Mirroring of each other’s attire may signal alignment – though the look wasn’t a huge departure for either leader
When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met for a welcome ceremony in Tiananmen Square this week with the world’s gaze on them, they mirrored one another in strikingly similar suits.
Both were blue, single-breasted with flap pockets. Both had two buttons with only the top one done up. Both wore red ties.
Continue reading...Revelation seen as serious blow to candidacy of Flávio Bolsonaro, Brazil’s leading rightwing presidential hopeful
Flávio Bolsonaro, Brazil’s leading rightwing presidential hopeful, has been caught on tape asking a banker accused of corruption for $26.8m (£20m) to fund a film about his father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro.
The leaked voice memos and text messages were published on Wednesday by the Intercept Brasil, and later acknowledged by Flávio Bolsonaro, a far-right senator who is tied in polls with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of October’s election.
Continue reading...Environmentalists hail decline but warn weakened laws could reverse gains
Brazil’s Atlantic forest, the country’s most threatened biome, last year recorded its lowest level of deforestation since monitoring began 40 years ago, a new report shows.
The forest is Brazil’s most populous biome, and home to 80% of the population and major cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In 2025 it recorded 8,658 hectares of deforestation, marking the first time it has fallen below 10,000 hectares since 1985.
Continue reading...President Lula’s veto of the bill was overturned by Brazil’s congress and senate, meaning it now awaits confirmation by supreme court
Brazil’s largely conservative congress has approved a bill reducing the prison sentence of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted last year of attempting a coup.
The bill had initially been passed by congress in December, but President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed it in January in a symbolic move marking three years since Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the capital, Brasília.
Continue reading...Brazilian president Lula called police assault on two of Rio’s largest clusters of favelas ‘disastrous’ and a ‘massacre’
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said his government will seek an independent investigation into what he called a “disastrous” police “massacre” that left at least 121 people dead.
Four officers and at least 117 others were killed when police launched a major assault on two of Rio’s largest clusters of favelas, the Complexo do Alemão and the Complexo da Penha, early last Tuesday to execute 100 arrest warrants.
Continue reading...Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who first ran for elected office in 1982, announced he will run again in next year’s election
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has announced he will seek a historic fourth term in next year’s presidential election, potentially extending one of the most remarkable and enduring political careers in modern Latin American history.
The former metalworker, who returned to the presidency in 2023 after defeating the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, confirmed his decision during a speech in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.
Continue reading...Presidents spoke on a video call as expert speculates that Haiti could be an area where the two leaders can cooperate
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country’s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a “friendly” video call, swapping phone numbers after months of friction.
Ties between the US and Brazil have nosedived as a result of Trump’s campaign to pressure Brazilian authorities into abandoning the coup trial of his far-right ally, Jair Bolsonaro.
Continue reading...South American leftist Lula takes indirect swipes at Trump in speech and warns that global threat of ‘anti-democratic forces’ persists
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, has launched an impassioned defence of his country’s democracy, claiming the recent conviction of his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, had shown the world how “would-be autocrats” could be brought to heel.
Speaking at the opening of the United Nations general assembly in New York, Lula hailed Brazil’s successful effort to repel “an unprecedented attack” from Bolsonaro’s extreme right movement. On 11 September, the former paratrooper was sentenced to 27 years in jail for trying to stage a military coup after he lost the 2022 election to Lula.
Continue reading...Huge crowds pack the streets to oppose endeavours to help ex-president escape jail
Tens of thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets to demand no amnesty be granted to their country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro after he was convicted of plotting a coup.
The far-right populist was sentenced to 27 years in prison earlier this month for illegally attempting to cling to power after he lost the 2022 presidential election to his leftwing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Continue reading...With widespread support at home and from Trump, his heir will take the fight to Lula in the 2026 presidential election
Four years have passed since Jair Bolsonaro laid out three possible denouements for his extraordinary political career, during which the oft-ridiculed fringe politician rose to become one of leading lights of the global populist right alongside Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump.
“Going to jail, being killed or victory,” predicted Brazil’s then president as he grappled with a deluge of political crises in August 2021.
Continue reading...Brazilian president’s comments come amid US attempts to pressure judges in coup trial against Trump ally Bolsonaro
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has hit back at Donald Trump’s campaign against the South American country’s judiciary, claiming the US president would be put on trial in Brazil had the January 6 US Capitol attacks taken place there.
Trump has triggered what some experts call the greatest ever diplomatic rupture between the US and Brazil by slapping 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports and sanctioning a supreme court judge in an attempt to help his far-right ally, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, avoid prison for allegedly trying to stage a coup after he lost the 2022 election to Lula.
Continue reading...US embassy accused supreme court judge of persecuting ex-president, currently on trial for alleged coup attempt
Brazil’s foreign ministry has summoned the US chargé d’affaires after the embassy posted comments about the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, as relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate.
On Thursday, the embassy published a social media post in Portuguese criticising the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the cases against Bolsonaro, who is on trial over an alleged coup attempt.
Continue reading...Campaigners had urged Lula to veto the bill entirely, but many have welcomed his alterations
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has signed into law a controversial bill that scientists and environmentalists had dubbed the “devastation bill”, but vetoed key articles that would have in effect dismantled the country’s environmental licensing system.
On Friday, the final day to either sanction or veto the law, Lula struck down or amended 63 of the 398 provisions in a bill that, as approved by congress last month, had been regarded as the most significant setback to Brazil’s environmental protections in four decades.
Continue reading...State department condemns judge’s decision to place former Brazil president under house arrest as trial proceeds
The US has intensified its campaign to help Jair Bolsonaro avoid punishment for allegedly masterminding a failed coup, with the state department denouncing the decision to place Brazil’s former president under house arrest.
“Let Bolsonaro speak!” the department’s bureau of western hemisphere affairs tweeted on Monday night after the far-right populist was confined to his mansion in the capital, Brasília, and police seized his mobile phone.
Continue reading...US put sanctions on Judge Alexandre de Moraes as an apparent move by Trump to help his ally Jair Bolsonaro
The supreme court judge presiding over the trial of Brazil’s ex-president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said a “cowardly and treacherous” plot is afoot to pave the way for another attack on the South American country’s democracy.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes was put under sanctions by the US on Wednesday, as part of an apparent push by Donald Trump to help his ally Bolsonaro escape punishment for allegedly masterminding an attempted coup after losing the 2022 election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Trump also slapped a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports in response to what he called the “witch-hunt” against the far-right former president.
Continue reading...US president seems to be weaponizing tariffs to punish Brazil for its coup trial against his ally Bolsonaro
Over the past six months, Donald Trump has been accused of rapidly dragging the largest democracy in the Americas towards authoritarianism. Now, the US president seems bent on undermining the region’s second largest democracy too.
Since early July, Trump has launched an extraordinary attack on Brazil’s institutions, slapping 50% tariffs on imports from the South American country and sanctions on a supreme court judge – partly in retribution for what he called the political persecution of his ally, Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly masterminding a failed coup.
Continue reading...Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he won’t be cowed by Trump ahead of 50% tariffs set to hit Brazil
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he does not fear getting on the wrong side of Donald Trump, as South America’s largest economy braces for the introduction of 50% tariffs.
Trump announced plans to slap Brazil with tariffs on 1 August earlier this month, partly in retaliation for a supposed political “witch-hunt” against his far-right ally Jair Bolsonaro. The former Brazilian president faces decades in jail for allegedly plotting a military coup to stop Lula from taking office after the former lost the 2022 presidential election.
Continue reading...Guilty verdict widely expected for Brazil’s ex-president accused of plot to seize power after losing 2022 election
Federal police have raided Jair Bolsonaro’s Brasília mansion, banned him from communicating with foreign diplomats and ordered him to wear an electronic ankle tag amid fears Brazil’s ex-president may abscond to avoid punishment over an alleged coup attempt.
A supreme court trial examining claims that Bolsonaro masterminded a murderous plot to seize power after losing the 2022 election is expected to reach its conclusion in the coming weeks.
Continue reading...President has 15 days to approve or veto legislation that critics say will lead to vast deforestation and destruction of Indigenous communities
Brazilian lawmakers have passed a bill that drastically weakens the country’s environmental safeguards and is seen by many activists as the most significant setback for the country’s environmental legislation in the past 40 years.
The new law – widely referred to as the “devastation bill” and already approved by the senate in May – passed in congress in the early hours of Thursday by 267 votes to 116, despite opposition from more than 350 organisations and social movements.
Continue reading...US president’s attempt to help his rightwing ally avoid jail has sparked wave of anger and given boost to rival Lula
Silvana Marques was one of thousands of Brazilians who flocked to São Paulo’s most famous art museum one afternoon last week. But the 51-year-old teacher wasn’t there to marvel over fog-filled London landscapes at Masp’s new Monet retrospective. She had come to join a protest heaping scorn on Donald Trump.
Beneath the museum’s brutalist hulk, Marques spotted a cardboard effigy of the US president and took a picture with her phone before the Trump dummy was set on fire. “Laranjão safado,” which translates as big orange dirtbag, she wrote under her photo on Instagram. Nearby, demonstrators hoisted a red banner into the air which read: “Nice try Trump. But we’re not afraid.”
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