Category Archives: Brazil

‘For the lives of our mothers’: Covid-19 sparks fight for maids’ rights in Brazil

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Millions of domestic workers have been told to keep working or been laid off without pay. Now their families are fighting back against a ‘structurally racist’ system

For as long as Juliana França can remember, on weekdays her mother, Caterina, has made the four-hour round bus trip from the working-class area of Baixada Fluminense, outside Rio de Janeiro, to the city’s affluent South Zone to work as a maid.

But when Covid-19 arrived in Brazil, França begged her to stay at home.

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‘We are on the eve of a genocide’: Brazil urged to save Amazon tribes from Covid-19

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Open letter by photojournalist Sebastião Salgado and global figures warns disease could decimate indigenous peoples

Brazil’s leaders must take immediate action to save the country’s indigenous peoples from a Covid-19 “genocide”, a global coalition of artists, celebrities, scientists and intellectuals has said.

In an open letter to the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, figures including Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt, David Hockney and Paul McCartney warned the pandemic meant indigenous communities in the Amazon faced “an extreme threat to their very survival”.

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Jair Bolsonaro wants football to start up again despite Covid-19 deaths in Brazil

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  • President calls for resumption of football despite crisis
  • Brazil has more than 5,900 deaths due to the coronavirus

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro wants to see football competitions restart soon despite the country’s high number of coronavirus cases, arguing that players are less likely to die from Covid-19 because of their physical fitness.

Bolsonaro is one of the few world leaders that still downplays the risks brought by the coronavirus, which he has likened to “a little flu”.

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Germany and Spain ease lockdown as Eurozone slumps 3.8% – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

We’ve launched a brand new blog at the link below. Follow me there for the latest coronavirus news from around the world, live:

Related: Coronavirus live news: Trump claims to have evidence virus started in Wuhan lab as UK is 'past the peak'

Hello, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll have the blog for the next few hours, so please do get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

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‘Utter disaster’: Manaus fills mass graves as Covid-19 hits the Amazon

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Emergency measures pile pain on to mourning families as coronavirus tears through the ill-prepared jungle-flanked city

Day and night, the dead are delivered into the tawny Amazonian earth – the latest victims of a devastating pandemic now reaching deep into the heart of the Brazilian rainforest.

On Sunday 140 bodies were laid to rest in Manaus, the jungle-flanked capital of Amazonas state. On Saturday, 98. Normally the figure would be closer to 30 – but these are no longer normal times.

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‘This moment is leaving a mark on me’: framing Rio under Covid-19’s shadow

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Nicoló Lanfranchi arrived in Brazil to make a film about traditional medicine and ended up charting a tragedy that acquired a deeply personal dimension

Photographing a funeral is never easy, no matter how professional the photographer, and even more so amid a pandemic. But for Nicoló Lanfranchi, capturing the burial of Covid-19 victim Elizabeth Baez, 82, which took place this month at the São João Batista cemetery in Rio de Janeiro, was especially difficult.

As he photographed the gravediggers in protective clothing with Elizabeth’s son Henrique, 49, the only mourner allowed, watching on from behind a mask, Lanfranchi thought of his own father, Piero. At 72, Piero was in intensive care with Covid-19 in a hospital in Voghera, in Lombardy, northern Italy – one of the worst-affected places on Earth.

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‘So what?’: Bolsonaro shrugs off Brazil’s rising coronavirus death toll

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Outrage at president’s response to news that more than 5,000 people have lost their lives

More than 5,000 Brazilians have lost their lives to the coronavirus – even more people than in China, if its official statistics are to be believed.

But on Tuesday night Brazil’s president shrugged off the news. “So what?” Jair Bolsonaro told reporters when asked about the record 474 deaths that day. “I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”

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Jair Bolsonaro faces inquiry into claims of meddling with police

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Brazil’s top court approves investigation into explosive allegations against president

The political whirlwind convulsing Brazilian politics has intensified with the supreme court approving an investigation into explosive allegations that the president, Jair Bolsonaro, illegally attempted to interfere in the federal police.

“The president of the republic … is also subject to the laws, just like any other of the country’s citizens,” the supreme court judge Celso de Mello noted in his decision on Monday night.

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Brazilians take part in pot-banging protests against Bolsonaro’s coronavirus response – video

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People protest against the Brazilian president after the resignation of popular minister Sérgio Moro. There were calls for Bolsonaro’s impeachment and an investigation into claims he had improperly interfered in the country’s federal police.

Bolsonaro denied claims from his outgoing justice minister that he had sought to appoint a new federal police chief in order to gain access to secret intelligence reports


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Rio’s favelas count the cost as deadly spread of Covid-19 hits city’s poor

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The coronavirus was probably brought to Brazil by rich returning holidaymakers but it is threatening to explode in marginal communities

In many ways, Washington Castro was a typical resident of Rocinha, the immense redbrick favela that towers over Rio de Janeiro’s Atlantic coast.

Industrious, God-fearing and the offspring of migrants from Brazil’s parched and impoverished north-east, he supported two young children by working two separate jobs and wore a suit and tie when attending his local church.

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Coronavirus live news: Brazil’s health system on verge of collapse, medics warn

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Leader of US group peddling bleach as ‘miracle’ cure wrote to Trump before remarks; Australia and New Zealand mark Anzac Day from driveways

I’ll hand over to my colleagues in London shortly. In the meantime catch up with the most recent developments with our ‘Coronavirus: at a glance’ here.

Related: Coronavirus latest: at a glance

Thailand reported 53 new coronavirus cases and the death of a 48-year-old Thai man who was infected with the virus along with four other family members.

Of the new cases, three were linked to previous cases, one had no known links, and 42 are migrant workers who have been under quarantine at an immigration detention centre in the southern province of Songkhla.

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Brazilian government in turmoil after justice minister resigns

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President Jair Bolsonaro denies he sought to influence federal police inquiries

Brazil’s government has been plunged into turmoil after the resignation of one of Jair Bolsonaro’s most powerful ministers sparked protests, calls for the president’s impeachment and an investigation into claims he had improperly interfered in the country’s federal police.

In a rambling televised address late on Friday, Brazil’s embattled president denied claims from his outgoing justice minister Sérgio Moro that he had sought to appoint a new federal police chief in order to gain access to secret intelligence reports – for reasons that remain murky.

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Bolsonaro won’t help with coronavirus, so Brazil’s favelas are helping themselves – video

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Brazil’s President Bolsonaro has described coronavirus as a “little flu” and resisted lockdown measures even as the death toll rises. But in Rio’s poorest favelas, where people live in overcrowded conditions and lack proper sanitation, they are bracing for the worst. Buba Aguiar is an activist in Acari who is taking matters into her own hands, soliciting online donations to buy food parcels and basic coronavirus kit - soap, masks - for her neighbours who cannot afford to stop working and stay at home. As Acari records its first coronavirus death, we follow Buba through a typical day fighting to help her community in the face of government inaction.

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Lockdowns leave poor Latin Americans with impossible choice: stay home or feed families

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Families struggle to maintain coronavirus restrictions as they seek to stay afloat: ‘My fear is my children going hungry’

Leaders across Latin America have ordered their citizens indoors as they struggle to tame the coronavirus.

But for Liliana Pérez, an Argentinian single mother of six, staying at home is a pipe dream.

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Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro denounced for joining pro-dictatorship rally

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Far-right president deemed ‘deplorable’ for flouting social distancing rules again – while coughing repeatedly – to bolster protests amid coronavirus

Former presidents, politicians and newspaper editorial boards have lined up to denounce the “moronic” and “anti-democratic” behaviour of Brazil’s far-right leader after he hit the streets to egg on protesters demanding a return to military dictatorship.

As the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 rose to nearly 2,500 on Sunday, Jair Bolsonaro left his presidential palace in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, to fraternize with flag-waving radicals.

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Bolsonaro joins anti-lockdown coronavirus protests in Brazil – video report

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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

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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.

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As coronavirus spreads around the world, so too do the quack cures

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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.

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Brazil congress demands Jair Bolsonaro release results of his Covid-19 tests

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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.

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Man believed to be Brazil’s biggest cocaine supplier arrested in Mozambique

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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.

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