Sabtu, 24 Agustus 2019
Brazilian forces will deploy to fight Amazon fires - CBS This Morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_NBTLqzHPM
2019-08-24 11:36:43Z
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Hong Kong Erupts in Fresh Violence as Protesters, Riot Police Brawl - The Wall Street Journal
HONG KONG—Protesters in helmets and gas masks clashed with riot police Saturday, as the city’s pro-democracy movement took a confrontational turn after nearly two weeks of relatively peaceful turnouts.
Tear gas engulfed the industrial neighborhood of Kwun Tong as protesters were more aggressive, blocking roads, surrounding the local police station and sawing down at least one video-surveillance pole, which protesters said could be used to spy on people.
Protesters with poles fought face to face with the charging police, knocking some to the ground and sending others scrambling back. Some threw rocks at the police. A small firebomb exploded amid the melee. Officers made a handful of arrests.
The action in this 12th straight weekend of protests followed a massive peaceful demonstration a week earlier and comments from the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, that she’d be open to talking to the community. In a post on her official Instagram account on Saturday—ahead of the latest violence—she said everyone was tired after months of protests and asked if “we can sit down and talk about it?” after a calmer week.
Saturday’s clashes were the latest in a campaign of demonstrations initially sparked in June by concerns over a bill that would have legalized extradition to China. They have since ballooned into a full-blown antigovernment protest movement. There have been divergences among the protest camp, with a hard-core group of campaigners more willing to directly confront police on the front lines.
“I’m not saying I support violence,” said one of the protesters Saturday, a 34-year-old freelance videographer who identified himself as Fung. “I support fighting back to protect.”
He showed two tattoos on his arm, one with the Chinese characters for “safe” and another in English: “Be strong to be useful.”
The latest clash came a day after thousands of Hong Kongers formed human chains throughout the city in a peaceful pledge of solidarity.
It was a much different scene on Saturday. Adding to the turbulence: The city’s subway operator stopped services at multiple stations. The MTR system has been the lifeblood of the protest movement, allowing demonstrators to move around the city with relative ease. But Chinese state media has criticized the subway operator, MTR Corp., for being soft on protesters.
Carrie Ng, a Hong Kong resident, got a notification from her MTR app Saturday morning saying some subway stations near the protest site would be closed. With such short notice, she rushed to get the last available train to her destination. “It is the government who is doing the uncooperative movement today,” said the 33-year-old Ms. Ng. “This is so disturbing.”
She said she suspected the MTR’s decision was motivated by the government’s attempt to discourage people from protesting. “If Carrie Lam was meant to mend fences, why would the MTR stations be shut down today?” Ms. Ng said. “This is just her excuse.”
In Mrs. Lam’s Instagram post, she said her administration wanted to take the opportunity to start a dialogue without division between class, color or age. “We must continue to listen to views with our hearts,” she said.
On Saturday, protesters gathered in Kwun Tong—across the harbor from Hong Kong island on the east side of Kowloon—through the afternoon, setting up barricades, digging out paving stones for ammunition, and donning gas masks and other equipment. Around 4:30 p.m. police held up a sign reading: “Stop charging or we use force.”
Shortly after, a glass bottle flew into the air and smashed on the pavement near the police. Within minutes, the police rushed into the crowd, moving protesters further away from the Ngau Tau Kok Police station. A few minutes later, police raised another sign warning of tear gas.
As the sun was setting, protesters pointed blue and white lasers at police officers, who continued firing tear gas into the crowd. Protesters scattered momentarily but repeatedly returned to hold their ground.
Many protesters focused on the new program of installing surveillance light posts and the backlash that has ensued from it.
“If they keep monitoring us, there’s no difference from China, and we’re not yet China,” said Ms. Chow, a 20-year-old student who declined to give her first name.
The smell of burned electrical wires hung in the air on Sheung Yuet Road, where protesters sawed down a smart lamp post and tore out its insides, along with the contents of about another dozen. They also burned one lamp post.
A 29-year-old protester with a tool kit said he was looking for any of the pole’s sensors that had been exposed to take home and examine, to determine what the poles do with the data they collect. But he was too late—all of the sensors had already been taken by police walking the street with evidence bags, or perhaps other protesters.
Lok, a part-time teacher in her 40s, handed out aluminum foil to protesters advising them to wrap their wallets to avoid being identified by their local IDs, which contain contactless chips.
Ms. Lok said she read online about the foil and decided to come out to the protest with two 130-meter rolls. “Wrap your whole wallet,” she told protesters.
Kwun Tong resident Kelvin Lee marched with protesters in a face mask and badminton racket on his way to play a match. He said locals were concerned about the new lamp posts equipped with cameras and were glad protesters were bringing attention to the program.
“Before it starts is a good time to raise your hand and say we have a problem with it” said the 40-year-old IT worker. He said he didn’t want to see protesters destroy the public infrastructure without giving the government a chance to respond, but “maybe if it’s a last resort, it will have to happen.”
—Natasha Khan and Joyu Wang contributed to this article.
Write to Steven Russolillo at steven.russolillo@wsj.com and Eun-Young Jeong at Eun-Young.Jeong@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
https://www.wsj.com/articles/violence-erupts-as-hong-kong-protesters-and-riot-police-resume-hostilities-11566638414
2019-08-24 11:28:00Z
CAIiENJm46tqCcB3X2KbZATpeAQqFwgEKg8IACoHCAow1tzJATDnyxUw54IY
North Korea launches two more 'short-range ballistic missiles' into sea - BBC News
North Korea fired two suspected short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Saturday morning, South Korea's military says.
The launch is the seventh carried out since North Korea ended a 17-month hiatus on testing at the end of July.
Pyongyang has repeatedly expressed anger at US-South Korean military exercises that have been taking place.
On Saturday South Korea said the latest missiles, launched after the drills ended, cause "grave concern".
Military officials said the projectiles were launched at 06:45 and 07:02 local time (21:45 and 22:02 GMT Friday) from the eastern town of Sondok in South Hamgyong Province.
They said they flew about 380km (240 miles) and reached an altitude of 97 km before landing into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.
"Our military is monitoring the situation in case of additional launches and maintaining a readiness posture," South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
Japan's Defence Minister, Takeshi Iwaya, confirmed the missiles had not landed in Japanese territorial waters, but described them as a clear violation of UN resolutions.
The missile launch comes days after US-South Korean military exercises ended. North Korea describes them as a "rehearsal for war" and say they violate agreements reached with US President Donald Trump and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in.
The US and South Korea have refused to cancel the drills, but have scaled them back significantly.
In a presidential office statement on Saturday, South Korea called for North Korea to stop escalating military tensions and reiterated their wish for negotiations with the US to resume.
Denuclearisation talks have stalled since a second face-to-face summit between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke down in February.
In June the two leaders met in in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas and agreed to resume working-level negotiations.
Speaking after Saturday's tests, Mr Trump reiterated that he had a "really good relationship" with Mr Kim, whom he said had been "pretty straight" with him.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49455689
2019-08-24 05:31:40Z
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Jumat, 23 Agustus 2019
Brazil Plans to Mobilize the Military to Fight Fires in the Amazon - The New York Times
RIO DE JANEIRO — Facing global scorn over environmental policies that have contributed to a rash of fires in the Amazon, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil said Friday that he was planning to send the military to contain the blazes.
After being largely dismissive about the fires earlier in the week, and claiming without evidence that they were probably set by environmental groups in an effort to undermine him, Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration appeared rattled on Friday.
“Whatever is within our power we will do,” Mr. Bolsonaro told reporters on Friday after a late-night emergency cabinet meeting on Thursday. “The problem is resources.”
[As fires have spread, so have misleading photos.]
Mr. Bolsonaro did not indicate what resources the military would bring to bear, but he is scheduled to give a televised address Friday evening to describe the government’s response plan.
Global outrage over the fires has spurred calls to boycott Brazilian products and led European leaders to threaten to walk away from a trade agreement that the European Union struck with Brazil and a handful of neighboring countries in June.
Forest fires happen every year in Brazil this time of year, when temperatures and humidity are lower. But the number of fires identified by satellite images in the Amazon so far this month is the highest since 2010, according to Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research agency, which tracks deforestation and forest fires using satellite images.
The number of fires identified by the agency in the Amazon region so far this year, 40,341, is roughly 35 percent higher than the average for the first eight months of each year since 2010.
Image
The decade before that included several years in which the number of fires identified during the first eight months was far higher. For instance, in 2005, there were more than 94,700 fires recorded. The rate of deforestation during that era prompted Brazil to adopt an ambitious set of policies to preserve the Amazon and other environmentally sensitive areas.
Many of those protections have eroded on Mr. Bolsonaro’s watch.
Brazilian officials sought to diminish the severity of the crisis and pushed back on the dire characterization of some world leaders, most notably President Emmanuel Macron of France, who wrote on Twitter on Thursday: “Our house is burning. Literally.”
Brazil’s minister of agriculture, Tereza Cristina Corrêa da Costa Dias, told reporters on Friday that many observers were conflating slash-and-burn fires regularly used in farmland with out-of-control forest fires.
Foreign governments that threaten to punish Brazil on trade or exports, she said, “first need to know what is happening in Brazil before taking any measure.”
Ms. Corrêa called on foreign governments to “lower the temperature,” adding that “Brazil understands the importance of the Amazon.”
Some local officials expressed greater alarm, though. In the northern state of Acre, the governor declared a state of emergency and ordered the evacuation of areas that could become engulfed by fires.
“We have alarming data on air quality, so health officials have increased the number of doctors available to treat our people,” Israel Milani, the state’s top environmental official, said in an interview.
In the state of Rondônia, firefighters said they were in triage mode.
“It’s impossible to be everywhere at the same time,” said Coronel Demargli Farias, the state’s chief of firefighters. “Even if we had 50,000 men.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/world/americas/brazil-military-amazon-fire.html
2019-08-23 18:23:00Z
52780358768310
French President Emmanuel Macron slams Brazil's president over Amazon fires - CNN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDf9v6nVPY
2019-08-23 17:42:14Z
52780358768310
Rabu, 21 Agustus 2019
Amazon rainforest fire: How did the Amazon fire start? How long has it been on fire? - Express.co.uk
The Amazon rainforest is burning record numbers of fires this year, and now smoke from the expansive flames has been captured on both NASA and NOAA satellites from space. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) satellite data showed an 83 percent increase compared to the same period in 2018. The space agency reports its satellite data has detected more than 72,000 fires since January 2019.
How did the Amazon rainforest fires start?
Wildfires often occur in the dry season in Brazil, but this year has been worse than normal, according to INPE.
In addition, fires are deliberately started in efforts to illegally deforest land for cattle ranching.
The space agency said it had detected more than 72,000 fires between January and August and more than 9,500 forest fires since Thursday, mostly in the Amazon region.
Read More: Amazon rainforest shock map: DEADLY affect of Amazon fires
In comparison, there were fewer than 40,000 in the whole of 2018.
Some conservationist have blamed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for the forest fires, saying he has encouraged loggers and farmers to clear the land.
Mr Bolsonaro said he disagrees with the latest data presented, saying it was the “season of the queimada”, when farmers use fire to clear land.
He said: “I used to be called Captain Chainsaw. Now I am Nero, setting the Amazon aflame.”
The Amazon rainforest has been fire-resistant for much of its history because of its natural moisture and humidity but NASA has said drought and human activities are causing wildfires.
A release from the space agency said: “The intensity and frequency of droughts in turn, have been linked with increases in regional deforestation and anthropogenic climate change.”
Ricardo Mello, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Amazon Programme, added the fires were “a consequence of the increase in deforestation seen in recent figures”.
Read More: Amazon fires: BLACK RAIN falls in Sao Paolo - ‘Pray for Brazil’
How long has the Amazon been on fire?
Due to the number of fires in the Amazon rainforest it’s hard to predict exactly when it started.
However, the fires have increased recently, with more than 9,500 infernos since Thursday.
Since January, 72,000 fires have blasted the rainforest, a number that is likely to go up in the coming weeks.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1168299/amazon-rainforest-fire-how-did-amazon-fires-start-cause-deforestation-how-long-fire
2019-08-22 00:01:00Z
52780358768310
Amazon rainforest fire: How did the Amazon fire start? How long has it been on fire? - Express.co.uk
The Amazon rainforest is burning record numbers of fires this year, and now smoke from the expansive flames has been captured on both NASA and NOAA satellites from space. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) satellite data showed an 83 percent increase compared to the same period in 2018. The space agency reports its satellite data has detected more than 72,000 fires since January 2019.
How did the Amazon rainforest fires start?
Wildfires often occur in the dry season in Brazil, but this year has been worse than normal, according to INPE.
In addition, fires are deliberately started in efforts to illegally deforest land for cattle ranching.
The space agency said it had detected more than 72,000 fires between January and August and more than 9,500 forest fires since Thursday, mostly in the Amazon region.
Read More: Amazon rainforest shock map: DEADLY affect of Amazon fires
In comparison, there were fewer than 40,000 in the whole of 2018.
Some conservationist have blamed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for the forest fires, saying he has encouraged loggers and farmers to clear the land.
Mr Bolsonaro said he disagrees with the latest data presented, saying it was the “season of the queimada”, when farmers use fire to clear land.
He said: “I used to be called Captain Chainsaw. Now I am Nero, setting the Amazon aflame.”
The Amazon rainforest has been fire-resistant for much of its history because of its natural moisture and humidity but NASA has said drought and human activities are causing wildfires.
A release from the space agency said: “The intensity and frequency of droughts in turn, have been linked with increases in regional deforestation and anthropogenic climate change.”
Ricardo Mello, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Amazon Programme, added the fires were “a consequence of the increase in deforestation seen in recent figures”.
Read More: Amazon fires: BLACK RAIN falls in Sao Paolo - ‘Pray for Brazil’
How long has the Amazon been on fire?
Due to the number of fires in the Amazon rainforest it’s hard to predict exactly when it started.
However, the fires have increased recently, with more than 9,500 infernos since Thursday.
Since January, 72,000 fires have blasted the rainforest, a number that is likely to go up in the coming weeks.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1168299/amazon-rainforest-fire-how-did-amazon-fires-start-cause-deforestation-how-long-fire
2019-08-21 23:26:20Z
52780358768310
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