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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Fourteen people killed in plane crash in Brazil’s Amazonas state

Regional governor says 12 passengers and two crew were onboard the Embraer aircraft when it crashed in Barcelos province

Fourteen people on a small plane died when it crashed in Brazil’s northern Amazonas state on Saturday, the regional governor said.

The crash took place in Barcelos province, about 250 miles (400km) from the state capital, Manaus.

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Bolsonaro aide tells police he sold luxury watches for ex-president – report

Lt Col Mauro Cid said to admit selling watches from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in Pennsylvania mall and handing cash to Bolsonaro

Jair Bolsonaro’s former personal secretary has reportedly told police he handed tens of thousands of dollars to his old boss after selling two luxury watches that Brazil’s ex-president had received as official gifts.

Lt Col Mauro Cid, who was Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp during his 2019-23 presidency, was released from four months’ detention on Saturday after striking a plea deal with police.

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Far-right fanatic given 17 years for role in Brazil coup attempt

Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira, 51, is first rioter to be tried for January assault on Latin America’s largest democracy

Brazil’s supreme court has sentenced a far-right fanatic to 17 years in prison for his role in the failed attempt to topple the country’s leftwing government on 8 January this year.

Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira, 51, a sanitation worker from São Paulo, was the first rioter to face trial for January’s dramatic assault on Latin America’s largest democracy.

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Trial of Brazil’s alleged 8 January insurrectionists opens in supreme court

Judge condemns ‘dastardly putschist attack’ on Latin America’s largest democracy as first four Bolsonaro supporters go on trial

The hate-filled vandals behind the “dastardly putschist attack” on Latin America’s largest democracy must be brought to justice, a supreme court judge has declared as Brazil held the first trial connected to Brasília’s 8 January insurrection.

Thousands of followers of the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro marauded through Brazil’s capital on 8 January this year in what his leftwing successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called an attempted coup d’état. Nearly 2,000 militant Bolsonaro supporters were arrested in the days after the presidential palace, supreme court and congress were ransacked by Bolsonarista radicals outraged at his defeat in last October’s election.

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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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Lula says Putin can attend next year’s G20 in Rio without fear of arrest

Brazil’s president, now the group’s leader, says his Russian counterpart is welcome at 2024 event

Vladimir Putin can attend next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without fear of arrest, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said as he took leadership of the forum.

Speaking at this year’s meeting in Delhi, Lula – who has controversially tried to position himself as a peacemaker between Moscow and Kyiv – said the Russian president would be welcome to attend the November 2024 event.

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Manchester United’s Antony appears on Brazilian TV to deny assault allegations

  • Footballer denies allegations on Brazil’s SBT network
  • Three women have accused Brazil forward of assaulting them

The Manchester United winger Antony has spoken on Brazilian television denying allegations made against him of violence towards women. The 23-year-old was dropped this week from the Brazil squad after accusations were made of physical aggression on a number of occasions since January towards his former girlfriend Gabriela Cavallin, which are being investigated by police and which he denies.

Since then, the Brazilian newspaper Extra has reported that the influencer and law student Rayssa de Freitas filed a police report in May 2022 against Antony alleging she sustained injuries in an incident involving the player and another woman after a night out in São Paulo. Meanwhile, the banker Ingrid Lana told Brazil’s RecordTV that in an incident at Antony’s home in Manchester in October 2022 he “pushed me against the wall, and I hit my head”.

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Extratropical cyclone kills at least 31 in Brazil and leaves over 1,600 homeless

More than 60 cities battered by storm since Monday night as more heavy rains expected but sparing worst-hit areas

An extratropical cyclone in southern Brazil has caused floods in several cities, killing at least 31 people and leaving more than 1,600 homeless.

More than 60 cities have been battered by the storm since Monday night, and Rio Grande do Sul’s governor, Eduardo Leite, said the death toll was the state’s highest due to a climate event.

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Brazil launches biggest ever operation against illegal cattle farms in Amazon

Taskforce deployed to remove thousands of cows owned by land grabbers from indigenous territory

The Brazilian government has launched its biggest ever operation to remove thousands of cows owned by illegal land grabbers from indigenous territory in the Amazon rainforest.

Three helicopters, a dozen vehicles and a heavily armed corps of police and environment rangers are carrying out the cattle drive, which criminal gangs attempted to block by setting fires on the route, destroying bridges and intimidating drivers.

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Possibility of arrest grows for Bolsonaro over jewellery scandal

Friends and foes of Brazil’s former president believe it is only a matter of time before he is detained

Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has never shown much sympathy for prisoners.

“Why should we give those dirtbags a good life? … They should just get fucked, full-fucking-stop. That’s what I reckon,” he once ranted.

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Labour’s David Lammy visits Brazil to build ‘climate justice’ partnership

Shadow foreign secretary says Starmer government would work with President Lula on radical climate action

The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has taken his green diplomatic policy for a test spin in Brazil this month in the hope that “climate justice” can serve as an international rallying cry for a future Labour government.

In an interview with the Guardian, Lammy said a Labour victory at the next general election would allow Keir Starmer to build a partnership for radical climate action with Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, before the UN’s Cop30 climate summit in Belém in 2025.

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Brics to more than double with admission of six new countries

Major expansion as economic bloc that includes Russia and China attempts to provide counterweight to the US and western allies

The Brics group of big emerging economies has announced the admission of six new members, in an attempt to reshape the global world order and provide a counterweight to the US and its allies.

From the beginning of next year, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, the UAE and Ethiopia will join the current five members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – it was announced at a summit in Johannesburg on Thursday.

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Amazon’s emissions ‘doubled’ under first half of Bolsonaro presidency

New study published in Nature says period was as destructive as record 2016 El Niño drought and heatwave

The first half of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency was so destructive for the Amazon that it was comparable to the record 2016 El Niño drought and heatwave in terms of carbon emissions, according to scientists.

Annual emissions from the world’s largest rainforest roughly doubled in 2019 and 2020, compared with the 2010 to 2018 average, according to a new study published in Nature, as swaths of forest were deliberately cleared and burned for cattle ranching and farming during the first two years of the far-right leader’s time in office.

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Brics group looks to expand at summit despite divisions among key members

Experts say India concerned about expansion and any overt anti-west turn as leaders fly into South Africa

Leaders from developing countries representing almost half the world’s population including China and Russia are meeting in South Africa for a key summit aimed at reinforcing their alliance as a counterweight to the west.

The Brics grouping summit in Johannesburg is being hosted by the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and brings together the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, as well the presidents of China, Xi Jinping, and Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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Murder of Black community activist, 72, in Brazil prompts calls for action

Maria Bernadete Pacífico, whose son was shot dead in 2017, killed by gunmen at her home in Bahia

Human rights organisations in Brazil are clamouring for justice following the murder of a Black community activist who had been receiving threats.

Maria Bernadete Pacífico, a community and religious leader in the Pitanga dos Palmares quilombo – an Afro-Brazilian settlement of descendants of escaped slaves in the north-east state of Bahia – was killed on Thursday evening.

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Brazil inquiry into alleged Bolsonaro-era pilfering of official gifts widens

Close associates of ex-president – and possibly Bolsonaro himself – have been accused of selling off expensive gifts

“Every Rolex tells a story,” the luxury watchmaker once claimed.

Brazilian police believe that slogan is particularly true when it comes to the diamond-set timepiece at the centre of an investigation into the suspected pilfering of high-priced official gifts by close associates of Jair Bolsonaro – and possibly the former president himself.

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‘The state is murderous’: Brazilians vow justice for 13-year-old boy shot by police

Thiago Menezes Flausino, who dreamed of becoming a footballer, was the ninth child to die in a shooting this year in Rio

Those who knew Thiago Menezes Flausino described him as a boy with dreams. These were brutally shattered by several police bullets this week, when the 13-year-old became one of the latest victims of state violence in a Rio de Janeiro favela.

“He dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. He’d passed tryouts for a bigger team and was going to start playing on the day he was killed,” said his aunt Nataly Bezerra Flausino, standing outside the evangelical church where her nephew’s funeral was being held on Tuesday, mere months after his baptism.

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Thursday briefing: Inside South America’s summit to save the Amazon

In today’s newsletter: After years of rampant exploitation under a far-right government, Brazil has brought together leaders to help secure the future of the world’s biggest rainforest – and create ‘a just ecological transition’

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Good morning. “I think the world needs to see this meeting in Belém as the most important landmark ever … when it comes to discussing the climate question.” For once you can forgive the hyperbole of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, when he spoke about this week’s Amazon summit.

Leaders from the eight South American countries that share the river basin have been meeting this week in the Brazilian city to discuss an issue that, by any measure, is a global emergency: how to protect the vast rainforest and safeguard its critical role in regulating the planetary climate.

Education | Rising costs and family needs could force one in three students starting university this year to opt to live at home, according to new research. While some of the “Covid generation” of school-leavers said they planned to live at home because their preferred university was nearby, most said they could not afford to live away from home.

Northern Ireland | The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has launched an investigation into an unprecedented data breach that disclosed details of more than 10,000 police officers and staff in Northern Ireland. The agency, which regulates data privacy laws, is working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland to establish the level of risk amid warnings that the leak may compel officers to leave the force or move their home address.

Hawaii | Six people were killed after unprecedented wildfires tore through the Hawaiian island of Maui. The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, destroyed businesses in the historic town of Lahaina, and left at least two dozen people injured.

Ecuador | Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign rally on Wednesday. The country’s president, Guillermo Lasso, said he was “outraged and shocked by the assassination” and would convene a meeting of his security cabinet.

Media | Employees at ITV’s This Morning were allegedly subjected to “bullying, discrimination and harassment”, according to staff members who have spoken out after Phillip Schofield’s departure from the programme. Some workers claim they attempted to raise concerns about the programme only to face “further bullying and discrimination” by bosses for speaking out.

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