AS global concerns rise over raging fires in the Amazon, Brazil’s government has complained that it is being targeted in a 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 of a leader who has described the rainforest’s protections as an obstacle to development.
Emmanuel Macron had called the wildfires an international crisis and said the leaders of the G7 group of nations should hold urgent discussions about
them during their
summit in France this weekend.
Macron tweeted: “Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest – the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen – is on fire.”
MEANWHILE, an explosion near a West Bank settlement, that Israel said was a Palestinian attack, killed a 17-year-old Israeli girl and wounded her brother and father, Israeli authorities said.
Initially, three Israelis were reported wounded in the blast yesterday near the Dolev settlement, north-west of Jerusalem, but Israel’s rescue service later said the girl died of her wounds while her 21-year-old brother was in serious condition.
Their 46-year-old father was moderately wounded, it said. The family was at a water spring when the explosion occurred.
It was not immediately clear whether an explosive device was thrown at them or had been planted earlier.
ELSEWHERE, Malta has said it will allow 356 migrants aboard a humanitarian ship in the central Mediterranean Sea to disembark after six European countries agreed to accept all of them.
In a series of tweets, Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat said the migrants will be transferred to vessels of the country’s armed forces before taking them onshore.
The 356 people will be distributed to France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania.
FINALLY, YouTube says it disabled more than 200
videos this week that appeared
to be part of a coordinated effort
to spread misinformation about
the ongoing protests in Hong
Kong.
The video removals come just days after Twitter said it had suspended more than 200,000 accounts it linked to a Chinese government influence campaign against the protests.
Facebook also said it had suspended accounts and removed pages after being notified by Twitter.
Google, which owns YouTube, did not explicitly implicate the Chinese government but said the videos were related to the similar disclosures from Facebook and Twitter.
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