Negotiator says Venezuelan Government, Opposition making progress on US$3.2B humanitarian fund

Venezuela's governing and Opposition parties are making progress toward the creation of a US$3.2 billion United Nations-administrated fund that would aim to use the country's frozen assets for humanitarian purposes, the top lawmaker from the country's ruling party said on Monday.

During Mexico-based talks in November, representatives for the Government of President Nicolás Maduro and the US-backed Opposition ture of the suspected crimes because of ongoing investigations. On Friday, Boric pointed to signs that some of the fires may have been started intentionally.

Between Sunday and Monday, aid arrived in Chile from Argentina, Spain and Mexico, while the authorities said they expected to receive new support from Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, and Venezuela.

(Excerpt from Reuters)

Illegal miners in Yanomami reservation seek Brazilian Government’s help to leave

Illegal gold miners blamed for causing a humanitarian crisis on Brazil's largest Indigenous reservation are asking authorities to help them leave, one of their leaders and a Brazilian Senator said on Monday.

Aware of an imminent military enforcement operation to evict them, Jailson Mesquita, head of the Garimpo é Legal movement (Wildcat Mining Is Legal) called on the Government to airlift miners from Yanomami territory or lift a no-fly zone to allow them to fly out on small planes from clandestine airstrips inside the reservation where mining is banned under Brazil's Constitution.

In a video he posted on social media, Mesquita asked the Government to unblock rivers for 10-15 days for the miners to leave the reservation in the northern state of Roraima.

"It is important to protect Indigenous people, but we cannot criminalise the miners who are looking for a living to survive," Roraima Senator Chico Rodrigues told Reuters. "What matters is that the miners leave peacefully and protected," he said.

More than 20,000 miners have occupied the reservation bringing disease, sexual abuse, and armed violence that have terrified the Yanomamis, estimated to be about 28,000 in number, and led to a malnutrition and deaths.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared a medical emergency for the Yanomami and his recently-installed Government is planning a task force to expel the miners involving the military, police and agencies that protect the environment and Brazil's indigenous peoples.

The Yanomami have lived in isolation on a vast reservation the size of Portugal on the border with Venezuela. Their mineral-rich lands have attracted wildcat miners for decades, especially after a military Government built a road through the Amazon rainforest in the 1970s. (Excerpt from Reuters)