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BRASILIA, LELEMUKU.COM  - Lax regulations, chronic short staffing and a law that muffled the voices of environmentalists on mining licenses made the devastating collapse of a dam in southeastern Brazil all but destined to happen, experts and legislators say.

The failure of the dam holding back iron ore mining waste on Jan. 25 unleashed an avalanche of mud that buried buildings and contaminated water downstream. At least 115 people have died, and another 248 people remain missing.

But one of the cruelest parts of the tragedy in Brumadinho is that it has happened before: In 2015, mining dams burst in nearby Mariana in what is considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.

What’s more, it could happen again, as many Brazilian states and the federal government move to ease regulation in the name of economic development.

In the three years since the Mariana rupture killed 19 people, the regulation of the industry has gotten less, not more, rigorous in Minas Gerais state.

“It felt like it was just a matter of time before something bigger would happen,” said Josiele Rosa Silva Tomas, the president of the Brumadinho residents’ association.

Problems that existed when the dams in Mariana burst, like dramatic short-staffing, have persisted, while a new law has reduced the say of environmental groups in the project licensing process.


And the danger remains widespread: A 2017 report from the National Water Agency classified more than 700 dams nationwide as at high risk of collapse, with high potential for causing damage.

In fact, some fear the risk may only increase. Environmental groups accused the previous Congress and president of rolling back significant protections, and many expect further weakening under President Jair Bolsonaro, who has said environmental regulation hamstrings several industries, including mining.

But the politics that contributed to the collapses in Minas Gerais are much more local. For centuries, the mineral-rich state has revolved around the mining industry — its name, given by Portuguese colonizers, translates to “General Mines.”

More than 300 mines employ thousands in the state, often in poor, rural areas.

Civil society groups often struggle to achieve basic guarantees. For instance, Tomas’ group has long fought to prevent mining projects from contaminating drinking water.

“Minas Gerais has a centuries-long history of being lenient with the mining sector. It’s cultural,” Joao Vitor Xavier, a state deputy, told The Associated Press. “The industry creates a discourse where they dangle jobs and economic growth in front of people, but they put profit over safety.”

The CEO of Vale SA, which owned and operated the Brumadinho mining complex, acknowledges their regulatory measures fell short.

“Apparently to work under the (current) rules has not worked,” Flavio Schvartsman said during a press conference several hours after the dam breach.

Vale officials have said they don’t yet know why the dam collapsed.

Arrest warrants have been issued for five people responsible for safety assessments of the dam, including three Vale employees. Vale was also involved in the Mariana rupture: The dams there were administered by the Brazilian giant and Australia’s BHP Billiton.

The Mariana collapse unleashed nearly 80 million cubic yards (60 million cubic meters) of mining waste into rivers and eventually the Atlantic Ocean. While its environmental impact is considered the worst in Brazilian history, Brumadinho has already far surpassed its

In the wake of the Mariana tragedy, Minas Gerais was already struggling to implement what regulation it had: A 2016 audit found the state had only 20 percent of the staff needed at the agency charged with regulating mines. Environmentalists say mining regulation has gotten even weaker since.

In 2015, the state approved a new process for licensing mining projects. It shifted responsibility from a board that included several environmental organizations to the state environmental secretary, who created a new board with a majority of participants favorable to mining industry interests.

Then-Gov. Fernando Pimentel argued the bill would reduce bureaucracy. But days before the law was approved, the Minas Association of Environmental Defense called it “one of the biggest setbacks in environmental regulation in the country.”

“The conditions are set so the licenses never get turned down,” Maria Teresa Corujo, a rare pro-environmental voice on the new board, told the AP.

In December, Corujo, of the National Forum of Civil Society in Watershed Communities, was the only member of the new board to vote against approving the expansion of the mining complex in Brumadinho. Notes from that meeting show the complex’s pollutant rating had been downgraded — a move that is now the purview of the environmental secretary — allowing the company to skip regulatory steps.

In July 2018, Xavier, the state lawmaker who has pushed for a ban on iron ore waste dams, made a grave prediction.

“I’m not saying we might have other dam ruptures in Minas Gerais. I am saying that, from everything I’ve seen and studied, I have no doubt we will have more ruptures of dams,” he told the state assembly.

Today, he still has no doubt that there will be more tragedies unless more rigorous regulations are implemented.

“These dams are not 100 percent safe,” he said. “How many of them can rupture? Any one of them.” (VOA)

BRASILIA, LELEMUKU.COM - Brazilian authorities issued arrest warrants Tuesday for five people in connection with a dam collapse that killed at least 65 people and left nearly 300 missing as it plastered part of a small city with reddish-brown mud and iron ore mining waste.

The orders were issued in Sao Paulo and in the state of Minas Gerais, where the collapse happened last Friday. They came as rescue crews began a fifth day searching for survivors or bodies, and some families began burying their dead.

Three of the warrants were for people who worked for Vale SA, the mining company that owned and operated the waste dam that collapsed, according to the company. In a statement, Vale said it was cooperating with authorities in the investigation.

A German company that has inspected the dam said two of its employees had been arrested. The Munich-based TUEV company Sued declined to specify whether the arrested staff were from its German headquarters or its Brazilian branch.

In ordering the arrests, Minas Gerais judge Perla Saliba Brito wrote that the disaster could have been avoided.

It's not believable that ``dams of such magnitude, run by one of the largest mining companies in the world, would break suddenly without any indication of vulnerability,'' the judge wrote in the decision, according to news portal UOL.

The dam was part of an iron ore production complex. Vale is the world's largest producer of the ore, which is the raw ingredient for steel.

Meanwhile, Col. Evandro Borges from the military police told reporters that the official death toll was 65, though more bodies had been recovered Tuesday and that an updated death toll would be provided later in the day. He said 288 remained missing, most of them Vale employees.

Many employees were eating lunch last Friday when the dam collapsed, burying a cafeteria and other company buildings.(VOA)

BRASILIA, LELEMUKU.COM - A mining dam has collapsed in Brazil, sending a torrent of mud over a nearby community, killing at least nine people and leaving an estimated 300 people missing.

Officials say scores of people are trapped in areas flooded by the river of sludge released by the dam near the town of Brumadinho in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

But as of Saturday morning, the state's governor Romeu Zema said there was little chance of finding people alive.

"From now, the odds are minimal and it's most likely we'll recover only bodies," he said.

Fire officials say among those missing are 200 employees who were having lunch in the dam's administrative area when the collapse occurred.

The dam is administered by Brazil's giant mining company Vale, which confirmed the collapse Friday and said, "the total priority is to protect the lives of employees and inhabitants."

Television images showed rescue workers in helicopters trying to help people trapped in thick mud. The images also showed damage to homes, vehicles and large areas of farmland.

Authorities have ordered families to evacuate homes in low-lying areas.

The accident recalls a similar disaster from 2015, when another mining dam broke in the same state of Minas Gerais, causing the deaths of 19 people. That dam was also administrated by Vale, along with Australian mining company BHP Billiton.

The accident from 2015 released millions of tons of toxic iron waste along hundreds of kilometers, causing what is considered Brazil's worst ever environmental disaster. (VOA)

BRASILIA, LELEMUKU.COM - Brazil's new far-right government on Thursday gave hundreds more public servants the power to keep official records from the public for decades by labeling them "secret" and "ultra-secret."

Vice President Hamilton Mourao, standing in while President Jair Bolsonaro was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, signed the decree expanding exceptions within the 2011 transparency law.

Handed down as Bolsonaro declared a new era of transparency in Brazilian politics and business at Davos, the decree is likely to put more public records out of the reach of civic groups, journalists and ordinary citizens.

"You need to have a balance between security and transparency," Mourao told reporters after the decree was published. "This just reduces bureaucracy when you classify secret documents."

"This decree is a step backward with respect to transparency, access to information and social control, and this decree simply must be revoked," said Gil Castello Branco, head of government transparency group Contas Abertas.

The move modifies Brazil's 2011 Access to Information Law, passed to guarantee access to local, state and federal government records in the name of strengthening democracy.

The law created exceptions to protect highly sensitive materials, including "ultra-secret" information, which is withheld from the public for 25 years. Previously, the designation could only be made by the president, vice president, cabinet-level officials, military commanders and heads of permanent diplomatic and consular missions abroad.

The new decree allows politically appointed civil servants, agency heads and top executives at public companies to make that designation. The decree also vastly expanded the circle of officials who can make the "secret" classification, which seals records for 15 years.

In total, the government gave more than 1,000 public servants greater discretion in shielding government activities from public view, according to Marina Atoji, who heads the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism.

"One way to guarantee that secretive classifications will be the exception is by limiting how many people have the power to make them. By radically expanding the number of people, this decree weakens that guarantee," said Atoji.

Bolsonaro, who took office on Jan. 1, has embraced an antagonistic relationship with the press and non-government organizations on the campaign trail and now in office, disparaging unfriendly outlets as "fake news" and threatening to cut public advertising in specific newspapers. (VOA)

BRASILIA, LELEMUKU.COM - Rio de Janeiro plans to test a facial-recognition system during its famed Carnival as part of the city's campaign to fight crime, the head of the regional police force said.

Rogerio Figueiredo, the new head of Rio de Janeiro's state police, said in an interview published Monday by the O Globo newspaper that cameras deployed with the technology will scan both faces and car license plates.

It will be operational in Rio's tourist hotspot of Copacabana in the beginning of March, when this year's Carnival takes place.

"If (the cameras) identify an individual under an arrest warrant, or if a stolen vehicle drives through the area, an alert will be sent to the closest police car," Figueiredo explained.

"It's a fantastic tool. It's time that the police modernize."

Street crime common

Rio, which hosted the 2016 Olympic Games, has long suffered from street crime, with exchanges of gunfire common between drug-dealing gangs and police.

Last year's Carnival was marred by numerous crimes in tourist areas, especially close to the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema.

Television images showed groups of youths carrying out mass robberies by running into crowds and taking possessions by force.

Shortly after that Carnival, former president Michel Temer signed a decree controversially putting Rio's security forces under military control until the end of the year.

Hard line on crime

With new anti-crime president Jair Bolsonaro installed Jan. 1 and ally Wilson Witzel taking over as Rio's governor, local authorities are poised to take a hard line on crime.

Witzel, for instance, has evoked using police snipers to kill armed suspects, even if they are not directly threatening anyone with their weapon.

Reports say the governor is also looking to acquire Israeli surveillance drones that are capable of firing on suspected drug gang members. (VOA)

BRASILIA, LELEMUKU.COM - Brazil has withdrawn its offer to host a large U.N. conference on climate change next year, the foreign ministry said Wednesday, in a move that environmental groups said put into question Brazil's commitment to reducing carbon emissions.

Brazil pulled its offer to host the 2019 climate change conference because of "the current fiscal and budget constraints, which are expected to remain in the near future,'' according to a foreign ministry statement sent to the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Environmental groups interpreted the decision as a nod to President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who promised during his campaign to pull Brazil out of the Paris Accord on climate change.

Since being elected, Bolsonaro has publicly wavered on those promises. However, climate scientists have said that Bolsonaro's stated intention to open the Amazon for greater development could make it impossible for Latin America's largest nation to meet its reduced emissions targets in the coming years.

The World Wildlife Fund in Brazil noted that the decision not to host next year's conference diverged from the position shared by Brazilian officials before the elections, "demonstrating the strong influence of the transition team."

"Brazil's participation is vital to meeting global targets, as our country is currently the 7th largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Amazon has a key role in regulating global climate," said the group in a statement.

Brazil's candidacy to host next year's meeting was to be reviewed during this year's conference, which begins this weekend in Krakow, Poland.

Brazil's foreign ministry didn't immediately respond to questions about whether anybody from the current administration of President Michel Temer or Bolsonaro's transition team would attend the meeting in Poland.

Bolsonaro, who takes office Jan. 1, vowed during the campaign to help mining and agribusiness companies expand their activities in protected areas, including Amazonian forests.

Bolsonaro's pick for foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo, has also expressed skepticism about climate change.

"This dogma has served to justify an increase in the [...] power of international institutions over national states and their populations," the incoming minister wrote in an October blog post. (VOA)

BRASILIA, LELEMUKU.COM - Scientists warn that Brazil's president-elect could push the Amazon rainforest past its tipping point — with severe consequences for global climate and rainfall.

Jair Bolsonaro, who takes office Jan. 1, claims a mandate to convert land for cattle pastures and soybean farms, calling Brazil's rainforest protections an economic obstacle.

Brazilians on Oct. 28 elected Bolsonaro, a far-right candidate who channeled outrage at the corruption scandals of the former government and support from agribusiness groups.

Next week global leaders will meet in Poland for an international climate conference to discuss how to curb climate change, and questions about Brazil's role in shaping the future of the Amazon rainforest after Bolsonaro's election loom large. New Brazilian government data show the rate of deforestation — a major factor in global warming — has already increased over the past year.

Brazil contains about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, and scientists are worried.

It's nearly impossible to overstate the importance of the Amazon rainforest to the planet's living systems, said Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist at the University of Sao Paulo.

Each tree stores carbon absorbed from the atmosphere. The Amazon takes in as much as 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year and releases 20 percent of the planet's oxygen, earning it the nickname "the lungs of the planet."

It's also a global weather-maker.

Stretching 10 times the size of Texas, the Amazon is the world's largest rainforest. Billions of trees suck up water through deep roots and bring it up to their leaves, which release water vapor that forms a thick mist over the rainforest canopy.

This mist ascends into clouds and eventually becomes rainfall — a cycle that shapes seasons in South America and far beyond.

By one estimate, the Amazon creates 30 to 50 percent of its own rainfall.

Now the integrity of all of three functions — as a carbon sink, the Earth's lungs, and a rainmaker — hangs in the balance.

On the campaign trail, Bolsonaro promised to loosen protections for areas of the Brazilian Amazon designated as indigenous lands and nature reserves, calling them impediments to economic growth. "All these reserves cause problems to development," he told supporters.

He has also repeatedly talked about gutting the power of the environmental ministry to enforce existing green laws.

"If Bolsonaro keeps his campaign promises, deforestation of the Amazon will probably increase quickly — and the effects will be felt everywhere on the planet," said Paulo Artaxo, a professor of environmental physics at the University of Sao Paulo.

Bolsonaro's transition team did not respond to an interview request from the Associated Press.

Brazil was once seen as a global environmental success story. Between 2004 and 2014, stricter enforcement of laws to safeguard the rainforest — aided by regular satellite monitoring and protections for lands designated reserves for indigenous peoples — sharply curbed the rate of deforestation, which peaked in the early 2000s at about 9,650 square miles a year (25,000 square kilometers).

After a political crisis engulfed Brazil, leading to the 2016 impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, enforcement faltered. Ranchers and farmers began to convert more rainforest to pastureland and cropland. Between 2014 and 2017, annual deforestation doubled to about 3,090 square miles (8,000 square kilometers). Most often, the trees and underbrush cut down are simply burned, directly releasing carbon dioxide, said Artaxo.

"In the Brazilian Amazon, far and away the largest source of deforestation is industrial agriculture and cattle ranching," said Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Now observers are parsing Bolsonaro's campaign statements and positions as a congressman to anticipate what's next for the Amazon.

Bolsonaro — who some call "tropical Trump" because of some similarities to U.S. President Donald Trump — is a former army captain with a knack for channeling outrage and generating headlines. As a federal congressman for 27 years, he led legislative campaigns to unravel land protections for indigenous people and to promote agribusiness. He also made derogatory comments about minorities, women, and LGBT people.

Much of his support comes from business and farming interests.

"These farmers are not invaders, they are producers," said congressman and senator-elect Luiz Carlos Heinze, a farmer and close ally of Bolsonaro. He blamed past "leftist administrations" for promoting indigenous rights at the expense of farmers and ranchers.

"Brazil will be the biggest farming nation on Earth during Bolsonaro's years," said Heinze.

Indigenous-rights advocates are worried about the new direction signaled. "Bolsonaro has repeatedly said that indigenous territories in the Amazon should be opened up for mining and agribusiness, which goes completely in the opposite direction of our Constitution," said Adriana Ramos, public policy coordinator at Social Environmental Institute in Brasilia, a non-governmental group.

In a Nov. 1 postelection interview with Catholic TV, Bolsonaro said, "We intend to protect the environment, but without creating difficulties for our progress."

Bolsonaro has repeatedly said that Brazil should withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, a treaty his predecessor signed in 2016 committing to reduce carbon emissions 37 percent over 2005 levels by 2030. After the election, he has publicly wavered.

Meanwhile he has named a climate-change denier, Ernesto Araujo, to become the next foreign minister.

Nelson Ananias Filho, sustainability coordinator at Brazil's National Agriculture and Cattle Raising Confederation, which backed Bolsonaro's campaign, said, "Brazil's agribusiness will adapt to whatever circumstances come."

Whether or not Brazil formally remains in the Paris Climate Accord, the only way for the country to make its emission targets is to completely stop deforestation by 2030 and to reduce agricultural emissions, said Nobre, the climate scientist. "If Bolsonaro keeps moving in the current direction, that's basically impossible."

There's another danger lurking in deforestation.

Aside from the oceans, tropical forests are the most important regions on the planet for putting water vapor in the air, which eventually becomes rainfall. "It's why we have rain in the American Midwest and other inland areas — it's not just the Amazon, but it's the largest tropical rainforest," said Bill Laurance, a tropical ecologist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.

Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy, an environmental scientist at George Mason University, have estimated that the "tipping point for the Amazon system" is 20 to 25 percent deforestation.

Without enough trees to sustain the rainfall, the longer and more pronounced dry season could turn more than half the rainforest into a tropical savannah, they wrote in February in the journal Science Advances.

If the rainfall cycle collapses, winter droughts in parts of Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina could devastate agriculture, they wrote. The impacts may even be felt as far away as the American Midwest, said Laurance.

Bolsonaro's rhetoric about potentially dismantling the environmental ministry and rolling back indigenous rights worries Nobre who says, "I am a scientist, but I am also a Brazilian citizen, and a citizen of the planet." (VOA)