World

Veteran British freelance journalist Dom Phillips and respected Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira shared a passion for the farthest reaches of the Amazon rainforest, where they went missing and were buried, according to a confession obtained by police.

The pair were last seen early on June 5 traveling by boat in Brazil’s Javari Valley, a far-flung jungle region near the border with Peru, where Phillips was researching a book.

The region has seen a surge of criminal activity in recent years, including illegal logging, gold mining, poaching and drug trafficking — incursions Phillips has reported on and Pereira has vigorously fought.

Police said Wednesday that one of two men arrested over their disappearance admitted to having buried their bodies in the jungle. While human remains have been found, they have not been definitively confirmed to be those of Pereira and Phillips.

The two had already traveled there together in 2018 for a feature story Phillips wrote in British newspaper The Guardian on an uncontacted tribe — one of an estimated 19 in the region.

“Wearing just shorts and flip-flops as he squats in the mud by a fire, Bruno Pereira, an official at Brazil’s government Indigenous agency, cracks open the boiled skull of a monkey with a spoon and eats its brains for breakfast as he discusses policy,” it began.

That memorable introduction neatly sums up both men, courageous adventurers who loved the rainforest and its peoples, each defending the Amazon in his own way.

– ‘Sharp, caring journalist’ –

Phillips, 57, started out as a music journalist in Britain, editing the magazine Mixmag and writing a book on the rise of DJ culture.

Lured by DJ friends, he set off for Brazil 15 years ago, falling in love with the country and the woman who became his wife, Alessandra Sampaio — a native of the northeastern city of Salvador.

Reinventing himself as a foreign correspondent, Phillips covered Brazil for media including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times and The Guardian, where he was a regular contributor.

A group of friends and colleagues described Phillips as “one of the sharpest and most caring foreign journalists in South America.”

“But there was a lot more to him than pages and paragraphs. His friends knew him as a smiling guy who would get up before dawn to do stand-up paddle. We knew him as a caring volunteer worker who gave English classes in a Rio favela,” they said in a statement.

Phillips traveled in and wrote about the Amazon for dozens of stories, winning a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation last year to fund his project to write a book on sustainable development in the rainforest.

The project took him back to the region he loved.

“Lovely Amazon,” he posted on Instagram earlier this month, along with a video of a small boat winding down a meandering river.

– ‘Courageous, dedicated’ Indigenous advocate –

Until recently working as a top expert at Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, Pereira was head of programs for isolated and recently contacted Indigenous groups.

As part of that job, the 41-year-old organized one of the largest ever expeditions to monitor isolated groups and try to avoid conflicts between them and others in the region.

Fiona Watson, research director at Indigenous rights group Survival International, called him a “courageous and dedicated” defender of Indigenous peoples.

Pereira was especially revered for his knowledge of the Javari Valley, where he was also FUNAI’s regional coordinator for years.

But he was on leave from the agency after butting heads with the new leadership brought in by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who faces accusations of dismantling Indigenous and environmental protection programs since taking office in 2019.

Pereira “was effectively forced out at FUNAI, basically because he was doing what FUNAI should be doing and have stopped doing since Bolsonaro took office: standing up for Indigenous rights,” Watson told AFP.

Pereira frequently received threats for his work fighting illegal invasions of the Javari reservation.

That includes helping set up Indigenous patrols. He and Phillips were on their way to a meeting on one such patrol project when they disappeared.

“Every time he enters the rainforest, he brings his passion and drive to help others,” Pereira’s family said in a statement.

A UN-backed court for Lebanon will sentence two Hezbollah members in their absence Thursday for the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafic Hariri in what could be the cash-strapped tribunal’s final act.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which is based in the Netherlands, found Habib Merhi and Hussein Oneissi guilty on appeal in March over a huge bombing which killed Hariri and 21 others and injured 226.

But they are unlikely to ever spend time behind bars as the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah has refused to hand over the pair or a third man, Salim Ayyash, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2020.

Meanwhile the STL, which is estimated to have cost between $600 million and $1 billion since it opened in 2009, has warned it will close imminently due to a shortage of funds.

The court said in a statement that it will announce the sentences for Merhi and Oneissi at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) on Thursday.

Sunni billionaire Hariri, who had stepped down as Lebanon’s prime minister in October 2004, was killed in a February 14 2005 suicide blast targeting his armoured convoy on the Beirut seafront.

The attack triggered protests that drove Syria out of Lebanon after a 29-year military deployment.

The court was born out of a United Nations Security Council resolution and eventually tried four suspects in absentia: Ayyash, Merhi, Oneissi and Assad Sabra. 

– Lack of funds –

The case relied almost exclusively on circumstantial evidence in the form of mobile phone records that prosecutors said showed a Hezbollah cell plotting the attack.

The STL originally convicted Ayyash and cleared the other three men. 

It said there was no direct evidence of Damascus or its ally Hezbollah’s involvement, but that the attack probably involved state actors and that the state with most to gain was Syria.

But in March it found Merhi and Oneissi guilty after an appeal by prosecutors, saying the original trial judges had “erred” by saying there was a lack of evidence. They upheld the acquittal of Sabra.

All three convicted men remain at large as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has refused to hand over any of the suspects or to recognise the court.

Dogged by political issues in Lebanon and controversy over its huge cost and slowness, the court said last July that it would have to close after dealing with all outstanding appeals as it was running out of money.

The closure means a further trial against Ayyash in a separate case involving three attacks targeting Lebanese politicians in 2004 and 2005 is now unlikely to ever take place.

The STL draws 51 percent of its budget from donor countries and the rest from Lebanon, which is grappling with its deepest economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised Ukraine world-class weapons — from self-propelled howitzers to multiple launch rocket systems and an air defence shield capable of protecting a “large city” from Russian strikes. 

But the sluggishness in the actual delivery of heavy weapons to bolster Ukraine against Russia’s invasion has raised questions on whether the Social Democrat leader’s pledges are sincere. 

Trust was already beginning to show signs of eroding among Germany’s allies over the repeated rows over the urgently awaited armaments.

With Scholz’s long-awaited trip to Kyiv expected to take place on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week ramped up the pressure on the German chancellor.

“Every leader of our partner countries and naturally the chancellor as well knows exactly what Ukraine needs. It’s just that the (weapons) deliveries from Germany are still less than they could be,” Zelensky told Wednesday’s Die Zeit weekly.

In a hint of what he seemed to think might be holding Scholz back, the Ukrainian president added in a separate interview with ZDF broadcaster that “there must be no attempt at a balancing act between Ukraine and the relationship with Russia”.

Scholz himself has batted off the accusations, as he underlined that Germany “will deliver all the weapons that we have set in motion”.

He argued, however, that there was no point sending complicated modern weapons without first training Ukrainian troops how to use them. 

Training is underway in Germany, he told a press conference this week, stressing that the weapons will follow once soldiers know how to deploy them effectively.

“I think that it would be a good thing for one or the other to think for a moment before he expresses his opinion,” he added, in a sign of irritation at the repeated queries.

With pointed criticisms levied almost on a daily basis — including by Ukraine’s outspoken ambassador — Berlin fears they could unwittingly play into the hands of Russia.

– ‘Middle of road’ –

But observers said the bad press was not surprising given the stuttering German response compared to other major Western allies such as the United States or Britain, or even when put next to much smaller eastern European nations like the Baltic states.

Marina Henke, director of the Hertie School’s Centre for International Security, said the problem is that “confusion” still reigns in the chancellery over how to handle Russia.

“There is no clear sense of direction,” she told AFP, noting the US, Britain and eastern Europe have all identified Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the clear enemy and therefore taken the lead in plying Ukraine with armaments.

“Here in Germany, there is the idea that Russia is a massive country on our doorstep and in all these actions, we need to think about how we can live with Russia in the long term,” she said.

“That’s why there is a confusion” that means major weapons pledges are being held up by Germany’s complex bureaucracy, she added.

Marcel Dirsus of the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University also noted that “the German government appears quite content to take a middle of the road approach where they’re doing enough to avoid the most severe criticism, but they’re not really taking any initiative to go beyond that. 

“It’s almost a deliberate attempt to do as little as they can get away with.”

– ‘Huge fog’ –

Among the latest weapon promises made by Germany have been the Iris-T air defence system and the Mars II multiple launch rocket system.

But hours after Scholz mentioned the Iris-T, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock poured cold water on a swift deployment, warning it would take months before the air defence shield reached Ukraine.

The rocket launchers are due to arrive reportedly in August or September but on condition  Ukrainian soldiers are trained to use them by then.

Gepard anti-aircraft tanks pledged in April have been delayed to July at the earliest due to an ammunition shortfall. 

Seven self-propelled howitzers promised in May are pending amid ongoing training of Ukrainian troops.

Poland has accused Germany of failing to provide Leopard battle tanks to make up for the ones that Warsaw had sent ahead to Kyiv.

The Czech Republic is also waiting on a similar swap deal, but talks are still on.

“The German Ukraine policy has been shrouded in the last weeks by a huge fog of big announcements, logistical problems, tactical withdrawals and a verbal lack of clarity,” said Die Zeit weekly. 

The chancellery has defended its line as “strategic ambiguity”, but the weekly warned that this policy “has a price that Ukrainians are paying daily” in hundreds of deaths  in their eastern Donbas region alone.

“Clarity and sincerity are the minimum that Scholz must bring to Ukraine,” it said.

A panel of experts convened by the US Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended Covid-19 vaccines Wednesday for children under five, the final age group awaiting immunization in most countries.

Formal authorizations for Moderna and Pfizer should follow soon, with the first shots in arms expected early next week, just over a year-and-a-half after the first Covid vaccines were greenlighted for the elderly in December 2020.

“This recommendation does fill a significant unmet need for a really ignored younger population,” said Michael Nelson, a professor of medicine at the University of Virginia, one of the 21 experts asked to vote for the milestone meeting.

Unlike regulators in other countries, FDA offers livestreams of its internal deliberations and its stamp of approval is considered the global gold standard.

Opening the discussion, senior FDA scientist Peter Marks said that despite studies showing the majority of children have now been infected with the coronavirus, the high rate of hospitalizations among infants, toddlers and young children during last winter’s Omicron wave underscored an urgent need for vaccination.

“We are dealing with an issue where we have to be careful we don’t become numb to the pediatric deaths because of the overwhelming number of older deaths,” he said.

“Every life is important and vaccine-preventable deaths are something we would like to try to do something about.”

The United States has recorded 480 Covid deaths in the 0-4 age group in the pandemic — far higher than even a bad flu season, Marks said.

As of May 2022, there have been 45,000 hospitalizations in that group, nearly a quarter of which required intensive care.

Ahead of the meeting, the FDA posted its independent analyses of the pharmaceutical companies’ vaccines, deeming both safe and effective.

Both vaccines are based on messenger RNA, which delivers genetic code for the coronavirus spike protein to human cells that then grow it on their surface, training the immune system to be ready. The technology is now considered the leading Covid vaccination platform.

Pfizer sought authorization for three doses at three micrograms given to children aged six months through four years, while Moderna asked for the FDA to authorize its vaccine as two doses of a higher 25 micrograms for ages six months through five years.

Both vaccines were tested in trials of thousands of children. They were found to cause similar levels of mild side effects as in older age groups and triggered similar levels of antibodies.

– Two doses, or three? –

Efficacy against infection was higher for Pfizer, with the company placing it at 80 percent, compared to Moderna’s estimates of 51 percent for children aged six-months to two years old and 37 percent for those aged two to five years.

But the Pfizer figure is based on very few cases and is thus considered preliminary. It also takes three doses to achieve its protection, with the third shot given eight weeks after the second, which is given three weeks after the first.

Moderna’s vaccine should provide strong protection against severe disease after two doses, given four weeks apart, and the company is studying adding a booster that would raise efficacy levels against mild disease.

However, Moderna’s decision to go with a higher dose is associated with higher levels of fevers in reaction to the vaccine compared to Pfizer.

There are some 20 million US children aged four years and under. 

Although obesity, neurological disorders and asthma are associated with increased risk of severe disease among young children, it’s not easy to predict severe outcomes.

In fact, 64 percent of hospitalizations in those under five occurred in patients without comorbidities.

Children can also go on to contract multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a rare but serious post-viral condition. Some three to six percent can experience long Covid symptoms for more than 12 weeks.

The FDA is expected to soon act on the panel’s recommendation, and the matter will go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a final say.

White House officials last week said the rollout of 10 million shots at pharmacies and doctors’ offices could begin as soon as June 21.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has pushed global displacement numbers above 100 million for the first time, and the UN warns the resulting hunger crisis could force many more to flee their homes.

Efforts to address the global food insecurity crisis, which has been dramatically aggravated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is “of paramount importance… to prevent a larger number of people moving,” the United Nations refugee chief Filippo Grandi told reporters.

“If you ask me how many… I don’t know, but it will be pretty big numbers.”

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, traditionally a breadbasket to the world, has sparked dramatic grain and fertiliser shortages, sent global prices soaring and put hundreds of millions of people at risk from hunger.

“The impact, if this is not resolved quickly, would be devastating,” Grandi said. “It is already devastating.”

His comments came as he presented the UNHCR refugee agency’s annual report on global displacement, showing that a record 89.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2021 — more than doubling in a decade.  

But since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, as many as 14 million Ukrainians may have fled within their own war-ravaged country or across borders as refugees, pushing global displacement past the grim 100-million mark for the first time.

– ‘Terrible trend’ –

“Every year of the last decade, the numbers have climbed,” Grandi said. 

“Either the international community comes together to take action to address this human tragedy, resolve conflicts and find lasting solutions, or this terrible trend will continue.”

The UN agency found that at the end of 2021, a record 27.1 million people were living as refugees, while the number of asylum seekers rose 11 percent to 4.6 million.

And for the 15th straight year, the number of people living displaced within their own country due to conflict swelled, hitting 53.2 million.

The UNHCR report said last year was notable for the number of protracted conflicts in places like Afghanistan that escalated, even as new ones flared.

At the same time, growing food scarcity, inflation and the climate crisis were adding to hardship and stretching the humanitarian response, threatening to weaken already dire funding levels for many crises, UNHCR warned.

That has not been the case for Ukraine, with an enormous outpouring of solidarity, and fleeing Ukrainians welcomed with open arms across Europe.

– ‘Not unmanageable’ –

Grandi hailed the generous response to this crisis, but highlighted the contrast to how refugees fleeing wars in places like Syria and Afghanistan have been met.

The UN refugee chief recalled how European leaders had insisted “it’s full” when asked to take in more refugees from those conflicts.

“I’m not naive. I fully understand the context,” he said, adding though that the generous response to fleeing Ukrainians “proves an important point… The arrival of desperate people on the shores or at the borders of rich countries is not unmanageable.”

Grandi also pointed to how massive sums of money had been made immediately available to respond to the Ukraine crisis, despite countries’ insistence their coffers were empty when met with appeals for more aid for other situations.

“There cannot be inequity in the response,” he said.

Countries have vowed the aid provided for Ukraine would come on top of amounts pledged for other crises, but Grandi cautioned that so far “the mathematics doesn’t show that.” 

– ‘Vicious circle’ –

It would be disastrous if already underfunded responses were cut further, he warned.

He voiced particular concern for the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, where massive displacement is being driven by a macabre combination of conflict, insecurity, poor governance and devastating effects of climate change.

“It’s a very vicious circle of many factors,” he said.

Grandi warned that beyond the immediate impact, the war in Ukraine was also complicating the response to displacement crises since it had “dealt a terrible blow to international cooperation.”

Even if the war were to end within months — which he thought unlikely — “the scars on international cooperation of those fractures between the West and Russia… will take a long time to heal.”

And, he warned, “if that is not healed, I don’t know how we will deal with this global crisis.”

A Russian missile transformed Vladimir Melnik’s house in the Kyiv suburb of Irpin into a smouldering wreck as Moscow’s forces advanced on the Ukrainian capital in March.

Three months later, the 73-year-old is back in Irpin and settling into a train carriage newly converted into accommodation for those whose homes were destroyed in the town devastated by Russia’s invasion.

“A missile pierced the roof, the ceiling and ended up in the cellar, but I managed to save myself,” said Melnik, who lived with his sister after his house burned down on March 10.

“Here, I was told I could stay as long as necessary,” he told AFP as he showed black and white photographs of his former dwelling.

An enclosure dubbed “Iron City” contains five carriages that can host up to 25 families, Ukrainian railway company Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) told reporters during a presentation of the homes on Wednesday.

The carriages come equipped with air conditioning, bathroom facilities and a coffee machine, and residents can connect to a Wi-Fi network provided by US billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink service.

A dining car offers residents meals prepared every day by an NGO and a seventh carriage has been kitted out with shower rooms, a changing room and a washing machine.

An open space is dedicated to recreation, with small playgrounds for children, a barbecue area, benches, wooden tables and two hammocks.

The location is a haven of tranquility that contrasts sharply with the horrors of war the residents endured.

“Now we need to get the damage to the house assessed and rebuild everything, and that is going to take time,” Melnik said, wondering how he can finance the repairs on a monthly pension worth less than 200 euros ($209).

Olga Oleinik, 77, moved with her family of six into one of the carriages on Wednesday after her Irpin home was destroyed at the start of the war.

She and Melnik are among the first five families to be hosted. Others will arrive in the coming days.

Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, head of UZ’s passenger division, told AFP the maximum capacity of 25 families would be reached by the end of the month.