people-killings" target="_blank">Parliamentary Farming Front</a>,

presented the president-to-be with a “positive agenda”—a list of

demands which included the abolition of the ministry of land reform, the

halting and revision of the demarcations of indigenous reserves and quilombos

(territories inhabited by the descendants of runaway slaves), and more

funds for agribusiness, which already enjoys substantial subsidies.

Besides the bill to end environmental licensing, other damaging bills are in the pipeline.

<h3 class="p2">Ignoring local wishes</h3>

One, known as PEC 215, has been doing the

rounds in Congress for over 15 years, but with the imminent arrival of

the new, pro-farmer government it is expected soon to be voted into law.

If it is, it will mean that the power to decide further demarcations of

indigenous areas—nearly 400 are under consideration—will pass from the

executive to the Congress.

With both houses dominated by members of the rural lobby, this is regarded as tantamount to ending demarcations.  Another 1,611 quilombo areas will also be affected. The importance of the indigenous and quilombo

territories is that they tend to conserve forested areas, instead of

clearing them for mechanised agriculture or cattle grazing.

By law the areas contained within each

rural property (which, especially in the Amazon, are often vast) must be

left wild. But another measure on the table (bill 4508/16) will allow

them to be used for cattle grazing.

Others will permit mining and

hydroelectric dams in indigenous areas without any need for permission

from their inhabitants. Reducing controls on pesticides – Brazil is the

world’s biggest consumer—is yet another target.

The government of Dilma Rousseff has in

no way been a model of protection for the environment and indigenous

areas, but it seems that the government of Michel Temer could be much

worse.

Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a

former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian.=<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/08/brazil-fines-nestle-pepsi-gmos/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/08/brazil-fines-nestle-pepsi-gmos/</a>
==

The following is written by Ben Richardson, based on his new book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Ben-Richardson/dp/0745680151/?tag=alternorg08-20" style="">Sugar</a> [2] (Polity, 2015):Class, gender, nationality and race structure sugar's unequal production, exchange and consumption across the world. This can be seen most vividly in the corporeal effects of sugar: the <a href="http://www.fairfood.org/sugarcane-workers-and-chronic-kidney-disease/" style="">new type of chronic kidney disease</a> [3] striking down sugarcane field workers in Central America, the high rate of <a href="http://www.alternet.org/print/books/our-unhealthy-addiction-sugar-harming-poor-and-making-rich-richer#.VelzOflViko" style="">prostitution and HIV</a> in sugar towns in Zambia, and the disproportionate level of <a href="https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/PW_OH_Chew-On-This.pdf" style="">tooth decay</a> [4] among poor and Hispanic children in Colorado, US. The circulation of sugar is also embodied in the landscape with unequal effects on wildlife. Fertilizer run-off from sugar farming has contributed to the <a href="http://www.news-mail.com.au/news/sugar-farmers-major-culprits-reef-pollution/2672821/" style="">degradation of the Great Barrier Reef</a> [5] in Queensland and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/on-the-shores-of-the-arabian-sea-pollution-erodes-a-way-of-life/2015/03/14/a1904314-c769-11e4-bea5-b893e7ac3fb3_story.html" style="">destruction of fisheries</a> [6] in the Indus delta (by contrast, the sugarcane plantations have provided welcoming habitats for rats and snakes). Yet these environmental changes are also social. In the case of water pollution, those worst affected have tended to be indigenous people and artisanal fisherfolk traditionally dependent on communal resources for drinking and fishing.So to really get at the global politics of sugar, the essential question for me was “why does it harm some more than others?”By starting with social relations, I diverged from two standard approaches. The first of these has addressed the poverty-inducing effects of sugar and framed it as an issue of international trade. This stems from the curious situation whereby exactly the same product, refined sugar, can be made from two entirely different crops. These are the grass crop sugarcane which is grown in tropical climates, and the root crop sugar beet which is grown in temperate climates. The near universal ability to grow these crops has allowed governments across the world to build up a domestic sugar industry by protecting markets from imports and supporting producers with favourable prices.There are now an estimated <a href="http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/global/global-sugar-manufacturing.html" style="">1.1 million jobs in sugar manufacturing</a> [7] and tens of millions more in sugar farming scattered over 120 countries in the world. Moreover, sugar is considered by the World Bank to be the second most protected agricultural commodity in the world behind rice. In 2008 the level of import tariffs and domestic subsidies on sugar accounted for almost <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCcQFjAAahUKEwjuldjSyN3HAhXDPxoKHXUMAgk&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsiteresources.worldbank.org%2FINTWDR2008%2FResources%2FWDR_00_book.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGsufbz4RbtyGJ-h4-4vmcVWSc6Kg&sig2=L0bPdgoqChoQrtUnmnRSLQ" style="">one fifth of all agricultural support</a> [8] – that amounts to a lot of redistributive tax!The injustice that both free traders and development campaigners have pointed out is that protectionist policies seem largely to benefit sugar producers in developed countries. They argue that by keeping out exports from developing countries, trade barriers have denied poor people the chance to trade their way out of poverty and thus confined them to a life of hunger. Or as the Wall Street Journal once pithily put it: “<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1032128964707805675" style="">Addiction to sugar subsidies chokes poor nations’ exports</a> [9].”While trade protection remains important in shaping who benefits from sugar production, the idea that the industry is controlled by wealthy farmers in the European Union (EU) and the US is increasingly untenable. First, significant steps towards liberalisation have happened over the last two decades, turning the EU into a net sugar importer for the first time since the 1970s and opening up the US to unlimited imports from Mexico (whilst sending increased amounts of processed food and High Fructose Corn Syrup the other way). In fact, the US is consistently one of the world’s biggest importers of sugar.Second, demand for sugar has grown most rapidly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, leading to a steady shift to sugarcane planting in the Global South over the last six decades. Brazil, India, China and Thailand are now the production powerhouses of the global sugar economy.The third problem with the trade protectionism argument is that they treat countries as homogenous units rather than hierarchical societies. Since there is significant inequality within countries as well as between them focusing on which country sugar is produced in only gives us part of the picture.There are many examples of men (and they are usually men) in developing countries who have become fantastically wealthy through sugar while their fellow citizens languish in poverty. Two of the richest people the world in fact built their business empires on the back of sugar trading enterprises: the Nigerian Aliko Dangote now worth an estimated $25 billion and the Malaysian Robert Kuok worth $12 billion. Others have found their fortunes as sugar industrialists. The Brazilian Rubens Ometto Silveria Mello, worth $2 billion, made his money at the helm of a sugarcane milling company and was dubbed “<a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/rubens-ometto-silveira-mello/" style="">the world’s first ethanol billionaire</a> [10]”.Beyond those agri-businesses selling sugar as an ingredient, there are those re-selling it in the form of manufactured foods and drinks. These include Western-based multinational corporations like Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, Kellogg’s, Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever. Together these companies made over $50 billion profit in 2013; a handsome return for their managers and shareholders. (Did you know that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, despite its stated goal to improve global health, holds <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/institutional-portfolio/bill--melinda-gates-foundation-trust-98131" style="">stock in Coca-Cola, Mars, Wal-Mart and Kraft-Heinz</a> [11] worth over a billion dollars?!). These examples of wealth accumulation all belie the idea that we can determine who benefits from sugar simply by looking at national levels of output and export.The second approach to sugar politics has addressed its adverse health effects. If the injustices of sugar production have been framed as a problem of trade protectionism then those relating to consumption have been framed, quite separately, as a problem of corporate manipulation. These companies are charged with purposefully misleading the public into dangerous eating habits. On the one hand, they manufacture and market foods high in sugar, salt and fat, and on the other hand, lobby governments to water down dietary guidelines and labelling regulations.Like the literature on trade protectionism though, while it contains some important insights, as a political critique this approach also has its limitations. First, it tends to ignore the countervailing appeal of diets and detoxes popular in the media. Among these are Atkins, Dukan, Glycaemic Index, paleo and No Sugar, all of which have changed the consumption of sugar either by discriminating against sucrose or shifting eating habits away from sweetened foods altogether. Studies which focus only on the dominance of corporations thus miss these forms of (typically feminised) agency and marginalise the response of companies to it. Product reformulation using artificial sweeteners and the takeover of health conscious brands have been particularly common strategies, although by no means a solution to the spread of diet-related disease.Second, these studies are divorced from issues of production. One of the biggest developments in recent years has been the growth of the ethanol biofuel market. By 2013 fully 15 per cent of global sugarcane production was turned into ethanol; a proportion which is expected to almost double over the next decade. Meanwhile, the masses of corn grown in the US that have been diverted into biofuel production has put inflationary pressure on the price of High Fructose Corn Syrup, making it <a href="http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Suppliers2/Coca-Cola-pinched-by-high-HFCS-prices" style="">less competitive compared to sugar</a> [12] in the North American sweetener market. Ignoring these dynamics blinkers us to which agricultural crops end up in our food, in what form, and why.Third, this account has little to say about the prospects for conscious political change. For example, in his otherwise excellent book Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, the journalist Michael Moss concludes by putting his faith in enlightened shopping to save the day. In his closing paragraph, he argues that:They [the major food corporations] may have salt, sugar and fat on their side, but, we, ultimately, have the power to make choices. After all, we decide what to buy. We decide how much to eat.Not only is this is perverse conclusion to reach after spending the previous 346 pages detailing the myriad ways that American consumers have virtually no meaningful choice over what they eat, it also rules out other sources of change and ways of acting. By reducing politics to individual choice at the checkout and starving it of its collective character and varied institutional expression, accounts like the one given by Moss may do more harm than good.So how should the global politics of sugar be approached instead? My book proceeds from two foundations. The first is that the circulation of sugar is deeply structured by capitalism. Since the 1990s this has been entrenched on a global scale. The North American Free Trade Agreement and the formation of the World Trade Organisation have undermined national farm policy, while the industrialisation of China and marketization of food provisioning across the Global South has underpinned a seismic ‘nutrition transition’. Through these changes and more, the reach and use of sugar has been transformed. As such, a critical analysis of capitalism is necessary not for advocating Communist revolution of the food system (“Eaters of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your fast-food chains!”) but to appreciate why this system has led to social inequality and political crisis.Inequality is reproduced in many ways; from under-paying easily exploitable farm workers like migrants and women, to disproportionately marketing processed sweetened foods to racial minorities and children. Likewise, the over-production of sugar has led to systematic contradictions including <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/11753275/First-gold-now-why-is-the-Sugar-price-collapsing.html" style="">periodic market crashes</a> [13] and exacerbating <a href="http://www.idf.org/worlddiabetesday/toolkit/gp/facts-figures" style="">a global diabetes epidemic</a> [14]. These in turn have produced crises (a farm crisis, a health crisis) which state authorities have been called upon to manage. And contrary to the common assertion that equates capitalism with free markets, it is often capitalists themselves have called for state intervention, either to make a market function in their interests or else protect them from the vagaries of it.At the same time as taking global capitalism seriously, it is also important not to ascribe it with uniform and omnipresent characteristics. Capitalism need not be a single fate. This refers both to the different ways in which capitalist economies can be organised and the limits to which capitalist principles of private property, commodification and endless accumulation extend. Think of the bake-a-cake sales that raise millions for charity. These are just as much part of the economy as a factory making chocolate bars or a futures exchange trading sugar contracts. What this second foundation does then is to create some room for human agency, without which every eventuality would be boiled down to the inner workings of capital – no better than other <a href="https://canvas.brown.edu/courses/917713/files/42800997/download?wrap=1" style="">deterministic accounts of sugar</a> [15] which ascribe everything to its irresistible sweetness or the characteristics of the cane plant.Progressive political change is not about changing people’s relationship to sugar per se but changing our relationships to one another. Reducing sugar consumption may lower some people’s risk of diabetes, but if those same people remain reliant on poor quality food then it is likely that they will suffer from other forms of diet-related ill-health instead. Similarly, increasing crop productivity through high-yielding seeds may help farmers make a decent living, but only insofar as they are not then subject to price cuts by other businesses in the supply-chain.I argue that this change comes about through site-specific struggles to value life differently. They are site-specific because they take different forms in different places – a campaign against child advertising here, a protest against water pollution there. But what they have in common is a desire to govern by a different metric, one that recognises values beyond ‘the bottom line’; be it the sanctity of childhood or the preservation of the environment. These contestations might cohere into broader systemic change that would make sugar provisioning more ecologically sound and socially just. This is a move that, I believe, must ultimately challenge the profit-driven organisation of food and farming itself.===

<h3 class="yiv5677974997null" style="margin: 0.625em 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; outline: none; display: block; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: -0.5px; text-align: left; font-variant: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://ecowatch.us7.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=1dbf6136a4&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; font-weight: bold;">Brazil Farmers Say GMO Corn No Longer Resistant to Bugs</a></h3>

<span style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Earlier this year, a similar problem arose in the U.S., when scientists confirmed that corn-destroying rootworms...

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<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.25em; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/06/3446097/brazil-cuts-carbon/">Brazil Has Done More To Stop Climate Change</a><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/06/3446097/brazil-cuts-carbon/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;"> Than Any Other Country, Study Finds</a></h4>

BY <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/person/eatkin/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">EMILY ATKIN</a> ON JUNE 6, 2014

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/06/3446097/brazil-cuts-carbon/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Brazil's cuts to greenhouse gases are more than three times bigger than the effect of taking all the cars in the U.S. off the road for a year.</a>...

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<a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/covering-ground/20140513/new-amazon-forest-law-will-it-stick">http://insideclimatenews.org/covering-ground/20140513/new-amazon-forest-law-will-it-stick</a>

...

The same could be said for Brazil's vaunted "Codigo Florestal," or Forest Code. Enacted in 1965, this is the law that limited the amount of forest that could be cleared in any given area—up to 20 percent of the total area for large properties in the Amazon, more for smaller properties and in other regions. It also prescribed how much forest must be retained along riverbanks and set standards that protect slopes. From an ecological perspective, it was hard to beat.

But the Forest Code, like the carefully planned architecture of Brasilia, has been utterly overwhelmed by reality.

There's a saying here that some laws stick, some don't. The old Forest Code simply didn't stick. Enforcing the regulations on the poor and generally lawless frontier was impossible. For land barons clearing massive tracts for cattle or smallholders cutting some trees to make by, protecting forests seemed like a luxury. new 2012 law....

===

4. Brazil

In 1964, General Castelo Branco led <a href="http://en.mercopress.com/2012/04/15/the-1964-made-in-brazil-coup-and-us-contingency-support-plan-if-the-plot-stalled" style="">a coup that sparked 20 years of brutal military dictatorship</a> [13]. U.S. military attache Vernon Walters, later Deputy CIA Director and UN Ambassador, knew Castelo Branco well from World War II in Italy.  As a clandestine CIA officer, Walters' records from Brazil have never been declassified, but the CIA provided all the support needed to ensure the success of the coup, including funding for opposition labor and student groups in street protests, as in Ukraine and Venezuela today.  A U.S. Marine amphibious force on standby to land in Sao Paolo was not needed. Like other victims of U.S.-backed coups in Latin America, the elected President Joao Goulart was a wealthy landowner, not a communist, but his efforts to remain neutral in the Cold War were as unacceptable to Washington as President Yanukovich's refusal to hand the Ukraine over to the west 50 years later.

</div>

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ht<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/jose-rodrigues-moreira-amazon-activists_n_3020665.html?ref=topbar">tp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/jose-rodrigues-moreira-amazon-activists_n_3020665.html?ref=topbar</a>

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<div>

<div>Wealth: Heir to a minor fortune, Eike Batista’s early wealth came from the construction of railways and ports </div>

<div>to ship iron ore to Asia, a carbon intensive effort due to its inherently resource rich, long distance, and heavily </div>

<div>polluting processes. He got his start mining for gold in the Amazon, an activity that has been a device of </div>

<div>deforestation in the planet’s largest carbon storage ecosystem. His is now the founder and CEO of EBX </div>

<div>Group, a constellation of companies involved in oil and natural gas, coal mining, electricity production, and </div>

<div>shipbuilding. In 2007, Batista went on to found OGX, an oil and gas exploration company. His shipping </div>

<div>business, OSX,12 is Brazil’s largest private-sector exploration and production company. </div>

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<div class="byline story" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://alternet.org/" style="">AlterNet</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/cedar-attanasio" style="">Cedar Attanasio</a> [2]</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">What Happens When a Global Billionaire Is Backed Into a Corner?</h1>

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Eike Batista used to be the richest man in Brazil. At his peak, in 2010, he commanded a fortune of $34 billion dollars. He was named by Forbes as the world’s 8th richest man. He vowed to become number 1, aiming for a net worth of $100 billion. While his commodity and logistics empire had experimented overseas--in Canada, Greece, Russia, and China--he made his biggest profits back home.

Fans and critics alike couldn't stop talking about his opulent life style. He<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSleFEFn3DNw" target="_blank" style="">reportedly parked his sports car</a> [3] in his bedroom. He competed in speedboat racing. He traveled in a private jet, and commuted around Rio by helicopter.

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Then, in under 4 years, Batista lost his entire fortune. Business journalists have performed a number of autopsies on his career in capital allocation, the best and most gory of which might be <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-03/eike-batista-how-brazils-richest-man-lost-34-dot-5-billion#p3" target="_blank" style="">Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek feature</a>[4].

Beyond the ups and downs of the money game however, there’s another story. Last Thursday, the rule of law stung Batista himself. A <a href="http://www.valor.com.br/empresas/3520984/policia-federal-investiga-eike-batista-por-tres-crimes-contra-o-mercad" target="_blank" style="">federal court</a> [5] froze $55 million of his remaining assets. He’s charged with insider trading, money laundering, and market manipulation. Local newspapers revealed that he started hiding his assets last year, in anticipation of bankruptcy. What happens when a member of the global elite is backed into a corner?

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Getting Away With Murder

The Batista family is no stranger to strategic criminal litigation. In 2012, Batista’s then 20-year-old son Thor hit and killed a  bicyclist. It was a Saturday night, and Thor drove himself and a friend down a Rio highway in a Mercedes-Benz sports car. The bicyclist  was a railroad laborer named Wanderson Pereira dos Santos. He was on his way to buy flour for his wife’s birthday cake, according to a piece in the New York Times. In a highly stratified society divided by race and class, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/world/americas/fatal-car-crash-in-brazil-spotlights-class-division.html?_r=0" style="">the case was symbolic</a> [6]of Brazil’s existing problems. Pereira dos Santos was black and poor, relegated to the non-existent pedestrian system. Thor was rich and white, driving a sports car straight out of a Hollywood movie.

In Thor’s defense, highway crossings in Brazil are extremely dangerous. Pereira dos Santos didn’t have the right away, he wasn’t near a crosswalk, and he probably didn’t have any lights or reflectors. Thor’s father, Mr. Batista, lashed out at the dead bicyclist to his more than 1 million Twitter followers. “The carelessness of the cyclist could have killed three people,” he tweeted.

The trial was a mess, however, showed a different picture of the accident. Thor and his father paid off the family in an out of court settlement, and they violated their own secrecy clause. That resulted in a separate fine. Then, the court learned that Thor already had a record, with many points against his license for driving infractions. He had <a href="http://noticias.r7.com/blogs/andre-forastieri/2013/03/01/thor-e-eike-batista-sao-inocentes-os-culpados-somos-nos/" style="">already hit another pedestrian</a> [7] and <a href="http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2012/03/thor-batista-se-defende-no-twitter-sobre-acidente-com-morte-de-ciclista.html" style="">admitted</a> [8] on Twitter that he “knew there were a lot of bicyclists crossing in the area [where Pereira Santos was].”

Finally, the court found Thor guilty of involuntary manslaughter (homicidio culposo, sem intenção de matar). It seemed for a moment that the rule of law extended beyond property rights, all the way to human rights. In a country where only <a href="http://www.newser.com/article/d9ocvgro0/public-defenders-say-rio-state-has-60000-unsolved-murders-in-10-years.html" style="">8%</a> [9] of murders are solved, and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21739076" style="">70%</a> [10] of homicide victims are black, the conviction might have been welcomed by the public.

However, Batista’s lawyers succeed appealing the decision. When the sentence finally came, it was watered down from prison time and a driving ban to a stint of community service and a $500,000 fine. His driver’s license was suspended for only two years. (A tabloid reported that he now drives an Aston Martin, like the one from the 007 films.)

In response, Brazilian blogger Andre Forastierri wrote an article entitled Thor and Eike are Innocent, We’re the Guilty Ones.

“Thor symbolizes the new, rich Brazil. Wanderson makes me think, ‘poor old Brazil.’ [.... The Batistas] still have plenty in the bank, and Thor walks free. The reason is that we continue to live in the poor, old Brazil, which allows Eike to be so rich, and therefore untouchable and automatically innocent, him and his offspring. [....] They are and will continue to be innocent. We’re the guilty ones.” [Translation mine].

Multiplication of Wealth

Long before his son hit a bicyclist, before he gained and lost his billions, Eike dedicated himself to what he called “multiplying wealth.” The son of the former mining minister and life-long minerals tycoon, Eike was educated in Europe and coddled amongst Rio’s elite. Thanks to his time abroad, he skipped the worst of Brazil’s dictatorship. When he returned to his home country at age 23, he set out to build his own fortune.

Tapping his social circle in Rio de Janeiro, he raised enough money enough to fund his first entrepreneurial adventures in the Amazon. He founded his first company, Autram Aurem. It made millions in the booming gold business, first as a middleman and later as a mine-operating entity. Thanks to high gold prices and a stable Brazilian currency, he was able to convert tracts of the Amazon into tangible assets.

To my knowledge, no one has documented Autram’s Aurem’s impact on the health of the Amazon. As a buyer of gold from pick-and-shovel operations in the 1980s, it very likely contributed to the deforestation, invasion of indigenous lands, and creation of goldmining footholds that pervade to the present day. With mechanized mining, it may have spewed out all sorts of externalities, such as mercury poisoning.

Success in mechanized alluvial mining led to a global conglomerate. Soon Eike had mines in in Russia, Chile, and even Canada. A large oil project in Greece failed when he couldn’t secure an environmental permit. A big investment in Canada helped him form his first publicly traded company, TVX.

The “X” in TVX symbolized the multiplication of wealth. As his resource and infrastructure empire grew, he incorporated the “X” in each company’s name: OGX, for oil and gas, LLX for logistics, MPX for energy, and so on. For Eike, multiplying was an end in itself. Growth for growth’s sake, he reasoned, would help build up Brazil.

Yet building up Brazil appeared sometimes to be an afterthought.  In another candid moment during his Charlie Rose interview, Eike admitted it was largely insecurity that fueled him to achieve. Growing up, he walked in the shadow of his father. Mid-career, Brazilians knew him only as only as the husband of Luma Oliviera, the Playboy cover girl and a well known figure in Rio’s Carnival scene.

He certainly wasn’t known for philanthropy.

“Don’t compare me to these people [Bill Gates and Warren Buffet],” he said in a <a href="http://live.wsj.com/video/billionaire-batista-on-brazil-china-philanthropy/BE5F9AD4-DB09-433B-B89C-6F81867C9F7E.html#!BE5F9AD4-DB09-433B-B89C-6F81867C9F7E" style="">filmed interview</a> [11] with the Wall Street Journal, also in 2010.  “My money is all in my projects. [Not all] philanthropy is good. I prefer to give them a rod, and let them fish. Maybe will the profits of all this, we can build some hospitals or something.” He never specified who “they” were, but in the context it seemed like he was referring to the class of people that get run over on highways by playboys.

Something Fishy

Insider trading is perhaps the most damning charge that Rio’s federal court has brought against Eike. Here’s the gist of the argument. In fall or winter of 2012, Eike and other OGX board members were reportedly informed that their largest investment was going bust. That big investment was the Tubarao Martelo oil fields, and it had <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-08/ogx-liquidation-signaled-as-oil-reserves-plummet-brazil-credit.html" style="">62% less reserves</a> [12] than his team had stated when pitching to investors and the market in general. They were <a href="http://www.portalvalor.com.br/empresas/3520984/policia-federal-investiga-eike-batista-por-tres-crimes-contra-o-mercad" style="">no longer commercially viable</a> [13], wrote the Brazilian magazine Valor.

Allegedly, Batista sold a chunk of his personal OGX stock right after he received the news. Only in July of 2013 of the following year did his company share the information with the public. Therefore, the argument goes, he used his position inside the company to sell stocks only he knew were worthless, rotten shares from a barrel he helped ferment. The court recently said that he <a href="http://www.infomoney.com.br/ogxpetroleo/noticia/3337080/eike-lucrou-ate-126-com-dados-privilegiados-diz-mpf-empresario" style="">snagged $63 million this way</a> [14].

Publically, he tightened his belt. He sold his helicopter and scrapped his yacht. <a href="http://tupiwire.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/eike-batista-liquidates-his-air-force/" style="">Some claimed</a> [15] he was buying less lavish lunches. Privately, he offloaded assets to his sons, as revealed last week by Brazilian outlet <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/business/2014/05/1449502-eike-batista-donates-homes-worth-and-estimated-us-22-million-to-his-children.shtml" style="">Folha</a> [16]. Perhaps sensing impending bankruptcy, he quietly transferred ownership of residence and vacation homes to his sons, Thor and Odin. On paper, he valued them at a little over $7 million. In reality, they’re probably worth more like $22 million.

A few weeks ago, after the federal probe was announced, Eike projected confidence in an interview with the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304311204579510253892089492" style="">Wall Street Journal</a> [17]. "It's excellent that everything get clarified," Mr. Batista said over the telephone. "I'm very calm. Let them investigate."

Now, the federal court has frozen his assets. After consulting with lawyers, Folha believes that the court could seize the homes as well, since they were transferred after his alleged financial crimes occurred. As in Thor’s homicide trial, Eike is likely to maneuver in court until he achieves the most banal sentencing possible.

The Bubble Builder

When OGX first started it’s oil venture, it boasted a 100% hit rate in the wells. Before the facts were in, its shares peaked at $22. Once the real oil reserves were made public in July of 2013, they plummeted, bottoming out at around $0.18. But it wasn’t the first time that Eike had overpromised and underdelivered. Back in his Canada days, the boom and bust of gold pumped up and later gutted TVX. Apparently, TVX lost <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-03/eike-batista-how-brazils-richest-man-lost-34-dot-5-billion#p3" style="">96%</a> [4] of its peak value.

Why such a gap between perceived value and results? The Economist used to call Eike Brazil’s salesmen. “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7bZ98vKlMk" style="">We mean that in a positive sense</a> [18],” they said. In Brazilian circles, Batista’s persona lent itself to this joke comparing him to another well-known billionaire. “Who made more money with PowerPoint, Eike Batista or Bill Gates?”

After his fall, English language media called him out on his braggadocio.

“<a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323342404579077483334974894" style="">Mr. Batista liked to call [oil] assets ‘idiot proof.’</a> [19] But years after he took them to market, none has turned a profit,” wrote the Wall Street Journal. What did that mean for the business world?

“It’s partly a story of Brazil falling out of favor with investors, but it’s really a story of someone who made really big promises, priced everything to perfection, and failed to deliver,” said <a href="http://www.alexcuadros.com/" style="">Alex Cuadros</a> [20] (see video below). He’s now writing <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexCuadros" style="">a book</a> [21]about some of the 40 or so billionaires in Brazil.

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