Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil’s death toll has surpassed 23,000 and any semblance of President Jair Bolsonaro’s personal responsibility has evaporated.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he twice tested negative for the coronavirus but many, including a federal judge, are demanding he share the actual results.

Latin America’s largest nation is veering closer to becoming one of the world’s coronavirus hot spots

Even as coronavirus cases mount in Latin America’s largest nation, the Brazilian president has staked out the most deliberately dismissive position of any major world leader

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has tested negative for the new coronavirus, according to a post on his official Facebook profile

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has called young Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg a “brat” after she expressed concern about the slayings of indigenous Brazilians in the Amazon. Bolsonaro questioned the coverage news media have given to the 16-year-old, who earlier tweeted a link to a story about the murder of two indigenous people in Brazil’s Maranhao state. In his...

Without offering proof, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday said actor Leonardo DiCaprio had funded nonprofit groups that he claimed are partly responsible for fires in the Amazon this year. Bolsonaro’s remarks about the American actor were part of a wider government campaign against environmental nonprofit groups operating in Brazil. DiCaprio’s environmental organization Earth Alliance has pledged $5 million to...

Pope Francis urged bishops on Sunday to boldly shake up the status quo as they chart ways to better care for the Amazon and its indigenous people amid threats from forest fires, development and what he called ideological “ashes of fear.” Francis opened a three-week meeting on preserving the rainforest and ministering to its native people as he fended off...

Navigating a troubled era’s choppy waters, world leaders gather for their annual meeting at the United Nations on Tuesday to grapple with climate change, regional conflicts and a dispute in the Middle East that could ripple across the entire planet. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will open the General Assembly proceedings with a “state of the world” speech. He’ll be followed...

New satellite images published Monday by the European Space Agency show an increase in air pollution in the Brazilian Amazon while fires burned in the region last month. Several maps showed more carbon monoxide and other pollutants in August than in the previous month, when there were fewer fires. The agency said fires released carbon dioxide once stored in the...

“Without smoke, there’s no progress,” said the Amazon rancher in a torn straw hat and cowboy boots caked in red dirt. The rancher, 75-year-old Antonio Lopes da Silva, was talking about the fires that have swept parts of one of the world’s most precious regions in recent weeks. People around the world reacted with shock at what they consider a...

Brazil on Thursday banned most legal fires for land-clearing for 60 days in an attempt to stop the burning that has devastated parts of the Amazon region. The decree prohibiting the fires was signed by President Jair Bolsonaro and followed international criticism of his handling of the environmental crisis. The period of the new ban coincides with the dry season,...

So far in 2019, Brazil reported 83,000 fires, a 77% increase from the same period last year. Many of those were set in already deforested areas by people clearing land for cultivation or pasture. According to Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, an estimated 3,553 fires are now burning on 148 indigenous territories in the region.

Backed by military aircraft, Brazilian troops on Saturday were deploying in the Amazon to fight fires that have swept the region and prompted anti-government protests as well as an international outcry. President Jair Bolsonaro also tried to temper global concern, saying previously deforested areas had burned and that intact rainforest was spared. Even so, the fires were likely to be...

Under international pressure to contain fires sweeping parts of Brazil’s Amazon, President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday authorized use of the military to battle the huge blazes while thousands took to the streets to protest his environmental policies. Brazilian forces will deploy starting Saturday to border areas, indigenous territories and other affected regions in the Amazon to assist in putting out...

Fires have been breaking out at an unusual pace in Brazil this year, causing global alarm over deforestation in the Amazon region. The world’s largest rainforest is often called the “lungs of the earth.”

Amid global concern about raging fires in the Amazon, Brazil’s government complained Thursday that it is being targeted in smear campaign by critics who contend President Jair Bolsonaro is not doing enough to curb widespread deforestation. The threat to what some call “the lungs of the planet” has ignited a bitter dispute about who is to blame during the tenure...

Brazil’s official monitoring agency is reporting a sharp increase in wildfires this year, and President Jair Bolsonaro suggested Wednesday, without citing evidence, that non-governmental organizations could be setting them to make him look bad. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, a federal agency monitoring deforestation and wildfires, said the country has seen a record number of wildfires this year, counting...

At least 52 prisoners were killed by other inmates during clashes between organized crime groups at the Altamira prison in northern Brazil on Monday, according to prison officials. Para state prison authorities said 16 of the victims were decapitated while others were asphyxiated. The count of victims potentially could rise when authorities have searched all areas involved, state prisons chief...

Brazilian prisons are no stranger to gang violence. In 2017, fights between gangs went on for three weeks and claimed more than 120 lives.