Brazil Watch Thread

jamestiago
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Re: Brazil Watch Thread

Post by jamestiago »

Yes, state censorship.
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caltrek
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Telegram’s Ban in Brazil has Been Lifted
by Emma Roth
March 20, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/20/2298 ... -bolsonaro

Entire Article:
(The Verge) Brazil has lifted its ban on Telegram after the country’s Supreme Court blocked the messaging app on Friday for failing to comply with court orders, according to a report from The New York Times.

The court walked back on its ban after Telegram made several changes to help keep misinformation at bay in the country, which includes removing classified information shared by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and deleting accounts belonging to Allan dos Santos, an activist and Bolsonaro supporter accused of spreading disinformation.

In addition, Telegram made promises to label posts that contain false information and promote those with factual information. It will also have its employees keep a watchful eye on Brazil’s 100 most popular channels, the NYT reports.

With over 1.1 million subscribers on the platform, Telegram has become a favored channel of communication for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who’s currently under investigation for leaking police documents and has been accused of spreading false information in the past.

Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, an opponent of President Bolsonaro, ordered the ban on the app, which wound up lasting just two days. As Telegram CEO Pavel Durov explains, his company didn’t take action sooner because they were checking the wrong email inbox and failed to see the messages from Brazil’s Supreme Court.
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weatheriscool
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Re: Brazil Watch Thread

Post by weatheriscool »

Brazil's Bolsonaro Admitted to Hospital After Feeling Ill
Source: Bloomberg/MSN

(45 mins ago). Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Brasilia late Monday for testing after suffering abdominal discomfort, Communications Minister Fabio Faria said.

Faria didn't immediately provide additional details about the president's condition. Earlier, website UOL reported that Bolsonaro had been admitted to the Armed Forces hospital after feeling ill, on concern that he might be suffering from another intestinal obstruction, citing government officials.

Bolsonaro, 67, has undergone numerous surgeries and been hospitalized several times to deal with the aftermath of the stabbing he suffered on the campaign trail in 2018. His latest hospital stay was in January. Brazil's Bolsonaro Leaves Hospital After Latest Health Scare

The president kicked off his re-election campaign on Sunday and had been scheduled to attend an evening event organized by the Republican Party. Marcos Pereira, the party president, said that Bolsonaro instead had gone to the hospital...
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/br ... ar-AAVBq9D
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caltrek
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Re: Brazil Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Tourism is an important business for Brazil. Often intrinsic to the success of that business is its rich biotic environment. Case in point:

How a Town Tethered to Coral Learned to Save Its Reef — and Itself
by Jill Langlois
April 13, 2022

Introduction:
(Grist) Off the northeast coast of Brazil, the hot morning sun reflects off the sea’s surface as a jangada, a traditional wooden fishing boat, sways gently in the rolling waves. There’s just enough room on the vessel for the team from Biofábrica de Corais, a coral conservation and research group, to sift through the piles of sea ginger coral fragments they’ve collected from the ocean below them.

Without any sides, the boat allows salty water from the Atlantic to lap onto the researchers as they sit cross-legged on its floor. The four are moving quickly to examine the tiny invertebrates, keeping them in plastic bins filled with ocean water to ease their stress.

Rudã Fernandes, a biologist and founder of Biofábrica de Corais, turns a fragment of coral over in his hand, holds it up in front of his face, then sets it in one of the bins. Next to him, Luis Carlos Manoel dos Santos, better known as Melado, reaches into the salty water and picks it back up.

The jangadeiro, or fisherman, has lived and worked in the region his entire life, and this is his boat. Before joining the team, he used it strictly to take tourists on trips around the reef in the small beach community of Porto de Galinhas. Now, it serves a dual purpose, carrying scientists and volunteers on weekends and in off-hours to monitor the coral they’re working to save.

Holding a piece of sea ginger, or Millepora alcicornis, between his index finger and thumb, Melado squeezes a dab of adhesive to its base and fixes it to a small piece of white bioplastic. The structure is known as a “crib.” Created by Fernandes as part of his doctoral dissertation, the 3D-printed plastic holders act as temporary living quarters for dying coral. Each one has a species-specific design. Sea ginger, for example, prefers a round crib with small peaks it can latch onto. Cauliflower coral, or Mussismilia harttii, likes to spread out as it grows, so it prefers a crib with a smooth surface and fewer nooks and crannies to hold on to.
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wjfox
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Re: Brazil Watch Thread

Post by wjfox »

Brazil cancels invite for EU observers after Bolsonaro objection

May 3, 2022
6:09 PM GMT+1

Brazil's Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) has withdrawn an invitation for the European Union to send observers for the October election after President Jair Bolsonaro's government objected, the EU and the election body confirmed on Tuesday.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ ... 022-05-03/
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caltrek
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Lula Launches Campaign to Unseat Far-Right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
by Jake Johnson
May 7, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... -bolsonaro

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Speaking to a crowd of supporters and allies gathered in São Paulo on Saturday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva officially launched his campaign to unseat far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose three-year tenure has accelerated the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and intensified the nation's myriad human rights crises.

"Everything that we did is being destroyed by this government," said Lula, a globally renowned leftist who served as Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010 and departed office with a striking 83% approval rating. Extreme poverty fell sharply during Lula's presidency, owing in large part to his implementation and expansion of safety-net programs that included cash transfers and unemployment insurance.

But today, poverty, hunger, and homelessness remain at alarming levels in Brazil, one of the most unequal countries in the world. The coronavirus pandemic—which Bolsonaro has repeatedly downplayed despite Brazil's staggering death toll—has made the nation's preexisting crises far worse.

While the Bolsonaro government spent billions of dollars on a basic income program in 2020 to help vulnerable people weather the public health emergency, funding for the initiative quickly dried up, hurling millions back into poverty.

Bolsonaro's handling of the pandemic and its reverberating societal impacts has been so catastrophic, according to his critics, that he should be tried for crimes against humanity.
caltrek's comment: I realize that this article is biased toward Lula, but the real question should be is it accurate?
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caltrek
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Brazil Police Say Remains of Journalist Dom Phillips Identified
June 17, 2022

Introduction:
(Al Jazeera) Federal police in Brazil say they have identified the remains of British journalist Dom Phillips, who disappeared alongside Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in a remote area of the country’s Amazon rainforest in early June.

Brazilian authorities earlier this week discovered human remains after a suspect confessed to killing Phillips and Pereira, and took investigators to where the bodies were buried.

Phillips was identified through forensic analysis of the unearthed remains, Brazil’s federal police agency said in a statement on Friday. The agency said it was still working on “complete identification” of the remains, which may include those of Pereira.

Work was under way to determine the cause of death, the police also said.

“The remains of Dom Phillips were part of the material collected at the place indicated by Amarildo da Costa Oliveira,” they said, referring to the main suspect in the case.
The article goes on to include a discussion of the cooperation given by “the local Indigenous group UNIVAJA" in search efforts related to the investigation.

Read more here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/ ... killings
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caltrek
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HBO’s ‘PCC: Poder Secreto’ Shows the Rise of South America’s Largest Criminal Organization
by Gabriel Leão
June 29, 2022

Introduction:
(Latino Rebels) SÃO PAULO, Brazil — HBO Max’s documentary series PCC: Poder Secreto (PCC: Secret Power), which premiered on May 26, offers an inside look into the largest criminal organization in South America.

The Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Command of the Capital, or PCC in Portuguese) was born inside São Paulo prison system during the 1990s and exploded after the Carandiru Massacre, when the São Paulo State Military Police stormed the Carandiru Prison and killed 111 inmates rebelling for better imprisonment conditions.

The “Capital” in their name refers to São Paulo, arguably the richest city in South America. the PCC is accused of several crimes including prison breaks, prison riots, murders, drug trafficking, and bank robberies, among other criminal activities.

Although it tells the side of those in the underworld, the series also gives voice to the relatives whose lives have been deeply cut by the organization’s activities.

In an interview with Latino Rebels, director and veteran Brazilian filmmaker Joel Zito Araújo talks about his creative process, the relevance of telling this story, the appeal of the PCC in impoverished areas, the relationship it has with hip-hop culture, and how it is expanding its power across Latin America.
Read the interview here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/06/29/pccpoder/
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caltrek
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Re: Brazil Watch Thread

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House Democrats Call for Suspension of Aid if Brazilian Military Attempts Election Coup
by Brett Wilkins
July 7, 2022

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Amid fears that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro could attempt a military coup if he loses this October's presidential contest, a group of U.S. congressional Democrats this week proposed a measure that would suspend security aid to Brazil if its armed forces intervene in the election.

Brasilwire's Brian Mier first reported (https://www.brasilwire.com/exclusive-us ... -military/) that Reps. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), Albio Sires (D-N.J.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Susan Wild (D-Pa.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 which, if approved, would require the secretary of state "to review actions by Brazilian armed forces related to that country's October 2022 presidential elections and to consider such actions under statutory guardrails on U.S. security assistance."

"It calls for the discontinuation of security assistance," an insider with knowledge of the measure told Mier. Such assistance to Brazil consists mostly of joint military exercises and six-figure financial support. U.S. President Joe Biden has requested $800,000 in international military education and training funds for Brazil next fiscal year.

(See linked article for Twitter feed on this topic)

The unnamed insider characterized the proposed NDAA amendment as "basically a way of saying, 'you need to consider whether these actions amount to a coup because, if so, that would necessitate cutting off U.S. assistance.'"

As Bolsonaro and his allies continue their unfounded attacks on the integrity of Brazil's electronic voting system, recent polls show him trailing former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—who is running for the office again after being cleared of corruption charges last year—by double digits.
Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/202 ... ion-coup
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caltrek
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Brazil's Lula Vows to 'Put an End to Illegal Mining' if Elected President
by Brett Wilkins
August 22, 2022

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Asserting that "it is not necessary to cut down one tree" in the Amazon rainforest to raise cattle or plant crops, Brazilian presidential front-runner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vowed Monday to crack down on the illicit mining and logging that has ravaged the region and its Indigenous inhabitants during the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

"We are going to put an end to illegal mining," da Silva told international journalists in São Paulo. "If the world is willing to help, keeping a tree standing in the Amazon may be worth more than any investment."

"Brazil will look after the climate issue like never before," the Workers' Party nominee added. "We want to be responsible for maintaining the climate."
Monday's remarks followed an April promise by da Silva to end illegal mining on Indigenous lands and to reverse Bolsonaro's far-right policies, which many native people and their advocates have called "genocidal."

In April da Silva also committed to creating a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, explaining that "someone will have to take over the ministry and it won't be a white man like me, it will have to be an Indian."
Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... president
Don't mourn, organize.

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