Brazil Watch Thread

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

Tens of thousands of Brazilians march to demand Bolsonaro’s impeachment

Sat 29 May 2021

Tens of thousands of protesters have poured on to the streets of Brazil’s largest cities to demand the impeachment of President Jair Bolsonaro over his catastrophic response to a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed nearly half a million Brazilian lives.

The demonstrators turned out in more than 200 cities and towns for what is the biggest anti-Bolsonaro mobilisation since Brazil’s Covid outbreak began

“Today is a decisive milestone in the battle to defeat Bolsonaro’s genocidal administration,” said Silvia de Mendonça, 55, a civil rights activist from Brazil’s Unified Black Movement as she led a column of protesters through Rio’s dilapidated city centre.

Osvaldo Bazani da Silva, a 48-year-old hairdresser who lost his younger brother to Covid-19, said: “We can’t lose any more Brazilian lives. We need to hit the streets every single day until this government falls.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... krxFbYEFbA

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

House Democrats Want Answers on U.S. Involvement in Disgraced Brazil Car Wash Probe

https://theintercept.com/2021/06/08/bra ... k-garland/

Intoduction:

(THE INTERCEPT) TWENTY-THREE HOUSE Democrats want to know more about the U.S. Justice Department’s secretive role in the now-disgraced Operation Car Wash corruption investigations in Brazil. In a letter on Monday, the group sent Attorney General Merrick Garland a list of questions and expressed concern about the U.S. role in prosecutions “perceived by many in Brazil as a threat to democracy and rule of law.”

“It is imperative that Congress receive full and accurate answers regarding our government’s actions — particularly when those actions may have long-lasting effects beyond our shores,” said Rep. Susan Wild, D-Penn., in a statement to The Intercept.

Car Wash targeted a sprawling network of political corruption centered around the state-controlled oil giant Petrobras. U.S. and Brazilian prosecutors’ aggressive tactics greatly weakened Brazil’s once-powerful civil construction and petroleum sectors and led to the imprisonment of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, clearing the way for far-right authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro to win the presidency in 2018.

“Whether or not our DOJ was responsible for the wrongful imprisonment of President Silva and paved the way for Bolsonaro, a COVID-denying, climate change-denying, far-right nationalist, to take the presidency must be investigated to the fullest extent and those responsible held accountable,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., one of the congressional letter’s signatories, told The Intercept.

[caltrek]

“Impeachment or Death”: Scenes From Brazil’s Massive Protests Against Bolsonaro

https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2 ... bolsonaro/

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) On the day Brazil recorded its 500,000th death from COVID-19, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest the government’s disastrous response to the pandemic. This is the second round of large nationwide demonstrations in 20 days calling for the impeachment of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and for better vaccine rollout. Protests organized by grassroots movements, political parties, and unions are scheduled to take place in at least 400 cities across the country.

In Rio de Janeiro, it was hard to spot a single protester not wearing a mask. The crowd gathered next to a monument remembering the anti-slavery resistance leader Zumbi dos Palmares and marched along one of the main avenues of Rio’s historic Downtown neighborhood all the way to the Candelaria Church, the site of a 1993 massacre of children by the police. Mothers and fathers with their children joined the chorus of “Bolsonaro genocide.” An estimated 70,000 people attended the protest in Rio on Saturday.

A group of vaccinated octogenarians who fought against the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s once again hit the streets in the name of democracy. Student leaders held black and white pictures with the faces of people who disappeared during those years of repression. Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has appointed several military officers to key positions in his government, has repeatedly glorified the dictatorship and praised a notorious torturer from that era. Protesters also remembered Marielle Franco, a Black councilwoman and human rights activist from Rio de Janeiro whose murder in 2018 remains unsolved, and voiced support for former President Lula in a potential run for the presidency in 2022.

Here is another article on those same protests: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... ops-500000

[wjfox]

Deforestation soars 40% in Xingu River Basin in Brazilian Amazon

by Fernanda Wenzel on 2 July 2021

A hundred and ninety-six trees per minute. That’s how fast the forest was being cleared in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin between March and April this year. A total of 29,191 hectares (72,132 acres) of Amazon rainforest was lost, an area twice the size of New York City, according to a report published this week.

The area in question straddles the border between the states of Mato Grosso and Pará, and is the source of the mighty Xingu River, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon River. The deforestation recorded in the March-April period is 40% higher than the same period last year.

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/defor ... nt-basins/

[R8Z]

It's interesting how by reading or following a specific subset of newspapers/people foreigners get a strangely biased view of the country; in this case my country: Brazil.

Some interesting perspectives on Corona:

Foreigner: "Coronavirus is extremely deadly in Brazil and people are dying left and right"
Me: Well, maybe in some areas but in my region (state of Santa Catarina) it's been basically contained, cases have gone high in the past but people are fine and not scared anymore, it's wasn't even that deadly. No lockdowns have been put in place since the very beginning (Mar/Apr 2020) and unless you're old and cryptic, you've been back to normal life again since late 2020, with the exception of wearing a mask for groceries, shows and big events being closed, everything else is normal.

Foreigner: "The president isn't doing anything to vaccinate people"
Me: We've vaccinated more people than all of the other Latin America countries combined; also given out more doses than developed countries like Germany or the UK. For a piss-poor country like Brazil, it's actually doing quite fine.

Foreigner: "The Brazilian corona strain is crazy deadly! I am scared!"
Me: Are you more than 80 years old or you're HIV+ with a completely debilitated immune system? Ok, then you're correct in being scared, otherwise it's a huge nothing-burger (e.g. you have 99%+ chance of surviving this one; the anxiety/stress you have being scared from it is probably hurting you more in the long the run than what the virus could possibly do).

On Politics:

Foreigner: "Bolsonaro is a fascist!"
Me: No more than any other politician; all of them suck, some more, some less, but all of them are worse than nothing. Bolsonaro is just an elected clown that answers the conservative desires of the country. Only in paper, tho, as in practice he has acted just like all of the other ones before him (business as usual).

Foreigner: "Car wash was criminal coup"
Me: If you think jailing corrupt politicians (some literally carried bags of cash in their underwear) is a coup, than you can think like that.

Foreigner: "The US is intervening in Brazilian politics!"
Me: Well, haven't they always done that? It's basically a stupid statement given that our monetary reserves are in Dollar, making the BRL (national currency) pegged to the Dollar and any US decision that affects it. Any other thing is a silly thing given this fact.

As always, take these with a grain of salt as they're subjetive statements from someone living here which is tired of hearing the doom-day news that international news companies keep airing. I used to only hear these when I was living out of the country, it was funny talking to foreigners and explaining that the world wasn't ending at the southern hemisphere: the country just had a conservative president that the "big-guys" wanted out.

[Yuli Ban]

Brazil registers record deaths, lowest number of births for Jan-June period

Brazil registered the highest number of deaths and lowest number of births in the first six months of the year since comparable data was first compiled in 2003, the national association of notary offices said on Thursday.

Brazil has the second highest COVID-19 death toll in the world behind the United States, with 323,117 of the 528,540 total number of deaths from the disease being registered in the January-June period this year, according to the Health Ministry.

A survey by the National Association of Registrars (Arpen-Brasil) showed that registry offices in Brazil recorded 956,534 deaths from January to June, 67% above the historical average and 37% up on the first half of last year.

[caltrek]

I wonder what R8Z makes of this reported poll result:

Majority of Brazilians support impeaching Bolsonaro: Poll
July 10, 2021

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/1 ... onaro-poll

Introduction:

(Al Jazeera) A majority of Brazilians say they support impeaching Jair Bolsonaro, according to a poll released on Saturday, as the country’s far-right president faces allegations of corruption and mounting pressure over his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

The Datafolha survey showed 54 percent of Brazilians support a proposed move by the Brazilian lower house to open impeachment proceedings against Bolsonaro, compared to 42 percent who oppose it.

[caltrek]

Bolsonaro May Have Emergency Surgery After Hiccups Persist for Over Ten days
by Tom Phillips
July 14, 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... al-hiccups

Introduction:

(The Guardian) The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, may be forced to undergo emergency surgery after he was rushed to hospital in the early hours of Wednesday complaining of abdominal pain.

Bolsonaro, 66, was reportedly admitted to a military hospital in the capital Brasília at about 4am, after being struck down by an unremitting bout of the hiccups which has lasted for more than 10 days.

On Wednesday afternoon the presidency announced that Brazil’s leader was being transferred to São Paulo after Antônio Luiz Macedo, the surgeon who operated on Bolsonaro after he was stabbed shortly before his 2018 election, diagnosed him with a bowel obstruction.

In a statement, the presidency said additional tests would be carried out in São Paulo, which is home to some of Brazil’s top medical centres, to determine whether Bolsonaro needed emergency surgery.

A photograph of a topless Bolsonaro lying on a hospital bed, with a man who appeared to be priest touching his right shoulder, was published on the president’s social media accounts alongside the message: “God willing, we’ll be back soon. Brazil is ours.” (see linked article for a view of the photo).

[caltrek]

The Pressure Against Bolsonaro Continues in Brazil
By: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia
August 5, 2021

https://www.latinorebels.com/2021/08/05 ... arobrazil/

Introduction:

(Latino Rebels) Brazil ended the month of July with more than 550,000 people dead from the pandemic amid signs of weakening of the government, which still maneuvers in every possible way to survive the pressure from the streets.

For the first time since he was elected, polls show a majority of public opinion in favor of impeaching the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who recently met with German Neo-Nazi MP Beatrix von Storch in Brasília. von Storch is the granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister —Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk— and one of the more visible leaders of the right-wing AfD party. The meeting was condemned by progressive Jewish organizations.

Anti-Bolsonaro pressure is pilling up. On July 24, the third wave of demonstrations had millions in the streets all over the country and also in several cities all over the world. And in addition to popular pressure, the Attorney General’s Office asked the Supreme Court earlier this month for permission to open an investigation against the president to find out what role he played in the crisis involving the overpriced purchase of the Covaxin vaccine.

Documents used by Precisa —which mediated the negotiation between the Brazilian government and the Indian manufacturer of the Covaxin vaccine, Bharat Biotech— were fraudulent, leading the Indian laboratory to cancel its partnership with the Brazilian company and put more pressure on the government.

Soon Minister Rosa Weber was opening an investigation and the Federal Police began to investigate whether Bolsonaro had committed a crime. The deadline for completion of the investigation is 90 days with the possibility of an extension. And the president is not the only one being investigated—the former Health Minister, Eduardo Pazuello, was accused by the Federal Public Ministry of causing 122 million reais in damages to the public treasury through mismanagement during the pandemic.

[caltrek]

Brazil's QuintoAndar Real Estate Platform Raises Additional $120 Million, Now Valued at $5.1 Billion
by Mary Ann Azevedo
August 20, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/20/sao-p ... d-at-5-1b/

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) Less than three months after announcing a $300 million Series E, Brazilian proptech QuintoAndar has raised an additional $120 million.

New investors Greenoaks Capital and China’s Tencent co-led the round, which included participation from some existing backers as well. São Paulo-based QuintoAndar is now valued at $5.1 billion, up from $4 billion at the time of its last raise in late May. With the extension, the startup has now raised more than $700 million since its 2013 inception. Ribbit Capital led the first tranche of its Series E.

QuintoAndar describes itself as an “end-to-end solution for long-term rentals” that, among other things, connects potential tenants to landlords and vice versa. Last year, it also expanded into connecting home buyers to sellers. Its long-term plan is to ​​evolve into a one-stop real estate shop that also offers mortgage, title insurance and escrow services.

To that end, earlier this month, the startup acquired Atta Franchising, a 7-year-old São Paulo-based independent real estate mortgage broker. Specifically, acquiring Atta is designed to speed up its ability to offer mortgage services to its users. QuintoAndar also plans to explore the possibility of offering a product to perform standalone transactions outside of its marketplace in partnership with other brokers, according to CEO and co-founder Gabriel Braga.

This year, QuintoAndar expanded operations into 14 new cities in Brazil. Eventually, QuintoAndar plans to enter the Mexican market as its first expansion outside of its home country, but it has not yet set a date for that step. Today, the company has more than 120,000 rentals under management and about 10,000 new rentals per month. Its rental platform is live in 40 cities across Brazil, while its home-buying marketplace is live in four (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre) and seeing more than 10,000 sales in annualized terms.

[wjfox]

Bolsonaro is stoking a Capitol riot-style insurrection in Brazil that could happen as early as Tuesday, more than 20 ex-world leaders warn

16 hours ago

• Jair Bolsonaro has been encouraging protests against Brazil's supreme court and constitution.
• His supporters are planning mass marches around the country on Tuesday.
• Former world leaders warned that Bolsonaro is backing a coup akin to the Capitol riot.

Brazil's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, is backing a coup in his country apparently modeled on the January 6 storming of the US Capitol, a group of former world leaders have warned.

Bolsonaro supporters have carried out a number of protests against Brazil's s congress and supreme court in recent weeks, and are planning fresh new ones across the country on Tuesday.

Bolsonaro has long criticized Brazil's constitution, saying it is "communist" and that it limits presidents' powers. More recently, he has attacked the Supreme Court after it greenlit an investigation into his unsubstantiated claim that Brazil's electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud.

https://www.businessinsider.com/brazil- ... ?r=US&IR=T

[wjfox]

Brazil's Bolsonaro: Only God will remove me from power

1 hour ago

Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro struck a defiant note on the country's independence day on Tuesday.

He told tens of thousands of his supporters who had gathered in the city of São Paulo that only God would remove him from power.

He also launched fresh attacks on Congress and the Supreme Court, institutions he says are persecuting him and his political allies.

The court recently approved several investigations into Mr Bolsonaro.

[...]

The rallies he convened for independence day were seen as an attempt to demonstrate he can still draw huge crowds of supporters after recent polls had him trailing his left-wing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by nine percentage points.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-58479028

[jamestiago]

I'd like to say that I'm brazilian and the majority of the population IS NOT against Bolsonaro. As some may have seen these past few days, there were millions of people on the streets showing support for the nation (07 of september was our independence day) and the government. Luis Inácio da Silva (Lula) is a notoriously corrupt ex-president with mountains of proof against him. I believe it's madness for anyone to picture Bolsonaro as a devil and neglect how much more evil the alternative is.

[jamestiago]

I'd also like to add that the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) is formed of individuals who did not earn their way into their role, but were appointed. They are also a extremely narcissistic and power hungry group who DON'T have the good of the country in their hearts and minds.

[Yuli Ban]

[R8Z]

The media and the common people are completely detached in Brazil; it feels like they are creating news for no one, as no one trusts a single thing of what they are saying anymore.

One of the reasons might be that there are only heavy-sided newslets in Brazil at the moment (think Fox vs CNN), so basically instead of news you get an analysis of what has happened and what you need to think about it.

Quite sad state of afairs.

[caltrek]

I suppose if one does not trust the Brazilian courts or media reports concerning Brazil, the following story can be dismissed as some sort of fake or highly biased news. For somebody living outside of Brazil with no recent contact with immigrants from that country, such media reports are all that we can go on. I am including social media in ”media reports.”

Fifty Years Later, Finally Justice for Brazil's Indigenous Krenak People
by Shanna Hanbury
October 3, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021 ... nak-people

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Half a century after Indigenous elder Jacó Krenak and dozens of fellow natives were bound and forcibly taken to concentration camps run by Brazil’s military dictatorship, a federal court has ordered the government to apologize and deliver reparations to the Krenak people.

Judge Anna Cristina Rocha Gonçalves charged the federal government, the Minas Gerais state government and the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, for the crimes committed against the Krenak people in southeastern Minas Gerais during the dictatorship that ran from 1964 to 1985. She ordered the federal government to organize an official ceremony for a public apology with national coverage.

“Justice, however slow, is being served,” Indigenous chief Geovani Krenak, a grandson of Jacó Krenak, told Mongabay in a phone interview. “The spirit of our assassinated warriors, like my grandfather, welcomes this decision.”

Speaking the Krenak language, drinking alcohol, having sexual relations, loitering, breaking curfew, leaving the village without prior permission, and resisting occupation by farmers on their land were banned by military officials at the time, according to reports and witness accounts. Arbitrary confinement, torture and beatings were commonplace punishments. Many Krenak died at the camps, though the exact numbers are still unknown.
The ruling, issued Sept. 13, also ordered Funai to conclude the demarcation process of the Sete Salões Indigenous Reserve, along with a series of measures to rehabilitate the Krenak language and culture.

[caltrek]

Fear and Hunger Under Bolsonaro
by Raphael Tsavkko Garcia
October 5, 2021

https://www.latinorebels.com/author/raphaelg/

Introduction:

(Latino Rebels) Behind the persistent coup attempts by President Jair Bolsonaro lies the hunger that has hit millions of Brazilians.

With more than 14 million unemployed and inflation reaching 10 percent, desperate Brazilians are even looking for food scraps and discarded animal carcasses, typically used to produce pet food or soap, to survive and feed their families.

Data shows that 116 million Brazilians live without full and permanent access to food and of these, 19 million go hungry on a daily basis. This sad reality ends up being left aside, hidden but also exacerbated by the political crisis ravaging the country.

In a country that has been crisis-driven since at least 2015, when the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff began, the latest scandal involves Prevent Senior, a healthcare company that owns several hospitals, and whose management is accused of conducting tests on patients and forcing doctors to offer drugs without proven efficacy in one of the country’s biggest medical scandals.

Founded in 1997 by two brothers, Eduardo and Fernando Parrillo, the company quickly became one of the leaders in the healthcare sector with a focus on offering health plans for the elderly at bargain prices.