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Brazil

Brazil

Brazil Marks 25 Years since Candelaria Massacre with an Expanded White Police State

NOVANEWS The burden of losing four consecutive elections turned Brazil’s elites inside out. They would resort to, as an efficient yet obvious mode of attack, all out lawfare, stirring their already agitated base along the way. A police officer is seen while students and friends of Marcos Vinicius, 14, a boy who was shot and killed in a police and military operation at the Mare slum, protest in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 21, 2018. Silvia Izquierdo | AP By Haxi Yeyerban  RIO DE JANEIRO —  “I don’t believe Brazil is made for change. Returning to my country, though I’d like to, is something that will take a long time, if it’s ever possible one day.” The date was July 22, 2013. The blighted hope, part of a letter written by Wagner dos Santos, a survivor of the Candelaria Massac...
Brazil

We stand in solidarity with Brazilian workers and communities

NOVANEWS By Party for Socialism and Liberation Lula (right), pictured with now-deposed President Dilma Rousseff after her election. Photo: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom/Agência Brasil (Agência Brasil) [CC BY 3.0 br (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons The Party for Socialism and Liberation stands in solidarity with Brazilian workers and larger communities who are taking to the streets in São Bernardo, São Paulo and across the rest of the country in repudiation of the order for the arrest of former President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva and in defense of their democratic rights. We further denounce the threats of intervention from General Eduardo Dias da Costa Villas Bôas, Commander of the Brazilian Army and other high-ranking commanders of the Bra...
Brazil

Brazil’s Lula defies court setback, continues presidential campaign

NOVANEWS By Toya Mileno All over the country the landless movement (MST) blocked roads in support of Lula. Line of buses going to Porto Alegre for Lula trial Jan. 24 In August 2016, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her Workers Party government were removed from office through a parliamentary coup d’etat carried out in the name of ‘fighting corruption.’ Since then, Brazil has suffered an intense rightwing backlash, with major attacks on social gains and even on the country’s own sovereignty. Now, with presidential elections scheduled for October, millions of Brazilians see former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) as their only hope to reverse this process and bring back democracy. Lula, also a member of the Workers Party, served as president from 2003-11. On Jan. 2...
Brazil

Brazil’s Slave-Descended Quilombos Shaken by String of Murders

NOVANEWS teleSUR  Brazilian authorities have revealed that six rural workers were mysteriously murdered in their homes in the lush rural state of Bahia in Brazil Sunday. The crime, which was only announced Tuesday, is the latest in a wave of killings targeting residents in the disputed Iuna Quilombola Territory that lies in the city of Lencois. The murders bring to eight the number of those killed in disputed lands in Bahia within less than a month. According to authorities, the victims lived in two neighboring homes — four in one house and two in the other — and were killed by men in an unidentified black vehicle. Each victim was shot four to six times. All were quilombolas — the descendants of Afro-Indigenous Brazilians who escaped from slavery to hinterland settlements known as Quilo...
Brazil, Iran, USA

Embraer still waiting US approval for Iran plane sales

NOVANEWS Brazil’s regional jet maker Embraer says it is still waiting for an approval by the US Treasury Department for sales of aircraft to Iran. The company was quoted by the media as saying that it remained “active and optimistic” with regards to its plans to sell planes to the Islamic Republic. It added that providing the required funds for the planned sales to Iran was not so much the issue as gaining licenses from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury, the Aviation Week news website reported. Iran in February 2016 confirmed that it had ordered 50 planes from Brazil’s Embraer, the world’s third biggest commercial aircraft manufacturer. The confirmation was made by Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, the country’s government spokesman who emphasized that the deal wi...
Brazil

Online Petition Forces Review of Dilma Rouseff’s Impeachment

NOVANEWS Brazilian senators will have to review the controversial procedure that led to the former president Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment last year, after an online citizens’ petition gathered more than 46,000 signatures in less than 24 hours. The survey is being carried out on the Senate’s online platform E-Cidadania, and required a minimum of 20,000 signatures by November before it could be formally converted into a “legislative suggestion” to be considered in the higher house. It poses two questions: firstly, that the loss of her mandate as the constitutional president was the consequence of a coup d’état. And secondly, that the ‘failure’ of her successor Michel Terner’s government means that the only solution is to reinstate Rouseff into her elected post which should never have be...
Brazil

Brazil’s Temer Won’t Resign and Says Nothing Will Destroy Him

NOVANEWS Brazilian President Michel Temer attends a ceremony for several new top diplomats at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil | Photo: Reuters Criminal charges against a sitting president have to be approved by around two-thirds of the lower house of Congress. Brazil's President Michel Temer says nothing will destroy him, as he faces suspension and a possible impeachment. On Monday, Temer became the nation's first sitting office holder to be charged with graft and is now awaiting a final decision by the Supreme Court. RELATED: Brazil Police Present Evidence President Temer Took Bribes Attorney General Rodrigo Janot formally accused President Michel Temer and his aide Rodrigo Rocha Loures of corruption, charging them with receiving bribes from the head of the...
Brazil

Temer’s Aide Rodrigo Rocha Loures Arrested

NOVANEWS Brazilian President Michel Temer | Photo: Reuters Loures admitted that he had accepted bribes from JBS, Brazil's largest meatpacking company, and that the funds were intended for Temer. Early Saturday morning Brazilian federal police arrested Rodrigo Rocha Loures, a lawmaker and former aide to embattled Brazilian president, Michel Temer. RELATED: Over 100 Diplomats Call to Restore Democracy in Brazil Loures admitted that he had accepted bribes from JBS, Brazil's largest meatpacking company, and that the funds were intended for Temer. The order to arrest Loures was made by Supreme Court Justice Luiz Edson Fachin, who is responsible for the investigations into the corruption scheme undertaken by Brazil's national oil company, Petrobras. Brasil 247 reporte...
Brazil

Coup Leaders Are Keeping Their Promises in Brazil

NOVANEWS By: Ted Snider  Brazilians protest the institutional coup against President Dilma Rousseff and the de facto government of Michel Temer. | Photo: AFP They are protecting themselves from prosecution for corruption and carrying out neoliberal shock therapy for the country. Source: Truthout The social democratic, left-wing government of Brazil was removed in a coup. RELATED: Brazil: Crisis and Societal Fascism Though that striking statement could be ripped from the headlines of newspapers today, it also describes the headlines of half a century ago, in April of 1964. The Brazilian coup gets forgotten in the crowd of Latin American coups. In discussions of Latin American interventions, it often gets lost in the press of the 1954 Guatemalan coup against Jacob...
Brazil

What’s Happening in Brazil? Exactly What the Coup Leaders Said Would Happen

NOVANEWS By Ted Snider, Truthout  President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil during an interview with foreign correspondents at her office in Palacio do Planalto, Brasilia, Brazil on March 24, 2016. (Tomas Munita / The New York Times) The social democratic, left-wing government of Brazil was removed in a coup. Though that striking statement could be ripped from the headlines of newspapers today, it also describes the headlines of half a century ago, in April of 1964. The Brazilian coup gets forgotten in the crowd of Latin American coups. In discussions of Latin American interventions, it often gets lost in the press of the 1954 Guatemalan coup against Jacobo Árbenz or the 1973 Chilean coup against Salvador Allende. But the Brazilian coup that was sandwiched between them was significant an...