Category Archives: Brazil

Brazil warns women to delay pregnancy amid Covid-19 surge

Posted on by

Advice comes as country’s clinicians claim P1 Covid variant more aggressive during pregnancy

Brazil has warned women to delay getting pregnant until the worst of the pandemic passes, saying the virus variant that is devastating the South American country appears to affect expectant mothers more than earlier versions of the coronavirus.

The recommendation comes as Brazil continues to be one of the global epicenters of the pandemic, with more Brazilians dying of the virus each day than anywhere else in the world.

Continue reading...

Spreading faster, hitting harder – why young Brazilians are dying of Covid

Posted on by

Highly transmissible variant and behavioural factors blamed as intensive care units fill with younger patients

One month after Michel Castro’s premature brush with death, the coronavirus infection has receded but the nightmares persist.

In them the 31-year-old father relives the spine-chilling scenes he witnessed as his Covid-hit body battled for survival in a Rio ICU. The six-month-old baby who appeared to be suffocating right next to him. The man urinating blood after his kidneys failed. The unnerving bleep-bleep-bleep of machines warning doctors that yet another life was on the line.

Continue reading...

Brazil’s Covid-19 response is worst in the world, says Médecins Sans Frontières

Posted on by

The medical NGO says government negligence is costing lives as death toll exceeds 362,000, second only to US

The Brazilian government’s negligent response to Covid-19 has plunged the South American country into a snowballing “humanitarian catastrophe” that is likely to intensify in the coming weeks, the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières has warned.

“I have to be very clear in this: the Brazilian authorities’ negligence is costing lives,” the group’s international president, Christos Christou, told reporters on Thursday after Brazil’s official death toll rose to more than 362,000, second only to the US.

Continue reading...

Bolsonaro’s ‘genocidal’ Covid response has led to Brazilian catastrophe, Dilma Rousseff says

Posted on by

Former president tells Guardian Brazil faces perhaps gravest moment in its history and is ‘adrift on an ocean of hunger and disease’

Jair Bolsonaro’s perverse and “genocidal” response to one of the world’s deadliest Covid outbreaks has left Brazil “adrift on an ocean of hunger and disease”, the country’s former president Dilma Rousseff has claimed.

Speaking to the Guardian this week – as Brazil’s coronavirus death toll hit devastating new heights, with more than 12,000 deaths in the last three days – Rousseff said her country faced perhaps the gravest moment in its history.

Continue reading...

The ‘forgotten’ people picking your Brazil nuts – for a fraction of the price

Posted on by

Rich profits from the prized nut have failed to benefit those finding them. Now cooperatives hope to shake up the system

On a steamy March morning, Edivan Kaxarari walks with a few other villagers in single file down a trail in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil’s Rondônia state, near the border with Bolivia.

His sister-in-law Cleiciana carries her 11-month-old son in one arm and a rifle in the other, and his brother Edson clears the path ahead with a machete. It is hunting season for the seeds of the Amazonian Brazil nut tree.

Continue reading...

Brazilian Covid variant: what do we know about P1?

Posted on by

What threat does variant that is causing devastation in Brazil pose, and how is it different?

The P1 variant is causing devastation in Brazil, where an uncontrolled Covid pandemic is raging. P1, behind the terrible scenes of hospital overload in Manaus with patients’ relatives pleading for oxygen cylinders, is now the dominant form of coronavirus in many of Brazil’s cities and partly responsible for the high death toll. Other Latin American countries have closed their borders and restricted travel to and from Brazil but P1 is now in at least 15 countries in the Americas, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Continue reading...

Brazil’s coronavirus death toll passes 4,000 a day for first time

Posted on by

Covid crisis ‘out of control’, says expert as president Jair Bolsonaro continues to resist lockdown

Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe has deepened further after more than 4,000 daily deaths were reported for the first time since the outbreak began in February last year.

At least 4,195 people were reported to have lost their lives on Tuesday, taking Brazil’s total death toll – the world’s second highest after the US – to nearly 337,000.

Continue reading...

Amid Brazil’s tragedy, our hope is the prospect of Bolsonaro’s defeat next year | Celso Amorim

Posted on by

As Covid deaths climb the president seems to be throwing the country into an abyss that will be difficult to escape from

It is no exaggeration to say that Brazil is going through the most serious crisis in its history. With nearly 4,000 deaths a day and moving quickly towards a figure of 500,000 people killed by Covid-19, Brazil is not just the epicentre of the pandemic. It has also become the breeding ground for new variants of the virus: a real threat to its own people and the whole of humankind.

In the midst of a public health war that is being lost, its president, Jair Bolsonaro, is throwing the country more deeply into an abyss, from where it will be hard to emerge. Apart from the suffering caused to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of relatives and friends of the victims, the economy has been plunged into recession, with 14% of the workforce condemned to the dole. In contrast to what happened during the first wave of the pandemic, when Congress forced the government to distribute relatively significant financial aid to a large portion of the population, now fewer people will benefit with a smaller amount.

Continue reading...

Brazil’s gravediggers exhume bodies to make space for Covid victims

Posted on by

As cemeteries run out of space, World Health Organization experts warn multiple states in ‘critical condition’

See all our coronavirus coverage

The Brazilian city of São Paulo has sped up efforts to empty old graves to make room for a soaring number of Covid deaths as the sprawling metropolis registered record daily burials this week.

As the World Health Organization warned that the pandemic has put a number of Brazilian states in “critical condition”, gravediggers worked on Thursday to open the tombs of people buried years ago, bagging decomposed remains for removal to another location.

Continue reading...

Brazil: calls grow for removal of ‘coup-mongering’ Bolsonaro as crisis builds

Posted on by

Opposition leaders demand impeachment for what they say is president’s illegal attempt to co-opt the country’s armed forces

Prominent leaders of Brazil’s opposition have called for president Jair Bolsonaro to be immediately removed from office to prevent his “coup-mongering, authoritarian delusions” becoming a reality.

“We cannot be bystanders to this barbarism,” congressman Marcelo Freixo said on Wednesday as parliamentarians demanded Bolsonaro’s impeachment for what they called his illegal attempt to co-opt the armed forces.

Continue reading...

What’s next for Brazil as Jair Bolsonaro’s troubles deepen?

Posted on by

The president has stacked his government with military men. Now that blurring of institutional lines may backfire

It is not surprising that the government of Jair Bolsonaro is in crisis. Setting aside his ruinous response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the radically reactionary leader of the largest country in Latin America has never displayed the ability or desire to use political means to benefit anyone but those closest to him. Still, the scale and rapidity of the upheaval this week has raised concerns that Brazilians may soon confront a full-blown political meltdown on top of the public health disaster that has been unfolding for several months.

On Monday, Ernesto Araújo, the foreign minister, resigned. His tenure had been marked by brash self-righteous rhetoric delivered without a glimmer of grace or confidence. Indeed, Araújo became known for masking his palpable insecurity with long, confusing references to Latin and Greek antiquity. Aráujo embraced conspiracy theories and far-right ideas that endeared him to the constellation of far-right governments that emerged around the world in recent years, particularly the Trump administration in Washington, but failed to deliver many tangible results for the Brazilian people (this is why two years ago I called Araújo “the worst diplomat in the world”).

Continue reading...

Brazil on edge as three military chiefs resign after Bolsonaro fires defense minister

Posted on by

Political earthquake rattles country already grappling with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks

Jair Bolsonaro’s crisis-stricken administration has been rocked by the sudden sacking of Brazil’s defence minister and the subsequent resignation of the heads of all three branches of the armed forces.

The commanders of the Brazilian army, navy and air force – Gen Edson Leal Pujol, Adm Ilques Barbosa and Lt-Brig Antônio Carlos Bermudez – met with the president’s new minister on Tuesday morning and reportedly tendered their resignations during a dramatic and heated encounter. On Tuesday afternoon the defence ministry confirmed all three would be replaced, a political earthquake that rattled a country already grappling with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.

Continue reading...

‘The heart of darkness’: neighbors shun Brazil over Covid response

Posted on by

Latin American countries scramble to protect themselves from a country where nearly 60,000 people are expected to die in March alone

It has long been regarded as a soft power superpower, the sun-kissed, culturally blessed land of Bossa Nova, Capoeira and Pelé.

But Brazil’s shambolic response to coronavirus under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has cast Latin America’s largest country in an unfamiliar and unpleasant role: that of a Covid-riddled, science-shunning, politically-unstable outcast on whom many regional neighbors are now shutting the door.

Continue reading...

Brazil’s foreign minister, who bashed China and praised Trump, resigns

Posted on by

Ernesto Araújo’s resignation ends the most calamitous chapter in the history of the country’s diplomacy, critics say

Jair Bolsonaro’s ultraconservative foreign minister has resigned after a rebellion from diplomats and lawmakers who accused him of demolishing Brazil’s international reputation and putting Brazilian lives at risk by vandalizing relations with China and the US during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ernesto Araújo, a 53-year-old career diplomat famed for his bashing of Xi Jinping’s China and devotion to Donald Trump, tendered his resignation on Monday, ending what critics call the most calamitous chapter in the history of Brazilian diplomacy.

Continue reading...

‘Reclaim These Streets’ and rubber duck rallies: human rights roundup – in pictures

Posted on by

Coverage on recent struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Cardiff Bay to Thailand

Continue reading...

‘The Yanomami could disappear’ – photographer Claudia Andujar on a people under threat in Brazil

Posted on by

Andujar lived with the tribe and fights for them. A timely show of her images comes to London soon


It is more than 50 years since Claudia Andujar began photographing the Yanomami, the people of the Amazon rainforest near Brazil’s border with Venezuela. Now 89, she is using her archive to increase their visibility, at a time when their survival is under renewed threat.

“The question of indigenous people should be more respected, more widely known. This is very important as it’s the only way the present [Brazilian] government will come to recognise their rights as human beings to occupy their land,” says Andujar, speaking from São Paulo. “This government isn’t interested in their rights.”

Continue reading...

‘Saddest March of our lives’: Brazilians lament Covid devastation as critics decry Bolsonaro

Posted on by

As country reaches 300,000 fatalities, doctors condemn ‘politics of death’ but pledge to fight on

Like so many on Brazil’s left, Pedro Carvalho was certain Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency would prove a nightmare: for human rights, for the environment and for the national health system the 41-year-old doctor cherishes and serves.

“I felt this profound sadness, just utter, personal sadness,” Carvalho remembered of the fateful moment in October 2018 that the far-right populist was confirmed as his country’s new leader.

Continue reading...

‘Things are desperate’: Brazil’s Covid intensive care units are almost all at capacity

Posted on by

The country’s sceptic president and his allies continue to downplay the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 287,000

Brazil’s healthcare system has been plunged into the most severe crisis in its history, with doctors overwhelmed and patients dying while they wait for intensive care beds as the country’s Covid-sceptic president, Jair Bolsonaro, continued to spurn calls for a lockdown that would save lives.

As the daily number of infections and deaths soared to new heights this week, researchers from Brazil’s leading healthcare institute, Fiocruz, said South America’s biggest country faced an unparalleled “catastrophe”.

Continue reading...

Brazil set to lose its third health minister amid pandemic as Covid death toll rises

Posted on by

Eduardo Pazuello expected to depart after 10 months as coronavirus fatalities near 280,000

The Brazilian health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, is set to be sacked after an inglorious 10-month tenure during which more than 260,000 Brazilians have been killed by a coronavirus outbreak that his government stands accused of catastrophically mismanaging.

Related: 'Covid is taking over': Brazil plunges into deadliest chapter of its epidemic

Continue reading...

While We Are Here review – enigmatic study of romance is hard to love

Posted on by

There is an avant-garde bravery to this international love story – but how can we invest in protagonists we never see?

Here is a thought-experiment of a movie from Brazilian film-makers Clarissa Campolina and Luiz Pretti: it’s a dramatic essay, or docu-fictional romance, or perhaps the cinematic equivalent of an epistolary novel, and it has been much admired on the festival circuit.

Related: Streaming: indie films from Latin America

Continue reading...