Brazilian president flies into Amazon amid alarm over droughts and wildfires

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says Amazonia suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has flown into the Amazon amid growing alarm over the droughts and wildfires sweeping the rainforest region and others parts of Brazil.

Speaking during a visit to a riverside community near the city of Tefé, the Brazilian president said Amazonia was suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years. He said he had come to discover “what is going on with these mighty rivers” that in some places now resemble deserts.

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Brazil’s human rights minister sacked over sexual harassment allegations

Removal of popular cabinet member Silvio Almeida comes as a blow to Lula’s administration

Brazil’s president has sacked one of his most popular cabinet members after claims Silvio Almeida sexually harassed at least two women – one of whom is another prominent figure, the racial equality minister Anielle Franco.

Almeida, the human rights minister, has denied the allegations, while Franco thanked the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for his “decisive action”. But the scandal has dealt a major blow to Lula’s administration and has been greeted with deep dismay by the Black rights movement.

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Lula says Elon Musk’s wealth does not mean world must accept his ‘far-right free-for-all’

Brazilian president makes comments after supreme court votes to uphold X ban over refusal to obey court orders

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.

Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.

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Lula criticizes Maduro’s ‘authoritarian’ regime amid Venezuela election dispute

Brazilian president calls Nicolás Maduro’s administration ‘a very unpleasant regime’ as diplomats explore solutions

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said Venezuela is living under “a very unpleasant regime” with an “authoritarian slant”, as the political crisis engulfing the oil-rich South American country intensifies before fresh street protests on Saturday.

In an interview early on Friday, Lula – whose diplomats have been exploring possible solutions to Venezuela’s post-election drama – offered some of his sharpest criticism yet of Nicolás Maduro’s nominally socialist administration.

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Lula says he doesn’t yet recognize Maduro as winner of Venezuela election

Brazilian president suggests fresh elections or coalition government as potential solutions to political crisis

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has made clear he does not yet accept Nicolás Maduro’s claim to have been re-elected as Venezuela’s president, and has suggested fresh elections or a coalition government as potential solutions to the country’s intensifying political crisis.

Maduro’s claim to have won Venezuela’s 28 July vote – despite compelling evidence that he was heavily beaten – has plunged the South American country into uncertainty and spooked regional governments who fear possible conflict and the consolidation of a dictatorship on their doorstep.

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Brazil cuts ties with Nicaragua as it rethinks links with leftist authoritarians

Two countries expel each other’s ambassadors amid growing tensions between Lula and Venezuela’s Maduro

Brazil and Nicaragua have expelled each other’s ambassadors in a tit-for-tat diplomatic row, as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, appears to recalibrate his approach to authoritarian leftist rulers who were once seen as allies.

The dual expulsions this week came amid growing tensions between Lula and another supposedly progressive leader, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, whose claim of re-election the Brazilian president has yet to acknowledge. Lula and his counterparts in Colombia and Mexico have called on Maduro to release voting tallies from all polling stations to support his win.

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Argentina’s president butts heads with South American leftist leaders

Turning from his ferocious attacks on domestic opponents, Javier Milei aims his scorn at the heads of Brazil and Bolivia

On the campaign trail, Argentina’s showman president, Javier Milei, brandished a chainsaw to highlight plans for ferocious spending cuts. In office, the rightwinger has apparently decided to take the power tool to foreign relations as well.

In recent days, Milei has busied himself losing friends and alienating people with a series of verbal attacks on the leftwing leaders of Argentina’s two biggest neighbours, Bolivia and Brazil.

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Lula dismays relatives of dictatorship’s victims by ignoring coup anniversary

Brazil’s president has nixed commemorations of the 1964 coup, possibly to avoid irking the military as senior officers facing jail for allegedly conspiring to stop Lula taking power after 2022 election

Relatives of the victims of Brazil’s brutal two-decade dictatorship have voiced anger and dismay over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reported decision to block official remembrance events marking the 60th anniversary of the 1964 military coup d’état.

Activists had hoped the leftist’s government would mark the 31 March 2024 anniversary of that power-grab with a series of memorials honouring the thousands who were killed, disappeared or tortured by the 1964-85 regime.

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Macron rekindles France-Brazil relationship in widely memed Lula visit

Photos of French president’s three-day trip to Brazil to reaffirm countries’ partnership delight internet observers

If the official photos are anything to go by, Emmanuel Macron’s three-day trip to Brazil has been more romantic getaway than international diplomacy.

The French president, who ended his tour of the South American country on Thursday with a state visit to the capital, Brasília, prompted online hilarity after the publication of photos showing him being particularly chummy with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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Macron calls proposed EU-Mercosur trade pact ‘very bad deal’ lacking strong climate commitments

French president tells Brazil forum both parties need to be ‘much stronger’ on biodiversity and climate

Emmanuel Macron has called a proposed trade agreement between the EU and South America’s Mercosur bloc a “very bad deal” that lacks proper climate considerations.

“As it is negotiated today, it is a very bad deal, for you and for us,” the French president told Brazilian businessmen in São Paulo on Wednesday while on a three-day trip to Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy.

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Jair Bolsonaro surrenders passport in coup attempt investigation

Police seize passport as agents carry out 33 searches and four arrests across Brazil, targeting allies of far-right former president

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has surrendered his passport as part of a police investigation into the attempted coup on 8 January 2023, which sought to keep him in power, his lawyers have said.

In operations that also targeted key allies of the former far-right leader, federal police agents carried out 33 searches and four arrests across Brazil on Thursday morning.

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Lula hails ‘victory of democracy’ on anniversary of pro-Bolsonaro uprising

Brazilian leaders mark first anniversary of insurrection in Brasília that saw Bolsonaristas attempt to topple new government

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has hailed the “victory of democracy over authoritarianism”, one year on from the 8 January insurrection in Brasília in which supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings in an attempt to topple the newly inaugurated leftist government.

Several hundred people gathered in the seat of Congress in Brasília on Monday afternoon for an event marking the first anniversary of what many see as the Brazilian version of the 6 January Capitol attack in the US. Leaders representing the three branches of government took to the stage under a screen emblazoned with the words “Democracy Unshaken” to celebrate the resilience of Brazilian democracy and unequivocally condemn the actions of the violent mob that rampaged through the capital a year ago after refusing to accept their leader’s electoral defeat.

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Lula’s bid to style himself climate leader at Cop28 undermined by Opec move

Brazilian president’s plans to approve new fossil fuel projects sit awkwardly with pledge to meet 1.5C target

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has roared into Cop28 with a mega-delegation of more than 2,000 people and grand ambitions to address inequality and protect the world’s tropical forests.

Lula, as he is known, said his country was leading by example: “We have adjusted our climate goals, which are now more ambitious than those of many developed countries. We have drastically reduced deforestation in the Amazon and will bring it to zero by 2030,” he said.

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Argentina: leftists celebrate after far-right Milei fails to win election victory

Lula and other Latin American leftwingers hail Sergio Massa’s first-placed finish, with election now headed to November runoff

Leading Latin American leftists have celebrated the thwarting of Javier Milei’s attempt to claim a first-round victory in Argentina’s presidential election after the far-right populist was beaten by his centrist rival Sergio Massa.

Milei, an oddball economist who has called climate change a “socialist lie” and the pope “a lefty son of a bitch”, had hoped an explosion of anti-establishment rage would catapult him into the presidency on Sunday as 27 million Argentinians turned out to vote amid the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

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Bolsonaro was engineer of ‘wilful coup attempt’, Brazil congress inquiry alleges

Congressional investigation into failed rightwing insurrection on 8 January calls for former president to be charged with four crimes

Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro was the mentor of “a wilful and premeditated coup attempt” that sought to plunge Latin America’s largest democracy into political mayhem and perhaps even civil war, a congressional inquiry investigating the 8 January insurrection has alleged.

The dramatic assertion was made on Tuesday as the senator Eliziane Gama read the inquiry’s final report into January’s failed rightwing uprising in which thousands of radical Bolsonaro supporters rampaged through the capital, Brasília, after their leader failed to win re-election.

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Lula urges end to ‘insanity of war’ as Latin Americans killed in Hamas attack

Brazil president calls for humanitarian aid to protect Israeli and Palestinian citizens, while Latin Americans also taken hostage

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called for an end to “the insanity of war” as it emerged that more than a dozen Latin Americans were killed during Hamas’s assault, with citizens of Brazil and Argentina taken captive in the Gaza Strip.

By Wednesday morning, Latin American government and media reports had confirmed the deaths of seven Argentinians, two Brazilians, two Peruvians, one Colombian and one Paraguayan. At least 15 Argentinians, three Peruvians, two Mexicans and one Brazilian remain missing.

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US and Brazil warn of attempt to stop Guatemala president-elect taking power

Fears Guatemalan democracy is in peril amid warning of potential coup to block inauguration of anti-corruption crusader

International concern over the future of Guatemala’s democracy is growing, as Brazil’s president warned of a possible coup to stop the president-elect taking power and the US denounced unprecedented attempts to undermine the Central American country’s election result.

The centre-left anti-corruption crusader Bernardo Arévalo was elected Guatemala’s new president last month. This week thousands of supporters took to the streets to protest against alleged attempts to block his inauguration in January.

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Brazilians applaud Lula’s return to diplomacy as he addresses UN general assembly

Relief in Brazil as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks at the UN after four chaotic years of rule by the far-right Jair Bolsonaro

“Our world is becoming unhinged,” the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned as he kicked off the body’s assembly general on Tuesday.

But many Brazilians felt that in their country’s case at least, sanity had returned as its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, took to the rostrum in New York to proclaim a new dawn after the chaotic term of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

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Israeli ambassador protests as Iranian president speaks – as it happened

The United Nations general assembly liveblog is now closed, but please see the following stories to stay on top of the day’s news:

Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone following its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”

The war in Ukraine has “serious implications” for the world beyond Kyiv, he says, pointing to the collapse of the Black Sea grain initiative.

The world badly needs Ukrainian food and Russian food and fertilisers to stabilise markets and guarantee food security.

Sudan is descending into full scale civil war. Millions have fled and the country risks splitting apart.

In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, millions are displaced and gender based violence is a horrific daily reality in a country that suffered centuries of colonial exploitation, is today overwhelmed by gang violence and still awaits international support.

Authoritarianism is on the march, inequalities are growing, and hate speech is on the rise.

What we need is determination and determination which is in the DNA of our United Nations, summoning gods with the first words of the charter.

We the peoples of the United Nations, determined, determined to end the scourge of war, determined to reaffirm faith in human rights, determined to uphold justice and respect international law and determined to promote social progress and better lives for all people.

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Lula backpedals on suggestion Putin could attend G20 without fear of arrest

Comments were at odds with Brazil foreign minister’s statement that Putin could face ‘issues’ if he traveled to any ICC member state

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has rowed back on comments suggesting Vladimir Putin would be able to attend next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without fear of arrest.

The international criminal court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the Russian leader’s arrest for alleged war crimes in Ukraine and, as a signatory of the Rome statute, Brazil is duty-bound to cooperate with the court. But on Saturday Lula raised eyebrows by telling an Indian interviewer there was “no reason” Putin would be detained if he travelled to the November 2024 summit in Brazil.

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