Category Archives: Rio de Janeiro

Fresh protests in Brazil against Bolsonaro’s handling of Covid pandemic

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Country’s death toll nears 500,000 as opposition to the president grows and vaccination rates remain low

Thousands of Brazilians returned to the streets on Saturday in protest against the response of Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to a pandemic that has killed close on half a million people in the country – the most after the United States.

On the second day of demonstrations in less than a month, the anti-Bolsonaro mobilisation is gaining momentum amid an ascendant curve of Covid-19 infections, while only 11% of 212 million Brazilians have been fully vaccinated, according to local media.

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Gaza damage and Glasgow raids: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Peru

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At least 25 killed in Rio de Janeiro’s deadliest favela raid – video

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At least 25 people have been killed after heavily armed police stormed Jacarezinho, one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas, in pursuit of drug traffickers in what was the deadliest raid in the city’s history. About 200 members of Rio’s civil police launched the raid into Jacarezinho in the early hours despite a 2020 supreme court order outlawing such incursions during the coronavirus pandemic. While police hailed the raid a success, critics said it was a 'massacre'

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Rio de Janeiro: at least 25 killed in city’s deadliest police raid on favela

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  • Raid in violation of court order is city’s deadliest ever
  • Police hail blow against drug gangs but critics decry ‘massacre’

At least 25 people have been killed after heavily armed police stormed one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas in pursuit of drug traffickers, in what was the deadliest raid in the city’s history.

About 200 members of Rio’s civil police launched their incursion into Jacarezinho in the early hours of Thursday, sprinting into the vast redbrick community as a bullet-proof helicopter circled overhead with snipers poised on each side. By lunchtime at least 25 people were reported dead, among them André Frias, a drug squad officer who was shot in the head. Police and local media described the other victims as “suspects” but offered no immediate evidence for that claim.

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Rio de Janeiro mayor arrested in corruption investigation

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Marcelo Crivella arrested days before leaving office, in blow to Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro

Police have arrested Rio de Janeiro’s outgoing mayor Marcelo Crivella, an ally of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, in an investigation into alleged corruption at city hall.

Four carloads of police and prosecutors arrived at the mayor’s house in the affluent Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood before 6am, the website of O Globo newspaper said.

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Rio de Janeiro mayor charged with corruption

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Bolsonaro ally Marcelo Crivella accused of leading ‘well-structured and complex criminal organisation’

Rio de Janeiro’s outgoing mayor Marcelo Crivella, an ally of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested and charged with corruption.

Four carloads of police and prosecutors arrived at the mayor’s house in the affluent Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood before 6am.

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Rio voters inflict humiliating electoral wipeout on mayor

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Bolsonaro ally Marcelo Crivella lost in all of Brazilian city’s 49 constituencies

Rio de Janeiro is rejoicing after voters inflicted a humiliating electoral defeat on a widely loathed neo-Pentecostal bishop considered by some to be the worst mayor in the city’s history.

Marcelo Crivella, a gospel-singing preacher who has branded homosexuality a “terrible evil” and had shunned Rio’s annual carnival, lost in every one of the city’s 49 constituencies in Sunday’s run-off vote.

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Voters set to punish mayor who ‘made Rio de Janeiro miserable’

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A landslide in Sunday’s election is predicted to sweep away the city’s ‘disastrous’ conservative leader

Tarcísio Motta is one of Rio’s best-known lefties – but when the city elects its new leader on Sunday, he’ll be voting for the right.

“We’ve got a mayor who’s an enemy of the city, and this can’t go on. It’s ludicrous,” complained the socialist councillor, one of millions of exasperated locals desperate to evict the neo-Pentecostal bishop Marcelo Crivella from city hall after what is widely regarded as a dismal four-year reign.

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Prosecutors in Brazil file embezzlement charges against Jair Bolsonaro’s son

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Flávio Bolsonaro accused of siphoning off employees’ publicly funded wages

Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son has been formally accused of embezzlement, money laundering, misappropriation of funds and directing a “criminal organisation” as sleaze allegations continue to swirl around the family of Brazil’s far-right president.

Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro announced late on Tuesday that they had filed the charges against Flávio Bolsonaro, 39, a senator whose affairs have been under the spotlight since the eve of his father’s January 2019 inauguration.

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Samba makes tentative return in Rio de Janeiro laid low by Covid

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Legendary sambista Moacyr Luz spent much of the pandemic confined to his beachside home but is resuming his weekly jam sessions as lockdown curbs ease

It has been seven months since Moacyr Luz, one of Brazil’s most celebrated sambistas, sat down before a live audience in the city his songs serenade.

As Covid-19 shook Luz’s homeland, killing more than 150,000 and infecting millions, it also wreaked havoc on Rio’s signature sound, with all shows scrapped, carnival postponed until a vaccine is found and several cherished samba proponents among the dead.

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‘Instead of doctors, they send police to kill us’: locked-down Rio faces deadly raids

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Covid-19 quarantine has not stopped police from storming favelas, with 13 killed in the latest operation

Maria Diva do Nascimento was worried as she set off for her job at one of Rio de Janeiro’s biggest hospitals wearing a face mask she hoped would keep her alive.

It had been two days since she had heard from her son Allyson, a 20-year-old drug trafficker whose job made social isolation impossible.

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Rio’s favelas count the cost as deadly spread of Covid-19 hits city’s poor

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The coronavirus was probably brought to Brazil by rich returning holidaymakers but it is threatening to explode in marginal communities

In many ways, Washington Castro was a typical resident of Rocinha, the immense redbrick favela that towers over Rio de Janeiro’s Atlantic coast.

Industrious, God-fearing and the offspring of migrants from Brazil’s parched and impoverished north-east, he supported two young children by working two separate jobs and wore a suit and tie when attending his local church.

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Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro denounced for joining pro-dictatorship rally

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Far-right president deemed ‘deplorable’ for flouting social distancing rules again – while coughing repeatedly – to bolster protests amid coronavirus

Former presidents, politicians and newspaper editorial boards have lined up to denounce the “moronic” and “anti-democratic” behaviour of Brazil’s far-right leader after he hit the streets to egg on protesters demanding a return to military dictatorship.

As the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 rose to nearly 2,500 on Sunday, Jair Bolsonaro left his presidential palace in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, to fraternize with flag-waving radicals.

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Christ the Redeemer statue lit up as doctor in coronavirus tribute – video

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The Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro was lit up for Easter on Sunday night, paying tribute to health workers in Brazil and across the world tackling the coronavirus crisis. Images of health workers asking people to remain at home and flags from different countries with the word 'Hope' were also projected during the event

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Birth of wild tapir offers hope for Brazil’s endangered ecosystem

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Researchers believe the calf was born in January and a second may be on its way

Hopes for a recovery of Brazil’s most endangered ecosystem have been given a boost by the first birth of a wild tapir in Rio de Janeiro’s Atlantic Forest for more than a century.

Scientists said video clips of the baby tapir proved the initial success of a re-introduction strategy for the threatened mammal, which is often described as “a forest gardener” because it plays a vital role in the dispersal of seeds.

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Evangelical Christians in Brazil resolve to ‘bring Jesus’ to carnival revelers

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The group played a key role in the election of the country’s far-right president and have become increasingly assertive

With drummers pounding out samba rhythms through the rain, this might almost have been just another one of the hundreds of street parties of Rio’s world-famous carnival.

But nobody at the I’m Full of Love Samba Street Party on Copacabana Beach was drunk or in costume, few bystanders were dancing – and the group on the sound truck was singing about Jesus.

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Rio carnival 2020 – in pictures

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Brazil’s famed carnival kicked off in earnest on Saturday as millions of revellers poured into the streets, some of whom took aim at the nation’s deeply polarised politics. Most partiers, though, were dressed in distinctly apolitical garb, ranging from mermaid to cowboy costumes, suggesting that during carnival, Brazilians are focused on revelry first, and politics second

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Rio’s school for Samba – in pictures

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Such is the reputation of the Paraíso de Tuiuti samba school in Rio de Janeiro that dancers travel from as far afield as the UK, Russia and Japan to train in the ways of hip-swivelling and hot-stepping. During Rio’s world-famous carnival, members of the school will dance in front of 70,000 spectators and tens of millions of television viewers

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Sun! Samba! Street crime! Red-faced Rio highlights the negative

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Instagram post about being robbed in the city is accidentally shared by tourist agency

When marketing Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s national tourism agency typically focuses on the city’s world-class beaches, samba-filled music scene and caipirinha-fueled parties.

Violent crime is rarely listed among the attractions.

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Scores dead as heavy rains bring landslides and evacuations in Brazil

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Storms have submerged entire neighborhoods and sent homes tumbling down hillsides, causing more than 30,000 to flee

More than 30,000 people have been displaced by heavy rains in south-east Brazil that have killed 54 people and left 18 missing.

The storms have caused floods and landslides, submerging entire neighborhoods and sending homes tumbling down hillsides in the states of Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. Rains subsided by Monday, but were expected to resume later this week in some areas.

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