Hope Is A Verb - NewsFix - Amazon Deforestation. Czechia Bans Smacking. Less Grumpy.

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

This week's headlines include: deforestation in the Amazon takes another plunge; Mexico reduces poverty; Nigeria boosts child health; no more corporal punishment in Czechia and the world is surprisingly becoming less grumpy.

Welcome to NewsFix, Real Good News, read by a real human being. I'm Anthony Badolato and here are our top headlines this week. Deforestation in the Amazon drops to its lowest level in over a decade. Australia returns Cape York to its traditional owners. Mexico's rapid poverty reduction while child health gets a boost in Nigeria. And in a surprising turn of events, the world has officially turned its frown upside. down. Let's get into the details. Brazil is about to host COP 30, and for those of you who don't speak acronym, it's the 30th United Nations Climate Conference. Think of it as the world's annual

climate report card slash strategy session. And host country Brazil is definitely leading by example. Between August 24 and July 2025, deforestation in the Amazon fell by 11%. The biggest drop in nearly a decade. And you know what starts going down when those trees stop falling? Emissions. Thanks to a steep decline in deforestation, Brazil's greenhouse emissions fell last year by 16.7%. Again, the largest annual drop in over a decade. If you're starting to notice a theme here, you're absolutely right. A lot of our stories this week prove that not all declines are bad news. Take Mexico, for example. It's pulled off one of Latin America's most dramatic social shifts with a rapid reduction in poverty since 2018.

Who could have guessed that raising the minimum wage, strengthening labour rights and mandating fair pay could lift 13.4 million people above the poverty line. Meanwhile, healthcare across Africa is on the up. Nigeria has kicked off the mother of all campaigns with the largest ever immunisation drive to vaccinate 106 million children against measles, rebella, polio and HPV. And Mozambique has hit a milestone in women's health,

vaccinating nearly 3 million girls aged 12 to 18 against HPV, a disease that kills an estimated 4,000 women in the country each year. And here's a quick look at what else is making good news around the world. Australia has returned nearly 1 million hectares of Cape York to its traditional owners. The Czech Republic has become the 69th country in the world to ban the corporal punishment of children. And Austria has scraped a centuries-old secrecy law, which will give citizens the right to ask the state almost anything. But perhaps the most surprising story is thanks to Gallup, whose latest survey on global emotional health has found that the world has become less grumpy. Turns out negative emotions have dropped back to pre-pandemically.

levels. Only 39% of people said that they felt worried the previous day and 37% felt stressed, the lowest since 2019. So keep on smiling, everyone. On that note, that's it from me this week. If you want more stories or you're simply hanging for a poem about semiconductors superconducting, I mean, who isn't? Check out our newsletter at fixthenews.com. And coming up next week on Hope is a verb, the team chat with one of their heroes, Enric Sala, the marine biologist who is diving deep to end bottom trawling and save the big blue.