Category Archives: Brazil

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

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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.

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

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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”).

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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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.”

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

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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.

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

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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”.

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

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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

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

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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

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‘Covid is taking over’: Brazil plunges into deadliest chapter of its epidemic

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Last year, Jair Bolsonaro declared Brazil had reached ‘the tail end’ of one of the world’s worst outbreaks. Three months later the country has lost almost 100,000 more lives

It was midway through February when André Machado realized Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe was racing into a bewildering and remorseless new phase. “The floodgates opened and the water came gushing out,” recalled the infectious disease specialist from the Our Lady of the Conception hospital in Porto Alegre, one of the largest cities in southern Brazil.

Related: Experts warn Brazil facing darkest days of Covid crisis as deaths hit highest level

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Lula excoriates Bolsonaro’s ‘moronic’ Covid response in comeback speech

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Addressing the nation, Brazil’s former president left no doubt that his political fightback had begun

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has excoriated Jair Bolsonaro’s “moronic” and bungling response to the coronavirus pandemic, in a stirring and potentially historic address widely seen as the start of a bid to wrestle the presidency back from his far-right nemesis.

The veteran leftist, who led Latin America’s top economy through some of the brightest years in its modern history, was catapulted back onto the frontline of Brazilian politics on Monday by the surprise decision to quash the corruption convictions that scuppered his bid to reclaim the presidency in 2018. On Tuesday a supreme court judge branded the anti-corruption operation that forced Lula from that year’s election “the greatest judicial scandal” in Brazilian history.

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Jair Bolsonaro tells Brazilians to stop ‘whining’ about Covid – video

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The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, told citizens to stop ‘whining’ about Covid, despite the virus having killed more than 260,000 people in the country.

The far-right populist made the inflammatory declaration on Thursday, as Brazil’s already dire Covid situation deteriorated and its average daily death toll rose above that of the United States.

‘Enough fussing and whining. How much longer will the crying go on?’ Bolsonaro asked supporters in the midwestern state of Goiás, where nearly 9,000 people have died.

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Covid: Bolsonaro tells Brazilians to stop ‘whining’ as deaths top 260,000

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  • Far-right president: ‘How long are you going to keep on crying?’
  • Critics condemn Bolsonaro as ‘incurable sociopath’

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has triggered a wave of revulsion by telling citizens to stop “whining” about a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 260,000 people.

The far-right populist made the inflammatory declaration on Thursday, as Brazil’s already dire Covid situation deteriorated and its average daily death toll rose above that of the United States.

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Rio mayor imposes Covid curfew to avert repeat of last year’s ‘genocide’

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  • Scientists call for immediate 14-day lockdown
  • Brazil suffers record 1,840 daily fatalities

The mayor of Rio de Janeiro has ordered a coronavirus “curfew” in the hope of sparing the seaside city a repeat of last year’s Covid-19 “genocide” when it was pummeled by the disease.

The nighttime prohibition, which Mayor Eduardo Paes said would last from 11pm to 5am, was announced as hospitals across Brazil buckled under the strain of a crippling upsurge in infections and the South American country suffered its worst day of losses since the pandemic began.

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Brazil’s Covid outbreak is global threat that opens door to lethal variants – scientist

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Duke University neuroscientist urges international community to challenge Brazilian government over its failure to contain

Brazil’s rampant coronavirus outbreak has become a global threat that risks spawning new and even more lethal variants, one of the South American country’s top scientists has warned as it suffered its deadliest day of the pandemic.

Speaking to the Guardian, Miguel Nicolelis, a Duke University neuroscientist who is tracking the crisis, urged the international community to challenge the Brazilian government over its failure to contain an epidemic that has killed more than a quarter of a million Brazilians – about 10% of the global total.

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Brazil variant evaded up to 61% of immunity in previous Covid cases

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Scientists call for more genetic sequencing of emerging variants like P1 to bring pandemic under control

The coronavirus variant originally found in Manaus in Brazil and detected in six cases in the UK was able to infect 25% to 61% of the people in the Amazonian city who might have expected to be immune after a first bout of Covid, researchers say.

The extent to which P1 can evade the immune system, and potentially vaccines, emerged as the UK health secretary said the hunt for one person who tested positive for P1 – but did not leave contact details – had narrowed to 379 households in the south-east of England.

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Experts warn Brazil facing darkest days of Covid crisis as deaths hit highest level

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Intensive care units in 17 of the country’s 26 states were near capacity, while six states and the capital had run out of ICU beds

Health experts and lawmakers have warned Brazil is steaming into the darkest days of its coronavirus catastrophe, as fatalities soared to new heights and one prominent politician compared the crisis to an atomic bomb.

Politicians from across the spectrum voiced anger and exasperation at the deteriorating situation on Monday, after Brazil’s weekly average of Covid deaths hit its highest level since the epidemic began last February and hospitals around the country reported being swamped.

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Why UK’s hunt for Brazil variant Covid cases is so urgent

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Analysis: P1 strain believed to transmit more easily and may reduce vaccine effectiveness

Public Health England is facing a needle-in-a-haystack hunt for a person who tested positive for the “concerning” Brazilian Covid variant but did not leave their name and address with their test.

There are a few clues to go on. Public Health England thinks it knows when the test in question was taken and so is asking people who were tested on 12 or 13 February but have not received any test result to get in touch.

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