to visit the city of tulsa in oklahoma, where a century ago, hundreds of black americans were massacred by a white mob. mr biden met the handful of surviving members of the affluent greenwood neighborhood where the killings took place. a belarusian opposition activist has tried to cut his own throat in a courtroom protest at his prosecution. he was one of those detained last year in a violent crackdown on dissent, after the disputed results of the presidential election. doctors say his life is not in danger. aid agencies have issued a warning about the plight of syria's refugee children, a decade after the nation descended into civil war. the conflict has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and seen millions more displaced inside syria or forced to flee. now on bbc news, under cover of covid, the amazon

rainforest is under attack. deforestation is at levels not seen for more than a decade. brazilian president jair bolsonaro talks of opening up the forest to development while the environmental police is under attack from loggers. our world has obtained a recording of the environment minister talking about using the cover of covid to "change all the rules" in the amazon. for our world, justin rowlatt, is on a mission to find out how a tribe he visited a decade ago is faring the face of this assault. ——in the face. under cover of covid, the amazon rainforest, the greatest ecosystem on earth, is under attack. deforestation is at levels not seen for more than a decade. we meet the people on the frontline of the battle to save the forest... shouting. translation: the prospectors used to be scared of _ being caught by us.

now they feel the president will protect them. ..and see the impact on the animals. the government is accused of encouraging the destruction. and i'm on a mission to contact some old friends — the members of the most threatened tribe in the world. their relatives have never had contact with civilisation. are they safe? are their precious trees still standing?

two years ago, a right—wing ex—army officer became the president of brazil. jair bolsonaro had a clear agenda for the amazon and its people. this is the story of my attempt to find what his policy

of opening up the amazon means for a tribe i first met a decade ago. this is a community that grew up a couple of decades ago, uncontacted. to go into the jungle and meet people who've onlyjust made contact with the modern world is quite extraordinary. katou! chuckles. katou! "katou" means hello, apparently. i thought there'd be a huge chasm, a kind of cultural gap between us, and that we'd struggle to understand each other. emuka, emuka, emuka. that means "i'm happy". i'm here with the awa. the awa live deep in the amazon rainforest. they're some of the last people on earth who still try to live as traditional hunter—gatherers. wow, the village... i really felt that they welcomed me in. we felt like we had a real

connection together. i'm not going to dress like that, no. laughter. pira'i was probably my best buddy in the village. he was the one that instigated most of the jokes. you know, towards the end, we went on this big hunt with them that took two or three hours. when we got back, everybody was really hot and sweaty and they got to this lovely waterhole. and i thought, "yeah, ok, i'll go swimming," and itjust seemed right to take my clothes off. laughter. then they played a trick on me and it became clear that they were trying to, essentially, dress me like they dressed to hunt. laughter. you don't want to see it. laughter. it seemed they lived an idyllic life. but when i asked my new friend pira'i about what life was like when he was growing

up, i learned just how traumatic things had been for the tribe. this community that, at that point, had had no contact with the outside world. the first contact was with loggers who'd come into the forest to cut their trees and were willing to shoot the community to get them out of the way. you could occasionally hear chainsaws — that's how close the loggers were. all too soon, i had to leave my new friends. but this was a special time for the amazon. in 2012, the brazilian government made stopping the destruction of the rainforest a priority and rates of deforestation were falling dramatically. a few years later, i received

an extraordinary invitation. well, after years of neglect, the brazilian government has finally decided to do something. we are flying into a base camp they've set up just outside the indigenous reserves, and that's where they're operating from, driving out the people who have gone into the forest. it was like flying into a kind of forward base in afghanistan or something. you just thought, "hold on a second. "the brazilian government, it really means business "about protecting the awa." when we went back to the village, suddenly i started seeing all these familiar faces. katou? i think that's "hello." hey, hello. i remember you. katou. do you remember me? very good. yeah! but the best one was pira'i.

no! we went into his house and he came out with a bit of string and waved it in front of me. not again! i've been tricked once, it's not happening again. laughter. so probably the most amazing moment of all for me was when operation awa decided they wanted to show the awa what they'd done. pira'i, who grew up uncontacted, now is flying in a helicopter. pira'i and a friend watched as government bulldozers destroyed the homes of farmers who'd illegally occupied the tribe's land and cut hundreds of hectares of trees.

dogs bark. back at home, they wanted to tell the others what they'd seen. it showed the brazilian government can protect the forest if it wants to. pira'i was hopeful for the future. but that hope was short—lived. soon after i left, brazil entered a time of political turmoil. deforestation started to rise again. the most dramatic increase came two years ago, when president

bolsonaro took power. as the coronavirus raged through brazil, killing tens of thousands of people, brazil's environment minister had other issues on his mind, as this recording of a cabinet meeting reveals. "we have the chance at this moment, when the media's "attantion is almost exclusively on covid and not "the amazon," he says. "while things are quiet, let's do it all at once "and change all the rules." there was a media storm. minister salles subsequently claimed what he wanted was to simplify the existing rules. but after that meeting, he withdrew protection from some of the forested areas of brazil. and president bolsonaro's government certainly appears to be dismantling some of the structures that had succeeded in holding back destruction in the amazon. the environmental police force,

ibama, is on the front line of brazil's efforts to protect the forest. but some officers say they aren't getting the support from the president that they need. one of them agreed to speak to us anonymously. translation: i've never seen so many illegal goldmines. - the price of gold is higher than ever. but also, the prospectors used to be scared of being caught by us. now they feel the president will protect them. explosion. in places where we didn't have incidents in the past, now loggers, prospectors, squatters are rioting. last year, an officer was trying to seize a vehicle that was taking timber from indigenous land. he got hit with a bottle while the police that was meant to protect him just watched. the police are loyal to the president. in the past, the police would give us security during the operations. the brazilian government admits

some local officials have withdrawn protection for environmental officers, but says this is not official policy. yelling. it has become guerrilla warfare. thejob is getting more and more risky. people are blocking the road to stop us from doing ourjob. they feel they have the support from the government. we have just landed the helicopter and the officers are going over to the truck here, which clearly has been — you know, freshly cut logs on it. it is very different from how things used to work. over the years, i have been on a number ofjungle raids with the environmental police. the most impressive was we flew with this female officer... ..to raid an illegal sawmill.

we found the account books. look at this... so they have the total value, a700 reals, and then, look, there's a fee here — 200 to pay the police, leaving them with 4500, so this is extraordinary. this book is like the diary of the business and we've got payments to policemen, we've got how much money they are putting in the bank, and it is a lot of money. we're talking £20,000, $30,000 they are making here. it was obvious that the guy with the money had run and left the little guys behind. and i remember talking to one of the guys

at then at the end i remember saying to her, "what are you going to do now?" and she said, "well, "we can't leave it like this." with fire. she is going to burn it down. it was obvious that ibama had the weight of law behind them. when we got to places where illegal activity was happening, people were genuinely frightened. burning the equipment used for deforestation has always been a key tactic, says our whistle—blowing officer.

the owners of the equipment normally escape when they hear the helicopter so we cannot prosecute them. over the years, we have seen that the most effective strategy to stop deforestation is to destroy their expensive equipment. not any more, according to the brazilian president. despite what president bolsonaro says, when we asked the government, they said the rules on burning equipment have not changed, but funds have been cut. this year the environmental police received its lowest budget ever, and because deforestation is so high, germany and norway say they won't pay for its helicopters and vehicles any more.

that and the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic explain why, when we spoke, there were no environmental police patrolling the amazon. it is a first time this has ever happened. none of us are out in the field. last year, 4200 square miles of forest was cleared. a 12—year high. those involved in illegal deforestation often believe the government will pardon their actions. it is notjust the amazon that's under attack, the neighbouring wetland,

the pantanal, is burning too. last year, 50,000 hectares of this unique ecosystem was lost in the biggest fires ever recorded there. juliana camargo heads a charity that tried to rescue wildlife during the fires. a source in the environmental police told us the government ordered them not to attend the fires. the brazilian government describes these claims as lies.

once the trees have

been cleared, the land is often used for farming. ibama has just caught red—handed this illegal deforestation, using chains. the chains destroyed the vegetation and killed the wildlife, especially the babies who do not have time to escape. there used to be a system where farmers caught in illegal activities like this would be blacklisted, making it harderfor them to sell their produce and to get loans. the farmers who were found deforesting, their name would be put on an align system whereby buyers would be able to check if they are buying from an area which has strong evidence of illegal deforestation. but since last year, there's been some major changes that make it harder for people to be embargoed, so enter the blacklist. the government told this programme the system of fines and blacklisting is obsolete and ineffective and is being modernised.

but it makes it hard for buyers to check that agricultural products are deforestation—free and, all the while, business has been booming for amazon farmers. but there is still some resistance to president bolsonaro. almost all my professional life, i was a legislative consultant in the chamber of deputies. suely araujo helped write the environmental laws that underpin brazil's efforts to tackle deforestation.

the brazilian government told the bbc it believes it is necessary to bring economic prosperity to the amazon. "poverty is the biggest enemy of the environment," a spokesperson told us. i cannot travel to the amazon because of the pandemic but i did manage to get in touch with my friend who sent me these pictures and recorded a message...

and experts worry the amazon ecosystem itself is changing. i'm very concerned. previous research have been understanding that the amazon was much more resilient and that our tipping point, leading to the decivilisation the large trenches of the forest would happen if about 40% of the amazon was lost and now recent research is pointing towards figures closer to 20%, and we already are at those figures. it appears to be becoming less rainy and the fear is the forest could begin to give way to grassland. and the fortunes of the people who live in the jungle are also in the balance. to my astonishment, footage is released that shows some awa people still live uncontacted in the remaining islands of trees. a team of local people patrol the forest in an effort to protect them

from the loggers. the locals normally do not film out of respect. they decided to release this footage because the situation has become so critical, they want to highlight the danger these last remaining, uncontacted tribal people are in. this is an astonishing glimpse of one of the last people on earth who lives outside of what we call "civilisation."

we will probably never know his name, but my friend pira'i told me what it was like when he lived like this. "it is a life," he told me, "of constant fear." tuesday was the hottest day of the year so far, a title that will last until later today when temperatures are expected to reach a bit higher still. most of us have skies like this, plenty of sun trim around, and warm widely, 26.1

of the highest temperature, recorded in cardiff, but we had he as far north as northern scotland at 25, lows of 11 celsius, and another batch rating to move across the north sea and the next few hours. meanwhile, over in france, some thunderstorms are beginning to spread their way northwards. those thunderstorms coming from a cloud from which you probably don't often get much rain, but some pretty dazzling lightning displays and lots of thunder, some of that likely in the channel islands and the next few hours before those downpours start to spread into south—west england, where we could get some heavier rain mixed in. as that kind of air comes up from france, it will start to feel much more humid across the southern areas. eastern coastal areas of england and scotland starting the day sunday, but late morning we will see some areas of low cloud and fog moved back in, particularly from about

north yorkshire northwards, sorry lot cooler from these areas. temperature 27, would not be surprised if we saw 28, depends on how much sunshine we get. into thursday, the low pressure bringing the showers are still with us. this cold front is important. to the east of that, we could see some showers picking upjust about anywhere. some sunny shower going across northern england and into scotland, but across england, this is where the cold fenders, so we could get storms picking outjust about fenders, so we could get storms picking out just about any time as we go through thursday, and some of them could be really heavy as well. temperatures are still pretty high, but otherwise those temperatures coming back down closer to average. thursday night even into friday, we could still see some storms affecting parts of eastern england, but eventually the whole of the uk will get into that fresher air coming off the atlantic, sort temperatures will be coming back closer to average. it will not feel cold, it will feel pleasant in the sunshine, temperatures about 19 in

cardiff, 23 for london, and 18 in glasgow. that is your weather.

this is bbc news. i'm ben boulos. our top stories... president biden visits the city of tulsa on the centenary of one of the worst incidents of racial violence in american history. for much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence. some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous they can't be buried, no matter how hard people try. as a belarusian opposition activist tries to cut his own throat as a protest against his prosecution, we have a special report on the dissidents whose lives have been changed forever. a special report from jordan where we go back to meet

two syrian refugees — victims of the terrible conflict in their homeland.