The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News, my name is Doug Henwood.

The charmingly, I hope, standard two guests today, each looking at a large

important Latin American country.

Forest Hilton will talk about the massive fires burning across Brazil,

a joint product of climate change and economically motivated arson,

and Edward Ackerman will evaluate achievements of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador

Amlo as he hands power over to a successor, Claudia's Shanebaum, after having just engineered a

controversial reworking of the country's judiciary.

Brazil is on fire and it's not exactly clear why.

It looks to be a mix of climate change and economically motivated arson committed

by gangsters in the pay of capitalists.

Because of drought, the conflagrations have spread like, yes,

wildfire.

The smoke from the fires is drifting across the northern part of the continent

causing mass respiratory distress, particularly at risk Brazil's

indigenous population, much of which lives on land that mining and ranching

interests want very badly. Meanwhile the government of Luis Inaccio Lula de Silva is incapable of dealing with the crisis.

My first guest, Forrest Hilton, has a piece on the topic on the London Review of Books website

that's worth checking out.

But here he is to tell a story in person.

Forrest is a visiting professor of history at the graduate school of the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil.

A quick fill in on some historical points. Lula, leader of the Workers Party, known by its Portuguese initials

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