NEW YORK ― Far-right Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro blamed the international media and environmental organizations for spreading “lies” about the fires that are ravaging the Amazon rainforest during a nationalist speech that opened the 2019 United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning. “The Amazon is not being devastated,” Bolsonaro said, contradicting recent media reports and even scientific data from his own government . Bolsonaro, a former military officer who has praised Brazil’s previous military dictatorship, is facing international scrutiny for his handling of the record outbreak of fires in the Amazon, his gutting of environmental enforcement agencies and his rolling back of forest protections, and his denial of climate change ― the central focus of this year’s annual U.N. summit. He has faced protests throughout the week from environmental groups, Brazilian activists and indigenous tribal leaders, who have warned that Bolsonaro’s policies threaten both the Amazon and the indigenous peoples who live there. But as was largely expected, the Brazilian leader used his first United Nations address to turn that scorn back on an international community that, he said, is threatening Brazil’s “most sacred value: Our sovereignty.” The speech, in which Bolsonaro warned that the United Nations should not […]
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