Category Archives: Brazil

Floods and landslides in Brazil kill at least 30 after record rainfall

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Firefighters search for 39 people missing in debris after river burst and houses were swept away

Three firefighters pulled a man’s body from the mud amid the rubble of houses swept away in a landslide in south-eastern Brazil, where 30 people died and 39 were still missing on Tuesday after torrential rains.

A river in the state of Minas Gerais burst its banks and streets became raging currents of brown water after an overnight downpour in a region that has seen record rain this month.

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Jair Bolsonaro ordered to start 27-year prison term for plotting Brazil coup

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Ex-president to start serving term in 12 sq metre bedroom in police base in Brasília after time for appeals elapses

Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been ordered to start serving his 27-year sentence in a 12 sq metre bedroom in a police base in the capital, Brasília, after his conviction for plotting a coup.

The far-right populist, 70, who governed Latin America’s largest democracy from 2019 until 2022, was handed the punishment in September after the supreme court found him guilty of leading a criminal conspiracy to stop his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power.

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Jair Bolsonaro claims ‘psychotic attack’ made him tamper with ankle monitor

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Brazil’s former president says he took a soldering iron to electronic tag as he was hallucinating that it was bugged

Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro has claimed he took a soldering iron to his electronic ankle monitor after having a substance-induced “psychotic attack” that caused him to hallucinate that the device was bugged.

Bolsonaro made the claim during a custody hearing on Sunday, 24 hours after he was arrested at his home in the capital, Brasília, amid suspicions he was planning to abscond to a foreign embassy to avoid being sent to jail to serve a 27-year sentence for masterminding a failed coup.

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Jair Bolsonaro arrested after tampering with ankle tag ‘out of curiosity’

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Brazilian ex-president says he used soldering iron on device and is now in custody over fears he was going to abscond

Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has claimed he tried to damage his electronic ankle monitor “out of curiosity” after he was arrested at his villa owing to suspicions he was poised to abscond.

In a video released by the supreme court, Bolsonaro – who was recently sentenced to 27 years in prison for masterminding a military coup – can be heard admitting to a security official that he had used a soldering iron to tamper with the black tag.

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Jailhouse shock: Brazil coup monger Bolsonaro finally faces life behind bars

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The former president’s far-right supporters have discovered a new interest in prison conditions as incarceration looms

He fought the law and the law won.

Two months after receiving a 27-year sentence for trying to “annihilate” Brazil’s democratic institutions, former president Jair Bolsonaro finally looks jail-bound.

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Cop30: UN accused of crackdown on Indigenous people – as it happened

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As the summit entered its second week, complex issues remain with anxiety growing over conference outcomes

Colombia will host a first international conference on the phase out of fossil fuels in April next year, according to advocates of more ambitious action to eliminate the main source of the gases that are heating the planet.

The South American country, which has demonstrated strong climate leadership in recent years, is among a group of 17 nations that have joined the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative which held a press conference on its plans at Cop30 on Monday.

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London judge rules BHP Group liable for Brazil’s 2015 Samarco dam collapse

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About 600,000 people seeking compensation a decade on from disaster that killed 19 and devastated villages

The global mining company BHP Group has been found liable for the deadly 2015 collapse of a Brazilian dam, in a landmark ruling that could pave the way for a multibillion-dollar payout.

The high court in London on Friday, Mrs Justice O’Farrell ruled that BHP was responsible for the collapse of the Fundão dam in Mariana despite not owing the dam at the time.

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Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations except Brazil, report says

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One in every 25 participants at 2025 UN climate summit is a fossil fuel lobbyist, according to Kick Big Polluters Out

More than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the Cop30 climate negotiations in Belém, significantly outnumbering every single country’s delegation apart from the host Brazil, new analysis has found.

One in every 25 participants at this year’s UN climate summit is a fossil fuel lobbyist, according to the analysis by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition, raising serious questions about the corporate capture and credibility of the annual Cop negotiations.

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Row over definition of ‘gender’ hangs over Cop30 plans to support women

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Advocates say conservative states’ push to define gender as ‘biological sex’ would backslide on decade-old language within the UN

A row over the definition of the term “gender” threatens to bog down pivotal talks at the Cop30 climate summit.

Before the UN talks in Brazil, hardline conservative states have pushed to define gender as “biological sex” over their concerns trans and non-binary people could be included in a major plan to ensure climate action addresses gender inequality and empowers women.

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Agenda for Cop30 agreed as crucial climate talks begin – as it happened

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Ministers and high-ranking officials from nearly 200 countries have gathered in the Amazonian city of Belem, with Brazil insisting this will be ‘the Cop of implementation’

Hundreds lined up for Cop30 on opening morning, with some in Indigenous headdresses and others in trouser suits, writes Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for the Guardian US.

The conference is being held in a massive temporary building in Belem’s Parque da Cidade area. It was still under construction just days ago, but now seems to be ready to use.

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Over 100 US leaders to attend Cop30 climate summit as Trump stays away

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Dozens of US state and local leaders will be at talks in Brazil with president’s team expected to send no representatives

The Trump administration appears to be sitting out this month’s United Nations climate talks known as Cop30, telling the Guardian it will not deploy any high-level representatives to the negotiations.

But dozens of US subnational leaders attend to promote their climate efforts.

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Brazil to seek independent inquiry into deadly police raid that killed 121 people

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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.

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‘This was a slaughter, not an operation’: the favela reeling from Rio’s deadliest police raid

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Residents of Vila Cruzeiro gather bodies after more than 130 were killed in pre-dawn assault

Day had yet to break over Vila Cruzeiro but already dozens of corpses were splayed out along the favela’s main drag after more than 130 people were killed during the deadliest police operation in Rio’s history: grotesquely disfigured, blood-smeared bodies that had been dragged out of nearby forests and dumped on blue tarpaulins and black plastic sheets covering the street.

“I’ve brought 53 down myself … there must be another 12 or 15 up there in the bush,” said Erivelton Vidal Correia, the head of the local residents’ association, bleary-eyed from a sleepless night spent hauling bullet-riddled local men down from the hills.

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Brazil: at least 64 reported killed in Rio’s worst day of violence amid police favela raids

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Governor says city ‘at war’ after gunfights between troops and Red Command drug traffickers who reportedly used weaponised drones

At least 64 people have reportedly been killed in Rio’s worst-ever day of violence as more than 2,500 officers and special forces stormed an area of favelas near Rio’s international airport that is considered the headquarters of one of Brazil’s most powerful organised crime groups.

The predawn police raid – the deadliest in Rio’s history – sparked intense gunfights in and around Alemão and Penha favelas, which are home to an estimated 300,000 people.

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Brazilian president will seek fourth term at age 80: ‘I’ve got as much energy as when I was 30’

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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.

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Bus crashes in north-eastern Brazil, killing 17 people, say police

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Driver lost control of bus in Saloá in Pernambuco state and cause of accident is under investigation

A passenger bus in north-eastern Brazil has crashed into a sand embankment and flipped on its side, killing 17 people, local authorities have said.

The bus was carrying about 30 passengers, police said on Saturday, but the number of injured, who were taken to nearby hospitals, was not immediately clear. The vehicle departed from the state of Bahia and crashed in Saloá, a city in the neighbouring state of Pernambuco.

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‘Catholicism is reinventing itself’: Brazilians waking at 4am to stream prayers

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Habit of rising early for live streams growing rapidly, suggesting Brazil is testing ground for religious influencers

Psychologist Cláudia Rodrigues de Oliveira Barbosa, 54, needs to be at work by 7.40am, but she wakes up at 3.40am – not because she has a lengthy commute, but to watch a “dawn prayer” livestream on YouTube.

She is one of the millions of Brazilians who tune in to the 4am sermons of Catholic friar Gilson da Silva Pupo Azevedo, 38, known as Frei Gilson, who has recently averaged an impressive 2m daily views for each video.

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Prince William to attend Cop30 UN climate summit in Brazil

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Prince of Wales’s decision welcomed as a means of drawing attention to the event and galvanising talks

The Prince of Wales will attend the crunch Cop30 UN climate summit in Brazil next month, the Guardian has learned, but whether the prime minister will go is still to be decided.

Prince William will present the Earthshot prize, a global environmental award and attend the meeting of representatives of more than 190 governments in Belém.

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Brazil’s president asks US to scrap tariffs in ‘friendly’ call with Trump

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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.

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World must deny Israel ‘tools of genocide’, says growing alliance of activist states

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New York meeting of Hague Group warns of shared responsibility to prevent genocide and proposes steps to isolate Israel

The international community has a legal and moral duty to deny Israel “the tools of genocide”, the Malaysian foreign minister, Mohamad Hasan, said at a meeting in New York of the Hague Group, the growing alliance of countries dedicated to coordinating practical economic and legal steps to isolate Israel over the war in Gaza.

The group, co-chaired by South Africa and Columbia, has become a central exchange for practical steps to try to pressure Israel, including stepping up collective action at ports and airports to prevent the transfer of weapons and goods to Israel, including dual-use heavy machinery.

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