Category Archives: Brazil

Taylor Swift fan died of heat exhaustion at Rio concert, forensics report finds

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Ana Clara Benevides, 23, died hours after the singer’s 17 November show – a day when temperatures hit 40C

Heat exhaustion caused the death of a Brazilian fan who attended a Taylor Swift concert in November, according to a forensics report obtained by the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Ana Clara Benevides, 23, passed out during Swift’s second song at the show in Rio de Janeiro on 17 November and died hours later at a local hospital. Temperatures in the city that day were at about 40C (105F).

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Illegal mining on rise again in Amazon, says Yanomami leader

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Activist Davi Kopenawa says miners are returning after eviction operations were scaled back, and others never left

Thousands of illegal miners are resisting government attempts to evict them from Brazil’s largest Indigenous territory, the renowned activist and shaman Davi Kopenawa has said, nearly a year after operations to displace them began.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made expelling an estimated 20,000 illegal gold and tin ore miners from the Yanomami Indigenous territory one of his top tasks after taking power last January.

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Mixed-race people become Brazil’s biggest population group

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Grouping that includes descendants of Indigenous Brazilians as well as of Africans now outnumbers white population

Mixed-race Brazilians are now the largest population group in the South American country, the latest census has revealed, as the number of people identifying as African-descended in Brazil continues to grow.

New data from the 2022 census released on Friday shows that 92.1 million Brazilians identify as mixed-race, equivalent to 45.3% of the population. This is up from 43.1% in 2010, when the last census was carried out.

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Visualised: how all of G20 is missing climate goals — but some nations are closer than others

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As world leaders gather at Cop28, these charts show how far away the major economies are from their targets

Not a single G20 country has policies in place that are consistent with the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C and meeting their “fair share” of emissions reduction.

The assessment, based on data up to 5 December provided by the Climate Action Tracker, comes as leaders gather in Dubai for the Cop28 conference.

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

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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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‘A biodiversity catastrophe’: how the world could look in 2050 – unless we act now

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The climate crisis, invasive species, overexploitation of resources and pollution could break down crucial ecosystems. We asked experts to lay out the risks and offer some solutions

The continued destruction of nature across the planet will result in major shocks to food supplies and safe water, the disappearance of unique species and the loss of landscapes central to human culture and leisure by the middle of this century, experts have warned.

By 2050, if humanity does not follow through on commitments to tackle the five main drivers of nature loss critical natural systems could break down just as the human population is projected to peak.

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Bolsonaro under investigation for ‘harassing’ humpback whale

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Man resembling Brazilian ex-president seemingly spotted on a jetski about 15 metres from distressed mammal

Federal police are investigating Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, for yet another suspected misdeed: “harassing” a humpback whale while taking a public holiday spin on his jetski.

Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental policies earned him the nickname “Captain Chainsaw” during a four-year administration characterised by soaring destruction of the Amazon. But the far-right ex-president’s latest suspected environmental offence reportedly occurred in the waters off Brazil’s south-eastern coastline near the town of São Sebastião.

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‘Hell de Janeiro’: scorching heat highlights Brazil’s glaring inequality

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It felt like 58.5C in Rio on Tuesday – and the soaring, indeed dangerous, temperatures are hitting the poorest hardest

The start of summer in the southern hemisphere is still a month away, but Brazil has already experienced its eighth heatwave of the year so far, as temperatures soar to dangerously high levels.

Large swathes of the country were put under red alert this week by Inmet, the national meteorological institute, which warned of risks to health “and even life” as temperatures stayed at least five degrees Celsius above average for more than five days.

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Taylor Swift postpones Rio concert after fan dies amid heatwave

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Singer says safety comes first after death of Ana Clara Benevides Machado, 23, in sweltering stadium

Taylor Swift’s concert in Brazil on Saturday night has been postponed after a fan died shortly before the start of her gig in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.

The show’s organisers, Time4Fun (T4F), said in a statement that paramedics had attended to Ana Clara Benevides Machado, 23, at the concert venue and taken her to a hospital, where she died an hour later.

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Ex-minister Gavin Williamson warned as he takes job at payment card provider

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Advisory committee on business appointments tells MP he must not utilise contacts in government in Lanistar role

The former cabinet minister Gavin Williamson has taken a job at a firm launching a payment card “built for the influencer lifestyle”, which was previously hit with a consumer warning by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and currently only offers its product in Brazil.

Williamson has gained permission to join the advisory board of Lanistar, whose website says it wants to roll out its virtual payment card and crypto services to the UK and EU.

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Two with suspected Hezbollah links held in Brazil over alleged terror plot

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Arrests made by police on Wednesday over reported plot to launch terror attacks against Jewish community in Brazil

Brazilian federal police have arrested two men with suspected links to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah who were reportedly plotting to launch terror attacks against the Jewish community in Brazil.

The arrests were made on Wednesday during what police called an operation to “interrupt preparations for acts of terrorism and obtain evidence about the possible recruitment of Brazilians to commit of extremist acts”.

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Brazil: Lula deploys troops to ports and airports in organised crime crackdown

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Military intervention to last until May and is reportedly designed to cut off key drug and gun smuggling routes

Thousands of troops have taken up position in the ports and airports of Rio and São Paulo and along Brazil’s western border as part of efforts to “asphyxiate” organized crime amid an upsurge in bloodshed and violence.

The military intervention – ordered last Friday by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – will last until next May and is reportedly designed to cut off the drug and gun smuggling routes on which trafficking and mafia groups depend.

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‘Funk is the reality we live’: Rio show celebrates sound of the favela

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Exhibition puts music previously shunned by elites as ‘stuff of outlaws’ in long tradition of black culture and resistance

Hebert Amorim was eight when he got his first taste of funk carioca (Rio funk): a pirate CD by Mr Catra, a favela MC famed for his ferociously explicit verses about gangs, guns and sex.

“My mum caught me listening to it and went mental,” said the 30-year-old visual artist from Senador Camará, a hardscrabble corner of west Rio de Janeiro where police fear to tread.

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Deforestation has big impact on regional temperatures, study of Brazilian Amazon shows

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Research highlights benefits forests bring surrounding regions in terms of cooler air and more rainfall

Deforestation has a far greater impact on regional temperatures than previously believed, according to a new study of the Brazilian Amazon that shows agricultural businesses would be among the biggest beneficiaries of forest conservation.

The research has important political implications because farmers in Amazonian states have, until now, led the way in forest destruction on the assumption that they will make money by clearing more land.

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Aurelius Group in talks to buy the Body Shop, says report

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Banking sources say a deal for the beauty products chain is expected to be signed next month

The private equity investor Aurelius Group is in talks to buy the beauty products chain the Body Shop, which has been put up for sale by its Brazilian owner, Natura & Co, a source familiar with the talks has told Reuters.

If completed, the deal is expected to value the Body Shop at a lower price than the £400m-£500m suggested in some media reports, the source said.

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Environmental crime money easy to stash in US due to loopholes, report finds

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Secrecy and lax oversight mean illegal loggers and miners in Amazon can park billions in real estate and other assets

Secrecy and lax oversight have made the US a hiding place for dirty money accrued by environmental criminals in the Amazon rainforest, a report says.

Illegal loggers and miners are parking sums ranging from millions to billions of dollars in US real estate and other assets, says the report, which calls on Congress and the White House to close loopholes in financial regulations that it says are contributing to the destruction of the world’s biggest tropical forest.

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Ancient rock carvings revealed by receding Amazon waters amid drought

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Human faces and other figures believed to be up to 2,000 years old exposed as Brazil river level hits record low

Human faces and other figures etched in stone up to 2,000 years ago have been revealed on Amazon riverbanks as a historic drought in the Brazilian region has brought water levels to unprecedented lows.

The petroglyphs, which include animals and other natural forms, have been revealed on the shores of the Rio Negro, at an archeological site known as the Ponto das Lajes, or Place of Slabs.

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

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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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Drought turns Amazonian capital into climate dystopia

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Forest fires leave Manaus with second worst air quality in the world, while low river levels cut off communities

A withering drought has turned the Amazonian capital of Manaus into a climate dystopia with the second worst air quality in the world and rivers at the lowest levels in 121 years.

The city of 1 million people, which is surrounded by a forest of trees, normally basks under blue skies. Tourists take pleasure boats to the nearby meeting of the Negro and Amazon (known locally as the Solimões) rivers, where dolphins can often be seen enjoying what are usually the most abundant freshwater resources in the world.

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

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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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