The far-right Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro ,joined an anti-lockdown coronavirus protest in Brasilia on Sunday. Standing on the back of a truck Bolsonaro said to protestors 'I'm here because I believe in you. You are here because you believe in Brazil'. Brazil, as it stands, is close to nearly 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases
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Mozambique expels suspected Brazilian drug lord
Gilberto ‘Fuminho’ Aparecido dos Santos arrested in international sting operation
Mozambique has expelled one of Brazil’s most wanted criminals, an alleged drug lord who has been on the run for two decades.
Gilberto “Fuminho” Aparecido dos Santos was sent home on a Brazilian air force plane that left Maputo at 1.30am on Monday with dozens of police officers onboard, the authorities said.
Continue reading...As coronavirus spreads around the world, so too do the quack cures
Politicians, faith leaders and other authority figures have been touting dubious remedies
In India, politicians from the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party have been touting cow urine as a cure for Covid-19. In Tanzania the president has promised that taking communion in church would “burn” the virus away. In Brazil a congressman claimed a day of fasting would halt its spread.
And the leader of the most powerful country in the world, Donald Trump, has been touting as a miracle cure an unproven anti-malarial drug that has contributed to at least one death.
Continue reading...Brazil congress demands Jair Bolsonaro release results of his Covid-19 tests
- President has consistently downplayed threat of coronavirus
- 23 people who accompanied Bolsonaro on US trip tested positive
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Brazil’s congress has given President Jair Bolsonaro an ultimatum to release the results of his coronavirus tests within 30 days, amid widespread speculation that he has been infected with Covid-19.
“Brazil needs the truth! Was the president infected?” said the motion proposed by the leftist congressman Rogério Correa and agreed by leaders of the chamber of deputies.
Continue reading...Man believed to be Brazil’s biggest cocaine supplier arrested in Mozambique
Gilberto ‘Fuminho’ Aparecido dos Santos caught after more than 20 years on the run
One of Brazil’s most wanted people, an alleged drug baron accused of running international cocaine operations for the country’s biggest gang, has been arrested in Mozambique.
Gilberto “Fuminho” Aparecido dos Santos, believed to be the leader of the First Capital Command (PCC), was arrested in an international sting that included agents from Brazil, Mozambique and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Mozambican police confirmed the arrest on Tuesday.
Continue reading...‘We’re abandoned to our own luck’: coronavirus menaces Brazil’s favelas
Residents fearful how their families will cope as food runs out and Jair Bolsonaro undermines lockdown message
Renato Rosas knows what poverty feels like. The musician and biomedical salesman grew up in one of Brazil’s biggest favelas, in the Amazon city of Belém. Relatives still live in the wooden stilt houses that line the black, polluted rivers running into Guajará Bay.
“It is the most extreme poverty,” he said of the Baixadas da Estrada Nova Jurunas neighbourhood where floods, deadly sucuri snakes lurking in floating rubbish and armed drug gangs are among the challenges.
Continue reading...Brazil: Bolsonaro’s defiance of distancing criticized by health minister
Luiz Henrique Mandetta suggests Brazilians are confused by mixed messages from government and urges ‘single, united line’
Brazil’s health minister has publicly defied President Jair Bolsonaro over coronavirus, accusing him of sowing doubt in Brazilian minds over the need for physical distancing.
In a Sunday night interview with Brazil’s most-watched television network, Luiz Henrique Mandetta signalled that Bolsonaro’s insistence on snubbing health ministry distancing recommendations was confusing the country’s 210 million citizens.
Continue reading...Christ the Redeemer statue lit up as doctor in coronavirus tribute – video
The Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro was lit up for Easter on Sunday night, paying tribute to health workers in Brazil and across the world tackling the coronavirus crisis. Images of health workers asking people to remain at home and flags from different countries with the word 'Hope' were also projected during the event
Continue reading...Bolsonaro dragging Brazil towards coronavirus calamity, experts fear
Concerns grow that by downplaying threat, Brazil’s president risks public health crisis
Medical experts have said they fear that Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, could be hastening the country’s march towards a devastating public health crisis like those to have hit northern Italy and New York by undermining social distancing measures.
Bolsonaro is one of just four world leaders still downplaying the threat of coronavirus to public health, alongside the authoritarian presidents of Nicaragua, Belarus and Turkmenistan.
Continue reading...First Yanomami Covid-19 death raises fears for Brazil’s indigenous peoples
Acutely vulnerable population at risk as wildcat miners in Amazon reserve suspected as source of infection that killed 15-year-old
A Yanomami teenager has reportedly died after contracting Covid-19, further fuelling fears over the disease’s potential to decimate indigenous communities in the Amazon.
The victim – who health authorities named as 15-year-old Alvanei Xirixana – died on Thursday night after spending almost a week in intensive care in Boa Vista, a Brazilian city near the Yanomami’s Portugal-sized reserve.
Continue reading...From blocked-off beaches to bench bans: Easter lockdowns around the world
Authorities have announced measures ranging from the draconian to the quixotic
Authorities around the world are preparing to use curfews, roadblocks, travel bans, surveillance technology and threats of fines and arrests to deter people from travelling and congregating over Easter.
Many governments have already announced tighter restrictions and increased police enforcement in an effort to sustain lockdowns during a holiday period traditionally associated with trips and socialising.
Continue reading...Brazil coronavirus: medics fear official tally ignores ‘a mountain of deaths’
Lack of testing and failure to report on cases means scale of outbreak could be far greater than thought, doctors warn
Brazil is bracing for a surge in coronavirus cases as doctors and researchers warn that underreporting and a lack of testing mean nobody knows the real scale of Covid-19’s spread.
“What’s happening is enormous underreporting,” said Isabella Rêllo, a doctor working in emergency and intensive care in Rio de Janeiro hospitals, in a widely shared Facebook post challenging official numbers. “There are MANY more,” she wrote.
Continue reading...Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro hits out at ‘dictatorial’ Rio beaches ban
President again undermines efforts to tackle coronavirus by criticising state’s governor
The Brazilian president has further undermined efforts to control the spread of coronavirus by criticising what he called “dictatorial” moves to stop citizens going to the beach.
In an interview on Thursday, Jair Bolsonaro hit out at Rio de Janeiro’s governor, Wilson Witzel, who this week ordered the state’s 17 million citizens to stay at home – and off the sands.
Continue reading...Brazil: coronavirus fears weaken Amazon protection ahead of fire season
Fewer law enforcement officials going into the field open door for land invasions, indigenous communities and NGOs warn
The coronavirus pandemic is weakening Brazilian state protection for the Amazon rainforest and its people ahead of this year’s fire season, according to indigenous communities and international NGOs.
Fewer law enforcement officials are going out into the field and monitoring missions are being scaled back, opening the door for more land invasions and forest clearance, they warn.
Continue reading...Brazil confirms first indigenous case of coronavirus in Amazon
Positive test for 20-year-old woman from Kokama tribe comes amid fears virus could devastate remote communities
An indigenous woman in a village deep in the Amazon rainforest has contracted the novel coronavirus, the first case reported among Brazil’s more than 300 tribes, the Health Ministry’s indigenous health service Sesai has said.
The 20-year-old from the Kokama tribe tested positive for the virus in the district of Santo Antonio do Iá, near the border with Colombia, 880km (550 miles) up the Amazon river from the state capital Manaus, Sesai said in a statement on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Coronavirus embarrassed Trump and Bolsonaro. But the global right will fight back | Paulo Gerbaudo
Science and welfare are at the heart of this crisis – which is bad for right-wing populists. But they won’t be wrongfooted for long
The populist right has built their electoral strength on boisterousness and arrogant self-confidence. Yet, amid the coronavirus pandemic, figures such as Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro seem to be confounded. They are either desperately clinging to a narrative of normality (it’s just a flu), or have already been forced to make embarrassing U-turns acknowledging the gravity of the crisis.
Boris Johnson had to abandon the government’s “herd immunity” strategy when new scientific evidence made apparent its horrific human cost. He recently tested positive for the virus and is now accused of complacency and lack of leadership. In Italy, Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party and former deputy prime minister, appears downbeat, unable to wear the robes of the responsible statesman this emergency calls for; his unabashed criticism of government has even earned him the label “unpatriotic”. In France, Marine Le Pen seems to have vanished altogether from the media, while Bolsonaro’s persistence in denying the crisis is leaving him increasingly isolated.
Continue reading...Brazilian left demands Bolsonaro resign over coronavirus response
President accused of cynically and criminally putting business interests over public safety
Some of the most distinguished members of the Brazilian left have demanded Jair Bolsonaro’s resignation in a biting declaration that criticised what they called his cynical and criminally irresponsible handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Related: Bolsonaro threatens to sack health minister over coronavirus criticism
Continue reading...Bolsonaro government thanked Johnson for Amazon fire support
UK prime minister’s refusal to criticise Amazon fires and sharp rise in deforestation praised by Brazilian ambassador
Boris Johnson was personally thanked by the Brazilian government for refusing to support European action over the Amazon fires, according to documents obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
As the rainforest burned last summer – fuelled by a sharp rise in deforestation that critics blame partly on President Jair Bolsonaro’s agenda – Johnson criticised a threat by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to block the EU’s Mercosur trade deal with Brazil.
Continue reading...Endangered sea turtles hatch on Brazil’s deserted beaches
Coronavirus keeps crowds that usually greet hatching of hawksbill turtles away
Nearly 100 critically endangered sea turtles have hatched on a deserted beach in Brazil, their first steps going almost unnoticed because of coronavirus restrictions that prohibit people from gathering on the region’s sands.
The 97 hawksbill sea turtles, or tartarugas-de-pente as they are known in Brazil, were born last Sunday in Paulista, a town in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco.
Continue reading...Jair Bolsonaro claims Brazilians ‘never catch anything’ as Covid-19 cases rise
President suggests citizens may already have antibodies that help virus ‘not to proliferate’, as cases rise to nearly 3,000
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has tried to reassure his citizens over the threat of coronavirus by claiming Brazilians can bathe in excrement “and nothing happens”.
As Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll rose to 77, Bolsonaro scotched the idea Latin America’s biggest economy could soon face a situation as severe as the United States, where there have been more than 1,000 deaths and more than 83,000 cases.
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