Category Archives: Brazil

Bolsonaro fan stabs Lula supporter as Brazil election turns deadly

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Political violence breaks out in Mato Grosso state after argument between followers of rival presidential candidates

A supporter of Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has stabbed to death a backer of leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the latest instance of rising political tensions in the buildup to this year’s election.

The violence happened in the west-central state of Mato Grosso, after tempers frayed during an argument over support for the two candidates. Bolsonaro trails Lula in the polls in an election riven by intense polarisation.

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Brazilian forest guardian killed weeks after joining Amazon summit

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Janildo Oliveira Guajajara had recently taken part in an Amazon assembly organised by murdered Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira

A rainforest activist from one of Brazil’s leading Indigenous protection groups has been killed just weeks after participating in an Amazon assembly organised by the murdered Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira.

Janildo Oliveira Guajajara, a member of the Guardiões da Floresta (Forest Guardians) collective, was reportedly shot dead in the early hours of Saturday near the Araribóia Indigenous territory where he lived.

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Large parts of Amazon may never recover, major study says

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Swathes of rainforest have reached tipping point, research by scientists and Indigenous organisations concludes

Environmental destruction in parts of the Amazon is so complete that swathes of the rainforest have reached tipping point and might never be able to recover, a major study carried out by scientists and Indigenous organisations has found.

“The tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,” the report concludes. “Brazil and Bolivia concentrate 90% of all combined deforestation and degradation. As a result, savannization is already taking place in both countries.”

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Prankster seizes Bolsonaro website and turns president into ‘snake-tongued liar’

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Anonymous objector commandeers bolsonaro.com.br domain name and creates devastating takedown of far-right leader

An internet prankster has hijacked a website long used to glorify Brazil’s far-right president and turned it into a devastating online excoriation of Jair Bolsonaro’s “clownish”, “neo-fascist” government.

Bolsonaro and his three politician sons have reportedly used the bolsonaro.com.br domain as an official mouthpiece since the early 2000s.

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Bolsonaro under fire over claims family paid for 51 properties in cash

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Brazilian president must ‘explain the origins of this money’, says reporter behind seven-month investigation

Jair Bolsonaro’s murky family finances have come under renewed scrutiny after claims the Brazilian president and close relatives used cash to pay for more than 50 properties worth millions of dollars.

The allegations – the result of a seven-month investigation by the Brazilian news group UOL – suggest that between 1990 and 2022, members of the Bolsonaro clan repeatedly used large sums of cash to pay for flats, houses and plots of land in cities including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

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Amazon activists mourn death of ‘man of the hole’, last of his tribe

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Man resisted all attempts to contact him, laying traps and firing arrows at anyone who came too close

An unidentified and charismatic Indigenous man thought to have been the last of his tribe has died in the Brazilian Amazon, causing consternation among activists lamenting the loss of another ethnic language and culture.

The solitary and mysterious man was known only as the Índio do Buraco, or the “Indigenous man of the hole”, because he spent much of his existence hiding or sheltering in pits he dug in the ground.

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Heart of Brazil’s first emperor returns after nearly 200 years for ‘state visit’

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Pedro I declared independence from Portugal in 1822, and relic is now at the centre of politically charged election year celebrations

Nearly two centuries after it was cut from his corpse and preserved in formaldehyde, the heart of Emperor Pedro I, who declared Brazil’s independence from Portugal, has returned for politically charged commemorations of the South American country’s 200th birthday.

Dom Pedro, a beloved figure in both Brazilian and Portuguese history, has been divided between the two countries in death – his heart enshrined in a church in Porto, Portugal, and the rest of his remains in an independence monument in São Paulo, Brazil.

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Lula vows to take on Amazon crime if returned to power in Brazil elections

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Ex-president says he will clamp down on illegal miners and loggers after murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

The leading candidate to become Brazil’s next president has vowed to launch a major crackdown on the illegal miners and loggers laying waste to the Amazon in the wake of the “barbaric” murders of the Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips.

Speaking to foreign journalists in São Paulo, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid tribute to the two men, who were gunned down in June while documenting the historic assault on Indigenous lands that has unfolded under Brazil’s current leader, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Leading grain traders ‘sourcing soy beans from Brazilian farm linked to abuse’

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Bunge and Cargill, behind more than 30% of soy exports to EU and UK, accused of exposing suppliers to link with indigenous rights violations

Two of the world’s biggest grain traders are sourcing soy from a Brazilian farm linked to abuses of indigenous rights and land, a report from the environmental group Earthsight claims

Earthsight named the companies as Bunge and Cargill and said they sourced soy produced on a farm located on ancestral land of the Kaiowá indigenous group.

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Police call for Bolsonaro to be charged for spreading Covid misinformation

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Brazil’s federal police ask supreme court to charge president over bogus claims in October 2021 social media broadcast

Brazilian federal police have called for President Jair Bolsonaro to be charged with spreading fake information about a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 680,000 of his citizens, including bogus claims of a link between Aids and Covid vaccines.

Bolsonaro’s anti-scientific response to a disease he called “a bit of a cold” has been internationally condemned and the subject of a congressional inquiry in which the far-right populist was accused of deliberately delaying vaccine purchases and promoting quack “cures” such as hydroxychloroquine.

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Lula says Bolsonaro ‘possessed by devil’ as he launches Brazil election campaign

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Leftwing frontrunner counters far-right president’s efforts to demonize him with evangelical voters in bitterly divided country

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has formally launched his campaign to reclaim the presidency with a ferocious broadside against his rival, Jair Bolsonaro, who he claimed was “possessed by the devil”.

Lula’s rebuke came on the first official day of campaigning before Brazil’s October election when 156.5 million citizens will choose the next leader of a bitterly divided nation.

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Brazil’s presidential campaign launches amid fears of violence and upheaval

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Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is trailing in the polls and has hinted he will not cede power if defeated

Campaigning in Brazil’s most important election for years formally gets under way this week amid fears of political violence on the campaign trail and possible turmoil before and after the October ballots.

Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is trailing in the polls and has hinted he will not give up power if defeated by the leftist frontrunner and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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Citizens’ manifesto declares Brazilian democracy facing ‘immense danger’

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Declaration comes amid fears Jair Bolsonaro could attempt January 6-style coup to retain power if voted out in October

Brazilian democracy faces a moment of “immense danger”, a manifesto signed by almost a million citizens has warned amid growing fears president Jair Bolsonaro could refuse to accept defeat in October’s election.

The declaration – whose backers include major figures in business, politics, science and the arts – comes after Bolsonaro escalated his attacks on Brazil’s voting system and summoned hardcore supporters to hit the streets “for the last time” before the 2 October vote.

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WHO stresses monkeypox surge not linked to monkeys amid attack reports

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World Health Organization issues statement after reports of animals being poisoned in Brazil

The World Health Organization has stressed that monkeypox outbreaks are not linked to monkeys, following a number of reported attacks on the primates in Brazil.

“What people need to know is that the transmission we are seeing is happening between humans,” a WHO spokesperson, Margaret Harris, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

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Five more people arrested in Brazil over murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

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A suspect already in custody likely leader of illegal fishing mafia based in Amazon region, police say

Brazilian police arrested another five people in connection with the murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira on Saturday, and said one of the suspects already in custody was likely the leader of an illegal fishing mafia based in the Amazon region.

Although they gave few details, police said three of those detained in operations near Brazil’s borders with Peru and Colombia were wanted for helping bury the bodies of Phillips and Pereira.

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Brazil ‘failing to fully investigate’ Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira murders

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Rights groups accuse Brazilian government of not employing sufficient resources to examine case

Leading human rights organisations have criticised the Brazilian government for what they say is a failure to properly investigate the murders of the Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips.

The two men were shot dead in June but eight organisations said that from the moment they disappeared, to the discovery of their bodies, to the indictment of three men for their murders, Brazilian authorities have “not employed sufficient resources to fully comprehend all the elements in the case and the responsibility of all those involved”.

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Spain reports first death in Europe related to monkeypox outbreak

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Announcement on Friday follows report hours earlier from Brazil of first such death outside Africa

Spain has reported what is thought to be Europe’s first monkeypox-related death in the current outbreak of the disease.

Brazil reported earlier on Friday the first monkeypox-related death outside Africa in the current wave.

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Outrage in Brazil as Jair Bolsonaro avoids five charges related to Covid response

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Senators call for investigation into top prosecutor after charges against president shelved

Brazilian senators are calling for an investigation into one of the country’s top prosecutors after she shelved several charges against the president, Jair Bolsonaro, over his mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A damning congressional inquiry had recommended that Bolsonaro be charged with nine offences, including crimes against humanity and charlatanism, for promoting false treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

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Three charged in Brazil with murder of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

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Prosecutors say two men confessed to killing British journalist and Indigenous expert while third participated

Public prosecutors have charged three individuals with the murder in June of the British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the remote western reaches of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

Phillips – a regular contributor to the Guardian – and Pereira had met Indigenous people near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia, and were travelling along the Itaquai River back to the city of Atalaia do Norte when they were attacked.

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Bolsonaro’s attack on Brazil’s electoral system sparks outrage

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Moves to question integrity of voting system come amid poor polling for far-right leader facing October election

Electoral officials and senior politicians have criticised the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, after the far-right leader called foreign diplomats to the presidential palace and made unfounded allegations about the integrity of the upcoming election.

Bolsonaro told them the electronic voting system in Brazil, which has been used without controversy since 1996, was vulnerable. The remarks raised concerns that the populist politician – facing poor polling results – may attempt to discredit the democratic process if he loses in October.

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