28 2GM Monday August 3 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s army,
is believed to be behind the opening of
a superstore in Venezuela in the latest
attempt to defy American-led sanc-
tions.
The Caracas branch of Megasis was
officially opened last week by the Iran-
ian ambassador and the Venezuelan
vice-president. The Iranian chain store
sells a range of products from canned
chickpeas to tractors.
The chain’s owner, Issa Rezaei, said
that the store would “break the block-
Fires ravaging the Amazon basin
surged last month in a sign that the
most biodiverse place on Earth could
see a repeat of last year’s devastating
destruction.
Brazil’s space agency said that the
number of fires in the Amazon was up
by 28 per cent from the same time last
year. Satellite images showed 6,803
new forest fires were started, a three-
year high for the month of July.
Environmentalists have warned that
the increase at the beginning of the
country’s dry season could lead to
further devastation in the coming
months as temperatures rise. “We can
expect that August will already be a dif-
ficult month and September will be
worse yet,” Ane Alencar, the director of
science at Brazil’s Amazon Environ-
mental Research Institute, said. “It’s a
terrible sign.”
Wildfires are frequent during the dry
season but many are started deliberate-
ly by illegal loggers and farmers.
President Bolsonaro, a right-wing
nationalist, has been accused of turning
a blind eye to rampant land clearances
in a region treasured as a bulwark
against climate change. Lax enforce-
ment by his government is widely
believed to have contributed to the fires.
An area more than twice the size of
Cornwall was lost in the 11 months to
June 30.
The Amazon rainforest, the largest in
the world, has a crucial role in absorb-
ing carbon and pumping oxygen into
the atmosphere, and the fires and
deforestation add to carbon levels.
Deforestation hit an 11-year high last
year. Apocalyptic scenes of thick grey
smoke billowing for hundreds of miles
above the tree canopy prompted inter-
national outrage. Rates of deforesta-
tion have already soared a further
25 per cent in the first half of this year.
The latest figures still pale in compar-
Amazon forests
ravaged by 6,800
blazes in a month
ison to the August 2019 peak, of 30,900
fires. Much of the blame has been
directed at the president.
Mr Bolsonaro, 65, has repeatedly
argued that the Amazon needs to be
developed responsibly, not protected
like a “zoo”.
For months he has urged Brazil’s con-
gress to back controversial legislation
to make it easier for miners and farmers
to work in the Amazon, including sim-
plifying the process of securing landtitles. The move, Mr Bolsonaro said,
would enable proper law enforcement;
critics say it would set off a further land
grab, leading to ranching and logging.
A fifth of the Amazon rainforest, an
area the size of Britain and France
combined, has been lost in the past 30
years. What remains is roughly the size
of western Europe. Wildcat miners,
ranchers and speculators generally fell
trees from the jungle before deliberate-
ly setting fire to cleared fields to prepare
for a new crop or activity; at other times
fresh areas of the pristine rainforest are
illegally cut down.
July data showed no major fires in
untouched “virgin” areas, which can be
impossible to control once set alight.
Fires have been overwhelmingly
recorded on recently deforested land,
which can be stopped within a
300 to 500-metre range.
Illegally clearing land can be enor-
mously profitable, with an area devoidof trees worth up to one hundred times
more than forested plots.
Carlos Rittl, senior fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Sustainability
Studies in Germany, said that trends in
the Amazon were worrisome. “The
tendency is that this will be a more dry
year than 2019 and this makes it easier
for the fire to spread,” he said.
Of growing concern to environmen-
talists is that the majority of the fires
appear to have been started after an
Amazon-wide fire ban was introduced
by the government on July 15, suggest-
ing that any attempts at control are
largely being ignored.
Hamilton Mourão, the vice-presi-
dent, who oversees Amazon policy,
insists that the administration is com-
mitted to protecting the forest while
encouraging development. “Protecting
and preserving won’t be possible if we
do not develop,” he said.
The army was deployed to the region
in May to help local forestry officials to
prevent illegal activity but the effort has
been hampered by coronavirus. “We
have too much territory and just a few
troops to be everywhere we are
needed,” Carlos Chagas, a defence
ministry spokesman, said.
Mr Bolsonaro has repeatedly ques-
tioned the reliability and findings of the
National Institute for Space Research.
Last year he sacked the institute’s top
scientist after he published data show-
ing a marked rise in Amazon fires.
Another key researcher, Lubia Vinhas,
stood down last month, causing
suspicions that she was forced out. The
government said that her dismissal was
part of wider restructuring plans.
In the Pantanal, the world’s largest
wetland to the south of Brazil, fires are
also raging at record rates. July figures
were more than three times higher than
the worst July on record in 1998.
A spokeswoman for WWF-UK told
The Times that this was “now a pattern
across Brazilian landscapes,” and a
“worrying indicator” of what is to come.Brazil
Lucinda Elliott Rio de Janeiro
BRBRRARAAZILZILLSao PauloRoraimaAmazonasRondoniaAmazon
rain forest500 milesPantanalTehran busts sanctions to set up shop in Venezuela
ade imposed by the United States” on
both countries by showcasing more
than 2,500 Iranian products alongside
local produce.
Officials in Washington condemned
the growing alliance between the
Islamic Republic and the regime of
President Maduro, as it emerged that
Megasis and associated companies had
links to the Iranian military and the
IRGC, designated as a terrorist organi-
sation by President Trump last year.
An Iranian cargo ship docked in June
with food for the supermarket a month
after the Islamic Republic sent five
tankers with gasoline to Venezuela.
The country has endured rising liv-ing costs and crippling fuel shortages
under US sanctions, despite possessing
the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
Mr Rezaei, who runs 700 Megasis
stores in Iran, is also the deputy minis-
ter for industries. He said that he had
invested $10 million in the Caracas
store for mainly commercial reasons.
He added that he hoped to ship Ven-
ezuelan products such as mangoes,
pineapples and wood back to Iran in a
“win-win” for both countries.
The new store, however, appeared to
promote only brands distributed by
companies owned by the Iranian Min-
istry of Defence. A report from the
IRGC’s Tasnim news agency encour-aged companies to supply goods to
Venezuela through the Ekta distribu-
tion company, set up as a security fund
for Iranian military veterans.
US intelligence reports said that no
Iranian company could operate over-
seas without the permission of the
IRGC, which has been proscribed by
Washington for sponsoring proxy mili-
tant groups such as Hezbollah.
Customers at the new Megasis store
in east Caracas had to pass through a
scanner which measured their temper-
atures and sprayed a disinfectant.
Shoppers were bemused, however, by
products labelled in Persian and
English rather than Spanish.Iran
David Rose
Courageous
The world’s longest-surviving face
transplant patient has died, 12 years
after groundbreaking surgery to re-
build her features after a murder
attempt by her husband.
Connie Culp, who was the first recipi-
ent of a face transplant in the United
States, died of an unspecified infection
unrelated to her transplant. She was 57.
“Connie was an incredibly brave,
vibrant woman and an inspiration to
many,” said Dr Frank Papay, chairman
of Cleveland Clinic’s Dermatology and
Plastic Surgery Institute in Ohio.
“She was a great pioneer and herJacqui Goddard MiamiCrews were met
by a wall of fire
in Cherry Valley.
Retardant was
dropped from
the air as
flames left a
trail of damage