- Han Kang's books sell out in South Korea after Nobel win
- Shanghai markets sink ahead of briefing on mixed day for Asia
- Investors, analysts eye bigger China stimulus at Saturday briefing
- Musk unveils robotaxi, pledges it 'before 2027'
- At least 11 dead in Florida but Hurricane Milton not as bad as feared
- Asian markets mixed after Wall St drop, Shanghai dips before briefing
- Automaker Stellantis says CEO will retire in 2026
- Musk's promised robotaxi unveil delayed
- On US coast, wind power foes embrace 'Save the Whales' argument
- At least 10 dead in Florida after Hurricane Milton spawns tornadoes
- Internet Archive reels from 'catastrophic' cyberattack, data breach
- Wall Street stocks retreat from records on US inflation data
- Israel strikes central Beirut, killing 22
- Solar storm could impact US hurricane recovery efforts: agency
- Delta eyes Election Day travel pullback as profits climb
- Florida battered by hurricane, floods but spared 'worst-case scenario'
- UK's William and Kate in first joint public engagement since cancer treatment
- Over 200 women in legal talks with Harrods over Fayed abuse claims
- A very stiff breeze: BBC says sorry for 20,000 kph wind forecast
- Musk finally unveiling his long-promised robotaxi
- London's Frieze art fair goes potty for ceramics
- US, Europe stocks fall on US inflation data
- US consumer inflation eases to 2.4% in September
- Hurricane Milton tornadoes kill four in Florida amid rescue efforts
- South Korea's Han Kang wins literature Nobel
- Ikea posts fall in annual sales after lowering prices
- Stock markets diverge, oil gains after China rebounds
- World can't 'waste time' trading climate change blame: COP29 hosts
- South Korean same-sex couples make push for marriage equality
- Mumbai declares day of mourning for Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- 7-Eleven owner restructures to fight takeover
- Sri Lanka recovering faster than expected: World Bank
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as most markets track Wall St record
- Uniqlo owner reports record annual earnings
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as markets track Wall St record
- Indonesia biomass drive threatens key forests: report
- Mumbai mourns Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- China opens $71 bn 'swap facility' to boost markets
- Asian markets track Wall St record as Hong Kong, Shanghai stabilise
- 'Denying my potential': women at Japan's top university call out gender imbalance
- China's central bank says opens up $70.6 bn in liquidity to boost market
- Youth facing unprecedented wave of violence, UN envoy warns
- 'A casino in every kitchen': Brazil's online gambling craze
- Nobel chemistry winner sees engineered proteins solving tough problems
- Discord seen as online home for renegades
- US forecasts severe solar storm starting Thursday
- Ratan Tata: Indian mogul who built a global powerhouse
- One dead as storm Kirk tears through Spain, Portugal, France
- Indian business titan Ratan Tata dead at 86
- Fed minutes highlight divisions over rate cut decision
Brazil's new Indigenous affairs chief sets sights on illegal gold
Joenia Wapichana is used to charting new territory: the first Indigenous woman to earn a law degree in Brazil, she was also the first elected to Congress.
But she faces one of her biggest challenges yet in her new job as the first native person to lead Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, which she said was dismantled for the past four years under far-right then-president Jair Bolsonaro.
The feisty 49-year-old is the first to admit she faces a daunting to-do list, starting with the issue that thrust her into the spotlight almost from the day she took office last month: rampant illegal gold mining on protected Indigenous reservations.
Newly inaugurated leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has ordered a police and army crackdown to wrest back control of the country's largest reservation, the Yanomami territory, from illegal miners, who are accused of poisoning the water with mercury, destroying the rainforest, raping and killing inhabitants, and triggering a humanitarian crisis.
But it is proving difficult for federal authorities to stop the boom in illegal gold, Wapichana said in an interview with AFP at her office in Brasilia.
"Brazil still doesn't have a way to curb the illegal gold trade," she said.
The government response "is very fragile," she added.
- Rampant abuse -
At least 30 percent of the gold mined in Brazil is irregular in origin, according to a recent study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
Under Brazilian law, gold dealers are allowed to make a declaration "in good faith" that their product was legally mined -- a system that leads to rampant abuse, according to experts.
The system "is still very immature," said Wapichana, who often wears a traditional headdress of bright feathers.
Her resources to fight the problem are limited: FUNAI's budget is 600 million reais (about $120 million) this year, the majority of which is for administrative costs.
Just one-sixth will remain for key functions such as establishing new Indigenous reservations and policing existing ones.
Wapichana wants at least double that.
She is hoping to get financing from the Amazon Fund, an internationally backed program to protect the world's biggest rainforest.
When Lula took office in January, donor countries revived the fund, which was suspended under Bolsonaro in response to a surge in deforestation.
Wapichana is also hoping to tap funds negotiated at UN climate talks to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change -- though that will take time.
"Indigenous peoples' contribution to combatting the effects of climate change needs to be compensated," Wapichana said.
Numerous studies have found Indigenous peoples play a crucial role in slowing global warming by protecting the world's carbon-absorbing forests.
- 'Part of this country' -
Wapichana inherited a FUNAI in crisis, after four years of controversy under Bolsonaro.
Indigenous leaders accuse the ex-president of appointing hostile officials to lead the very agency that was supposed to protect Brazil's 800,000 native people.
As president, Bolsonaro (2019-2022) pushed to open protected Indigenous lands to mining. Illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon rose sharply on his watch, destroying a record 125 square kilometers (48 square miles) of forest in 2021, according to satellite monitoring by the national space agency.
Bolsonaro also made good on his vow to ensure that "not a single centimeter" of new Indigenous reservations were allowed.
Lula has promised to resume creating new Indigenous reservations, which currently cover 13.75 percent of the nation's territory.
Bolsonaro "encouraged land invasions, denied our rights and contributed to discrimination against Indigenous peoples, who suffered persecution and criminalization," Wapichana said.
She says it her mission to undo that damage.
She faces a tough job but Wapichana is used to blazing trails.
"This is a country where Indigenous women are seen as submissive domestic workers," she said.
"I'm here to say: 'We're part of this country, and we want to sit at the table as equals.'"
C.Peyronnet--CPN