The death toll of a powerful explosion at a luxury hotel in Cuba’s capital increased to 31 Sunday evening as search crews with dogs hunted through the rubble of the iconic, 19th century building looking for people still missing. The Hotel Saratoga, a five-star 96-room hotel in Old Havana, was preparing to reopen after being closed for two years when an apparent gas leak ignited, blowing the outer walls into the busy, midmorning streets just a block from the country’s Capitol building on Friday. Several nearby structures also were damaged, including the historic Marti Theater and the Calvary Baptist Church, headquarters for the denomination in western Cuba. The church said on its Facebook page that the building suffered “significant structural damage, with several collapsed or cracked walls and columns (and) the ceiling partially collapsed,” though no church workers were hurt. In releasing the names of those who were killed, the Health Ministry said the dead included four minors, a pregnant woman and a Spanish tourist, whose companion was seriously injured. The ministry also said 54 people were injured, with 24 hospitalized. It previously reported 85 injured, but that tally turned out to include those killed by the explosion. Nineteen families had reported people missing as of Saturday evening, but authorities did not say Sunday whether the number had changed. Authorities said the cause of the explosion at the hotel owned by Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA was still under investigation, but believed it to have been caused by a gas leak. A large crane hoisted a charred gas tanker out of the rubble Saturday. Also Read: Explosion at luxury Havana hotel kills 22, injures dozens Burials for victims had begun, municipal authorities said, while some people still waited for news of missing friends and relatives. “We are hoping that something will be known about my cousin’s mother,” Angela Acosta told The Associated Press near the site of the explosion. Her relative, María de la Concepción Alard, lived in an apartment adjacent to the hotel with a black Labrador, which was rescued along with another dog Sunday. Crews have worked to clean up streets around the hotel and by late Saturday, substantial pedestrian traffic had resumed. “There are mothers who are without their children today,” Matha Verde, a manicurist who was walking near the Saratoga, said Sunday, when Mother’s Day was celebrated in Cuba. She said she tells women who lost their sons or daughters in the explosion that they “have to keep going.” The explosion added to the woes of a crucial tourism industry that had been stifled by the coronavirus pandemic as well as tightened sanctions imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and kept in place the Biden administration. Those limited visits by U.S. tourists to the islands and restricted remittances from Cubans in the U.S. to their families in Cuba. Tourism had started to revive somewhat early this year, but the war in Ukraine deflated a boom of Russian visitors, who accounted for almost a third of the tourists arriving in Cuba last year. The Saratoga, which had been closed through the pandemic, was one of the elite lodgings in Havana, often hosting visiting VIPs and celebrities. Its owner is one of the Cuban military’s businesses. Some attention in Cuba began to shift to an official visit by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who arrived Saturday night at the end of a five-country tour that began in Central America. López Obrador met Sunday with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who awarded him the Order of Jose Marti “for his great achievements for humanity.” It is the most important award the country gives to a foreigner. Díaz-Canel’s office stated in a tweet that López Obrador said he would insist to U.S. President Joe Biden that Cuba not be excluded from the Summit of the Americas it will host in Los Angeles in June. Also Read: Police patrol Havana in large numbers after rare protests López Obrador said the objectives of the trip included signing agreements on trade, health, education and cooperation with the island, while he ratified his foreign policy stance. “We are not in favor of hegemonies,” he said. “Let no one exclude anyone because we are independent countries, we are sovereign countries, and no one can place themselves above the rights of peoples and nations.” Díaz-Canel visited Mexico during its independence day celebrations last year. López Obrador has recently spoken out against the apparent U.S. government intention of to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the upcoming summit.    

Rescuers in Cuba’s capital searched Saturday to find survivors of an explosion that killed at least 25 people and devastated a luxury hotel that once hosted dignitaries and celebrities, including Beyoncé and Jay-Z. A natural gas leak was the apparent cause of Friday’s blast at Havana’s 96-room Hotel Saratoga. The 19th-century structure in the city’s Old Havana neighborhood did not have any guests at the time because it was undergoing renovations ahead of a planned Tuesday reopening after being closed. The death toll rose to 25 Saturday, according to Orestes Llánez, coordinator of the Havana city government, according to the official Cubadebate news site. He said 22 had been identified, 18 residents of the capital and four from elsewhere in Cuba. He said searchers have managed to reach the hotel's basement in the hunt for possible survivors. At least one survivor was found early Saturday in the shattered ruins of the hotel, and rescuers using search dogs clambered over huge chunks of concrete looking for more. Relatives of missing people remained at the site overnight. Others gathered at hospitals where the injured were being treated. Also read: Explosion at luxury Havana hotel kills 22, injures dozens “I don’t want to move from here,” Cristina Avellar told The Associated Press near the hotel, whose outer walls were blown away by the explosion, leaving the interiors of many rooms exposed. Avellar was waiting for news of Odalys Barrera, a 57-year-old cashier who has worked at the hotel for five years. She is the godmother of Barrera’s daughters and considers her like a sister. Although no tourists were reported injured, the explosion is another blow to the country’s crucial tourism industry. Even before the coronavirus pandemic kept tourists away from Cuba, the country was struggling with tightened sanctions imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and kept in place the Biden administration. Those limited visits by U.S. tourists to the islands and restricted remittances from Cubans in the U.S. to their families in Cuba. Tourism had started to revive somewhat early this year, but the war in Ukraine deflated a boom of Russian visitors, who accounted for almost a third of the tourists arriving in Cuba last year. The hotel’s lower floors appeared to have suffered most of the damage from Friday's blast. The missing walls made it possible to distinguish mattresses, pieces of furniture, hanging glass, tattered curtains and cushions covered in dust. Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, chief of hospital services at the Ministry of Health, said at least 74 people had been injured. Among them were 14 children, according to a tweet from the office of President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Cuba’s national health minister, José Ángel Portal, told The Associated Press the number of injured could rise as the search continues. Fire Department Lt. Col. Noel Silva said rescue workers were still looking for a large group of people who may be under the rubble. The shattered hotel remained cordoned off as workers operated heavy machinery to lift huge pieces of wall and masonry and trucks left the site loaded with debris. Rescuers declined to answer questions because the authorities had ordered them to avoid confusion. A 300-student school next to the hotel was evacuated. Havana Gov. Reinaldo García Zapata said five of the students suffered minor injuries. The emblematic hotel had a stunning view of Cuba's center, including the domed Capitol building about 110 yards (100 meters) away. The Capitol suffered broken glass and damaged masonry from the explosion. Also read: Olympic teams raise concerns over quarantine hotels The hotel was renovated in 2005 as part of the Cuban government’s revival of Old Havana and is owned by the Cuban military’s tourism business arm, Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA. The company said it was investigating the cause of the blast and did not respond to an email from the AP seeking more details about the hotel and the renovation it was undergoing. In the past, the Hotel Saratoga has been used by visiting VIPs and political figures, including high-ranking U.S. government delegations. Beyoncé and Jay-Z stayed there in 2013. García Zapata said structures adjacent to the hotel were being evaluated, including two badly damaged apartment buildings. Díaz-Canel said families in affected buildings had been transferred to safer locations. Photographer Michel Figueroa said he was walking past the hotel when “the explosion threw me to the ground, and my head still hurts.... Everything was very fast.” Worried relatives of people who had been working at the hotel showed up at a hospital to look for loved ones. Among them was Beatriz Céspedes Cobas, who was tearfully searching for her sister. “She had to work today. She is a housekeeper,” she said. “I work two blocks away. I felt the noise, and at first, I didn’t even associate” the explosion with the hotel. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was scheduled to arrive in Havana for a visit late Saturday and Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the visit would still take place.

Rio de Janeiro state’s government has confirmed 94 deaths from floods and mudslides that swept away homes and cars in the city of Petropolis. But even as families prepared to bury their dead, it was unclear Thursday how many bodies remained trapped in the mud. Rubens Bomtempo, mayor of the German-influenced city nestled in the mountains, didn’t even offer an estimate for the number of people missing, with recovery efforts still ongoing. Read: Rain-fed landslides, flooding kill at least 19 in Brazil “We don’t yet know the full scale of this,” Bomtempo said at a news conference Wednesday. “It was a hard day, a difficult day.” More than 24 hours after the deadly deluge early Tuesday, survivors were digging to find lost loved ones. Rio de Janeiro’s public prosecutors’ office said in a statement Wednesday night that it had compiled a list of 35 people yet to be located. Footage posted on social media showed torrents dragging cars and houses through the streets and water swirling through the city. One video showed two buses sinking into a swollen river as its passengers clambered out the windows, scrambling for safety. Some didn’t make it to the banks and were washed away, out of sight. On Wednesday morning, houses were left buried beneath mud while appliances and cars were in piles on the streets. Petropolis, named for a former Brazilian emperor, has been a refuge for people escaping the summer heat and tourists keen to explore the so-called “Imperial City.” Its prosperity has also drawn poorer residents from Rio’s poorer regions. Its population grew haphazardly, climbing mountainsides now covered with small residences packed tightly together. Many are in areas unfit for structures and made more vulnerable by deforestation and inadequate drainage. The state fire department said 25.8 centimeters (just over 10 inches) of rain fell within three hours on Tuesday -- almost as much as during the previous 30 days combined. Rio de Janeiro’s Gov. Claudio Castro said in a press conference that the rains were the worst Petropolis has received since 1932. “No one could predict rain as hard as this,” Castro said. More rain is expected through the rest of the week, according to weather forecasters. Castro added that almost 400 people were left homeless and 24 people were recovered alive. They were fortunate, and they were few. Read: Wall of rock falls on boaters on Brazilian lake, killing 6 “I could only hear my brother yelling, ‘Help! Help! My God!’” resident Rosilene Virginia told The Associated Press as a man comforted her. “It’s very sad to see people asking for help and having no way of helping, no way of doing anything. It’s desperate, a feeling of loss so great.” The stricken mountain region has seen similar catastrophes in recent decades, including one that caused more than 900 deaths. In the years since, Petropolis presented a plan to reduce risks of landslides, but works have been advancing only slowly. The plan, presented in 2017, was based on analysis determining that 18% of the city’s territory was at high risk for landslides and flooding. Local authorities say more than 180 residents who live in at-risk areas are sheltering in schools. More equipment and manpower is expected to help rescue efforts on Thursday. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro expressed solidarity while on a trip to Russia. Petropolis’ city hall declared three days of mourning for the tragedy. Southeastern Brazil has been punished with heavy rains since the start of the year, with more than 40 deaths recorded between incidents in Minas Gerais state in early January and Sao Paulo state later the same month.

Landslides and flooding caused by heavy rains killed at least 19 people in Brazil’s most populous state Sunday while high waters forced some 500,000 families from their homes over the weekend, authorities said. Three people from the same family died when a landslide destroyed their house in the city of Embu das Artes, according to the municipal government, while four other people were rescued by firemen. Four children died in Francisco Morato, Sao Paulo state Gov. João Doria said, and the state government said four other people died in Franco da Rocha. Deaths also were reported in Ribeirão Preto and Jaú. Read: Wall of rock falls on boaters on Brazilian lake, killing 6 Three of the deaths involved people who were swept away by flood waters, the state fire department said. Doria used a helicopter to survey damaged areas on Sunday and announced the equivalent of $2.8 million in financial aid to affected cities. Overflowing rivers forced 500,000 families to leave their homes, the state government said. Several roads and highways were blocked. Because of disruptions caused by the rain, the city of Sao Paulo canceled scheduled vaccinations against the coronavirus. Southeastern Brazil has been punished with heavy rains since the start of the year, with 19 deaths recorded in Minas Gerais state earlier this month.

Mexico said Friday it is already seeing black market or fake versions of molnupiravir circulating for sale, just one week after authorities approved the drug to treat those at risk of severe COVID-19. The real medication is produced by U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck. But Mexico’s health regulatory agency found versions labelled molnupiravir for sale from an array of companies like “Merit,” “Molaz” and “Azista.” The agency said Friday that it had no record of any permits for import or sales of those companies’ drugs and considered them a health risk. The Federal Commission for Health Protection wrote that, because molnupiravir is approved only for prescription use, “any product advertised as over-the-counter molnupiravir should be considered a health risk because of its dubious origin.” Also read: Merck agrees to let other drug makers make its COVID pill Mexico's government approved molnupiravir from Merck for use last week for adults with COVID-19 and “a high risk of complications.” On Friday the agency approved a second pill, Paxlovid, from Pfizer, for use on adult patients “at risk for complications.” Mexico has long been plagued by counterfeit medicines, corruption within the regulatory agency, and a penchant for self-medication due to the country's inadequate health care infrastructure. The country has seen coronavirus cases spike by over 200% in the last week, apparently due to the omicron variant, and faces a shortage of tests, which tends to drive consumers toward the black market. Also read: US panel backs first-of-a-kind COVID-19 pill from Merck Mexico does so little testing that, while test-confirmed COVID-19 deaths hover around 300,000, a government review of death certificates places the real toll at around 460,000.

The medals were billed as the most sustainable ever produced. To match the festive spirit of South America’s first Olympics, officials from Brazil, the host country for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro, boasted that the medals hung around the necks of athletes on the winners' podium were also a victory for the environment: The gold was produced free of mercury and the silver recycled from thrown away X-ray plates and mirrors. Five years on, the refiner that provided the gold for the medals, Marsam, is processing gold ultimately purchased by hundreds of well-known publicly traded U.S. companies — among them Microsoft, Tesla and Amazon — that are legally required to responsibly source metals in an industry long plagued by environmental and labor concerns. But a comprehensive review of public records by The Associated Press found that the Sao Paulo-based company processes gold for, and shared ownership links to, an intermediary accused by Brazilian prosecutors of buying gold mined illegally on Indigenous lands and other areas deep in the Amazon rainforest. The AP previously reported in this series that the scale of prospecting for gold on Indigenous lands has exploded in recent years and involves carving illegal landing strips in the forest for unauthorized airplanes to ferry in heavy equipment, fuel and backhoes to tear at the earth in search of the precious metal. Weak government oversight enabled by President Jair Bolsonaro, the son of a prospector himself, has only exacerbated the problem of illegal gold mining in protected areas. Critics also fault an international certification program used by manufacturers to show they aren’t using minerals that come from conflict zones, saying it is an exercise in greenwashing. “There is no real traceability as long as the industry relies on self-regulation,” said Mark Pieth, a professor of criminal law at the University of Basel in Switzerland and author of the 2018 book “Gold Laundering.” “People know where the gold comes from, but they don’t bother to go very far back into the supply chain because they know they will come into contact with all kinds of criminal activity.” ___ Much like brown and black tributaries that feed the Amazon River, gold illegally mined in the rainforest mixes into the supply chain and melds with clean gold to become almost indistinguishable. Nuggets are spirited out of the jungle in prospectors’ dusty pockets to the nearest city where they are sold to financial brokers. All that’s required to transform the raw ore into a tradable asset regulated by the central bank is a handwritten document attesting to the specific point in the rainforest where the gold was extracted. The fewer questions asked, the better. At many of those brokers’ Amazon outposts — the financial system’s front door — the gold becomes the property of Dirceu Frederico Sobrinho. Read:Leftist millennial wins election as Chile’s next president For four decades, Dirceu has embodied the up-by-your-bootstraps myth of the Brazilian garimpeiro, or prospector. The son of a vegetable grocer who sold his produce near an infamous open-pit mine so packed with prospectors — among them Bolsonaro’s father — they looked like swarming ants, he caught the gold bug in the mid-1980s and began dispatching planeloads of raw ore from a remote Amazon town. He secured his first concession in 1990, one year after the nation rolled out a permitting regime to regulate prospecting. Today, from a high rise on Sao Paulo’s busiest avenue, he is a major player in Brazil’s gold rush, with 173 prospecting areas either registered to his name or with pending requests, according to Brazil's mining regulator's registry. In the same building is the headquarters of the nation’s gold association, Anoro, which he leads. Dirceu, until last year, was also a partner in Marsam. But even with gold jewelry dangling from his fingers and wrist, Dirceu still proudly boasts his everyman garimpeiro roots. “You don’t motivate someone to go into the forest if they’re not chasing after a dream,” he said in a rare interview from his corner office studded with a giant jade eagle. “Whoever deals in gold has that: They dream, they believe, they like it.” “We have a saying among the garimpeiros: ‘I’m a pawn, but I’m a pawn for gold,'” he adds. At the center of Dirceu’s empire is F.D’Gold, Brazil’s largest buyer of gold from prospecting sites, with purchases last year totaling more than 2 billion reais ($361 million) from 252 wildcat sites, according to data from the mining regulator. Only two international firms that run industrial-sized gold mines paid more in royalties in 2021, a sign of how once artisanal prospecting has become big business in Brazil — at least for some. In August, federal prosecutors filed a civil suit against F.D’Gold and two other brokers seeking the immediate suspension of all activities and payment of 10 billion reais ($1.8 billion) in social and environmental damages. The complaint alleges the companies failed to take actions that would have prevented the illegal extraction of a combined 4.3 metric tons from protected areas and Indigenous territories, where mining is not allowed. Dirceu said his company complies with all laws and has implemented extra controls, but he acknowledged that determining the exact origin of the gold it obtains is “impossible” at present. He has proposed an industry-wide digital registry to improve transparency.  The ongoing suit is the result of a study published inuly by the Federal University of Minas Gerais which found that as much as 28% of Brazil’s gold produced in 2019 and 2020 was potentially mined illegally. To reach that conclusion, researchers combed through 17,400 government-registered transactions by F.D’Gold and other buyers to pinpoint the location where the gold was purportedly mined. In many cases, the given location wasn’t an authorized site or, when cross-checked with satellite images, showed none of the hallmark signs of mining activity — deforestation, stagnant ponds of waste — meaning the gold originated elsewhere. Dirceu’s name and those of F.D’Gold and his mining company Ouro Roxo have popped up repeatedly over the years in numerous criminal investigations. He has been charged but never convicted. A decade ago, federal prosecutors in Amazon’s Amapa state accused his company of knowingly purchasing illegal gold from a national park that was later transformed into gold bars. The charges were dismissed in 2017 after a federal judge in Brasilia ruled that F.D’Gold made the purchases legally, as evidenced by the invoices. Separate money laundering charges against Dirceu were also dismissed, due to lack of evidence. Dirceu has denied wrongdoing. ___ Whatever its origin, all the raw ore purchased by F.D’Gold ends up at Marsam. F.D’Gold accounts for more than one-third of the gold Marsam processes, according to André Nunes, an external consultant for Marsam. After almost two years as a partner in the Sao Paulo-based refiner, Dirceu stepped down last year and his daughter, Sarah Almeida Westphal, assumed management responsibilities. It was part of an effort to put different family members in charge of their own businesses, which function as separate legal entities, said Nunes, who previously worked for F.D’Gold. “As much as it’s the same family, it’s important that each monkey has its own branch,” he said. But the federal tax authority's corporate registry shows Dirceu and Westphal remain partners in a machine rental and air cargo venture based in the Amazonian city of Itaituba, the national epicenter of prospecting. And Westphal could be seen working on a computer at F.D’Gold’s office on the day the AP interviewed Dirceu. From Marsam, the gold travels far and wide. More than 300 publicly traded companies list Marsam as a refiner in responsible mining disclosures they are required to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The refiner has been virtually the only supplier to Brazil’s mint over the past decade, according to data provided to the AP through a freedom of information request. “Why do they want our bars? Because they’re accepted all over the world,” said Nunes, who is also a member of Marsam's six-person compliance committee. Enabling such robust sales around the world is a seal of approval from the Responsible Minerals Initiative, or RMI. The certification program, run by a Virginia-based coalition of manufacturers, emerged with the passage a decade ago of legislation in the U.S. requiring companies to disclose their use of conflict minerals fueling civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Later, its standards were supplemented by tougher guidelines developed by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD Marsam is one of just two refiners in Brazil certified as compliant with RMI’s standards for responsible sourcing of gold, having successfully completed two independent audits. The last one was performed in 2018 by UL Responsible Sourcing, an Illinois-based consultancy. But its ties to Dirceu's family and its strategic positioning at the pinch point between the Amazon rainforest and global commerce raises questions about its previously unexamined role in the processing and sale of gold allegedly sourced from off-limit areas. Marsam hasn’t been accused by prosecutors of any wrongdoing and insists that it only refines gold, not sell it, on behalf of third-party exporters and domestic vendors. The company in 2016 introduced a supply chain policy, which it has updated over the years, requiring it to seek out information from suppliers whenever they are publicly linked to illicit activities. They are also expected to analyze a mandatory declaration of origin form submitted by each client. No such risks were identified in the most recent RMI report and Marsam was moved to a lower risk category requiring an audit once every three years. Critics say one problem is that the OECD’s guidelines RMI measures companies against pay scant attention to environmental crimes or the rights of Indigenous communities. Instead, they are geared toward risks stemming from civil wars and criminal networks. In Latin America, only Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela — where drug cartels or guerrilla insurgencies are active — are classified as conflict-affected and high-risk areas deserving greater scrutiny for sourcing practices. But the influx of illegal miners into Indigenous territories has been on the rise in recent years in Brazil — sometimes ending in bloodshed. In May, hundreds of prospectors raided a Munduruku village, setting houses on fire, including one that belonged to a prominent anti-mining activist. The attack followed clashes farther north in Roraima state, where miners in motorboats and carrying automatic weapons repeatedly threatened a riverside Yanomami settlement. In one incident, two children, ages one and five, drowned when a shooting sent people scattering into the woods. In their suits against F.D’Gold and the two other brokers, prosecutors blame expanding mining activity for the illegal clearing in 2019 and 2020 of some 5,000 hectares of once pristine rainforest located on Indigenous territories as well as exacerbating “internal rifts that may be irreconcilable.” Read:Brazil reopens amid looming threat from delta variant Experts say these kinds of activities barely register in corporate boardrooms where sourcing decisions are made and given the seal of approval by international certification programs. “Certification connotes a degree of certitude that isn’t at all possible in the gold industry, especially in Brazil,” said David Soud, an analyst at I.R. Consilium, which recently prepared a report for the OECD on illegal gold flows from neighboring Venezuela. “The result is a lot of blind spots that can easily be exploited by bad actors.” ___ Some of those blind spots are created by Brazil’s own weak oversight. Under Brazilian law, securities brokers like F.D’Gold can’t be held responsible if the prospector whose ore they buy lies about its provenance. Nor is there any effective way to track the information provided at the point of sale. It’s a system that inhibits tracking and accountability at best, and at worst enables willful ignorance as a means to launder illegal gold, according to wildcat mining experts including Larissa Rodrigues of the environmental think tank Choices Institute. For starters, experts say there need to be electronic invoices feeding a database that allows information to be verified. “The supply chain is absorbing gold that doesn’t come from that chain. We know this happens,” said Rodrigues. “It’s a fact that fraud exists, but you can’t prosecute because you can’t prove it.” Dirceu didn’t deny the possibility that F.D’Gold has unwittingly bought dirty gold. But he insists F.D’Gold, as an entity regulated by Brazil’s powerful central bank, follows the law and goes beyond what is required — such as hiring in 2020 two companies to monitor through satellite imagery the sources of its gold. “The moment we had knowledge this could be happening, we hired them,” he said. As president of the nation’s gold association, he claims to have been pushing since at least 2017 a plan to create a digital profile of every participant in the supply chain, complete with the garimpeiro’s photo, fingerprints and ID number. “Digitalization and automation is the start of traceability,” he said. “The more legality, the more security there will be for our activities.” Yet for all the apparent industry goodwill, and the support of Brazil’s tax authority, the proposal remains just that — an idea that hasn’t even been taken up by Congress. In the past two decades, the central bank hasn’t revoked authorization for any company that purchases gold. For its part, Marsam says it uses its “best efforts” to identify the origin of the metals it refines. That includes requiring clients to sign affidavits attesting to the metal’s legality, demanding original invoices and conducting client visits to verify they have systems in place to prevent fraud. But it doesn’t visit the mines themselves — something that RMI requires of refiners operating only in high-risk jurisdictions. “We have to be diligent, but not do work that isn’t ours,” Nunes said. Asked when was the last time Marsam suspended a client it suspects of trading in dirty gold he shook his head, struggling to recall. “I don’t remember it ever happening,” Nunes said before finally harkening back to one instance more than a decade ago. ___ RMI wouldn’t discuss prosecutors' allegations against F.D’Gold, despite its close affiliation with Marsam, citing confidentiality agreements to encourage refiners to participate in its grievance process. In a statement, it said that it takes all allegations “very seriously” and works with companies to address concerns. As part of that process, refiners are expected to trace activities all the way back to the mine whenever red flags are detected. If they don’t then address the concerns, they will be removed from the conformant list. A 2018 report by the OECD found that while RMI's standards are aligned with its guidelines there are significant gaps in the way RMI and other industry initiatives carry out audits, relying more on a refiner’s policies and procedures than its due diligence efforts. RMI-approved auditors also demonstrated a lack of basic technical skills and familiarity with the OECD guidelines, the study found. “There was also an observed absence of curiosity, professional skepticism and critical analysis,” according to the report. RMI said it has since strengthened implementation efforts and is awaiting the outcome of a new assessment being conducted for the European Union. Additional analysis in 2017 by Kumi, a London-based consulting firm that advises the OECD, found that only 5% of 314 end-user companies then registered with RMI, most of them U.S. based, had policies on sourcing conflict materials that were in line with the OECD guidelines. “End-user companies set the tone for what happens in their supply chains,” said Andrew Britton, managing director of Kumi, which is conducting a new assessment of certifiers now for the European Commission. “It’s really important that companies’ due diligence on their supply chains really probes into potential risks and is not simply a box-ticking exercise.” ___ While land grabbing by ranchers, loggers and prospectors is hardly new in the Amazon, never before has Brazil had a president as outspokenly favorable to such interests. Bolsonaro campaigned for the nation’s top job with promises of unearthing the Amazon’s vast mineral wealth, and his support for prospectors has encouraged a modern-day gold rush. Bolsonaro’s father prospected for gold at Serra Pelada, where Dirceu first saw gold mining, and the president sometimes draws on his upbringing to rally support from prospectors. While campaigning, he aired videos in the Amazon region in which he boasted of sometimes pulling over at jungle stream and pulling a pan from a car to try his luck. “Interest in the Amazon isn’t about the Indians or the damn trees; it’s the ore,” he told a group of prospectors at the presidential palace in 2019, vowing to deploy the armed forces to allow their operations to continue unfettered. Then in May 2021, he attacked environmentalists for trying to criminalize prospecting. “It’s really cool how people in suits and ties guess about everything that happens in the countryside,” he said sarcastically. Beyond the rhetoric, Bolsonaro’s administration recently introduced legislation that would open up Indigenous territories to mining — something federal prosecutors have called unconstitutional and activists warn would wreak vast social and environmental damages. Dirceu said he opposes allowing mining of Indigenous lands unless local people support the activity and are given first priority to pursue it themselves. But even as he fashions himself a reformer from the inside, he’s also benefitted from the current free-for-all. For one, he doesn’t even consider prospectors working without a permit to be illegal — just irregular. Given persistent efforts to deregulate gold extraction, calls by Dirceu and the gold association to increase accountability over the gold supply chain “ring hollow,” said Robert Muggah, who oversees an initiative on environmental crime in the Amazon at think tank Igarape Institute. Soon, Dirceu may stand to profit even more. Recently, F.D’Gold received approval to begin exporting directly. Dirceu said the company is currently seeking clients abroad and hopes to begin shipments soon. If he succeeds, it means that, for the first time, someone will have a hand in the entirety of Brazil’s gold supply chain: from the Amazon where the gold is mined, to the outposts where it is first sold, to the planes that bring the ore to his daughter’s refinery in Sao Paulo and, finally, into the hands of foreign buyers. "It’s really important to understand that the nature of gold extraction in countries like Brazil is linked, ineluctably, to the global markets,” said Muggah.

A leftist millennial who rose to prominence during anti-government protests was elected Chile’s next president Sunday after a bruising campaign against a free-market firebrand likened to Donald Trump. With 56% of the votes, Gabriel Boric handily defeated by more than 10 points lawmaker José Antonio Kast, who tried unsuccessfully to scare voters that his inexperienced opponent would become a puppet of his allies in Chile’s Communist Party and upend the country’s vaunted record as Latin America’s most stable, advanced economy. In a model of democratic civility that broke from the polarizing rhetoric of the campaign, Kast immediately conceded defeat, tweeting a photo of himself on the phone congratulating his opponent on his “grand triumph.” He then later traveled personally to Boric’s campaign headquarters to meet with his rival. Meanwhile, outgoing President Sebastian Pinera — a conservative billionaire — held a video conference with Boric to offer his government’s full support during the three month transition. Amid a crush of supporters, Boric vaulted atop a metal barricade to reach the stage where he initiated in the indigenous Mapuche language a rousing victory speech to thousands of mostly young supporters. Read: Islamic world pitches ways to aid desperately poor Afghans The bearded, bespectacled president-elect highlighted the progressive positions that launched his improbable campaign, including a promise to fight climate change by blocking a proposed mining project in what is the world’s largest copper producing nation. He also promised to end Chile’s private pension system — the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. “We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business,” Boric said. “We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, and we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.” He also gave an extended shout out to Chilean women, a key voting bloc who feared that a Kast victory would roll back years of steady gains, promising they will be “protagonists” in a government that will seek to “leave behind once and for all the patriarchal inheritance of our society.” In Santiago’s subway, where a fare hike in 2019 triggered a wave of nationwide protests that exposed the shortcomings of Chile’s free market model, young supporters of Boric, some of them waving flags emblazoned with the candidate’s name, jumped and shouted in unison as they headed downtown to join thousands who gathered for the president-elect’s victory speech. “This is a historic day,” said Boris Soto, a teacher. “We’ve defeated not only fascism, and the right wing, but also fear.” At 35, Boric will become Chile’s youngest modern president when he takes office in March and only the second millennial to lead in Latin America, after El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Only one other head of state, Giacomo Simoncini of the city-state San Marino in Europe, is younger. His government is likely to be closely watched throughout Latin America, where Chile has long been a harbinger of regional trends. It was the first country in Latin America to break with the U.S. dominance during the Cold War and pursue socialism with the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. It then reversed course a few years later when Pinochet’s coup ushered in a period of right-wing military rule that quickly launched a free market experiment throughout the region. Read: Cuba begins vaccinating children as young as 2 Boric’s ambitious goal is to introduce a European-style social democracy that would expand economic and political rights to attack nagging inequality without veering toward the authoritarianism embraced by so much of the left in Latin America, from Cuba to Venezuela. It’s a task made more challenging by deepening ideological divisions unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic, which sped up the reversal of a decade of economic gains. Kast, who has a history of defending Chile’s past military dictatorship, finished ahead of Boric by two points in the first round of voting last month but failed to secure a majority of votes. That set up a head-to-head runoff against Boric. Boric was able to reverse the difference by a larger margin than pre-election opinion polls forecast by expanding beyond his base in the capital, Santiago, and attracting voters in rural areas who don’t side with political extremes. For example, in the northern region of Antofagasta, where he finished third in the first round of voting, he trounced Kast by almost 20 points. An additional 1.2 million Chileans cast ballots Sunday compared to the first round, raising turnout to nearly 56%, the highest since voting stopped being mandatory in 2012. “It’s impossible not to be impressed by the historic turnout, the willingness of Kast to concede and congratulate his opponent even before final results were in, and the generous words of President Pinera,” said Cynthia Arnson, head of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center in Washington. “Chilean democracy won today, for sure.” Kast, 55, a devout Roman Catholic and father of nine, emerged from the far right fringe after having won less than 8% of the vote in 2017. An admirer of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, he rose steadily in the polls this time with a divisive discourse emphasizing conservative family values and playing on Chileans’ fears that a surge in migration — from Haiti and Venezuela — is driving crime. As a lawmaker he has a record of attacking Chile’s LGBTQ community and advocating more restrictive abortion laws. He also accused Pinera, a fellow conservative, of betraying the economic Pinochet. Kast’s brother, Miguel, was one of the dictator’s top advisers. In recent days, both candidates had tried to veer toward the center. “I’m not an extremist. ... I don’t feel far right,” Kast proclaimed in the final stretch even as he was dogged by revelations that his German-born father had been a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. Boric’s victory likely to be tempered by a divided congress. In addition, the political rules could soon change because a newly elected convention is rewriting the country’s Pinochet-era constitution. The convention — the nation’s most powerful elected institution — could in theory call for new presidential elections when it concludes its work next year and if the new charter is ratified in a plebiscite.

Mexican authorities on Thursday discovered 10 bodies — nine of them hanging from an overpass — in the central state of Zacatecas, the scene of a battle for territory among drug cartels. The Zacatecas state public safety agency said in a statement the bodies were found in Ciudad Cuauhtemoc, about 340 miles (550 kilometers) north of Mexico city. The 10th body was found on the pavement. All of the victims were men. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels have been battling for control in the state, which is a key transit point for drugs, especially the powerful synthetic pain killer fentanyl, moving north to the U.S. border. Also read: Over 2,000 migrants march out of southern city in Mexico Cartels sometimes make such public displays of bodies to taunt their rivals or authorities and terrify local residents. In the first nine months of the year, Mexico had more than 25,000 murders, a number 3.4% less than the same period a year earlier, according to federal data. Also read: At least 1 dead, 10 missing in landslide near Mexico City

Sitting on her mother’s lap, 2-year-old Lucía looked at the illustrations in her book while around her several children watched the doctors in white coats and nurses with thermometers in amazement. In an adjoining room, Danielito, also 2, sniffled while getting a shot as a clown tried to distract him. Cuba on Thursday began a massive vaccination campaign for children between the ages of 2 and 10, becoming one of the first nations to do so. Health officials here say Cuba’s homegrown vaccines have been found safe to give to young children. “Our country would not put (infants) even at a minimal risk if the vaccines were not proven save and highly effective when put into children,” Aurolis Otaño, director of the Vedado Polyclinic University, told The Associated Press in a vaccination room. Also read: UK OKs vaccines for 12 year olds, aims to avoid lockdowns Otaño said the circulation of the Delta variant produced an increase in infections among the youngest, so Cuba’s scientific community decided to “take the vaccine to clinical trial” and it was approved for children. The Polyclinic expects to vaccinate about 300 children between 2 and 5. Those between 5 and 10 are receiving their first shot at their schools. Lucía’s mother, Denisse González, watched the children in the vaccination room while waiting the hour that her daughter had to be under observation after being vaccinated. “I was very doubtful and worried at first, really, but I informed myself,” she said. “Our children’s health is first and foremost, which is the main thing and (contagion) is a risk because young children are always playing on the floor,” added González, a 36-year-old engineer. In previous weeks, the vaccination of Cubans between 11 and 18 began. The plan includes two doses of Soberana 02 vaccine and one of Soberana Plus, as was done with adults. Cuba faces a persistent COVID-19 outbreak that almost collapsed its health-care system. Provinces such as Matanzas, Ciego de Ávila and Cienfuegos received support from doctors from other parts of the country and even from international donors. Also read: Global vaccine disparity gets sharper amid talk of boosters In addition to the Soberanas, Cuba has developed another national vaccine, Abdala. According to Cuba’s Ministry of Health, 776,125 positive cases of COVID-19 have been registered with 6,601 deaths. In June, Chinese regulators approved the use of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines for children ages 3 to 17. The United States and many European countries currently allow COVID-19 vaccinations for children 12 and older. Children have largely escaped the worst of the pandemic and show less severe symptoms when they contract the virus. But experts say children can pass the virus on to others and suffer negative consequences. “As more adults receive their COVID-19 vaccines, children, who are not yet eligible for vaccines in most countries, account for a higher percentage of hospitalizations and even deaths,” said Carissa F. Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization. “We must be clear: children and young people also face significant risks.”

With the number of coronavirus deaths starting to recede in Brazil, a renewed sense of optimism has led state governors to roll back restrictions, soccer fans are starting to return to stadiums, and the mayor of Rio de Janeiro has said the city’s famous New Year’s party is back on. But one question looms over these early signs of recovery: What will happen as the delta variant of COVID-19 spreads through the mostly unvaccinated country, which already has the world’s second-highest death toll with 547,000 fatalities? The variant is boosting cases and deaths globally after a period of decline, and the World Health Organization anticipates it will become dominant within months. The race is on to vaccinate as many Brazilians as possible. Countries that succeeded in doing so, like the U.K., have seen infections soar in recent weeks — but without a corresponding rise in serious illnesses or deaths. Experts are concerned that it is unlikely Brazil can do the same in time. “It will be explosive,” said Gonzalo Vecina, a professor of public health at the University of Sao Paulo. “There will be a new wave. We are opening too much.” Brazil’s Health Ministry counted 140 cases of the delta variant by Friday, including its three most populous states, and 12 deaths. Analysts say the figures are vast undercounts due to lack of testing and genome sequencing. President Jair Bolsonaro has long opposed restrictions and played down COVID-19′s risks, often saying infection is inevitable. Lawmakers have begun investigating his administration’s handling of the pandemic, particularly why officials appear to have been slow to acquire vaccines. Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga says getting more of the population vaccinated is the best way to stop the variant, but he insists that Brazil must resume its economic activities. “We have available hospital bed capacity and we will live with this pandemic until we can control it definitively,″ Queiroga said Wednesday. He stressed the importance of knowing whether each person infected with the variant has already had one shot or two. READ: As Brazil tops 500,000 deaths, protests against president British researchers found that two doses of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines were only slightly less effective at blocking delta’s symptomatic illness, compared with earlier variants. Importantly, the vaccines were hugely effective at preventing hospitalization. But just one dose proved far less effective than against other variants. That prompted Britain, which earlier extended the gap between doses, to speed up second shots. There’s little information on the efficacy of other vaccines against the variant. That’s worrisome for Brazil, where 17% of the population is fully vaccinated and 44% have received the first of two shots. The AstraZeneca shot makes up nearly half of all vaccines administered, China’s Sinovac more than a third, and Pfizer most of the rest. Sao Paulo Gov. João Doria is among those leaders considering a booster shot for those who got two Sinovac doses. At the same time, he allowed businesses to stay open later and increase their customer capacity. Pernambuco’s government similarly loosened restrictions for bars and social events on July 5 — the same day the northeastern state identified its first two delta cases. Federal District Gov. Ibaneis Rocha allowed 15,000 spectators to attend a soccer match this week — the first professional club match attended by fans in Brazil since the pandemic began. Shortly before the game, the district’s health secretary confirmed delta variant cases in the region. “The information that governors are conveying to people is that the pandemic is under control,” said Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist at the Federal University of Espirito Santo. “We shouldn’t be talking about control, or the pandemic coming to an end when less than 20% of people are fully vaccinated and more than 1,000 people are dying every day.” Israel and the Netherlands reopened widely after vaccinating most of their citizens, but they had to reimpose some restrictions after new surges of infections. The Dutch prime minister said lifting restrictions too early “was a mistake.” In the U.K, where delta has become dominant, infections have surged in the past two months to the highest level since January. Officials repeatedly expressed confidence that, with more than two-thirds the adult population fully vaccinated, the impact would be lessened. Indeed, daily deaths remain under 5% of the peak. Indonesia trails Brazil in the rate of vaccinations, and on Thursday, the Southeast Asian country reported its deadliest day since the start of the pandemic. Sinovac was the predominant vaccine there, but with growing concern that the shot is less effective against delta, the government is planning booster shots of other vaccines. Brazilians are paying attention to reports of the delta variant causing havoc in U.S. states with low vaccination rates. Still, many remain optimistic with Brazil’s death toll down almost two-thirds from April. Claudio Santos, 64, was calmly ordering food at a juice bar in Rio on Wednesday when he remembered his mask was too old and needed replacing. “It’s a little different since the start of this month. We have this perception more people are vaccinated, we don’t hear every day that someone we know got COVID,” Santos said. “Of course, we are worried about the new variant, but I haven’t panicked since the pandemic began and don’t plan to now. I got my shots and life is going back to some kind of normal.” Delta’s impact may be cushioned by the highly contagious gamma variant, which emerged in the Amazonian city of Manaus and has already established dominance across Brazil, said Felipe Naveca, a Manaus-based virologist at the state-run Fiocruz Institute who studies the variants. Brazil conducts hardly any genomic sequencing of coronavirus tests, compared with the U.S and the U.K., said Maciel, the epidemiologist. In Rio state, the most recent study found gamma accounted for 78% of 380 samples and delta 16%, according to its health secretariat. Delta has been detected in at least 18 Latin America’s countries, according to the Pan-American Health Organization. It comprises almost two-thirds of all sampled cases in Mexico City, health officials said last week. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard suggested that its spread had contributed to the U.S. decision to postpone reopening its border. The death toll in Mexico has begun ticking upward after months of decline. READ: Brazil still debating dubious virus drug amid 500,000 deaths In Cuba, the delta variant has caused the collapse of Matanza province’s health care system. A medical team sent to aid Venezuela was recalled to cope with a crush of patients. A greater share of Cuban and Mexican populations are fully vaccinated than Brazil’s, according to Our World in Data, an online research site. Denise Garrett, an epidemiologist and vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, said she believes the Brazilian health care system will buckle if it doesn’t prepare for surging COVID-19 infections. “We are seeing it happen in countries with a bigger vaccination coverage,” Garrett said. “There is nothing that should make us think that Brazil will be any different.”