Brazil: Indigenous people bear the brunt of record-breaking fires in the Amazon
More than 62,000 square kilometers of Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest have burned this year, according to the country’s National Institute for Space Research. Experts say the country has suffered its worst fires in two decades, made worse by the country’s worst drought in 40 years. Most fires were set by humans to clear land for mining, farming or ranching. Indigenous people living in the Amazon are among the hardest hit by these fires, labeled as “criminal” by Brazil’s President Lula da Silva. In a BBC interview, an indigenous chief of Brazil’s Caititu community, Ze Bajaga, described the arsonists as those who “no longer want the wellbeing of humanity, or nature.” Raimundinha Rodrigues Da Sousa, the community’s voluntary fire service leader, said that “If these fires continue, we indigenous people will die.” (PBS, BBC)
Germany: Young people’s support for the far-right AFD surges in recent elections
Germany’s recent state elections have shown an increased support of the far right Alternative for Germany Party by young people. In the Thuringia state election last month, more than a third or nearly 40% of 18-to-29-year olds voted for the AFD, which won the elections with 32.8% of the vote, marking the first far-right victory in German state elections since World War II ended. According to experts, this rise in support for the AFD has been driven by the far–right’s ability to capitalize on the uncertainties of young people about the future, war, immigration, affording a home among others.The party targets young people with social media platforms like Tik-Tok, which many experts say are key to forming young people’s political beliefs and voting behavior, to deliver what they described as hateful, provocative and polarizing, but effective messaging. (BBC, Associated Press)
Mexico: Mexico swears in its first female president
Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in as Mexico’s first-ever female president on Oct. 1. She is also the country’s first president of Jewish descent. “It is time for women,” she said in her inaugural speech, to a roaring applause, “Women have arrived to shape the destiny of our beautiful nation.” Sheinbaum was a leftist student activist in her university days, and then a climate scientist before her election as Mexico City’s mayor. Her campaign promised continuity of the initiatives of the immediate former President Lopez Obrador who doubled the Mexican minimum wage, reduced unemployment and poverty, widened the social safety net and strengthened the Mexican peso, according to local reports. (PBS, Reuters)
Nepal: Floods and landslides kill more than 190 people
Last month, Nepal was hit hard by flooding and landslides killing more than 190 people, just before its largest festival Dasain, disrupting travelers and damaging roads. Over 100 people were injured and more than the same number of people have been declared missing, according to news reports. Climate change has been identified as a cause of the increased rainfall that led to the flooding, but experts say Nepal’s haphazard development, riverbank development and lack of drainage and sewage systems worsened the flood. (Associated Press, Al Jazeera)
Burkina Faso: Jihadi massacre claims over 600 lives
More than 600 people digging defensive trenches were killed in Barsalogho, Burkina Faso, in the country’s deadliest terror attacks in a decade. The Al Qaeda-linked terror group Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claimed responsibility for the attack. The mass killing happened on a Saturday morning in the town’s outskirts where the victims were forced by the army to dig trenches and clear vegetation blocking the visibility of soldiers posted there. News reports say the government has avoided taking responsibility for its role in the attack or failure to protect its citizens by framing the attack as part of a wider plot by Western countries and ECOWAS members Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria to destabilize. (BBC, CNN)
