An aerial view of the Cachimbo Biological Reserve in Altamira, Brazil, reveals the scale of the burned land in the Amazon basin, in August 2019. Critics of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro trace the recent spike in fires to his administration’s anti-environmental policies. Photo: João Laet / AFP / Getty Images

Amazon rainforest sees biggest spike in deforestation in more than a decade – “Forests fall, indigenous leaders are killed, and environmental laws are shattered”

By Colin Dwyer 18 November 2019 (NPR) – Picture, for a second, just how vast New York City is. All told, including Staten Island, the Bronx and every block in between, the massive metropolis takes up more than 300 square miles. Now, try to picture a hunk of land more than 12 times that size. That’s […]

Cars block a street during a protest against a rise in gasoline prices, in the central city of Isfahan, Iran, Saturday, 16 November 2019. Demonstrators angered by a 50 percent increase in government-set gasoline prices blocked traffic in major cities and occasionally clashed with police Saturday after a night of demonstrations punctuated by gunfire. Photo: AP Photo

Protests grip major Iran cities over gas prices – Internet access sees disruptions and outages – “The ongoing disruption is the most severe disconnection tracked in any country in terms of its technical complexity and breadth”

By Jon Gambrell 16 November 2019 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Protesters angered by Iran raising government-set gasoline prices by 50 percent blocked traffic in major cities and occasionally clashed with police Saturday after a night of demonstrations punctuated by gunfire, in violence that reportedly killed at least one person. The protests put renewed […]

Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara photographed in September 2019. He was hunting on 1 November 2019 inside the Arariboia reservation in Maranhao state when he was attacked and killed by illegal loggers. Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / REUTERS

Illegal loggers assassinate Amazon indigenous warrior who guarded forest, wound another – “The Bolsonaro government has indigenous blood on its hands”

By Anthony Boadle and Leo Benassatto 2 November 2019 BRASILIA (Reuters) – Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday. Paulo Paulino Guajajara, or Lobo (which means […]

Graphs showing deteriorating financial indicators in Hong Kong, January 2019 - September 2019. Graphic: Bloomberg

Hong Kong crashes into recession as protests hit economy – “It’s completely driven by social events, and this is something the government needs to consider”

By Eric Lam and Enda Curran 31 October 2019 (Bloomberg) – Hong Kong’s economy contracted sharply in the third quarter as it entered a recession, exceeding economists’ worst estimates of the damage from nearly five months of protests. Third-quarter gross domestic product retreated 3.2% from the previous three months, after a 0.4% contraction in the […]

Members of security forces detain a demonstrator during an anti-government protest in Santiago, Chile. Photo: Edgard Garrido / REUTERS

Chile president cancels Apec and climate summits amid wave of unrest

SANTIAGO (30 October 2019) – Chile’s embattled president has cancelled the Apec trade summit in November and the Cop 25 climate summit in December, as his government struggles with the largest wave of political unrest since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. Sebastián Piñera made the announcement on Wednesday after 12 days of massive demonstrations […]

Montage of photos showing Extinction Rebellion protesters in the UK demonstrations in October 2019. Photo: The Guardian

UK police seek tougher powers against Extinction Rebellion – Clampdown on climate protests sets “disturbing precedent”, says UN rights expert

By Vikram Dodd, Matthew Taylor, Damien Gayle, and Jessica Murray 19 October 2019 (The Guardian) – Government and police have held talks to strengthen public order laws to allow a tougher crackdown on future Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate demonstrations in what civil rights lawyers warn would be a “a shocking assault on the right to protest.” The […]

A protester shakes hands with a security officer in Quito, Ecuador, on Sunday, 13 October 2019, as they celebrate the government’s announcement that it has cancelled an austerity package and restored fuel subsidies. The package had triggered violent protests that paralyzed the economy and left seven people dead. Photo: Dolores Ochoa / AP

Ecuador reaches fuel subsidy deal to end violent protests

By Chris Arnold 14 October 2019 (NPR) – Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno and leaders of the country’s indigenous peoples have reached a deal to cancel a disputed austerity package. The move follows nearly two weeks of violent, widespread protests. The unrest began after Moreno ended government subsidies that have helped keep fuel prices low in […]

Screenshot from a video depicting a fake President Trump massacring the news media and his critics that was shown at a conference for his supporters at Trump National Doral Miami in October 2019. Photo: The New York Times

Macabre video of fake Trump murdering media and critics is shown at his resort

By Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman 13 October 2019 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) — A video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort last week, […]

People block a road amid clashes with soldiers in Lasso, Ecuador, during protests after Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno’s government ended four-decade-old fuel subsidies, 6 October 2019. Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS

Ecuador declares state of emergency as fuel protesters battle police

By Alexandra Valencia 6 October 2019 QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuadorean authorities began arresting shopkeepers for raising food prices as indigenous groups clashed with security forces on Sunday in a fourth day of protests against President Lenin Moreno’s austerity measures. One man died in central Azuay province when roadblocks blocked an ambulance from reaching him after […]

Zimbabweans sit and pray on top of a large rock on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe, 8 September 2019. Photo: Themba Hadebe / AP Photo

Zimbabwe’s capital runs dry as taps cut off for 2 million people – “It is a desperate situation”

By Farai Mutsaka 24 September 2019 HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – Tempers flared on Tuesday as more than 2 million residents of Zimbabwe’s capital and surrounding towns found themselves without water after authorities shut down the main treatment plant, raising new fears about disease after a cholera outbreak while the economy crumbles even more. Officials in Harare have struggled to […]

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