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SAO PAULO — Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was demanding an apology on Tuesday from French leader Emmanuel Macron as a way to settle an extraordinary spat between the two men which was holding up a US$22 million package to fight raging forest fires in the Amazon.

Later in the day, Brazil said it was ready to accept foreign aid to help fight fires in the Amazon but only if it could determine how it was spent, in an apparent attempt to smooth over the public spat between the Brazilian and French presidents.

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Canada’s offer of $15 million to fight the fires is still believed to be on the table, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is coming under increasing attack for forging ahead with controversial trade talks with several South America countries, including Brazil.

Critics of the Liberal leader want Trudeau to abandon those talks because Bolsonaro’s policies to use the resources of the Amazon in agriculture and mining have been blamed by activists for the fires.