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We see how our forests are turning into large mud pools. We see how the sources of our rivers are silting up and how their courses are diverting. We see how the tree shadows begin to disappear, how the harvested fruits are diminishing, and how the crystalline water of the Tapajós River, of the
igarapés – the streams – and the springs becomes murkier by the day. Finally, we see how the smoke from many fires darkens our sunset.
All of this is happening in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, where I am from. I was born and raised here, along the upper course of the Tapajós River, in the Jacareacanga municipality in Brazil’s northern state of Pará. COVID-19 has hit our communities hard, and without any government emergency plan for the Indigenous villages, too many of our great leaders have died. They were the living libraries of our culture, and now they are gone. We must act.
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“We cannot take light or moderate patients, which leads to conflicts: calls to hotlines, calls to deputies. But your social status and money aren’t important here. We’ll still take someone who really needs oxygen.”
It’s the evening of 2 April. I’m sitting in my kitchen in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and talking to Ivan Chernenko, an anaesthesiologist some 300 miles to the south in the port city of Odesa. He’s on duty now, at the central regional hospital, and there’s less work, he says, after five pm.
That said, our interview is interrupted several times as Chernenko needs to tend to his patients. “I have to answer them, wait a minute,” he says and hangs up.
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A government minister could face a parliamentary inquiry after failing to disclose that he owns a private PR company.
Parliamentary rules require MPs to declare any significant shareholdings, but small business minister Paul Scully has not declared his ownership of a public relations firm that he set up in 2019.
A government spokesman said the company had never traded or paid Scully a salary. But official records say it is “active” – and without any transparency it’s impossible to check what the business has been doing since 2019.
Opposition MPs have criticised Scully for failing to follow parliamentary rules. openDemocracy understands an MP is now considering making a complaint against Scully with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
Oil exploitation is threatening the Ecuadorian rainforest – and the planet opendemocracy.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from opendemocracy.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Thousands of demonstrators marched through central London this weekend (April 17) to protest the government s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The proposals have received criticism from across the political spectrum for contents in the bill labelled by some critics as an assault on civil liberties. Among the myriad proposals in the bill are plans hand police sweeping powers to ban future protests and arrest those attending. Gracie Bradley, the director of civil rights group Liberty, previously said that parts of this Bill will facilitate discrimination and undermine protest, which is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy. We should all be able to stand up for what we believe in, yet these proposals would give the police yet more powers to clamp down on protest.