• New Minister of Mines and Energy Admiral Bento Albuquerque announced on 4 March that he plans to permit mining on indigenous lands in Brazil, including within the Amazon. He also said that he intends to allow mining right up to Brazil’s borders, abolishing the current ban along a 150-kilometer (93-mile)-wide swath at the frontier.
• The Bolsonaro administration’s indigenous mining plan is in direct opposition to indigenous land rights as guaranteed under Brazil’s 1988 Constitution. The indigenous mining initiative will likely be implemented via a presidential decree, which will almost surely be reviewed, and possibly be rejected, by Brazil’s Supreme Court.
• Mining companies stand ready to move into indigenous reserves, if the measure goes forward. Brazil’s mining ministry has received 4,073 requests from mining companies and individuals for mining-related activities on indigenous land. Indigenous groups are outraged and they plan to resist in the courts and by whatever means possible.
• Brazil’s mining industry has a very poor safety and environmental record. As recently as January, Brazil mega-mining company Vale saw a tailings dam collapse at Brumadinho which killed 193 and left another 115 missing. Public outcry is strong against the industry currently, but how the public will respond to the indigenous mining plan isn’t yet known.

For many years, international and Brazilian mining companies have dreamed of getting access to the mineral wealth lying beneath indigenous lands. And finally, the government of Jair Bolsonaro seems determined to give them that opportunity. On 4 March, while Brazilians were distracted by Carnival celebrations, the new Minister of Mines and Energy Admiral Bento Albuquerque announced plans to permit mining on indigenous land.

Speaking at the annual convention of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), a major event in the mining world that attracts tens-of-thousands of attendees, the Minister said that Brazil’s indigenous people would be given a voice but not a veto in the matter. The opening of indigenous ancestral territories to mining, he predicted, would “bring benefits to these communities and to the country.”

He also said that he intends to allow mining right up to Brazil’s borders, abolishing the current 150-kilometer (93-mile) wide mining buffer zone at the frontier.

The minister said that current mining restrictions are outdated. The long-restricted indigenous and border areas “have become centers of conflict and illegal activities, that in no way contribute to sustainable development or to sovereignty and national security.” The administration will shortly be holding a nationwide consultation to discuss how the changes should be made, he concluded.

The minister’s announcement was not unexpected. President Jair Bolsonaro, an ex-army captain, has said that he admires the 1964-85 military dictatorship, and some are drawing parallels between Bolsonaro’s policies and theirs regarding indigenous and quilombola communities.

Bolsonaro recently wrote on Twitter: “Over 15 percent of national territory is demarcated as indigenous and quilombola land. Less than a million people live in these isolated areas, exploited and manipulated by NGOs. We are going to integrate these citizens.”

Back in 1976, Maurício Rangel Reis, Interior Minister in the military government of General Ernesto Geisel, expressed harsh views toward indigenous peoples: “We plan to reduce the number of Indians from 220,000 to 20,000 in ten years,” he declared. But the military didn’t achieve this goal. Far from being eliminated, Brazil’s indigenous numbers increased to their current 900,000 population.

Indigenous groups achieved real gains after the military government passed into history, and its dictatorial rule was supplanted by the progressive 1988 Brazilian constitution, which brought two important innovations. It abandoned the goal of assimilating indigenous people into the dominant culture (a goal Bolsonaro wants to reinstate), and it affirmed the concept of “original rights,” recognizing indigenous peoples as Brazil’s first inhabitants, with the right to remain on ancestral lands.

Article 231 of the Constitution states: “Indians have the right to the permanent occupation of their traditional land and to enjoy the exclusive use of the wealth in the soil, rivers and lakes.” Moreover, their land rights are “inalienable.” The Constitution allows for mining on indigenous land, but only after the Indians have been consulted and specific procedures for doing so, approved by them, have been ratified by Congress.

Admiral Albuquerque’s recent announcement provided no clue as to how the Bolsonaro government could legally give indigenous groups a voice but no veto regarding use of their lands, while somehow staying within the letter of constitutional law.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy has, however, confirmed to Mongabay that it plans to authorize mining on indigenous areas. Though, as to the legal mechanisms for doing so, it would only say that “the specific regulatory model will be discussed with Congress and other involved parties.” Though its reports are unconfirmed, analysts suggest Bolsonaro will probably issue a presidential decree to allow mining, which is the approach he plans to use to permit agribusiness to lease land within indigenous reserves ­– a move that faces a similar constitutional roadblock.

While a rapidly rising number of people across the globe are worried about the climate crisis—prompting warnings from scientists, demands for robust action, and sweeping legislative proposals such as the Green New Deal—there are also mounting concerns about the United States in the era of President Donald Trump, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center.

The survey results, released Monday, show that while U.S. power and influence still isn’t the primary worry among people beyond the United States, concern about it has skyrocketed since Trump took office. As Pew’s report (pdf) noted, “In 2013, only a quarter across 22 nations saw American power as a major threat to their country, but that jumped substantially to 38 percent in 2017, the year after Trump was elected president, and to 45 percent in 2018.”

The report also pointed out “a strong connection” between seeing the U.S. as a threat and lacking confidence in Trump, particularly “among America’s traditional allies, such as Canada, the U.K., and Australia, where overall views of the U.S. and its president have plummeted in recent years.” A majority of those polled from Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Tunisia, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia as well as nearly half from Canada, France, Germany, and Greece expressed concern over U.S. power in 2018.

As the global community frets about the United States flexing its geopolitical muscles under Trump—from ditching the Paris climate agreement and global treaties to backing an effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government—Pew also found that both Americans and people around the world perceive the human-caused climate crisis as a top security risk. In half of the 26 nations where the survey was conducted from May to August of 2018, the greatest number of respondents selected climate change as posing a major threat.

“Since 2013, worries about the climate threat have increased significantly in 13 of the countries where data are available,” according to Pew. “In 2013, well before the Paris climate agreement was signed, a median of 56 percent across 23 countries surveyed said global climate change was a major threat to their country. That climbed to 63 percent in 2017, and in 2018 it stands at 67 percent.”

In the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Kenya, and South Africa, the number of people concerned about the climate crisis has soared, rising by double-digits over just five years. Across Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa—which are increasingly at risk for extreme weather exacerbated by rising temperatures—climate change has continuously ranked as a top concern.

Although the largest portion of Americans said they are worried about cyberattacks—aligned with the global trend of rising cybersecurity concerns—59 percent of U.S. respondents expressed alarm over human-caused climate change. While the majority of Americans in this poll and other recent surveys recognized the dangers of the global crisis, Pew found that “there are sharp ideological and partisan divides in Europe and North America” between those who are and are not concerned.

As the Pew report outlines:

Additionally, the researchers found, “a slight education divide on the threat of climate change exists in many European and North American countries surveyed, where those with more education are more inclined to say it is a threat than those with less education.”

As many as 35,000 Belgian students walked out of classrooms in Brussels, Liège, and Leuven in the fourth straight week of protests to pressure policymakers to pursue bolder measures in response to the human-made global climate crisis.

Students across the globe have joined the climate strike movement inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, and are calling on politicians to heed the increasingly urgent warnings from scientists that the international community must immediately phase out fossil fuels and enact other ambitious measures to drive down greenhouse gas emissions.

“The climate is a disaster,” 15-year-old demonstrator Allison Debonte told Reuters, adding that she worries her children won’t be able to live in Brussels because of the climate crisis.

“It’s our planet and the generation before us hasn’t done anything,” added Julian Rume, 17. “In 20, 30 years, we will all be migrants, we’ll all be moved out of our planet.”

Brussels, where an estimated 12,500 students marched on Thursday, is considered the de facto capital of the European Union, as home to several EU institutions. The young strikers have condemned those in power across Europe for failing to cut emissions and transition to renewable energy.

“They left us a planet in a bad shape so it is our job to change that,” 17-year-old marcher Manon Wilmart told the Associated Press. “But we can do it. We are younger and we know that we can do it. We are in the mood to change the climate, to change everything.”

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A 16-year-old named Pauline, in an interview with  Deutsche Welle, was optimist that progress is on the horizon: “Me and my friend, we already try to do everything for the climate. I think there is now a lot of attention on this issue. So I really think that the countries will start to mobilize and change something.”

Participants and supporters from cities across Belgium shared updates on social media with the hashtags #ClimateStrike and #YouthForClimate:

The actions on Thursday followed an estimated 35,000 students who marched in Brussels last week and about 160,000 protesters in Belgium and France over the weekend.

Thunberg’s protests outside the Swedish Parliament last year have garnered her, and the broader youth demand for climate action, international attention—enabling the teenager last week to tell the billionaires attending the World Economic Forum to their faces that they’re among some the specific individuals responsible for the climate crisis. She highlighted the protests in Belgium on Twitter and Instagram on Thursday:

Meanwhile, in several other cities around the world, students plan to continue the strike on Friday, with organizers sharing details on social media using the hashtag #FridaysForFuture:

Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning expressed no regrets Thursday when she revealed that she faces a contempt hearing— and possible jail time—after declining to answer a grand jury’s questions.

Manning appeared before a grand jury Wednesday after being subpoenaed, apparently to discuss her 2010 disclosure of government and military documents about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to Wikileaks.

The subpoena came about three months after federal prosecutors in Virginia’s Eastern District, where the former Army intelligence analyst was called to testify, inadvertently revealed that they had filed sealed charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

She said after the hearing that she had been offered immunity in exchange for testifying, but that she instead had answered each question with the following statement:

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“In solidarity with many activists facing the odds, I will stand by my principles,” Manning said after the hearing. “I will exhaust every legal remedy available. My legal team continues to challenge the secrecy of these proceedings, and I am prepared to face the consequences of my refusal.”

Manning said the grand jury questioned her about her disclosure to Wikileaks, which was also the focus of her questioning in 2013 when she was court-martialed. Manning was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison for her disclosure—which helped expose war crimes by the U.S.—but her sentence was commuted in 2017 by President Barack Obama.

The whistleblower now faces a contempt trial on Friday. She acknowledged as much in her statement, saying that, “The court may find me in contempt, and order me to jail.”

Supporters of Manning applauded her steadfast refusal to help prosecutors to incriminate her and convict Assange and denounced the secretive grand jury hearing and the U.S. government’s continued efforts to punish her.

Facing previous criticism that his campaign team during his 2016 presidential run was “too white” and “too male,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) received praise on Tuesday after it was reported his campaign has hired a diverse slate of high-caliber women for key posts on his 2020 leadership team.

As journalist Natalie Gontcharova of Refinery29 was the first to report, the Sanders campaign now claims that “every single one of its teams — management, political, policy, organizing, communications, advance, digital, and fundraising — has women, and predominantly women of color, in leadership positions. Overall, the national leadership team is around 70% women.”

According to Gontcharova, the ten new female staffers include (emphasis added):

The new staffers follow last month’s announcement of Sanders’ national co-chairs, who include: former Ohio state and Our Revolution president Sen. Nina Turner, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif), and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen. Over the weekend, the Sanders campaign also announced that staff workers would be unionized.

Tuesday’s news of the fresh hires was met with congratulations for many of the well-known progressive journalists, organizers, and scholars headed to the campaign as well as a nod to Sanders for taking concrete step towards fulfilling his promise to build a much more diverse and representative team: