Jair Bolsonaro, Javier Milei and Giorgia Meloni among those in Europe and the Americas paying tribute
Key members of the global far right have celebrated Donald Trump’s US election win, with tributes to the former president rolling in from Rio de Janeiro to Budapest.
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán – who had vowed to toast a Trump win with “several bottles of champagne” – hailed what he called “a much-needed victory for the world!”
Continue reading...Election watchers in Europe, Asia and elsewhere will be tuning in – and some have a particular interest in the result
From Brazil to Ireland and Germany to the Caribbean, this year’s knife-edge – and more than usually momentous – US presidential vote will be watched at a multitude of election-night events, some with a particular interest in the outcome.
In St Ann Parish, Jamaica – and most particularly in Browns Town, where Harris’s father Donald was born and the Democratic candidate spent many happy childhood holidays – her supporters plan watch parties, drink-ups and other social gatherings.
Continue reading...Brazilian federal police announce end of two-year inquiry into killing of journalist and Indigenous expert in Amazon
Federal police in Brazil have formally charged the alleged mastermind of the murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira in the Amazon, accusing him of arming and funding the criminal group responsible for the crime as well as plotting to hide the victims’ bodies.
In a statement released on Monday morning, police in the Amazon city of Manaus announced they had concluded the two-year investigation into the shootings of the British journalist and the Brazilian Indigenous expert in June 2022.
Continue reading...Ronnie Lessa and Élcio de Queiroz sentenced to 78 and 59 years over 2018 murder of prominent Rio city councillor
Two former police officers who confessed to the murder of Rio city councillor Marielle Franco have been sentenced to decades in prison for their part in a crime that shook Brazil and cast a harsh spotlight on the links between politics and organised crime.
Ronnie Lessa admitted to firing 14 shots in the 2018 drive-by shooting that killed Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes, 39, and was sentenced to 78 years and nine months. Élcio de Queiroz, who confessed to driving the getaway car, was sentenced to 59 years and eight months.
Continue reading...Russian president’s goal to de-dollarize world economy alarms members that do not want bloc to turn against west
Vladimir Putin has opened the expanded Brics summit by issuing a call for an alternative international payments system that could prevent the US using the dollar as a political weapon.
But the summit communique indicated that little progress had been made on an alternative payment system.
Continue reading...West infuriated as UN secretary general accepts invitation to meeting of countries including China, India and Iran
Vladimir Putin, ostracised by the west and labelled a possible war criminal by the international criminal court, has played host to 36 world leaders from nations including China, India and Iran as part of a summit of the Brics group designed to display Moscow as anything but isolated.
One of the main aims of the summit will be to speed up ways to reduce the number of dollar transactions, and so mitigate the US ability to use the threat of sanctions to seek to impose its political will.
Continue reading...Doctors say president sustained ‘great’ trauma to head and slight brain bleed, with long-haul travel cancelled as a precaution but is otherwise fit for duty
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on Sunday cancelled his trip to Russia for the Brics summit after a fall at home caused a minor brain haemorrhage.
In a statement, the presidential office said Lula, 78, would participate via videoconference after receiving medical advice to temporarily avoid long-haul flights. He was initially scheduled to depart at 5pm on Sunday.
Continue reading...The South American leaders are in the spotlight as they prepare to host this week’s Cop16 biodiversity summit, November’s G20 meeting and next year’s Cop30 climate summit
The rainforest nations of Brazil and Colombia have the best opportunity in a generation to drag the Amazon back from the abyss as they host three of the world’s most important environmental negotiations in the space of little more than a year.
In the process, their leaders – pacesetting Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and the more cautious and contradictory Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – will offer up overlapping visions for the future of the Amazon, and the world’s path to net zero.
Continue reading...Claimants seeking damages from Anglo-Australian mining company over 2015 environmental disaster in Brazil
The mother of a seven-year-old boy who was torn from the arms of his grandmother and drowned in one of Brazil’s worst environmental disasters is among more than 620,000 claimants who will have their case heard this month in the largest group claim in English legal history.
Gelvana Aparecida Rodrigues da Silva, 37, lost her son Thiago on 5 November 2015 when the Fundão dam, near Mariana in eastern Brazil, collapsed, releasing about 50m cubic metres of toxic waste.
Continue reading...Social platform was blocked after tech billionaire failed to name local representatives and pay fines
Brazilians are set to regain access to X after a supreme court judge lifted a ban introduced nearly six weeks ago as a result of Elon Musk’s failure to comply with the South American country’s laws.
X was blocked in Brazil, where it had more than 22 million users, at the end of August in what was the culmination of a months-long arm wrestle between the network’s billionaire owner and the Brazilian supreme court.
Continue reading...Hurricane activity is strong in Atlantic while months of below-average rainfall in South America leads to drought
Hurricane Kirk is heading towards Europe. At its peak strength in the mid-Atlantic, Kirk reached category 4 status with maximum wind speeds of 145mph. As Kirk tracks north-east towards Europe, leaving the warm seas behind, it is expected to be downgraded to a category 1 hurricane by Monday.
Over the next few days, Kirk will undergo extratropical transition, becoming an ex-hurricane by the time it reaches Europe’s shores on Tuesday or Wednesday. Although there remains some model differences in the exact path of extratropical cyclone Kirk, it is projected to track across northern Europe with France, Belgium, the Netherlands and then northern Germany having the strongest winds and heaviest rain. Southernmost parts of the UK may experience some heavy rainfall if the system tracks ever so slightly further north.
Continue reading...Two televised debates ahead of 6 October mayoral election turn physically violent, with participants treated in hospital
Brazilians call overcast São Paulo their country’s “land of drizzle”.
But in recent months it has been raining punches not precipitation as Latin America’s largest city endures what observers call the most violent and unruly election in its history.
Continue reading...The platform agrees to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, pays fines and takes down user accounts that the court had ordered removed
Elon Musk fought the law. The law appears to have won.
X, Musk’s social media platform, has backed down in its fight with the Brazilian judiciary, after complying with court orders that had blocked users in the country from accessing X.
Continue reading...Firefighters and police in Rondônia battle fires intensified by both the climate crisis and a criminal assault on the rainforest
The occupants of the vinyl-coated military tents at this remote jungle camp in Brazil’s wild west compare the hellscape surrounding them to catastrophes old and new: the extinction of the dinosaurs, the bombardment of Gaza, the obliteration of Hiroshima during the second world war.
“It’s as if a nuclear bomb has gone off. There’s no forest. There’s nothing. Everything’s burned. It’s chaos,” said Lt Col Victor Paulo Rodrigues de Souza as he gave a tour of the base on the frontline of Brazil’s fight against one of its worst burning seasons in years and a relentless assault on the greatest tropical rainforest on Earth.
Continue reading...Justice Alexandre de Moraes imposes $900,000 daily fine on banned social media platform in dispute with Elon Musk
In the latest round of the dispute between Elon Musk and Brazil’s top court, a senior judge has accused X of a “willful, illegal and persistent” effort to circumvent a court-ordered block – and imposed a fine of R$5m ($921,676) for each day the social network remains online.
The social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which has been banned by court order since 30 August, on Wednesday became accessible to many users in Brazil after an update that used cloud services offered by third parties, such as Cloudflare, Fastly and Edgeuno.
Continue reading...Social media platform routes internet traffic outside of Brazil using a communications network update
Social media platform Twitter/X became accessible to many users in Brazil on Wednesday as an update to its communications network circumvented a block order by the country’s supreme court.
The X update used cloud services offered by third parties, allowing some Brazilian users to take a route outside of the country to reach X, even without a virtual private network, according to Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers.
Continue reading...Activists greet decision over killings of British journalist and Brazilian Indigenous expert with ‘indignation’
Appeal judges in Brazil yesterday upheld charges against only two of the three men accused of murdering Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, in a decision “received with indignation” by Indigenous activists.
The three judges ruled that there was “insufficient evidence of authorship or participation” by Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, a fisher, in the 2022 deaths of the Brazilian Indigenous expert and the British Guardian journalist.
Continue reading...Report reveals how US Christians, Catholic schools and Islamists fight sex education, LGBTQ+ and equal rights
Extreme religious groups and political parties are targeting schools around the world as part of a coordinated and well-funded attack on gender equality, according to a new report.
Well-known conservative organisations aim to restrict girls’ access to education, change what is on the curriculum, and influence educational laws and policies, according to Whose Hands on our Education, a report by the Overseas Development Institute.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Latin America was the most deadly region in which to defend ecosystems from mining and deforestation, with Indigenous people among half the dead
At least 196 people were killed last year for defending the environment, with more than a third of killings taking place in Colombia, new figures show.
From campaigners who spoke out against mining projects to Indigenous communities targeted by organised crime groups, an environmental defender was killed every other day in 2023, according to a new report by the NGO Global Witness.
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features.
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