Tag: Brazil

Planet Watch

Climate change report draws UN call for action

UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment David Boyd issued an urgent call for accelerated action to combat climate change. The statement comes after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on the impacts of global warming of 2°C—the increase permitted under the Paris Accord. Boyd said that climate change is "one of the greatest threats to human rights" and will have devastating effects on the "rights to life, health, food, housing, and water, as well as the right to a healthy environment." In order to meet human rights obligations, Boyd called on counties to exceed their Paris Agreement obligations. If the temperature increase is allowed to increase to 2.0°C, it would result in "human rights violations upon millions of people." (Photo via Jurist)

North America

Trump order lays ground for indefinite detention

Trump’s executive order officially calling for an end to separating migrant families on the border actually contains provisions laying the groundwork for the indefinite detention of intercepted migrants. Entitled “Temporary Detention Policy for Families Entering this Country Illegally,” it instructs the Secretary of Defense to provide “any existing facilities available for the housing and care of alien families” to Homeland Security—a clear reference to placing detained migrants in military bases. It also charges the Defense Department with responsibility to “construct such facilities if necessary…” (Photo: BBC World Service via Flickr)

New York City

Standing for Gaza and Ghouta in Union Square

Protesters for both the besieged Gaza Strip and the besieged Syrian enclave of Ghouta gathered in New York's Union Square on Friday night. Those standing for Gaza and Ghouta should be natural allies, but there was little interaction between the two protests. And some (by no means all) among the Gaza protesters were followers of Stalinist factions that support the dictatorship of Bashar Assad—who is raining death down on Ghouta just as Israel has serially rained death down on Gaza. What will it take to provoke the conversation that needs to be had on the American left, and build the unified but multi-issue movement so desperately needed at this dangerous moment, with fascist forces on the advance worldwide? (Photo: Syria Solidarity NYC via Facebook)

Southern Cone

Demand investigation in killing of Rio councilwoman

Amnesty International is calling for a full investigation into the killing of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco. A human rights defender known for her outspoken stance against the wave of police terror in Rio’s favelas, Franco was shot dead in an ambush on her vehicle, in what appears to be a targeted assassination. Amnesty cited the shooting as “yet another example of the dangers that human rights defenders face in Brazil,” and stated that the “Brazilian authorities must ensure a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into this tragic killing.” (Photo: WikiMedia Commons)

Mexico

Mexico’s ‘New Generation’ kingpin busted in Brazil

Brazilian federal police announced the arrest of José González Valencia, top leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel—the criminal machine that has risen to challenge the Sinaloa Cartel for control of Mexico's narco trade. Valencia, known as "El Camarón" (The Shrimp), was arrested at Aquiraz, a resort near the coastal city of Fortaleza, where he was spending the Christmas holidays with his family. He was extradited straight from Brazil to the United States, where he faces trafficking charges. (Map: CIA)

Southern Cone

Brazil: deadly deja vu in New Years Day prison riot

For the second year in a row, Brazil has witnessed a deadly prison riot on the first day of the year. A death toll of nine is reported from the central state of Goias. One inmate was decapitated. The violence began New Year's Day afternoon at the rural penitentiary in the outskirts of the state capital, Goiania. Rival criminal factions clashed, broke the barriers of the compound and escaped.

Southern Cone

Brazil’s top fugitive drug lord gets popped

Brazilian authorities announced the apprehension of Rogerio Avelino da Silva AKA “Rogerio 157″—the fugitive gang leader said be behind a wave of paramilitary-style violence that prompted the national government to flood  Rio de Janiero’s favelas with army troops earlier this year. Nearly 3,000 officers from the Federal Police as well as army troops took part in the “mega-operation” that led to his arrest. (Photo: O Globo)

The Andes

Fujimori walks: soft coup in Peru?

Protests are breaking out across Peru following the Christmas eve "humanitarian pardon" of imprisoned ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK). The pardon came three days after PPK survived a congressional vote on removing him from office over his embroilment in the Odebrecht scandal. A right-wing bloc led by the dictator's son Kenji Fujimori abstained from the vote, allowing PPK to survive in office—and raising obvious accusations of a quid pro quo. (Photo: Tomate Colectivo)

The Amazon

Brazil: Amazon road blocked to press demarcation

Members of the Gavião, Gamella, Krenyê and Tremembé indigenous peoples blocked the main road through São Luís, capital of Brazil's Maranhão state, to press demands for long-delayed demarcation of their ancestral lands—now being overrun by illegal loggers and their paramilitary enforcers. The action, which halted traffic on the artery for several hours, came as some 100 indigenous activists had been camping for three weeks outside the São Luís headquarters of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).

Southern Cone

Brazil deploys army to conflicted Rio favela

Brazil's ongoing favela wars have taken a dramatic turn for the bloody—prompting the government to send military troops into Rio de Janiero's notorious Rocinha. This is the most violent of the city's sprawling favelas—informal urban settlements virtually abandoned by the government for anything other than militarized anti-drug operations. The violence in Rocinha is the deadliest since the launch of a "pacification" program in 2011 to push warring narco-gangs out of the city's favelas.

The Amazon

China wins contract for Amazon mega-project

Peru's Transport and Communications Ministry signed a contract with Chinese state-owned engineering giant SinoHydro to build the Hidrovía Amazónica, a mega-project aimed at turning the major rivers of the Amazon into arteries for delivering the resources of the rainforest basin to foreign markets. The government claims to have carried out a "prior consultation" with impacted communities along the rivers, having won 40 agreements to proceed with work.

The Amazon

Brazil: massacre of ‘uncontacted’ group reported

Prosecutors in Brazil have opened an investigation after reports that illegal gold-miners on a remote Amazon river massacred members of an "uncontacted" indigenous band. Two gold-miners have been arrested in the case. The killings allegedly took place last month in the Vale do Javari Indigenous Territory, known as the "Uncontacted Frontier," as it shelters more isolated peoples than anywhere else on Earth.