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Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN)  Indigenous groups gathered in Brazil’s capital on Monday to demonstrate against a bill proposed by the federal government that would legalize mining on their lands.

Carrying banners reading “Invaders get out! Miners gets out, Agrobusiness get out! Bolsonaro get out!” about 100 indigenous people from six states across Brazil protested the legislation, which has been backed by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and lobbyists for the mining sector.

Lobbyists have been advocating for the revival of the bill — known as Bill 191 — since it was dismissed by Brazil’s Congress last June. Last week, organizations of farmers and miners kicked off a coordinated pressure campaign, meeting with government representatives and urging the Congress to review and pass Bill 191, which would regulate mining including oil and gas projects, as well as hydroelectric dams, on indigenous territories for the first time.

Brazilian indigenous people from various ethnic groups protest against the proposal of the federal government to legalize mining in indigenous lands, in front of Planalto Palace in Brasilia on April 19, 2021.

Indigenous groups in Brasilia were also protesting proposed bills to give Congress the power to demarcate protected traditional lands (instead of indigenous affairs agency FUNAI) and demanding that that the federal government adhere to a Supreme Court decision last August to remove miners from indigenous lands. There are nearly 450 demarcated indigenous territories in Brazil.

President Bolsonaro signed Bill 191 in February last year. During the ceremony at the Planalto Palace, he said it was a long held “dream” to release indigenous reserves for mining. “I hope that this dream through the hands of Bento [Albuquerque, Minister of Mines and Energy] and the votes of parliamentarians will come true. The indigenous are human beings just like us,” he said.

Bolsonaro asks for Biden’s ‘personal engagement’ to fight Amazon deforestation

He has long argued that the natural resources of indigenous lands must be put to use for indigenous groups’ own economic welfare and that of the country. In a social media diatribe on April 2019, he described indigenous lands as having “trillions of reais underground.”

“The indigenous cannot continue to be poor over a rich land,” he said.

But indigenous activists emphasized on Monday — Brazil’s national “Day of the Indigenous” — that they disagree with Bolsonaro’s vision of profiting from wild lands, and do not believe it will benefit them. “We are here to ask for respect from the federal government, that they respect our rights. This government is killing us, they want to annihilate our rights and territories,” said activist Eliseu Kaiowa of the Guarani Kaiowa land In a video shared on the Facebook page of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples in the Southern Region.

In an open letter on Monday, members of the Munduruku indigenous group also warned that Bill 191 “will only bring more destruction to our people and our forest.” Last year, 2,052 hectares — an area equivalent to more than two thousand soccer fields — were deforested in Munduruku territory, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the official governmental institute that monitors deforestation in Brazil.

Members of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), project the phrase “Indigenous April” at the National Congress in Brasilia during Indigenous Day, on April 19, 2021.Illegal miners have been accused of threatening Munduruku members who report their activity on indigenous lands. A Munduruku women’s group leader told CNN last month that miners had sent her audio messages claiming that they would

kill her and her family in their home. The Public Prosecutor in Para state, home to Munduruku territory, has said that it repeatedly alerted federal authorities to illegal gold-mining in the area, and since 2017 had been requesting courts to compel federal forces to step in and “prevent a violent attack by illegal miners on indigenous people.”

Indigenous women’s group raided by illegal miners, says federal prosecutor

According to a study published Monday by Brazil’s National Committee in Defense of Territories Against Mining, rising gold prices during the Covid-19 pandemic have driven increased illegal gold mining in indigenous territories in the Amazon rainforest and other Brazilian lands.

Deforestation generally has skyrocketed during Bolsonaro’s presidency. While the President has passed several executive orders and laws to protect the Amazon, he has simultaneously slashed funding to government-run environmental protection and monitoring programs, and pushed to open indigenous lands to commercial farming and mining — acts which have cost him credibility among environmentalists in the country. His administration’s recently announced plan to reduce deforestation in the Amazon has been fiercely criticized by critics for its “modest” ambitions.

This week, Bolsonaro is set to attend an April 22 environmental summit of world leaders convened by US President Joe Biden. In a letter confirming his attendance, Bolsonaro said he was committed to eliminating illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, but that it would require “massive resources” and the support of “the United States government, the private sector and the American civil society will be very welcome.”

Reporting contributed by CNN’s Rodrigo Pedroso and Caitlin Hu.

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Dayana Rodriguez says her son is overwhelmed with scabies but she has not been able to find any of the treatments prescribed by their doctor at the poorly-stocked pharmacies in Havana so she is now turning to a herbal remedy instead.

Even as Cuba is leading the race to become the first country in Latin America to develop its own COVID-19 vaccine, the country is suffering acute shortages of basic medicines amid its worst economic crisis in decades.

“There aren’t any of the ones they prescribed him, Benzyl benzoate, or the other one for itching too that used to be in all the pharmacies,” said Rodriguez, buying medicinal plants at a shop on a commercial boulevard in Central Havana.

Nine families in Havana told Reuters they were struggling to treat outbreaks of scabies, a highly infectious yet preventable skin disease, due to medicine shortages.

Three doctors consulted by Reuters who declined to be named said they had resorted to advising their patients to boil up a mix of herbs to apply to their skin to provide temporary relief for scabies as it was futile to prescribe medicines that are scarce. One of those doctors also recommended a veterinary treatment for one of his patients.

Cuba’s healthcare system, built by late leader Fidel Castro, is one of the revolution’s most treasured achievements, having produced results on a par with rich nations using the resources of a developing country and in spite of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo.

But cash woes in the ailing state economy since the fall of former benefactor the Soviet Union have taken their toll on both healthcare facilities and the availability of medicine.

Over the past few years, the decline in aid from ally Venezuela, new U.S. sanctions and the pandemic have plunged Cuba into its worst economic crisis since the 1990s.

Health Minister Jose Portal reported on state television last year that as of June around a 116 basic medicines were scarce. Of those, 87 were produced locally and 29 imported.

Florencio Chavez, who has run a medicinal plant shop for 25 years, recommends guacamaya francesa, cundeamor, neem, Parthenium hysterophorus to treat scabies. He says demand for herbal remedies has risen in recent years.

Cubans have also set up groups on social media to barter medicines or other products for those they need, while the black market is thriving on the streets and online.

CHRONIC SHORTAGES

Cuban authorities started talking about chronic shortages of drugs, including basic ones like those treating hypertension and contraceptives due to a cash crunch in 2017, saying it had had to slash imports of inputs necessary for local production.

Last year, the country said shipping delays due to the pandemic had exacerbated the situation, as had U.S. sanctions.

While medicine is theoretically exempt from sanctions, the sanctions still are a strong disincentive to overseas medical providers, who might risk being fined, and the embargo hurts the economy across the board so there is less cash for imports.

Some senior citizens like Yolanda Perez, 80, who suffers from glaucoma, complain they do not have the stamina needed to line up at pharmacies overnight in the hope of grabbing their share of scant deliveries.

“It’s been six months since I was last able to get my latanoprost,” the drug that helps prevent her from going blind, she said.

Authorities in the eastern province of Holguin in January warned Cubans not to turn to the black market though because some drugs were not what they advertised and could even be harmful.

“The problem is people are despairing over the lack of medicine,” wrote a reader identified as Arcela under an article on the topic in state outlet Juventud Rebelde. She said her sister had had to buy black market antibiotics.

“That’s why they resort to these methods.”

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Reuters- A collapse in tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic has sent Aruba toward one of the world’s biggest economic contractions, prompting the island to try to diversify beyond its sun and sand image, namely by restarting a long-idled oil refinery.

Assistance from the Netherlands helped the Caribbean island finance a stimulus program, blunting the impact of the economy’s 25.5% contraction on workers and businesses in 2020. That downturn was behind only Libya, Maldives and Venezuela, International Monetary Fund (IMF) data show.

But those subsidies led to an increase in Aruba’s fiscal deficit to 17% of gross domestic product (GDP), according to the IMF, prompting some experts and residents to argue the island should diversify its economy to ensure the government can balance its budget without Dutch assistance.

The 67% drop in tourism arrivals was devastating for small businesses like Aruba Bob Snorkeling, which used to run multiple tours a day before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“When COVID came around, they just came crashing down to once a day, once or twice a week, and then to nothing at all,” said instructor and part-owner Jesus Maduro, 30, while sipping coffee under the shade of solar panels in the company’s tree-filled backyard.

But the company kept up rent and electricity payments thanks to quarterly 4,000 florin ($2,247.19) subsidies from the government. Such payments helped keep company closures below 2019 levels, said Martijn Balkestein, executive director of Aruba’s Chamber of Commerce.

As a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Aruba is receiving assistance from Amsterdam. The Netherlands has agreed to cover Aruba’s financing needs during the pandemic contingent on economic reforms, such as cuts in public sector salaries implemented last year. But Dutch officials have said they ultimately expect Aruba, as well as other constituent Caribbean islands Curacao and Sint Maarten – which are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands but have autonomy over domestic affairs – to be self-reliant.

Fitch Ratings rates the island’s debt at BB, below investment grade. Aruba in 2012 issued a $253 million bond with a 4.625% yield maturing in 2023.

TALK OF REOPENING REFINERY

After closing its borders in March 2020, the island reopened for tourism last June for visitors who present a negative coronavirus test. The country has reported 10,324 COVID-19 cases and 92 deaths.

But the local business community is not banking on an immediate rebound in tourism to restore government finances. The Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association forecasts hotel occupancy will remain at less than half capacity in 2021.

“The pandemic shows very loud and clear to everybody living in Aruba that we cannot rely on one pillar,” Balkestein said.

To that end, authorities are in talks with a U.S. company seeking to build a liquefied natural gas import terminal on the site of an oil refinery that has been idled since 2012. Another company is seeking to restart the plant itself.

In 2012, the refinery’s former operator, U.S.-based Valero Energy Corp (VLO.N), abandoned it over low profits.

Still, some residents hope its revival could change the fortunes of San Nicolas, the rundown refinery town on Aruba’s southeastern tip a half hour’s drive from the glitzy beachfront hotels and casinos dotting the island’s west coast, whose largely empty mural-flanked streets are lined with shuttered dive bars.

“You can see, it’s a ghost town,” said Kendrick Kock, a cell phone repair shop owner who saw sales drop 50% last year, prompting him to lay off his two employees. “If they don’t open the refinery soon, this would be case closed for San Nicolas.”

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National Guard troops were on hand Tuesday in cities throughout the country following the guilty verdict for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Chavin was found guilty on all charges in the murder trial of George Floyd, whose death led to months of demonstrations against police brutality last summer.

Details of the DC Guard: Ahead of the verdict, the D.C. National Guard approved a request from the Metropolitan Police Department to activate about 250 personnel.

The D.C. National Guard announced in a statement Monday that it would activate the personnel “to support local law enforcement in response to potential First Amendment demonstrations.”

The force is approved to support D.C. and law enforcement “as needed” until May 9.

The guardsmen were specifically requested to “assist police with street closures at multiple intersections in order to provide safety in and around pedestrian areas,” according to the statement.

Who made the request: In a letter sent to the D.C. National Guard on April 8, Christopher Rodriguez, the director of the D.C. government’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, requested that the Guard be activated to help the D.C. police manage crowds, block vehicles at traffic posts and provide a “quick response force.”

Elsewhere in the country: In downtown Minneapolis, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis National Guard confirmed to The Hill last week that 3,000 Guardsmen are being deployed. 

The Minnesota National Guard was activated as part of Operation Safety Net, a joint undertaking by the Minneapolis Police Department, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the state of Minnesota and local jurisdictions to “protect people, freedom of speech and property during the Derek Chauvin trial as well as the aftermath of the police involved shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center.” 

Wright, a young Black man, was killed in Brooklyn Center, Minn., on Sunday, just miles away from where Floyd died. 

Similar measures are underway in other cities, including in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Atlanta and New York, where police presence will be increased.  

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 (CNN) –  Covid-19 infections have been rising at an alarming rate for eight consecutive weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, as the virus sweeps unabated through hotspots in several corners of the globe.

More than 5.2 million new cases were recorded last week — the most in a single week since the pandemic began — WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news briefing in Geneva on Monday.

Deaths also increased for the fifth straight week, he said, with the pandemic now officially claiming more than 3 million lives.

And Tedros warned that the pace of the pandemic is accelerating, even as some countries tout their own improved vaccination programs.

“It took nine months to reach 1 million deaths, four months to reach 2 million and three months to reach 3 million deaths,” said Tedros. “Big numbers can make us numb, but each one of these deaths is a tragedy for families, communities and nations.”

And, as more at-risk or older adults are fully inoculated and some economies open up, the director-general suggested the brunt of the virus’s spread may be shifting towards younger adults. He told reporters that infections and hospitalizations among people age 25 to 59 are “increasing at an alarming rate,” possibly due to highly transmissible variants and increased social mixing among younger people.

Concerns about more young adults contracting Covid-19 have already been reported by doctors in some hotspots — including Brazil, where a new variant has caused a devastating surge in hospitalizations and deaths.

Shots ramp up as variants cause concern

The stark warning from WHO serves as a reminder of the state of the pandemic, which has not yet dissipated in the face of the world’s disparate vaccine rollouts.

India is suffering from a calamitous second wave of the virus, and a significant portion of the world’s infections is occurring there. The country has reported more than 200,000 new cases on each of the past six days — nearly 1.5 million in the last week — and crowded hospitals are turning away patients as they battle the sprea

Hospital workers treat a Covid-19 patient in Belgium earlier this month.

Among India’s many active cases is former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in stable condition in hospital after contracting Covid-19.

With more than 15 million infections, the country is now only second to the United States in global case tallies. The US has reported almost 32 million infections.

England added India to its travel ban list on Monday and Prime Minister Boris Johnson canceled a scheduled trip there, but political campaigning is ongoing despite the dire situation.

Narendra Modi’s ruling party said it would hold “small public gatherings” with a cap of 500 people in the state of West Bengal, one of the five states where state elections are currently being held, according to a statement from the party Monday.

Much of Asia is similarly grappling with increasing cases. A surge in Thailand has dampened hopes of welcoming more tourists there, with hospitality venues identified as a cause of recent outbreaks.

In the US, where millions of people are being vaccinated daily, cases and hospitalizations have risen over the past month. Experts cite coronavirus variants — including the more contagious B.1.1.7 strain that recently fueled another surge in Michigan — and a spreading sense of pandemic fatigue as contributing factors

India will offer Covid-19 vaccines to everyone 18+ in May

Meanwhile, in Europe, there are some signs of a plateau in the continent’s third wave of infections, and a bumpy vaccine rollout has started accelerating across the European Union.

But vaccine hesitancy and the lingering effects of earlier vaccine scares there are still evident; a mass vaccination center in the southern French city of Nice was forced to close early over the weekend after just 58 people turned up for 4,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine — which may be linked to a very small number of rare blood clot cases — a spokesman for the regional police told CNN.

And European regulators face another decision about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which US authorities paused after a handful of clotting cases were reported. A decision by the European Medicines Agency on the shot is expected Tuesday.

CNN’s Naomi Thomas, Christina Maxouris and Saskya Vandoorne contributed reportin

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New twist in the J&J saga: FDA orders troubled Baltimore J&J contractor to pause manufacturing

In addition to a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of concerns about very rare blood clots, there is now also a manufacturing pause at a Baltimore plant making the vaccine.

Federal regulators ordered the embattled Emergent BioSolutions plant in Baltimore to stop producing new Johnson & Johnson vaccine material pending a completed inspection, the company said Monday.

In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchanges Commission released Monday, Emergent said it “agreed not to initiate the manufacturing of any new material” for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine “and to quarantine existing material” until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finishes its inspection.

The FDA began its inspection April 12, the company said.

Background: The disclosure from Emergent is the latest blow to Johnson & Johnson’s ramping up of domestic production for its coronavirus vaccine.

J&J contracted with Emergent to help manufacture vaccines early in the pandemic, but the company has come under fire from regulators after 15 million doses of the vaccine were ruined last month after being contaminated by ingredients from AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

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Regeneron says antibody therapy prevents COVID-19 infections

Good news on the coronavirus therapeutics front: Regeneron says its antibody cocktail prevents symptomatic COVID-19.

While much of the attention has been focused on vaccines, experts say therapeutic treatments are just as important to ending the pandemic, which has killed more than 562,000 Americans. To that end, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said it is planning to ask the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow its antibody cocktail to be used as a preventive treatment for COVID-19.

New results from a clinical trial conducted with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases found the drug reduced the risk of symptomatic infection by 81 percent in people who were not infected at the start of the trial, Regeneron said.

Details: The trial enrolled 1,505 people who were not infected with the virus but lived in the same household as someone who recently tested positive. The patients were randomized to receive either one dose of the antibody therapy or a placebo administered as injections.

The drug provided 72 percent protection against symptomatic infections in the first week and 93 percent protection in subsequent weeks, Regeneron said.

Helpful results: The trial tested the antibody treatment for use as a “passive vaccine,” which involves directly injecting antibodies into the body. Traditional vaccines rely on a person’s immune system to activate and develop its own antibodies.

That means the treatment may provide immediate benefits, in contrast to active vaccines, which take weeks to provide protection. In addition, using injections rather than an infusion could make administering it more convenient than the currently authorized use for antibody drugs.

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State and federal security forces have actively colluded with – and even fought alongside – the warring factions, according to local civilians, civil society activists and gunmen from various factions.

But as well as engaging in pitched gun battles, criminal factions are also confronting each other on the electoral field.

“All the [criminal] groups are trying to make gains right now,” said a Michoacán political consultant with first-hand knowledge of how arrangements are brokered between organized crime and political candidates.

With more than 21,000 posts in local, state and national government up for election – including 15 state governorships – the 6 June polls are the largest in Mexico’s history, and criminal groups see the elections as an opportunity to further their interests.

Much of the recent fighting has focused on the western state of Michoacán, where the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (Jalisco New Generation cartel) has stepped up its conflict with an alliance of local groups calling themselves the United Cartels.

The violence has forced more than a thousand people to flee the area, feeding the flow of migrants heading to the US to seek asylum, and adding to the current uptick of arrivals at the border that the Biden administration is struggling to manage.

According to preliminary data by US Customs and Border Protection, Mexican nationals accounted for 42% of all apprehensions at the US southern border in March – up from 13% during last May’s peak in arrivals.

“They are leaving because they get caught in the crossfire, because their homes have been destroyed, [and] because the main roads into [the area] have been carved up to stop the advance of the Jaliscos,” said Gregorio López, a Catholic priest who has sheltered refuges in the nearby city of Apatzingán.

Amid the tumult, he said, local livelihoods have become unsustainable: “Basic goods aren’t getting through any more, there is no more fresh food, and everything has become very expensive, gasoline now costs three times as much as before.”

Locals say that some people had been forced to run by a “cleansing” campaign against those with suspected ties to the United Cartels. Others have simply fled.

The Jalisco cartel, Mexico’s fastest-expanding criminal network, considers Michoacán, rich in international trafficking routes and extortion markets, a key building block in its bid for national criminal hegemony. A source in the cartel said that gaining control over Michoacán was an “obsession” of the group’s leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, who was born in the state.

But its decade-long attempt to take over the region has so far been frustrated by the local opponents’ deep political and social roots. With neither side able to impose its designs on the other or willing to back down, more than 15,500 homicides have been recorded here from January 2011 to February this year.

The fighting goes hand-in-hand with the struggle for political power. Since campaign season officially began on 7 September last year, 69 politicians, including 22 candidates, have been assassinated across the country.

Greater territorial control allows criminal groups to move blocs of votes, giving them leverage to negotiate deals with current and future officeholders.

“If there’s one rule all of them know, it’s that only those who have the protection of the state can grow,” said the political consultant. This can be achieved through illicit campaign financing, which can later provide perks such as being able to tap into state finances and influence the actions of state security institutions.

One high-ranking lieutenant in a local faction that is currently non-aligned in the conflict said his group’s attempts to take on the United Cartels had failed because of the group’s powerful political connections.

He said: “They have the state government on their side … and when we try to attack, they send helicopters and launch operations.”

He hoped that his own group could balance things out by channeling votes from its area of control to a high-level candidate. He said: “The idea is that the next government will let us do our work … that there’ll be an alignment [with federal and state forces].”

Much of the recent fighting has raged around the strategic rural municipality of Aguililla, not far from the border of Jalisco, the home state of the Jalisco cartel. The violence has produced a humanitarian crisis: in recent days more than one hundred families have fled Aguililla.

The total number of people displaced by fighting is unknown: there is no official register, and those who have recently been displaced are not mirrored in the Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights’ nationwide count of at least 346,945 displaced persons – a figure that the NGO is yet to update for 2020 and 2021.

Meanwhile, state and federal authorities have done little to protect the civilian population.

Salvador Maldonado, an anthropologist specializing in the security situation in Michoacán, said this reflects a political calculation by the current administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador who came to power in 2018 offering “hugs not bullets”.

“He wants to avoid the high political costs past governments have suffered after they declared war against organized crime, so that he can achieve other priorities like structural reforms instead” such as in the energy sector, Maldonado said.

“The president’s view of organised crime is one that focuses on [helping] young people without work, but he completely ignores the enormous institutional corruption and state capture at the local level.”

Criminal operatives in various rival factions, local civilians and activists, agree that the problem of state complicity goes beyond simple inertia.

Soldiers and police, they say, have drawn up alliances with those they are meant to fight.

“The truth is,” one local said, “that the army and the national guard are allied with [United Cartels] … they are working together, they are doing operations together, some criminal leaders are even [embedded] with the army, riding in their helicopters and wearing their uniforms.”

‘The training stays with you’: the elite Mexican soldiers recruited by cartels

Opposing criminal groups collaborate with different factions of the state in different geographical areas, leveling out advantages and perpetuating deadly violence.

“There are a lot of pacts [between state and crime],” said a white-collar broker providing services to the Jalisco cartel, “but only at the local and regional level. There is no one big pact.” This, he added, also helped to explain frequent attacks on the security forces by armed groups seeking to disrupt other factions’ arrangements.

Commanders of Mexico’s armed forces have repeatedly denied all allegations of corruption, saying that “no deviations of any type are tolerated”. López Obrador has described the security forces as “incorruptible”.

The Jalisco cartel has a long record of attacking state forces. An October 2019 ambush in El Aguaje – another town in Aguililla – left 13 state police dead. This April, it mobilised civilians to confront soldiers in Aguililla, leading to the temporary retreat of federal forces from the area, sources said.

Afterwards, López Obrador told reporters said that the army had “acted very well [in Aguililla] … because it did not lend itself to a confrontation”, reiterating his stance that “fire cannot be put out with fire”.

Locals say that Jalisco cartel forces reached the municipal capital, also called Aguililla, on 31 March. Since then, its men have been “going door to door”.

“They are making people choose sides … so that people protect them, tell them when [enemy operatives] enter” the area, offering small material benefits such as food parcels in exchange.

Those who do not comply are driven out of town – or killed.

“We don’t want to support any of those groups,” one local woman said, “but we might not have a choice.”

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