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Brazilian President: Leonardo DiCaprio Funded Amazon Fires

30-11-2019 < No Fake News 11 506 words
 
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro accuses Leonardo Dicaprio of funding Amazon fires












Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro claims Leonardo DiCaprio funded an organization that used his money to set the Amazon Rainforest on fire.






President Bolsonaro made the accusations during a Facebook live video on Thursday. He repeated the accusation on Friday after reporters asked him to elaborate on the claims.


Breitbart.com reports: Bolsonaro regularly conducts weekly Facebook live chats with the nation. On Thursday’s edition – at one point interrupted by First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro, who gave him a bouquet of flowers for their wedding anniversary – Bolsonaro claimed that Western NGOs operating in the Amazon are starting fires, filming them, then using them in propaganda against the conservative president.


“An NGO pays 70,000 reais ($16,588.08) for a fabricated photo of fires. And what is easier? You play ‘fire’ in the bush, take a photo, film it, send it to an NGO, the NGO exposes it, gets in touch with Leonardo DiCaprio, and Leonardo DiCaprio donates $500,000 to this NGO,” Bolsonaro said in his Facebook Live. “Leonardo DiCaprio, you are collaborating with the burning of the Amazon.”


On Friday morning, Bolsonaro doubled down on the accusation.





“Now Leonardo DiCaprio is a nice guy, right? Giving money to set fire to the Amazon,” he told reporters, later accusing them of mocking him for claiming that environmentalist groups were burning parts of the rainforest to accuse him of hurting the environment and ask for donations.


The Brazilian newspaper Estadao noted that police arrested four people in Pará state on Wednesday linked to environmentalist groups.


Those arrested reportedly belonged to local NGOs that claim to be fighting the fires. National law enforcement members have accused them of taking money from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to fight the fires, then burning more land to claim they need more funds to extinguish fires.


Bolsonaro’s son, the lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, first accused DiCaprio in a Twitter post Thursday.


“Leonardo DiCaprio gave $300,000 to an NGO that set fire to the Amazon, the NGO the WWF paid 70,000 reais for the photos of the forest in flames,” Bolsonaro wrote, showing the photos he alleged were fabricated of the fires. “[French President Emmanuel] Macron and Madonna were smarter, just took some pictures taken decades ago of some burning forest on the internet and posted them.”




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