Tag: Brazil

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.

The Andes

Colombia: still no peace for social leaders

The wave of deadly attacks on social leaders across Colombia persists in spite of the peace process. Human rights group Global Witness, which annually releases a report on the world's most dangerous countries for environmental defenders, this year names Colombia as second only to Brazil. The group counts 37 environmental activists slain in Colombia in 2016, compared to 26 in 2015. In the first six months of 2017, the figure was already up to 22.

The Andes

China enters Peru hydro-electric sector

A consortium led by China Three Gorges Corp has agreed to buy a giant hydro-electric plant under construction in Peru from scandal-mired Brazilian company Odebrecht. The Chaglla complex, slated to be Peru's third largest dam, is the latest addition to a growing string of South American hydro facilities to come under control of Chinese companies.

The Amazon

Brazil: vast Amazon reserve opened to mining

Brazil's government issued an order abolishing a vast national reserve in the Amazon in order to open up the area to mineral exploitation. The National Reserve of Copper and Associated (RENCA), covering an area larger than Denmark, straddles the northern states of Amapa and Pará, and is thought to be rich in gold, iron, manganese and other minerals. Opposition Senator Randolfe Rodrigues denounced the move as "the biggest attack on the Amazon of the last 50 years."

Southern Cone

US guns to Brazilian narco-gangs

Amid fast-escalating nightmarish narco-violence in Brazil, police in Rio de Janeiro seized 60 assault rifles hidden in a freight shipment that had just arrived on a flight from Miami.

Planet Watch

UN moves to outlaw nuclear weapons in 2017

The UN adopted a resolution—hailed by disarmament campaigners as an important landmark—to launch negotiations in 2017 on a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons.