As wildfires rage through the Brazilian Amazon, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has said Dublin will vote against a trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur unless Brazil takes action to protect the rainforest.
South American trade block Mercosur reached a free trade agreement with four European countries, Argentine officials and Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said after talks in Buenos Aires.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro following a Thursday meeting with his ministers at the Planalto Palace announced the creation of a crisis cabinet to address the Amazon rainforest situation.
A Brazilian former minister and presidential candidate in the last election, called president Jair Bolsonaro, corrupt, despicable, dishonest and irresponsible during a conference on Thursday at the Minas Gerais Federal University.
Wildfires in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil have ignited a firestorm on social media, with President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday suggesting green groups started the blazes. Images of fires purportedly devouring sections of the world's largest rainforest have gone viral on Twitter.
Brazil's Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, according to new data from the country's space research agency. The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) said its satellite data showed an 83% increase on the same period in 2018.
Presidential frontrunner Alberto Fernandez and running-mate Cristina Kirchner led calls by dozens of Argentine personalities on Tuesday to free Brazil's jailed leftist icon Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Human rights activists, lawmakers, trade unionists, artists and scientists signed a petition published in the left-leaning Pagina 12 daily.
Brazil’s main science-funding agency will have to suspend more than 80,000 scholarships to postdoctoral researchers and graduate and undergraduate students starting in September unless it receives additional cash from the government.
Brazil is considering designating Lebanese group Hezbollah a terrorist organization, as President Jair Bolsonaro increasingly aligns his government with the U.S. on foreign policy.
Opposition candidate, Alberto Fernandez, said that Argentina would struggle under present conditions to repay a loan to the International Monetary Fund and he would seek to renegotiate the repayment terms, according to an interview published on Sunday by the newspaper Clarin.