Category Archives: Brazil

Bird flu: H5N1 virus in Brazil wild birds prompts animal health emergency

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Health declaration to last 180 days, as world’s biggest exporter of chicken meat detects virus for first time ever

Brazil has declared a state of animal health emergency for 180 days in response to its first ever detection of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus in wild birds.

Brazil – the world’s biggest chicken meat exporter with US$9.7bn in sales in 2022 – has so far confirmed eight cases of the H5N1 in wild birds, including seven in Espirito Santo state and one in Rio de Janeiro state.

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Spanish prosecutors investigate racist football abuse against Vinícius Júnior

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Judicial sources say incident during Real Madrid’s match with Valencia is being treated as possible hate crime

Spanish prosecutors have opened an investigation over racist chants hurled at Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward Vinícius Júnior during a weekend match, as the head of Spain’s football federation admitted the country had a “problem” with racism.

The prosecutor’s office in the eastern city of Valencia, where the game took place, was investigating the incident as a possible “hate crime”, judicial sources said, after Luis Rubiales of the Royal Spanish Football Federation called for zero tolerance.

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Zelenskiy uses G7 summit to reach beyond the west for support

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Ukraine’s leader knows he needs to win over nonaligned countries such as Brazil and India to increase the pressure on Russia

Normally G7 summits are about battling for the free world comma by comma, as diplomats parse lengthy communiques of ephemeral significance long into the night. Words, after all, constitute much of a diplomat’s work.

At the Hiroshima G7 some of the communiques emerging from the summit do matter, notably the toolbox on de-risking trade with China, but the true significance of the summit lay in Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s scene-stealing visit courtesy of a ride in Emmanuel Macron’s French aircraft.

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Ex-chief of Brazil’s Indigenous agency charged over murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips

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Marcelo Xavier accused of indirectly contributing on the grounds that he failed to take steps to protect workers in Amazon

Federal police have brought criminal charges against the former head of Brazil’s Indigenous protection agency for alleged acts of omission they believe indirectly paved the way for the murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips in the Amazon last year.

Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro made Marcelo Xavier the head of the Indigenous agency Funai in July 2019, six months into his environmentally devastating four-year administration.

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PM announces new sanctions – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Biden’s cancellation not a snub, Marles insists

The media is still trying to get the Albanese government to admit it feels bruised after Joe Biden cancelled his Australian visit for the Quad leaders meeting.

You’ve got a leader of a country who is dealing with an urgent issue in terms of their domestic politics. It’s unfortunate. But it happens. It’s nothing more than that.

It says a lot about Australia’s standing in the world right now. It says a lot, I think particularly about our relationship with Japan, actually, given that they’re the hosts of this.

We wish to express our thanks to God and all who have continued to pray for us.

We express our relief that Dr Elliott is free and thank the Australian Government and all who have been involved over time to secure his release. We also continue to pray for those still held and wish them freedom and safe return to their loved ones.

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Rita Lee, Brazil’s undisputed Queen of Rock, dies aged 75

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Tributes pour in for founder of Os Mutantes, who sardonically named her tumour after far-right president Jair Bolsonaro

Rita Lee, the legendary Brazilian musician, composer and founder of the trailblazing band Os Mutantes, has died at 75, prompting emotional tributes to Brazil’s undisputed “Queen of Rock”.

Rita Lee was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021, memorably nicknaming her tumour “Jair” – a sardonic reference to Brazil’s widely loathed then president, Jair Bolsonaro.

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David Miranda, campaigner and former Brazilian congressman, dies aged 37

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Lula celebrates ‘extraordinary trajectory’ of favela-born politician and Guardian columnist who played key role in Snowden leaks

Brazilian politicians, celebrities and social activists have paid tribute to the vivacious, loving and combative former congressman and campaigner David Miranda who has died in Rio de Janeiro aged 37.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrated the “extraordinary trajectory” of the favela-born politician who served in the country’s congress between 2019 and 2022 and was a powerful voice of resistance during the far-right administration of Jair Bolsonaro.

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Grain trader Cargill faces legal challenge in US over Brazilian soya supply chain

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World’s biggest grain trader accused of ‘shoddy due diligence’ on deforestation and alleged rights violations

The world’s largest grain trader, Cargill, is facing a first-ever legal challenge in the United States over its failure to remove deforestation and human rights abuses from its soya supply chain in Brazil.

ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, filed the formal complaint on Thursday, accusing Cargill of inadequate monitoring and a laggard response to the decline of the Amazon rainforest and other globally important biomes, such as the Cerrado savannah and the Atlantic Forest.

Soya beans bought from third-party traders, which make up 42% of all Brazilian soya Cargill purchases.

Soya beans owned by other companies that passes through Cargill ports.

Indirect land use change.

Soya sourced from the Cerrado savannah.

Soya sourced from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

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Brazil receives pushback from tech companies on ‘fake news’ bill

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Brazilian government has accused Alphabet of interference after it placed advertising on its search homepage and YouTube

Brazil’s government is taking a stand against major tech companies over a new internet regulation that is shaping up to be one of the world’s strongest legislations on social media.

Bill 2630, also known as the ‘fake news’ law, puts the onus on the internet companies, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material, instead of leaving it to the courts, charging hefty fines for failures to do so.

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Brazilian police search Jair Bolsonaro mansion and arrest aide

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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’s battle to reclaim Yanomami lands from illegal miners turns deadly

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Fatalities underline dangers in government efforts to evict thousands of miners who have devastated Indigenous territory

Brazil’s battle to reclaim its largest Indigenous territory from tens of thousands of illegal miners has taken a deadly turn after at least five people were reportedly killed during 36 hours of violence in the Amazon’s sprawling Yanomami territory.

The bloodshed began on Saturday afternoon when masked illegal miners allegedly launched an attack on a Yanomami village called Uxiu.

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Jair Bolsonaro questioned by police investigating Brazil coup attempt

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Former president of Brazil says he shared video ‘by mistake’ while on morphine in US hospital

Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been ridiculed by his political opponents after he was questioned by federal police as part of a criminal investigation into January’s alleged coup attempt and claimed he had shared a video questioning last year’s election result “by mistake”.

Bolsonaro spent more than two hours in the company of police investigators on Wednesday morning, nearly four months after thousands of hardcore supporters ran riot in the capital, Brasília, in what the new administration called a botched coup intended to reinstall the far-right former army captain as president.

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Portugal should apologise for role in slave trade, says its president

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Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa makes rare acknowledgement of centuries of forced transportation of millions of Africans

Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has said his country should apologise and take responsibility for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, the first time a leader of the southern European nation has suggested such a national apology.

From the 15th to the 19th century, 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic by Portuguese vessels and sold into slavery, primarily to Brazil.

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EU firms accused of ‘abhorrent’ export of banned pesticides to Brazil

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BASF among firms selling chemicals to sugar industry despite links to human health risks

Pesticides banned in the EU because of their links to human health risks are being exported and used on farms in Brazil supplying Nestlé, an investigation has revealed.

Europe is home to some of the world’s biggest and most profitable chemical companies, including the Swiss-based Syngenta and the German multinationals BASF and Bayer.

This article was amended on 25 April 2023. Although fipronil and triflumuron have been banned in the EU they have not been identified as potential carcinogens.

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2023 Goldman environmental prize winners include Texas Gulf coast defender

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Diane Wilson took on Formosa Plastics and won a $50m settlement to help clean up decades worth of toxic plastic waste

Grassroots activists who took on British mining giants and a serial plastics polluter – and won – are among this year’s recipients of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.

The environmental campaigns led by the six 2023 Goldman prize winners highlight the hurdles faced by some local activists, who are often on the frontlines confronting the toxic mix of corporate greed and systemic corruption that is fuelling the climate emergency, biodiversity collapse and increasingly forced displacement.

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

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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

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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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UK company mining gold in Amazon on disputed land

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London-listed Serabi Gold extracting gold without approval of Brazilian land registry and Indigenous communities

A London-listed company has been mining gold in the Amazon rainforest without approval from the Brazilian land agency or the consent of nearby Indigenous communities, according to an investigation by the Guardian and partners.

Serabi Gold has been blasting 4.5 metre-wide tunnels and trucking ore from the Coringa project site in Pará state. But interviews with land agency officials and documents seen by the Guardian, Unearthed and Sumaúma indicate that ownership of the area is disputed and the land was allegedly occupied by illegal land-grabbers.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin and Zelenskiy visit troops near frontline

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This blog has now closed, you can read more of out Ukraine war coverage here

You may have seen that we are testing a new feature across some of the Guardian’s live blogs, including the Ukraine live blog, which allows you to contact some of our live bloggers directly. This is for people who want to message us, they are not public comments.

If you have something you’ve seen you think I’ve missed, or you have questions or comments about the war or our coverage, or have spotted one of my regular typos or transliteration errors, please do drop me a line.

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

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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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