International Update Volume 42, Issue 12
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<p>Officials and activists detected toxins in consumer products in unrelated incidents in Beijing last week. The state's Xinhua News Agency said that police had arrested nine people and detained 54 others over chromium detected in gel capsules manufactured with industrial waste. According to Xinhua, police had seized 77 million capsules and halted 80 production lines as of last week, and no one has become ill or died from the capsules. The police also said they had arrested a local official who ordered his brother's factory torched last week to avoid the crackdown.

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<p>Brazil's congress voted to approve legislation easing rules on how much land farmers must preserve as forests. Though the bill requires millions of hectares of cleared land to be replanted, environmentalists say it makes land use regulations too lenient. "The approved bill gives a total and unrestricted amnesty to those who deforested . . . and goes against what the government itself had wanted," said Greenpeace in a statement. The final law allows federal states to decide how much forest needs to be replaced alongside rivers.

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<p>Peru is the latest developing nation to adopt a domestic climate change initiative in the absence of a binding international pact. The nation adopted a resolution to lower carbon emissions. The long-term plan is based on South Africa's plan and aims to add more renewables to Peru's energy mix, curb illegal logging, and move to a low-carbon economy. Peru said that it is already feeling the effects of climate change, including melting glaciers and crop-destroying record rainfall.

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