August 23, 2019
Over the past fifty years, the Amazon rainforest has shrunk by an area equal to the size of Turkey. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Brazilian government supported settlement of the sparsely populated region for security reasons. Since then, huge swaths of the forest -- which is crucial for limiting the world's greenhouse gasses -- have been cleared for farmland used to feed Brazil's population and support its massive agricultural exports. Greater awareness of the environmental impacts in the 1990s produced tighter conservation regulations, though plenty of illegal clearing continues. In recent years, the annual deforestation rate has begun to rise again, and Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to weaken regulations further in order to support businesses.
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Europe can no longer rely on the US and must step up to defend its own future, Ian Bremmer reports from the Munich Security Conference.
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A poster featuring Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, is installed on a sign leading to the parking area of the Sandringham Estate in Wolferton, as pressure builds on him to give evidence after the U.S. Justice Department released more records tied to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in Norfolk, Britain, February 5, 2026.
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British police arrested former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor today over allegations that in 2010, when he was a UK trade envoy, he shared confidential government documents with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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