South America

JACUNDA NATIONAL FOREST, Brazil (AP) — Equipped with hoses connected to rubber backpacks, Brazilian firefighters in the Amazon on Monday raced in a truck along dirt roads toward plumes of smoke after a spotter in a military helicopter directed them to a fast-spreading fire.

PORTO VELHO, Brazil (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has insulted adversaries and allies, disparaged women, blacks and homosexuals, and even praised his country’s 1964-1985 dictatorship. Yet nothing has rallied more anger at home and criticism from abroad than his response to fires raging in parts of the Amazon region.

SANTANDER DE QUILICHAO, Colombia (Reuters) - Indigenous leader Edwin Mauricio Capaz pulls on a bulletproof vest every day before getting into the armored car he uses to travel around the restive part of ​​southwest Colombia he calls home.

Despite this protection, the 34-year-old worries he could soon join hundreds of human rights activists and community leaders assassinated since a 2016 peace deal, many of them for confronting drug trafficking or illegal mining.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — 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 that previously deforested areas had burned and that intact rainforest was spared. Even so, the fires were likely to be urgently discussed at a summit of the Group of Seven leaders in France this weekend.

SANTIAGO, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Central Chile is in the midst of what scientists have called a Mega Drought -- an uninterrupted period of dry years since 2010, local media reported Saturday.

The Chilean government has declared an agricultural emergency in parts of the country with an aim to unveil relief programs for drought-stricken farmers.

The capital Santiago, home to about half of the country's population of 18 million and the nearby region of Valparaiso bear the brunt of this year's drought, the worst in six decades, reports said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Brazilians marched on Friday evening in several cities in an organized act to defend the Amazon rainforest which has been hit by massive fires recently.

In cities like Rio, Sao Paulo and Brasilia, protesters called for actions to protect the Amazon rainforest from predatory exploration and destruction.

Earlier this week, Sao Paulo witnessed a strange atmospheric phenomenon, as the sky turned dark in the middle of the afternoon, mostly under the impact of the smoke of the forest fires carried by wind currents.

PORT VELHO, Brazil (AP) — 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 for a month, according to a presidential decree authorizing use of the army.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — 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 of a leader who has described Brazil’s rainforest protections as an obstacle to economic development and who traded Twitter jabs on Thursday with France’s president over the fires.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Wednesday cast doubt on President Nicolás Maduro’s claim that he is overseeing secret talks with the United States, saying it only reflects disarray within the Venezuelan government.

Guaidó spoke a day after Maduro and President Donald Trump said high-level officials in their respective administrations have been meeting about ending the South American nation’s deepening crisis.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — It happens, on average, more than five times a day in Rio de Janeiro: Police open fire and someone dies.

Brazilian human rights and victims’ groups are raising alarms about the record levels of deaths at police hands in the state of 17.2 million people, with 1,075 slain in the first seven months of the year, according to official figures. And far-right Rio state Gov. Wilson Witzel and President Jair Bolsonaro are pushing to give police a still-freer hand.