Outcry as Brazil congress moves to gut environment and Indigenous ministries

Plan to drastically dilute bodies’ powers would deal severe blow to Lula’s attempt to reverse Bolsonaro’s era of Amazon devastation

Brazilian activists have voiced outrage after congress moved to drastically dilute the powers of the environment and Indigenous peoples ministries in what campaigners called a potentially crippling blow to efforts to protect Indigenous communities and the Amazon.

Hopes that Brazil could turn the page on Jair Bolsonaro’s era of Amazon devastation were sky-high after the far-right leader lost last year’s presidential election to the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. During his campaign Lula vowed to stamp out environmental crime and champion Indigenous people, and after taking power in January put the veteran environmentalist Marina Silva in charge of environmental affairs and made the Indigenous activist Sônia Guajajara head of a new ministry for Indigenous peoples.

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Brazilian police search Jair Bolsonaro mansion and arrest aide

Police investigate suspected efforts to fake Covid-19 vaccination records in order to travel to US

Federal police have searched the mansion of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and arrested one of his closest aides as part of an investigation into suspected criminal efforts to fake Covid-19 vaccination records in order to travel to the US.

Lt Col Mauro Cid Barbosa, described by the Brazilian press as Bolsonaro’s “right-hand man”, was one of six people arrested on Wednesday morning as police raided multiple addresses in the capital, Brasília, and Rio de Janeiro.

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Brazil: Lula security chief resigns after leaked footage of far-right palace riot

Video shows Gonçalves Dias inside presidential palace as supporters of Bolsonaro went on the rampage in January

A key member of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s new administration has been forced to resign after the emergence of security footage showing him inside the presidential palace during the 8 January far-right assault on Brazil’s democratic institutions.

After his election last year, president Lula made the retired army general Gonçalves Dias head of Brazil’s Institutional Security Bureau (GSI), which advises the president on defense and security matters and handles presidential security.

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Ukraine criticises Brazil’s peace efforts and invites Lula to see invasion’s effects

Kyiv accuses Brazilian president’s initiative for giving equal weight to ‘the victim and the aggressor’

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has condemned the “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” by Russia and again called for mediation to end the war, as he came under fire for his previous comments on the conflict.

Speaking at a lunch on Tuesday with Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, Lula said a group of neutral nations must come together to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.

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Lavrov’s Brazil visit highlights Lula’s neutral foreign policy despite US dismay

Brasília encounter, like Brazilian president’s recent trip to China and offer of peacemaking in Ukraine, is part of diplomatic reset

Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov, is due to arrive in Brasília on Monday for talks with his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, in the latest of a series of bilateral encounters likely to ruffle the US.

Lavrov arrives just as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, returns from a state visit to China, and both missions are part of a diplomatic reset Lula has pursued since returning to power this year, as he strives to recover Brazil’s international reputation after his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, dismantled Brazil’s established tradition of cooperation.

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Indigenous children suffer most from illegal miners’ Amazon invasion

The influx of heavily armed gangs, now being tackled by President Lula, has had a catastrophic effect on infant health

The severely malnourished Yanomami baby girl is about eight months old but weighs just 2.75kg (6lbs) – less than half the average for her age. A catheter runs into her tiny right foot, delivering a blood transfusion doctors hope will save her life.

“This is a really difficult moment for us,” says Francinete Rodrigues, the director of the Santo Antônio children’s hospital in Boa Vista, an institution on the frontline of an Indigenous health catastrophe Brazil’s president calls an attempted genocide.

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Record deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest shows challenge facing Lula

Satellites show record destruction for the month of February as new government tries to undo damage wreaked under Bolsonaro

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose in February to the highest level on record for the month, highlighting the scale of the challenge facing the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as it tries to undo the environmental destruction wreaked under the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Government satellites show that a record 322 sq km of Amazon rainforest were destroyed in February, a 62% increase on last year and the highest number for the month since records began.

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Jair Bolsonaro applies for six-month tourist visa to stay in US

Ex-Brazil president who has been in Florida since 30 December is being investigated for attempt to topple country’s government

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing investigation as part of an inquiry into an alleged attempt to topple the country’s government, has filed a request for a six-month visitor visa to stay in the US.

The former leader is understood to have entered the US on an A-1 visa reserved for sitting heads of state, which would expire on Tuesday, 30 days from the end of his presidential term.

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Brazil’s female diplomats in new equality push after dark days of Bolsonaro

Movement to tackle lack of diversity within Brazil’s foreign office coincides with Lula’s return to power

More than a century after Maria José de Castro Rebello Mendes became, in 1918, the first woman to enter Brazil’s diplomatic service, the country’s female diplomats have launched a new push for equal rights and opportunity. Women make up less than 25% of Brazil’s diplomatic corps and just 12% of ambassadors.

“We are blossoming at this moment of democratic government,” said Irene Vida Gala, a senior diplomat who served as ambassador to Ghana and is now the president of the newly created Association of Female Brazilian Diplomats.

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Jair Bolsonaro accused of acts of genocide against Amazonian group

Brazilian president says predecessor emboldened wildcat miners which led to wrecked forests and disease and death among Indigenous people

Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has accused Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration of committing genocide against the Yanomami people of the Amazon, amid public outrage over a humanitarian catastrophe in the country’s largest Indigenous territory.

Lula visited the Amazon state of Roraima on Saturday to denounce the plight of the Yanomami, whose supposedly protected lands have been plunged into crisis by government neglect and the explosion of illegal mining.

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Lula sacks head of Brazilian army after far-right insurrection

Júlio Cesar de Arruda reportedly stopped police detaining suspected rioters who took refuge outside army headquarters

The head of the Brazilian army has been sacked by the country’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, after claims the commander tried to shield rightwing rioters from arrest after the 8 January insurrection in Brasília.

Gen Júlio Cesar de Arruda, who only took up the role in late December, was removed from his position on Saturday, nearly two weeks after supporters of the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro brought havoc to Brazil’s capital in what Lula’s administration called a botched coup attempt.

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Lula to visit Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous territory amid vow to tackle crisis

Move comes after country’s minister for Indigenous people says issue is an ‘absolute priority’

Brazil’s first-ever minister for Indigenous peoples, Sônia Guajajara, has vowed to make tackling the humanitarian crisis plaguing the country’s largest Indigenous territory “an absolute priority”, as she prepared to fly into the region with the new president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Under the former president, Jair Bolsonaro, thousands of illegal gold miners poured into the Yanomami enclave in the Amazon, bringing violence, pollution and a healthcare calamity captured in a recent series of photographs of severely malnourished children and adults.

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Brazil charges 39 with staging coup after storming of government buildings

Bolsonaro supporters are also accused of armed criminal association and violent attempt to subvert democratic state of law

The office of Brazil’s prosecutor-general has presented its first charges against some of the thousands of people who authorities say stormed government buildings in an effort to overturn former president Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in the October election.

The prosecutors in the recently formed group to combat antidemocratic acts have also requested that the 39 defendants who allegedly ransacked the Brazilian congress building be imprisoned as a preventive measure, and that 40m reais ($7.7m) of their assets be frozen to help cover damages.

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After the rampage: Brazil’s new leaders to fight hard in wake of ‘insane’ coup attempt

Lula’s government claims it has ‘absolute control’ after storming of capital by Bolsonaro supporters, but failed putsch is not over, say insiders

Sônia Guajajara should have been making history last Tuesday afternoon, being sworn in as the head of Brazil’s first ministry for Indigenous peoples at a ceremony at the presidential palace in Brasília.

Instead, with that building wrecked last Sunday by thousands of far-right extremists, she sat in her office overlooking Brazil’s similarly ransacked congress, reflecting on the stunning attempt to overthrow one of the world’s biggest democracies.

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Key Bolsonaro ally arrested on return to Brazil over alleged coup attempt

Former justice minister Anderson Torres was capital’s security chief when far-right rioters stormed government buildings

One of Jair Bolsonaro’s key allies, the former justice minister Anderson Torres, has been arrested in Brazil’s capital in connection with last week’s alleged attempt to overthrow the country’s new government.

Torres, who was Brasília’s security chief at the time of the attacks, flew back from Florida, where he had purportedly been holidaying, on Saturday morning and was arrested by federal police at the city’s international airport.

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Jair Bolsonaro to be investigated as part of inquiry into far-right Brazil riot

Former president shared a video questioning last year’s election result after his supporters stormed Brasília’s democratic institutions

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro will be investigated as part of an inquiry into an alleged attempt to topple the country’s new government, the supreme court has announced.

Thousands of radical followers of the far-right populist marauded through Brazil’s three most important democratic institutions last Sunday, apparently convinced by a tsunami of fake news that last October’s presidential election – which Bolsonaro lost – was rigged.

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Lula suspects pro-Bolsonaro staff helped mob enter presidential palace

President vows thorough investigation and says ‘many people were complicit … the truth is the palace was full of Bolsonaristas’

The Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said he suspects hardcore supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro among the presidential staff facilitated the entry of insurrectionists who stormed his presidential palace seeking to overthrow Brazil’s government.

Speaking to a group of political journalists in Brasília’s Planalto palace – one of three buildings trashed by the pro-Bolsonaro mob last Sunday – Lula vowed to carry out a “thorough screening” of employees in the wake of the historic attack.

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Security tightened in Brazil amid fears of new attacks by Bolsonaro supporters

Far-right activists loyal to ex-president have launched what the government called a botched coup attempt

Security has been stepped up in Brazil’s capital amid concerns that hardcore supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro were planning to mobilise again, three days after thousands of extremists launched what the government has called a botched coup attempt.

Reports in the Brazilian media said far-right activists had summoned “a mega nationwide protest to retake power” on Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday night, members of the national public security force in black SUVs could be seen taking up position along the esplanade leading to Brazil’s congress, supreme court and presidential palace – the three buildings stormed and ransacked during Sunday’s turmoil in Brasília.

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Brazil’s attempted coup was thwarted by Lula’s decisive action, minister says

Alexandre Padilha says insurrection by Bolsonaro supporters was well-organized ‘act of terrorism’ aimed at toppling government

The insurrection that shook Brazil’s capital was a well-organised coup attempt that was thwarted thanks to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s swift and firm reaction, one of the president’s top ministers has told the Guardian.

Speaking at the presidential palace on Tuesday, the minister of institutional relations, Alexandre Padilha, said he believed Sunday’s far-right assault on the three branches of Brazil’s government was “an act of terrorism” designed to bring down Lula’s week-old government.

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Brazil attack: influencers join online campaign to identify insurrectionists

High-profile figures call on followers to help track down Bolsonaro supporters who stormed congress

High-profile digital influencers have joined pro-democracy politicians and Brazil’s law enforcement agencies in an attempt to identify insurrectionists who took part in Sunday’s attack on the Brazilian government.

Thousands of people stormed and ransacked the presidential palace, the congress building and the supreme court in support of former president Jair Bolsonaro and his pro-military, far-right movement.

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