Brazil to accept G7 grant if Macron ‘withdraws insults’

Porto Velho, August 27 

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro today said he was open to discussing G7 aid for fighting fires in the Amazon if his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron 

“withdraws insults” made against him. Bolsonaro’s remarks come amid an escalating war of words with Macron over the worst fires in years that have sparked a global outcry and threatened to torpedo a huge trade deal between the European Union and South American countries.

Hours earlier, a top Brazilian official had rejected the G7 countries’ offer of $20 million to combat the fires devastating the forest in Brazil and Bolivia, saying Macron should take care of “his home and his colonies”. “Mr Macron must withdraw the insults he made against me,” Bolsonaro told reporters in the capital Brasilia. “To talk or accept anything from France, with the best possible intentions, he has to withdraw these words, and from there we can talk,” Bolsonaro said. 

Macron on Monday condemned “extraordinarily rude” comments made about his wife Brigitte by Bolsonaro a day earlier. Bolsonaro hit back, accusing Macron of treating Brazil like “a colony or no-man’s land”. The latest official figures show 1,659 new fires were started in Brazil between Sunday and Monday, taking the total this year to 82,285 — the highest since 2013 — even as military aircraft and troops help battle the blazes. More than half of the fires are in the massive Amazon basin.

In the hard-hit northwestern state of Rondonia, thick smoke has choked the capital Porto Velho in recent days as fires blacken swaths of the rainforest. Defence Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva on Monday claimed that the fires were “under control.” “It has been exaggerated a little that the situation was out of control - it wasn’t,” he said. “The situation isn’t simple but it is under control.” Although about 60 per cent of the Amazon is in Brazil, the vast forest also spreads over parts of eight other countries or territories, including the French overseas territory of Guiana on the continent’s northeast coast.

Bolsonaro — a climate-change skeptic — has faced criticism at home over his delayed response to the fires and thousands have protested in Brazil in recent days to denounce the destruction. Bestselling Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, meanwhile, took to the internet to apologise for Bolsonaro's behaviour. — AFP 

WHY DOES THE AMAZON MATTER?

The Amazon — 60% of which is in Brazil — is the world’s largest tropical rainforest. It is considered a biodiversity hot spot, with many unique species of plants and animals. The dense jungle absorbs a huge amount of the world’s carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas believed to be the biggest factor in climate change, so scientists say that preserving the Amazon is vital to fighting global warming. 

82,285  is the forest fire toll, the highest since 2013

78,383 
Fires this year, with roughly half of those in August alone

44,000 
Soldiers deployed to combat the fires and environmental crimes in Amazon

1,659 
New fires were reported in Brazil in past two days