Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has dispatched army and national guard troops to the north-eastern state of Ceará in an attempt to quell a brewing security crisis triggered by a police officers’ strike.
Related: Rio Carnival takes a stand against Bolsonaro's divisive rhetoric
Continue reading...Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonarohas lashed out at Pope Francis after the pontiff pleaded for the protection of the Amazon rainforest, and attacked the environmental group Greenpeace as “rubbish”.
“Pope Francis said yesterday the Amazon is his, the world’s, everyone’s,” said Bolsonaro, who has often railed against international criticism of his environmental policies as an attack on Brazilian sovereignty.
Continue reading...Some suspect Adriano da Nóbrega was ‘key piece’ in discovering who ordered Franco’s killing
Friends and relatives of the murdered Brazilian politician Marielle Franco are demanding answers after Adriano da Nóbrega – a notorious hitman, whose gang of contract killers is suspected of involvement in her assassination – was gunned down by police in the north-east of the country.
Nóbrega, an ex-special forces police captain, also had close links to the family of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. Nóbrega was killed by police on Sunday in Bahia state where he had been on the run.
Continue reading...Brazil’s president was accused of kowtowing with his 73-minute Facebook live stream but some see method in his obsequiousness
He has long styled himself as a tropical Trump – a socialist-skewering hard man fighting Brazilian carnage.
But in recent weeks Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has taken his fixation with the US leader to new heights, livestreaming himself on Facebook as he watched his political idol in action.
Continue reading...Citizens post video appealing for evacuation from city at centre of coronavirus outbreak
Brazilian citizens trapped in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, have issued an urgent plea to their president, Jair Bolsonaro, for them to be evacuated.
In a six-minute YouTube video the Brazilians noted how other countries – including the US, the UK, France, Japan and Italy – had already taken steps to rescue their citizens from the city.
Continue reading...Demagogues rely on fear to consolidate power. But courage is contagious – that’s why we must join hands and fight back
Substantial media coverage over the last year, within Brazil and internationally, has been devoted to threats and attacks we each received, separately and together, due to our work – David’s as a congressman and Glenn’s as a journalist. These incidents have been depicted, rightfully so, as reflective of the increasingly violent and anti-democratic climate prevailing in Brazil as a result of the far-right, authoritarian, dictatorship-supporting movement of President Jair Bolsonaro, which consolidated substantial power in the election held at the end of 2018.
There was much discussion when David entered congress in early 2019 after the only other openly LGBTQ+ congress member, Jean Wyllys, fled his seat and the country in fear of his life. As a longtime LGBTQ+ celebrity and sole LGBTQ+ member of congress, Wyllys had endured constant death threats and even bullying from fellow members of congress. His multiple fights with Bolsonaro and his sons made him a particular object of contempt by that movement. That they now occupied full-scale power made his remaining in Brazil untenable.
Continue reading...Bjarke Ingels is the go-to golden boy for Big Tech – and now Brazil’s Bolsonaro wants a bit of his magic. But should architects boycott oppressive leaders? Do their buildings glorify their ideology?
Sun-kissed walkways in the sky, platefuls of seafood ceviche, a private helicopter pickup from the beach – the Instagram account of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has unfolded like an escapist travelogue epic in recent weeks, as his adventures in Latin America have taken their place in his dizzying globetrotting itinerary. But there is one photograph he hasn’t been so keen to share with his 730,000 followers: of him standing next to Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, with the uneasy smile of a man who’s just secured his latest big commission from another unsavoury despot, in this case one who has boasted of being “proudly” homophobic.
According to a statement from Brazil’s ministry of tourism, Ingels visited Brazil to tour several states and discuss strategies for developing sustainable tourism on its north-east coast, in partnership with the Nômade Group, which recently built an eco-conscious luxury resort in Tulum, the ruins of a Mayan walled city in Mexico.
Continue reading...In Brazil’s largest indigenous reserve thousands of saplings have been planted as an alternative to profits from illegal gold mining
The villagers walk down the grassy landing strip, past the wooden hut housing the health post and into the thick forest, pointing out the seedlings they planted along the way. For these Ye’kwana indigenous men, the skinny saplings, less than a metre high, aren’t just baby cacao trees but green shoots of hope in a land scarred by the violence, pollution and destruction wrought by illegal gold prospecting. That hope is chocolate.
Continue reading...Brazil’s president made anti-indigenous joke on Facebook broadcast, the latest in a succession of discriminatory comments
Indigenous activists have vowed to sue Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, for racism after his latest bigoted outburst.
In one of his weekly Facebook broadcasts on Thursday, Bolsonaro declared: “Indians are undoubtedly changing … They are increasingly becoming human beings just like us.”
Continue reading...As president and foreign minister, we always advocated peace. In war, all victories are pyrrhic ones
The assassination of Qassem Suleimani by drone bombs, at the express request of the president of the United States, has thrown the Middle East – and the world – into the most serious global security crisis since the end of the cold war. By unilaterally ordering the execution of a senior Iranian military on Iraqi soil, Donald Trump violated international law and took a reckless and dangerous step in escalating conflict, with potential impact all over the planet.
Related: Justin Trudeau calls for investigation into Iran plane crash as Canada mourns
Continue reading...Six prominent voices from the arts, media, diplomacy and the Amazon give their views on the far-right president’s opening 12 months
It has been a year since a pro-gun, anti-indigenous far-right former army captain took power in Brazil and began sending shockwaves through the country’s government and society.
In those 12 months, Jair Bolsonaro – who is openly homophobic and allied to Brazil’s hardline religious right – has declared war on film-makers, journalists and the environment; put a conspiracy theorist in charge of the foreign service; and greenlit a new era of police repression and rainforest destruction.
Continue reading...As the president completes his first year in power, his opponents are finding their voice and fighting back
Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency was still a week away when Edu Krieger penned his first critique – a ballad lamenting the rise of Brazil’s incoming leader and lampooning him over the corruption allegations that continue to haunt his family.
“It’s important for us to counterattack with our art,” said the 45-year-old singer-songwriter who has since become a specialist in musical parodies of the populist provocateur.
Continue reading...President’s office said Bolsonaro spent the night in the hospital and was discharged on Tuesday
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, said on Tuesday night that he briefly lost his memory after falling at his presidential residence in Brasilia, the capital, earlier this week.
The president’s office disclosed on Monday that Bolsonaro, 64, had suffered a fall and was taken to a hospital Monday night for a brain scan, which detected no abnormalities. Bolsonaro spent the night in the hospital and was discharged on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Critics interpret president’s attack on journalist as attempt to divert attention from spiralling scandal involving son Flávio
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has launched a homophobic attack on a journalist from one of the country’s top newspapers in an apparent bid to divert attention from a spiraling corruption scandal involving his son.
Related: Murder of Uber drivers may be Brazil gang leader’s ‘revenge’ for cancelled ride
Continue reading...Investigators examining Bolsonaro’s senator son Flávio, suspected of overseeing corruption racket during tenure as Rio congressman
Investigators have raided the home of a longstanding friend and associate of the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, as well as addresses linked to Bolsonaro’s ex-wife, in the latest phase of a politically damaging corruption investigation embroiling his family.
Related: Brazil has become a cautionary tale for the world's democracies | Petra Costa
Continue reading...Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has derided Greta Thunberg after the teenage climate activist added her voice to growing international condemnation of a surge of anti-indigenous violence in the Amazon.
Related: Amazon indigenous leaders killed in Brazil drive-by shooting
Continue reading...Pascal Canfin says he cannot back deal with South American bloc owing to ‘political context’
The EU’s trade deal with four South American countries will not be ratified in its current form because it contradicts Europe’s plans to confront the climate emergency, a leading MEP has said.
Pascal Canfin, a Frenchman who chairs the European parliament’s environment committee, said he could not vote in favour of the EU trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (the bloc known as Mercosur).
Continue reading...Jair Bolsonaro falsely accuses actor of funding deliberate destruction of rainforest
Brazil’s president has falsely accused the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the deliberate incineration of the Amazon rainforest.
Jair Bolsonaro – a populist nationalist who has vowed to drive environmental NGOs from Brazil – made the claim on Friday, reportedly telling supporters: “This Leonardo DiCaprio’s a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money for the Amazon to be torched.”
Continue reading...Almost 10,000 sq kms lost in year to August, according to Brazilian government data
Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest annual level in a decade, according to new government data which highlights the impact the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has made on the world’s biggest rainforest.
The new numbers, showing almost 10,000 sq kms were lost in the year to August, were released as emboldened farm owners scuffled with forest defenders in Altamira, the Amazonian city at the heart of the recent devastation.
Continue reading...Toppling of Bolivian president reignites movement to remove leftist ally Nicolás Maduro
Venezuela’s flagging opposition movement has hit the streets for its first major protests in months, as leaders sought to reignite their campaign to force Nicolás Maduro from power after his leftist ally Evo Morales was toppled in Bolivia.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Saturday morning in towns and cities across the crisis-stricken south American country, hoping the dramatic sea change in Bolivian politics might portend similar change in Venezuela.
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