The former leader of the Labor Party, Mark Latham, has joined One Nation and will run for the NSW Parliament.

• Mark Latham will run for NSW Parliament and lead the state branch of One Nation
• He says immigration, congestion, over-development and power prices will feature in his campaign
• ABC elections analyst Antony Green believes Mr Latham will be elected in the upper house

Speaking on Alan Jones' 2GB radio program this morning with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, Mr Latham said he was putting his hand up because he believed NSW voters needed a third choice.

He identified immigration, congestion, over-development and electricity prices as some of the issues he would use to campaign.

But Mr Latham also hit out against "political correctness" and "divisive identity politics".

"These are all issues that are banking up in NSW they haven't been addressed by the major parties," he said.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-07/mark-latham-joins-pauline-hanson-...

On 1 January, Jair Bolsonaro will be sworn in as Brazil’s 38th president. He has expressed open disdain for the indigenous peoples of Brazil, and it is no exaggeration to say that some of the world’s most unique and diverse tribes are facing annihilation. Genocide is defined by the UN as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Large-scale mass genocides rightly receive global attention, yet countless others go unreported and unpunished because the victims number only a few hundred, or even a few dozen.

Right now, deep in the Amazon rainforest, a small tribe of survivors is on the run. They are the Kawahiva, an uncontacted tribe of just a few dozen people, the victims of waves of horrific attacks which have pushed them to the brink of extinction. We know almost nothing about them, except that they are fleeing chainsaws in a region with the highest rate of deforestation in the Amazon. Brazil’s first ever investigation into the genocide of an uncontacted tribe was launched in 2005, and 29 people suspected of involvement in killing Kawahiva were detained but later released, including a former state governor and a senior policeman. The case stalled for lack of evidence.

 Bolsonaro’s election is catastrophic news for Brazil’s indigenous tribesFiona Watson  Read more

The Kawahiva’s territory lies near the town of Colniza, one of the most violent areas in Brazil, where 90% of income is from illegal logging. Survival International, the global movement fighting for the rights of tribal people, has recently called for increased police protection for the team responsible for protecting the Kawahiva’s land. FUNAI, Brazil’s Indian Affairs Department, has been prevented from properly carrying out its work in the area due to violence from illegal loggers and ranchers, leaving the tribe exposed. 

Preventing a genocide of uncontacted people is not a priority for Bolsonaro. He once said: “There is no indigenous territory where there aren’t minerals. Gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I’m not getting into this nonsense of defending land for Indians.”

Indigenous peoples are frequently regarded as obstacles to the advance of agribusiness, extractive industries, roads and dams. As more rainforest is invaded and destroyed in the name of economic “progress” and personal profit, uncontacted tribes become targets – massacred over resources because greedy outsiders know they can literally get away with murder. These are silent, invisible genocides, with few if any witnesses. The news often only emerges months, if not years, later.

Jair Bolsonaro himself has declared: ‘It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry wasn’t as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.’’ 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/tribes-brazil-geno...

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The world needs to understand what Brazil has become, before it’s too late. Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s Brazil is not just another country that elected a far-right president at a time when the world’s most powerful nation is led by Donald Trump. It’s not just South America’s version of the current trend of countries sliding into authoritarianism, like we’ve seen in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines. It’s not simply a peripheral nation with a pathetic leader. Brazil has become the apocalyptic vanguard that signals how radical this moment is – one with the power to worsen the climate crisis at top speed and blight the entire planet.

The election of Bolsonaro is a response to what we might call civilisation’s new discontent. Maybe people can’t identify the source of their anxiety, which has driven up the consumption of tranquillisers and sedatives. The average citizen might apply more familiar labels to the corrosion of their quality of life, air, and water; to a relentless fear of the “other”; to the feeling they’re walking in quicksand. But what’s underpinning this new discontent pervading all areas of human experience is our climate crisis.

Bolsonaro was elected in October, on his pledge to go back “50 years”. Fifty years ago, Brazil lived under a military dictatorship. For Bolsonaro and his followers, who are outright defenders of torture and the elimination of adversaries, it was a glorious era. Despite the terrifying menace of nuclear war, the world was still a place where science promised nothing but progress and solutions – it delivered no bad news, like global warming, that led to limitations on an individual’s daily life or on government actions. It was a time when white, heterosexual men held power and knew precisely who they were. They may have faced some resistance from minorities, but they still enjoyed absolute hegemony.

We cannot comprehend what is now happening in Brazil – and around the world – unless we understand that our culture wars are tightly bound up with humanity’s need to say goodbye to 20th-century illusions of power and face a planet made more hostile by human hand. Things will soon reach catastrophic levels if nations and their residents do not unite in a global effort to do something extremely hard and unpopular: impose limits on ourselves to counteract global warming.

The election of Bolsonaro ties all this together like no other event. The Bolsonaro administration promises a “new era” – a return to a time free of doubts and insecurity, with certainty about what a man is and what a woman is and a clear sense who’s in charge of the public sphere and the family. Their ultra-conservatism is at times corny, at times biblical – but never innocent.

Soon after Bolsonaro’s inauguration last week, the minister of women, family, and human rights, Damares Alves – an evangelical pastor – stated in a video that now “girls wear pink and boys, blue”. Beside her, a supporter held an Israeli flag. Some neo-Pentecostals likewise waved Israeli flags at the inauguration. These religious groups, who are growing numerically and wielding greater power in Brazil, voted overwhelmingly for Bolsonaro...

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/10/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-minorities-rainforest

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...

"Once the invaders have taken away the wood, they divide our land into plots and sell it," says Karipuna. The 32-year-old is wearing jeans and a T-shirt and standing in the office of the indigenous aid organization Cimi in Porto Velho, the capital of the Amazon state of Rondônia. 

The bright room is decorated with photos of people of various ethnicities while spears, bows and quivers full of arrows hang in a corner. Laura Vicuña, who heads the aid organization's local office, has just returned from a several-day trip into the protected territory. The telephone is ringing nonstop; the election victory of right-wing extremist Jair Bolsonaro has alarmed both indigenous people and aid workers. 

Less and Less Respect

"We're afraid that we could lose everything now," says Karipuna. In April, the tribe chief appealed to the international community at the United Nations in New York. He reported that deforestation has increased in the past two years, with less and less respect for protected territories. "I'm seeking the help of the United Nations to prevent a massacre of our people!" 

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, is a friend to cattle farmers, lumberjacks, gold prospectors and soybean growers -- the very types of people who present a threat to the rain forest. Their representatives in the National Congress, the representatives of the Brazilian agricultural industry, have a powerful lobby, and they supported Bolsonaro during his election campaign.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-brazilian-president-s-atta...

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The dam, owned by mining firm Vale SA, partially collapsed on Friday, sending torrents of mud and sludge into the forest and villages below. The effluent washed away roads and destroyed buildings in its path.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/449742-brazil0dam-burst-missing/

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The departure in exile of the deputy of Rio de Janeiro Jean Wyllys to "save his life" has terrified many Brazilian human rights activists. The MP, a member of the LGBT movement (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender), has announced that he will not return to his country for the "next four years", which is the full mandate of the new president — Bolsonaro — because of the death threats he continues to receive. "During the election campaign, there were at least four LGBT deaths a day, and the state still did not recognize homophobic violence. I was particularly attacked because of the "fake news" launched by the president, so much so that a Rio judge could suggest, on a Facebook thread, my execution, without any bother", he explained, Thursday, January 24, to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

Jean Wyllys, 44, who was due to begin his third term on February 1, is the first openly gay MP to be elected to the federal Parliament. Since 2010, it has emerged as one of the symbols of the struggle for the rights of sexual minorities. In particular, he has faced on many occasions, and often alone, evangelical deputies whose presence in Parliament has increased significantly over the past ten years. Despite all those who waved the Bible at his words, Jean Wyllys has obtained the repeal of several articles of the Brazilian Civil Code, allowing the civil union between people of the same sex. He also fought for years for a law allowing prostitutes to benefit from a retirement fund after twenty-five years of activity.

Translation by Jules Letambour.

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https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/01/26/menace-sous-bols...

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Full Episode of "The Battle of Rio"

"People want to break the system - and the great symbol to break the system was Bolsonaro" – Rodrigo Amorim, MP and friend of new President Bolsonaro 

Jair Bolsonaro vaulted to power on a pledge to smash corruption and endemic violent crime that sees around 60,000 in Brazil murdered each year. Bolsonaro lets police shoot to kill, his army of supporters love him for it. It seems not to matter that the former soldier praises past military dictatorships, or that he trash-talks women, or that he is a homophobe.  

But there was one killing that’s become a rallying point for those who oppose the new president. Black, gay, favela-raised politician Marielle Franco was a fierce critic of a policing system that kills a reported 5000 people a year.

A year ago she and her driver were gunned down by unknown assailants. Just this month, two ex-military police were arrested in connection with the killings. 

In death, Marielle Franco looms as large as she did in life. As preparations get under way for the spectacular annual Carnaval, huge flags are unfurled bearing her image. She has become a heroine and galvanising figure for opponents of the new order. 

In Rio, reporter Sally Sara moves from wealthy gated communities to crime-infested favelas to explore why yet another democracy has turned to a hard-right absolutist leader.

See more:

https://www.abc.net.au/foreign/

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See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/5820

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has cancelled a planned trip to the United States after protests from gay rights and environmental campaigners. 

Mr Bolsonaro was due to attend a ceremony in his honour in New York later in May organised by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. 

Several venues in the city have decided not to host the event. 

His spokesman blamed New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the "pressure of interest groups". 

The American Museum of Natural History had originally agreed to hold a gala dinner for the Brazilian president, 

But it drew heavy criticism for agreeing to host a ceremony at which Mr Bolsonaro, who has advocated relaxing environmental policies, was scheduled to receive a person of the year award.

Other sponsors, including Delta Airlines, the Financial Times newspaper and management consultancy Bain & Co, have pulled out of the event.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48158876

Methinks that the visit was cancelled because Bolsanaro may have been warned that going to the American Museum of Natural History would be a "trap". The Bolsanaro government has inflicted a cut of 42 per cent to scientific research in Brazil, has plans to destroy more Amazonian rainforest and to displace Indian tribes and to boost the military. 

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Ex-Brazilian President Lula

'Bolsonaro Is Setting the Whole Country on Fire'

In an interview with DER SPIEGEL, former Brazilian President Lula da Silva discusses the loneliness of his prison term, the U.S. influence on Brazil and the threats he says are posed by the country's current leader, Jair Bolsonaro.

Seven months ago, DER SPIEGEL correspondent Jens Glüsing asked the Brazilian Supreme Court for permission to conduct an interview with the country's former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has been in prison for over a year. Until April, all interview requests had been rejected, but permission was then unexpectedly granted. Glüsing was allowed to speak to Lula for 60 minutes in a windowless conference room at police headquarters in the city of Curitiba in southern Brazil. Two armed policemen were present for the duration of the interview. DER SPIEGEL's correspondent was permitted to greet the former president with a handshake, but after that he was required to keep a distance of about 3 meters (about 10 feet).

The former president seemed to be in excellent physical and mental condition and he also seemed combative. But Glüsing did not get to see the former Brazilian leader's actual prison cell. It's on the fourth floor of the building and doesn't have bars on the windows. Visitors report that it is 15 square meters in size. Lula keeps in touch with the world via a TV with a USB connection and is well informed about national and international politics. Each morning, prison staff save a press review and important documents on a USB stick for him. He has no access to the internet. The former president spends a lot of time reading in prison and he is permitted access to sunlight three times a week. At his request, a treadmill was installed in his cell so he can keep fit.

DER SPIEGEL: Mr. President, how are you doing? Are you lonely?

Lula: I can deal with it. I am also greeted loudly three times a day by my supporters, who camp outside on a street corner. When I get out of here, I will be eternally grateful to these people. I hope that once I leave this building through the main entrance, I can have a proper drink with them.

DER SPIEGEL: You've always been a very communicative, sociable person. How are you able to stand such a small cell?

Lula: I will tell you something I haven't told anyone before. When I started my career in the labor union many years ago, I was extremely shy. Whenever I was supposed to speak at an event, I got nervous. To prepare myself, I stuck photos of many people on the wall of my room and practiced my speech in front of them. I was speaking to an imaginary audience. When I feel like speaking to an audience in my cell today, I also just stick photos to the wall.

DER SPIEGEL: Your imprisonment has also been a burden for your family. Your accounts have been frozen and your daughter is now selling sweets on the internet.

Lula: All of this is difficult for them, but I don't want to complain. As a child, when I lived with my mother, I often saw her sitting next to the stove on Sundays. There was absolutely nothing she could have prepared a meal with, but she didn't complain. At least my children have enough to eat. Of course, I wish they didn't have to go through this. But in time, the truth will show its face.

DER SPIEGEL: You were sentenced to 12 years by an appellate court for corruption and money laundering. Recently the sentence was reduced to just short of nine years. You were convicted of having received an apartment from a construction company, which in return is said to have been given preferential treatment in the awarding of the contract to the oil company Petrobras, which is half-owned by the government. How do you intend to prove your innocence?

Lula: I don't have to prove that I'm innocent. I demand that the judiciary prove my guilt. I was convicted in the first instance without the presentation of a single piece of evidence. The prosecutor in charge gave a PowerPoint presentation to justify the charges against me. During the trial it was stated that there was no clear evidence and that the charges were based on "convictions." Even Judge Sérgio Moro, who convicted me, did not produce any evidence. He referred to "indeterminate facts." The appeals court then sentenced me without reading the case files. They wanted to prevent my candidacy as quickly as possible.

DER SPIEGEL: The prosecutors accused you of acting as the head of a criminal organization.

Lula: Somebody needs to finally prove that I own this apartment and that I received money from the construction company or money from Petrobras. It's unacceptable for someone to be in custody waiting for the justice system to produce evidence. I'm fighting for the truth to finally come out in its own right.

DER SPIEGEL: It's possible you will have to spend years in prison.

Lula: It could take a while. No problem. It's tough. I'd rather be free, but there's one thing I won't give up at any price: my dignity.

DER SPIEGEL: Shortly before your arrest, you were campaigning for the election on the border with Uruguay. You said at the time that all you needed to do to be safe from the judiciary was to step across the border. Do you regret that you didn't go into exile?

Lula: No. There were a few things I didn't want to give up. I am 73 years old, I was president of Brazil and I am too well known. I didn't see myself as a refugee. Important people spoke with me about whether I should leave Brazil or seek refuge in an embassy. I decided to stay in the country. I am fighting for the truth. I want to prove that my accusers are liars, even if I have to do that from custody. I have a clear conscience. I am convinced that Judge Moro and the prosecutors who put me behind bars do not sleep as well as I do.

DER SPIEGEL: Did you expect that you would be arrested?

Lula: From the beginning, I was convinced that the real target of Operation Lava Jato (editors: the name of the corruption investigation) was me. I was fully aware that it wasn't likely that my opponents would remove my successor, Dilma Rousseff, who also comes from the Labor Party, from office only to then allow me to be re-elected President. It didn't fit together.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you see yourself as a political prisoner?

Lula: Judge Moro, who convicted me, has since been appointed Justice Minister by Jair Bolsonaro, the new president. A few days ago, Bolsonaro publicly admitted that he had agreed with Moro to move him to the next vacant justice position at the Supreme Court. That shows that it was all planned in advance.

DER SPIEGEL: Moro is defending himself against such accusations ...

Lula: Moro made sure that Bolsonaro was elected president by preventing my candidacy.

DER SPIEGEL: The economy boomed under your leadership and millions rose out of poverty. But a political and economic crash followed, and last year Bolsonaro, a right-wing radical, was elected president. What went wrong with your country?

Lula: Economic policy isn't magic. You have to be credible to be respected. That's why I had the support of Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Brazil was on its way to becoming the world's fifth-largest economic power, and now we have this disaster. Bolsonaro is like the Roman emperor Nero: He'ssetting the whole country on fire. He doesn't use the words employment, growth, investment and development. He doesn't want to build anything. He just wants to destroy. We've got a president who is clicking his heels in front of the American flag. Brazil doesn't deserve this.

DER SPIEGEL: Isn't your Workers' Party (PT) partly to blame for the decline? It once promised to fight corruption, but now the party itself is entangled in numerous corruption scandals.

Lula: There is no party in Brazilian history that has created more instruments for combating corruption than the PT. We've not only created tougher laws, but also greater transparency. That's how corruption came to light. We've made mistakes, and we are paying for them. But it's only the treasurer of our party who is in prison, even though all parties raised money in the same way. PT is not being punished for its mistakes, but for what it did right.

DER SPIEGEL: How so?

Lula: The Brazilian elite do not accept the rise of the poor. My crime was that I made it possible for the poor to study, to use the same sidewalks as the rich and for them to suddenly be able to go to shopping centers and airports. This country belongs to everyone. PT has been generous to those who need the Brazilian state, but it has not neglected the rich. I bear my cross, but the sins were committed by others.

DER SPIEGEL: The public prosecutor's office claims there was a gigantic corruption system surrounding Petrobras to finance the parties.

Lula: That's a lie. There may have been one or two cases. Petrobras is a huge company that moves 30 billion real a year, the equivalent of 6.6 billion euros. I just read a book about the history of oil and the power politics associated with it. I've been convinced ever since that what is happening in Brazil has to do with the interests of the U.S. oil companies.

DER SPIEGEL: Are you serious?

Lula: The Americans and the Brazilian elite didn't want to the deep-sea oil deposits that were discovered during my government to be extracted only by consortiums in which Petrobras held a majority stake. They're opposed to the fact that 75 percent of the money from license fees is invested in the education system so that Brazil, which is 200 years behind, can finally catch up. Or that it will be used to finance research, technology and the health system. That's why they overthrew my successor Dilma Rousseff. It's also why all the illegal maneuvers followed to prevent me from being able to run again. They knew that I would be elected president, even if I were in prison. Public Prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, who is persecuting me, is a puppet of the U.S. Justice Department.

DER SPIEGEL: But not all the accusations have come out of nowhere. Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction company at the center of the corruption investigations, is said to have bribed politicians throughout Latin America. Did you have too close a relationship with Odebrecht?

Lula: No. And I don't regret any relationship I had with companies, banks, businesspeople and workers. I have always been aware of how important Odebrecht is for Brazil. It's quite possible that the people who were trying to destroy Rousseff and Petrobras also had an interest in busting up the big Brazilian construction companies. You can investigate allegations of corruption and expose corruption perfectly well. And if the owner of Odebrecht has practiced corruption, then he should be arrested. But the company should continue to work to create jobs and prosperity. Who would benefit if the construction companies were to go under? Who has an interest in Brazilian companies not being active in Africa or other South American countries? The competitors in Europe and the U.S.

DER SPIEGEL: The Brazilian elite that you criticize so harshly courted you when you were in government.

Lula: I always said: I govern for the rich and for the poor. But everyone needs to know that my preference belongs to those who are most in need. At the end of my term in office in 2010, I had approval ratings of more than 80 percent. There was a national consensus regarding my person.

DER SPIEGEL: How do you explain the fact that you are so hated by an element of society today?

Lula: Brazil's media has been stirring up hatred against me since 2005. Mário Soares, the former Portuguese president, told me during a visit: Lula, I don't understand how you are a god in the foreign press, but a devil in the Brazilian press. This hatred grew even stronger after the mass protests in 2013. After the 2014 election, which my successor Rousseff narrowly won, the opposition initially refused to accept the result. The right is always preaching that their enemy is the Labor Party, that they must destroy us. But they didn't succeed in doing that. They just won a single election.

DER SPIEGEL: Bolsonaro, though, isn't a representative of the traditional opposition ...

Lula: He's not capable of serving as president. Why did he win anyway? Let me quote the Mozambican author Mia Couto: "In times of terror, we choose monsters to protect us." A guy comes along who was a member of parliament for 28 years, but never achieved anything, and manages to sell himself as the "new one." He wasn't elected because his supporters believe he is the better alternative. It was because he opposes the PT. It was a protest vote.

DER SPIEGEL: Is democracy in peril in Brazil?

Lula: Bolsonaro doesn't think much of democracy. He and his people know only one thing: weapons. He simulates a pistol with his hand in almost every photo. The first thing he did was to send the Cuban doctors home, who were the only people guaranteeing health care in many poor regions. Then he took on environmental policy and eroded workers' rights. Now, he's talking about a major pension reform. It may help the banks, but not the people. This man is a danger to Brazil. He's destroying everything we have built.

DER SPIEGEL: Nonetheless, he enjoys the support of the armed forces.

Lula: Those in the military who support him seem to have forgotten all nationalist principles. In my view, this includes not only protecting our borders, but also our biodiversity, our water, our Amazon region, our industry.

DER SPIEGEL: You had a good relationship with the armed forces during your time in office. Why are the generals now turning against you?

Lula: I'd like to know that too. When I get out of here one day, I want to have a serious discussion with several officers. I don't understand why the army chief suggested my conviction to the Supreme Court before the election to prevent my candidacy. My government always treated the military well.

Read more:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-ex-brazilian-p...

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Bolsonaro is doing the US psychopathic bidding in Brazil. Boots and all. 

AN ENORMOUS TROVE of secret documents reveals that Brazil’s most powerful prosecutors, who have spent years insisting they are apolitical, instead plotted to prevent the Workers’ Party, or PT, from winning the 2018 presidential election by blocking or weakening a pre-election interview with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with the explicit purpose of affecting the outcome of the election.

The massive archive, provided exclusively to The Intercept, shows multiple examples of politicized abuse of prosecutorial powers by those who led the country’s sweeping Operation Car Wash corruption probe since 2014. It also reveals a long-denied political and ideological agenda. One glaring example occurred 10 days before the first round of presidential voting last year, when a Supreme Court justice granted a petition from the country’s largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, to interview Lula, who was in prison on corruption charges brought by the Car Wash task force.

Immediately upon learning of that decision on September 28, 2018, the team of prosecutors who handled Lula’s corruption case — who spent years vehemently denying that they were driven by political motives of any kind — began discussing in a private Telegram chat group how to block, subvert, or undermine the Supreme Court decision. This was based on their expressed fear that the decision would help the PT — Lula’s party — win the election. Based on their stated desire to prevent the PT’s return to power, they spent hours debating strategies to prevent or dilute the political impact of Lula’s interview.

The Car Wash prosecutors explicitly said that their motive in stopping Lula’s interview was to prevent the PT from winning. One of the prosecutors, Laura Tessler, exclaimed upon learning of the decision, “What a joke!” and then explained the urgency of preventing or undermining the decision. “A press conference before the second round of voting could help elect Haddad,” she wrote in the chat group, referring to the PT’s candidate Fernando Haddad. The chief of the prosecutor task force, Deltan Dallagnol, conducted a separate conversation with a longtime confidant, also a prosecutor, and they agreed that they would “pray” together that the events of that day would not usher in the PT’s return to power.

Read more:

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-car-wash-prosecutors-workers-...

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MICHAEL FOX: Workers are striking around Brazil today against President Jair Bolsonaro’s push for pension reform. They say if approved, pension reform will drastically decrease benefits and increase the number of years necessary to acquire those benefits. The unions here say that it’s a push toward privatization which would be disastrous for workers if this is pushed through, and they say they are up in arms and they’ve hit the streets. Banks are closed, schools are out, post offices are closed, and public transportation in major cities has been ground to a halt. That’s the situation here, with the bus system here in Florianopolis, not happening.

So people have been out since very early this morning, since before dawn, blocking roads around the country. Here people are about to start marching around the city against the pension reform, but also against Bolsonaro’s major cuts to to federal universities and to education. Students is one of the main sectors that have come out. Many students slept out at their universities and at their high schools, and were able to come here, and they’ve been amassing here today. And so they are obviously against the cuts, but they’re also against pension reform. They’re one of the major sectors that’s going to be hit by this pension reform if it is approved, because they say they still have their whole working lives in front of them.

I was interviewing people earlier today, and they say they are ready and they’re out in the streets against this. The other thing that people are calling for is the release of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Obviously with the recent leaks of The Intercept that came out just this week showing that there was collusion between former Judge Sergio Moro and federal prosecutors in the case against Lula. People are calling for that case to be thrown out and for Lula to be free. They say Lula is innocent, and that he is necessary to be out in the streets. And that is one of the major rallying cries.

The protests, the manifestations are happening. Demonstrations are happening around the country. [Name inaudible], the president of Brazil’s largest labor federation, said earlier that roughly 40 million people were expected to participate in today’s general strike. Now, that would rival the general strike of April 2017 against the labor reform under the government of Michel Temer, and that was one of the largest in Brazil’s history.

Now, it’s still too early to tell exactly the impact that today has had and how many people have participated politically, because the whole focus, the idea today, was for people to strike, to not go to work, and to stay home. Now, we still saw relatively large mobilizations in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, and in major cities all around the country. But that was not the focus. That was not the idea. These were not going to be the big protests that we saw over the last few weeks against the budget cuts to education.

Now, that is one thing that the media has already tried to downplay, and show how since there weren’t people in the streets then this was a failure. And union leaders already gave a heads up to their members early on that that was not necessarily what was expected, but that is what the media would be–the angle the media would be trying to play. Again, it’s hard to tell, also, what kind of an impact this will have on the pension reform being pushed through Congress right now. One thing is for sure. The students, the teachers, the unions, the workers that came out today or that stay home from work have promised they’re in it for the long haul, and they’re going to continue to fight regardless.

Michael Fox, The Real News, Florianopolis, Brazil.

Read more:

https://therealnews.com/stories/millions-of-brazilians-join-general-stri...

Brazil was just weeks from last year’s electoral earthquake when rock legend Lobão sat down outside his backyard studio, fired up his smartphone and announced he was backing the far-right frontrunner.

“I’ve reached the conclusion I’m going to vote for Jair Bolsonaro,” the rightwing rocker declared in his YouTube endorsement. “Bolsonaro is the only chance of something new.”

On a recent afternoon, however, the gravel-voiced singer sank into a chair on the same terrace and admitted to a severe case of buyer’s remorse.

“It’s a marmalade of madness,” Lobão grumbled of Bolsonaro’s crisis-packed opening act in power which has been plagued by factional struggles, mass protests, claims of mafia ties and corruption involving his family, a cocaine smuggling scandal involving a presidential plane and damaging revelations involving his celebrity justice minister, Sérgio Moro.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/03/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-firs...

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As the Brazilian right-wing has imposed on the South American country a grave regression,The Intercept has revealed that their tool to take back power through the local Justice system, especially arresting Lula da Silva, is as disgusting as Bolsonaro's nation in these times. "I simply can't believe what is happening in Brazil," says Noam Chomsky exclusively to Pravda's Edu Montesanti

by Edu Montesanti

Operation Lava Jato, since 2014 trumpeted by the mainstream media, nationally and internationally, as cleansing Brazil of corruption, has become another example of the great service to the truth and democracy by the alternative media, since the beginning denouncing - facing wrath and every kind of aggressions - the outrageous disservice of the "heroes" of the task force, clandestine right-wing ideologues masquerading as apolitical law enforcers. Perpetrators of a self-evident lawfare.

The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald has revealed, or confirmed, taking into account our exhaustive denouncements through the last five years, serious wrongdoing, unethical behavior, and systematic deceit by Lava Jato investigation's prosecutors led by the chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, who oversaw former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's prosecution along with then-Judge Sérgio Moro, now the Justice minister for Brazilian far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, elected last October based on fake news and a campaign of deep hate. - strongly supported by the local mainstream media. 

Lula da Silva was sentenced by Moro to 12 years in prison for corruption and money laundering, in July 2017, convicted of benefiting from renovations to a beachfront apartment, both paid by the building company OAS as payback for some contracts he helped the company get.

It is worth remembering that Lula's exclusion from the election, based on Moro's finding of guilt as Dallagnol confided to the judge his increasing doubts over two key elements of the prosecution's case, was a key episode that paved the way for Bolsonaro's victory. As soon as this retired military officer took over the Presidency, he nominated Moro as his "super-minister" of Justice and Public Security. "I believe that the US government influenced, at least tacitly, the outcome of Brazil's recent national elections," says to Pravda's Edu Montesanti the CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, who co-hosts the Sputnik's radio show Loud and Clear.

A well-known mucky Brazilian "Justice" system mostly composed by the same elitist white families through the years, deeply corrupted, a solid caste secretly trained by the Washington regime as revealed years ago by WikiLeaks (Moro included in such legal courses, based on United States law) whose main objective through Lava Jato - according to a massive archive of previously undisclosed materials, recently provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source which included videos, photos, court proceedings, audio recordings and private chats exchanged among Lava Jato's prosecutors and then-Judge Sérgio Moro, and other documentation being published since last June 9 - has been:

The deterioration of the Brazilian left, especially preventing Lula da Silva from winning the 2018 election;

The destruction of the national industry, especially oil and construction companies, in favor of the American one; and,

Latin America's and BRICS's disintegration.

The criminal process called Lava Jato which, in alliance with the mainstream media - especially Rede Globo, which has a vast history of promoting coups in the country -, has taken the form of a totalitarian regime in Brazil as it has had a strong and clear political character. Which relinquishes national sovereignty in favor of the interests of the United States as well as the 1964 CIA-funded military coup ("What is good for the United States, is good for Brazil," said the Justice Minister Juracy Magalhães shortly after the coup, that overthrew President João Goulart).

A Biased Task Force Heading Brazil to Chaos

An excess of temporary prisons, bargains of delation awarded and even pressure against one to delate especially those statements which, even being false, meet Sérgio Moro's political interests, the inclusion of illegal documents, illegal eavesdropping, the leak to the media of covert operations and even Moro's illegal eavesdropping involving then-President Dilma Rousseff with Lula da Silva, disregarding formalities such as previously informing the Ministry of Justice of certain measures taken, a reversal in the jurisdiction of many judgments - including Lula da Silva's -, are marks of Lava Jato task force since 2014, when the probe began as a money-laundering investigation.

Since then, many lawyers including some Prosecutor's Public officials all over Brazil has said that every Lava Jato sentence could be invalidated soon, and Sérgio Moro, expelled from the judiciary. The Intercept also has revealed that the then-judge acted like a chief of the Public Prosecutor's Office, something, of course, illegal to a judge who must be impartial. 

At the same time, prosecutors allied to protect the judge, and prevent tensions between him and the Supreme Court from paralyzing investigations in March of 2016. "The prosecutors' submission to Moro is scandalous. There is no doubt that they acted illegally," said the lawmaker Marcelo Freixo.

Operation Lava Jato origins are the scandal of Banestado, a state bank of Paraná State in Southern Brazil: between 1996 and 2002, during President Fernando Henrique Cardoso years (1995-2003, from the rightist Brazilian Social-Democratic Party - PSDB -, Lula da Silva's Workers' Party's - PT - strong opponent), Banestado was used as a means for PSDB politicians, money dealers, a big drug trafficker, economists and businessmen, to evaded currency to tax havens that reached US$84 billion (Brazil's Odebrecht construction company, at the center of Lava Jato probe, struck a deal with the United States Justice Department in 2016, admitting it paid at least US$3.5 billion in bribes around the world, from Latin America to Africa).

In the mid-2000s, Judge Moro, until then an unknown jurist - as the task, of course, requires a renowned lawyer -, condemned several bank officers but no politician among many involved in the case that has developed and, in the last years, has generated a national hysteria (falsely) against corruption - against the Workers' Party, particularly.

There has been another investigation in Brazil, important to note in this context: Operation Zelotes inquires Brazil's Ministry of the Treasury for the embezzlement of US$ 4,9 billion, in which government officials, businessmen including Ford and Mitsubishi vehicle makers, bankers (Bradesco, Santander, and Safra banks), and Rede Globo, the country's biggest media company, are involved.

Even being the monetary values involved much higher than in Lava Jato scandal, too, Zelotes has not drawn the mainstream media's attention - but when, in late 2014, Lula da Silva's son was denounced. Neither a big company nor a businessman has been prosecuted.

In other leaks by The Intercept on June 21, then-Judge Moro turned a blind eye to the corruption scheme that Flavio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro's son, kept in his cabinet while he was a lawmaker in Rio de Janeiro, not to displease his father who had already given him the post of Minister of Justice in his future government.

Such scandals, among others in Brazil, have not got the local Justice's and the mainstream media's interest, neither The Intercept's revelations: cynically the focus has been who hacked prosecutors's and Moro's cell phones, not the contents of the revelations. A strong, disproportional, incredible contrast to the widespread hysteria anti-corruption regarding Lava Jato probe.

Greenwald versus Moro, 'The U.S.'s Son of a Bitch'

"We're of course watching the great work that Glenn Greenwald has been doing with real fascination," says Noam Chomsky to Pravda's Edu Montesanti. "We hope that those with real power won't succeed in covering it up."

To make matters worse in the already tragic Brazil, Glenn Greenwald has been, since his revelations about Lava Jato last June, investigated and intimidated by the Brazilian Federal Police, subordinated to Minister Moro. "I have known Glenn Greenwald since 1986. I have found him to be an honest journalist, even if I do not always agree with him," states John Kiriakou to this report. "If Glenn Greenwald were in the US to talk to the FBI or any other government agency, it would have been in his role as a legitimate journalist."

According to the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations (UN), referring to Greenwald's case, the Brazilian State is now "obliged to prevent, protect, investigate and punish violence against journalists, especially those who have been subjected to intimidation, threats or other types of violence."

One of Moro's secret sayings to his obedient "public prosecutor" Dallagnol revealed by Greenwald, about ex-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, was: "An important support, that is better not to be offended [through investigations]."

Greenwald has said that Rede Globo, which in 2013 published a cynical letter stating the organization regretted having supported the 1964 coup in Brazil, "has been Lava Jato's friend, an allied and associate." A coalition that many still believe as being "a coalition of good people," that conceals under the carpet the blood of the victims of the dictatorship, which Bolsonaro and Minister of the Supreme Court Dias Toffoli, openly advocate.

What said then-US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt about the Nicaraguan dictator in 1936, could undoubtedly be said about Moro by US deep State in these times: "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."

Uncle Sam's Puppets: Criminals Wearing Ties

During presidents Lula's and Dilma's years (2003-2016), Petrobras (Brazilian state oil company) production multiplied by several times: while in 2000 it represented 3% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), in 2014 the company produced of 13% of the GDP. 

It is worth pointing out that the local elites, aligned with the Washington regime (according to WikiLeaks and so many historical evidence), wants to privatize the national oil company - since its creation, in the 1950s. Petrobras boosted the overthrow of presidents Getúlio Vargas in 1954, much likely Jânio Quadros in 1961, and João Goulart three years later. 

Surely not for a mere coincidence, Lava Jato has strongly weakened Petrobras, as mentioned above as in no country across the globe, a state agent goes against its nation's interests as Moro and his gang have done. Moreover, the Brazilian "Justice" system is well-known for also being biased against the poor, blacks and leftists in general, while shamefully shields the elite's interests.

As for Dallagnol, he has received money in the last years from two sectors spared by the probe that has condemned Lula da Silva: health plans and banks, for presenting lectures. Both the chief Lava Jato's prosecutor in Brasília and Judge Moro in Curitiba disregarded accusations against such billionaire sectors (in the second case, Bradesco, Itaú, Safra and BTG banks).

The Public Prosecutor's Office has spoken out against the annulment of the penalty imposed on Lula da Silva.

A Color Revolution that Many Do Not See Yet

Operation Car Wash, a so precarious as aggressive lawfare, is part of an imperialistic intervention in Brazil, a soft coup with clear objectives backed by the local oligarchs.

Brazil, June 2013. The President was, since 2010, Dilma Rousseff with a 57% approval rating at the time. Brazil, after eight years of Lula da Silva in the Presidency, Dilma's predecessor, was respected all over the world as never before. Domestically, the nation was living times of full employment - as never before, again: unemployment was then 5,7%, a historic record in Brazil. 

Suddenly, a popular "Spring" took to the streets across the country. The motive? Few people could explain why they were in the streets angerly protesting. "Against everything that is there" was the most common answer to journalists, in many cases after thinking some seconds to speak something, people were confused. Three weeks after the beginning of the protests, deeply fueled by the mainstream media and incited also by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (!), then-President Dilma failed to a 30% approval rating. Unexplainable. Nothing had changed in the country to justify such a free-falling. From overnight as the local mainstream media, soon followed by The New York Times, incited more protests praising "the sacred people" (whose causes they, elitists par excellence, had barely or even never advocated before, a well-known fact), and demonized President Dilma.

The Brazilian "Spring" followed the same pattern of the countries that were, all over the world, being victims of a US color revolution, idealized by the American Gene Sharp. Tension Strategies happened, too, in the South American country, through attacks of public places by policemen, to justify more repression by the State - this video published by Telesur is just one example, among many others, regarding Tension Strategy in Brazil at the time. 

Part of the Brazilian alternative media, shyly and only for some time, some authors (like this reporter, since the first days of the protests) denounced that a Color Revolution was in course. It was unpopular reporting a fact like that at the time. And many others in the media did not understand what was suddenly going on in the country - the massive protests took everybody by surprise. Sociologists could not explain that "phenomenon".

The Brazilian political and social scenario, of course, started to drastically change, then. At the same time, Edward Snowden spoke out, saying in the first week of July that Brazil had been the world's most spied on by the US on January 2013, and in the last decade, the most spied on in Latin America - especially then-President Dilma and Petrobras. 

Two years later, came a strong boycott against the Dilma administration by the Congress, secretly led by then-Vice-President Michel Temer who also led, speaking out about this publicly, the impeachment process against then-president - a total shame as the first woman in Brazil's Presidency did not commit any crime. Temer was revealed by WikiLeaks as the main CIA informer. In the meanwhile, obscure movements such as Vem pra Rua (Take to the Streets) and Movimento Brasil Livre (Free Brazil Movement), evidently funded and trained by the Washington basements (detailed in Pravda Brasil) - the latter, a national champion in spreading fake news, according to academic studies.

Then came the impeachment process in 2016, an aberration that negatively drawn the attention of jurists, journalists, activists, and intellectuals in general across the globe. No other by the Washington regime, whose "diplomat" in Brazil was Lilian Ayalde, who served an ambassador in Paraguay in 2012 when the progressive President Fernando Lugo was overthrown by a parliamentary coup, much similar to the Brazilian one. Lava Jato investigation reaches its peak at the time. 

The alternative media, locally and internationally, started very soon to denounced that a coup was happening in Brazil, not an impeachment process as the mainstream media and the Brazilian opposition were stating. And that Temer would not be a solution to the economic and political crisis, as heralded - on the contrary, he and his gang were poison to Brazil's weak democracy.

Shortly after Temer took power, on October 5, 2016, the House of Representatives revoked Law 4567/16, which ensured exclusivity for Petrobras to exploit crude oil.

On March 14, 2018, Marielle Franco, a councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro who used to speak out against the State repression towards the poor in her city, was murdered in a sophisticated operation. Shortly after, alternative media all over the country started denouncing she was assassinated by State forces - mocked by right-wing politicians (including then-lawmaker in Rio, Jair Bolsonaro), and civilians -, which has become evident through time.

All those "phenomena" have fundamentally cooperated with the hate speech, and the election of a too mediocre and violent character to the Brazilian Presidency like Jair Bolsonaro late last year. Warned by the alternative media all over the world, that Brazil would be far from finding its way back with the retired military in the Presidency. 

Asked about a possible U.S. funding to Bolsonaro's campaign, John Kiriakou analyzes: 

"I do not believe that there was a massive, expensive operation to elect Jair Bolsonaro. But the US doesn't always need expensive operations to influence outcomes. The State Department, working with the CIA and others can easily exert 'soft power' to bend foreign elections to its will.  For example, did the US pressure the Brazilian courts to keep President Lula in prison?  Did the US support Brazilian forces that sought to depose President Rousseff?  What was US influence over the Brazilian media to make the US position known, but not necessarily publicly tied to the US?". 

These are questions never investigated, neither asked by the Brazilian mainstream media.

Recently, a survey in Brazil about Moro's behavior revealed by The Intercept presented a fearful outcome. It was considered inappropriate by 33% of respondents, but for 32%, not. Nevertheless, far more people, 48%, considered that Moro and the prosecutors acted correctly, while those who think otherwise, corresponded to 31%.

Surely a byproduct of the mainstream media that has denied achieving the basic job of journalism in covering Lava Jato - investigating, criticizing, questioning, reflecting -, the Brazilian society position now, regarding Moro's secret behavior, scares Chomsky: "That's shocking and depressing."

The corrupted businessman Emilio Odebrecht once said: "Everything that is happening is an institutionalized business. The whole press knew that what was really happening was that. Why are they doing this now? Why didn't they do it ten, twenty years ago? This sector of the press always knew that, but now is coming with such demagogy".

Into the Trash of History

As inside the country the Brazilian elite angrily seeks, by all means possible, to defend its privileges, abroad the shame is more and more evident. A U.S.'s backyard again.

"I simply can't believe what is happening in Brazil. I saw clips of Bolsonaro at the G20 conference, making a complete fool of himself and embarrassing Brazil," observes Chomsky. "Hard to remember that a decade ago, Brazil was one of the most respected countries in the world."

Car Wash investigation is the biggest evidence of whats is happening in Brazil. There are many progressive politicians, journalists, and activists in general suffering in the hands of a strong elite in power, a ruthless lawfare paving the way for fascism whose starring clown now calls Jair Bolsonaro applauded by obscure mass manipulation groups such as MBL, that controls millions of washed brains through marketing, many lies and much money not declared.

What is happening in Brazil is part of the U.S.'s plan of regional and global dominance, through a neo-fascism.

Unfortunately, Chomsky's hope that those with real power won't succeed in covering Lava Jato's crimes up, is not going to come true. Much more amazing than the mainstream media manipulation of facts in this case, too, is that millions of individuals, in times of information revolution led by the Internet and even before this, being well-aware of the media's features still frame their opinion through it, being so easily deceived.

Читайте больше на http://www.pravdareport.com/world/142590-brazil_car_wash/

Amazon deforestation prompts Germany to suspend Brazil forest projects

Germany plans to stop supporting forest and biodiversity projects in Brazil, the German environment minister told Tagesspiegel. Deforestation in Brazil has surged since Jair Bolsonaro became president, she said.

Germany said Saturday it would suspend aid to Brazil aimed at helping protect the Amazon forest in light of the stark increase in rainforest clearings since President Jair Bolsonaro took office.    

"The policy of the Brazilian government in the Amazon raises doubts as to whether a consistent reduction of deforestation rates is still being pursued," German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze told Saturday's edition of the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.

Read more: Colombia's youth fighting for the Amazon — in the courts and on the streets

Initially the amount that will be stopped is around €35 million ($39.5 million), the newspaper reported.

Brazil is home to more than 60% of the Amazon forest, which is being cleared at an increasing rate to create more cropland.

Concern about the forest has grown even more since Bolsonaro took office in January. The Brazilian leader doesn't want to designate any further protected areas, pledging instead to allow more clearances and make more economic use of the Amazon region.

The former military officer also scorns any advice from abroad.

Read more:

https://www.dw.com/en/amazon-deforestation-prompts-germany-to-suspend-br...

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While the spotlight is focused on Julian Assange, another reporter is also facing persecution against freedom of press, writes Dr John Jiggens.

FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS, I have reported on the legal persecution and silencing of Julian Assange. Now another prominent investigative journalist is facing similar legal persecution and silencing. Glenn Greenwald is a U.S. investigative reporter, now living in Brazil, who won a Pulitzer Prize and several other major journalism awards for his revelations about the U.S. and British global surveillance systems in his book, ‘No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State’, based on classified documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

On 21January 2020, Brazilian prosecutors charged Greenwald with cybercrimes, alleging he was part of a criminal organisation that hacked the cellphones of prosecutors and other officials. This was in response to a series of damning articles Greenwald wrote on the online site he founded, The Intercept Brasil, that detailed the judicial abuses that led to the jailing of Lula da Silva, the popular Workers Party candidate for president before the 2018 Brazilian election, which cleared the way for the election of the far Right Jair Bolsonaro by removing a far more popular rival. The jailing of Lula was a massive event in Brazilian politics — the nearest example to it in Australian politics would be Whitlam’s 1975 Dismissal.

Greenwald called the cybercrime charges an obvious attempt to attack free press in retaliation for the information revealed in The Intercept articles of the questionable behaviour of Sergio Moro, the judge who imprisoned Lula da Silva and who was rewarded by Bolsonaro who appointed him Justice Minister. The Intercept Brasil stories were based on telegram chats between the prosecutors and Moro, given by an anonymous source, that showed Lula was unfairly targeted for political purposes.

The allegation that Greenwald helped in the hack forms the basis for the cybercrimes charge. Greenwald strenuously denies this and calls the cybercrime charges a clear misdirection to take the heat off the judge and the prosecutors concerned. As in the Assange case, a journalist is being subjected to the misuse of the legal system by powerful state agencies as a punishment for exposing corruption.

The Intercept Brasil stated:

The public interest in reporting this material has been obvious from the start. These documents revealed serious, systematic, and sustained improprieties and possible illegality by Brazil’s current Minister of Justice and Public Security Sergio Moro while he was a judge, as well as by the chief prosecutor of the Car Wash investigation, Deltan Dallagnol and other members of that investigative task force. It was the Car Wash task force, which Moro presided over as a judge, that was responsible for prosecuting ex-President Lula da Silva and removing him from the 2018 election, paving the way for the far-Right Jair Bolsonaro to become president...  

As the revelations of corruption by Moro and Dallagnol grew – reported both by us and our journalistic partners in Brazil – those officials resorted to the tactics used by government officials everywhere when their improprieties are revealed in the press: They tried to distract attention away from their own misconduct by fixating on the actions of the source as well as the journalists who revealed their wrongdoing.

This is part of a disturbing trend — investigative journalists like Greenwald and Assange are suffering increasing attack from authoritarian governments. The U.S. Government has rearrested whistleblower Chelsea Manning, while Edward Snowden is safe only because he is in exile from his own country. Meanwhile in Australia, the Australian Federal Police have carried out a raid on the ABC over a report on Afghan war crimes and another whistleblower is prosecuted for exposing the Australian Government’s illegal spying on East Timor.

Behind these persecutions lies the invisible hand of the Security State, using the secrecy laws to persecute and disable investigative journalism. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a hostile, non-State intelligence agency, but online magazines like The Intercept, WikiLeaks and Independent Australia pride themselves on being non-State intelligence agencies in the Information Age, practicing classic, public interest journalism, who defend the whistleblowers that the deep state represses.

In a statement to The Intercept and Freedom of the Press Foundation, Greenwald said:

A free press is a pillar of any democracy because it is one of the few tools for shining a light on the corrupt acts carried out by society’s most powerful actors in the dark. That’s precisely why those same powerful actors so frequently want to punish journalists for doing our jobs, as Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and his Minister of Justice and Public Security Sergio Moro have been explicitly threatening to do in response to our exposés.

Meanwhile, Julian Assange's extradition trial begins on 24 February, but the schedule has changed because both sets of lawyers argued they had insufficient time to prepare. The extradition trial will run for the last week in February and then be suspended until 18 May when the trial is scheduled to run another three weeks. As the trial approaches, Assange’s jail conditions have improved following a protest by his fellow prisoners over his isolation.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/glenn-greenwa...

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"War" has been declared between President Bolsonaro and the Brazilian Parliament

The president shared with relatives a video, created by his supporters, calling for demonstrations to defend him against the legislative and judicial powers. Since then, a major institutional crisis has shaken the country.

The Rio Carnival, which ended Wednesday the 26 of February, has not appeased the Brazilian political life. To the contrary: since the beginning of the week, a major institutional crisis, with unpredictable consequences, has shaken the country, pitting President Jair Bolsonaro against his own Parliament.

It started on February 25, Mardi Gras Day: journalist Vera Magalhaes, of the daily Estadao, reveals that Mr. Bolsonaro shared on WhatsApp, with a few dozen relatives, a video, created by his supporters, calling for demonstrations of street on March 15. The two-minute, dramatic clip features a "hardworking, tireless, Christian, patriotic, head of state" [Bolsonaro] and calls his supporters to have a large demonstration in the streets to defend him agaisnt "the enemies of Brazil" — namely, the legislative and judicial powers.

Read also Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro is going to stay put...

Bolsonaro is not the author of the video and it does not directly call for a coup, so what is the essence of the political class? From left to right, the political class immediately rebelled. Former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (center right) spoke of an "institutional crisis with very serious consequences" and his successor Lula da Silva (left) urged the people and the institutions to "defend democracy".

"Calling demonstrations against institutions guaranteed by the 1988 Constitution is a crime of irresponsibility," said David Miranda, a young 34-year-old member of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL, left). "Bolsonaro manages, a little at a time, to install an authoritarian regime. He has crossed all limits. I hope that Parliament will become aware of the seriousness of the situation and open a dismissal procedure. "

Inexperience and chaos in the executive

Mr. Bolsonaro came under serious criticism at the highest judicial level on Thursday. According to José Celso de Mello, Dean of the Federal Supreme Court — the highest body of the Brazilian judiciary — this episode reveals "the dark side of a President of the Republic who does not know the value of the constitutional order, who ignores the fundamental meaning of the separation of powers ”, suggesting that the Court should look into this“ WhatsApp affair”.

Visibly overwhelmed, even frightened, Jair Bolsonaro tried to calm the dispute, calling deputies and senators directly. "I have been a parliamentarian for twenty-eight years, I am not offending Parliament, on the contrary, I want an independent and active Parliament. Same for justice. (…) There is no criticism against them," the president argued on Thursday on social media...

Wink wink...

Read more:

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/02/29/au-bresil-la-gue...

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Translation by Jules Letambour.

Note: Gus tried to find equivalent articles in English to verify the story. So far none to be found, except old articles like:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/whatsapp-fake-news-brazil-...

...

From Glenn Greenwald

...

From the start, the Bolsonaros’ behavior has been extremely strange regarding the question of whether the Brazilian President does or not have the coronavirus. Indeed, when a widely respected reporter from Brazil’s largest newspaper, Monica Bergamo of Folha, reported that Bolsonaro’s Communications chief Fabio Wajngarten had returned from the U.S. with classic COVID-19 symptoms and was being tested, Wajngarten attacked her on Twitter and implied she had made it up — only for his positive test to be confirmed the next day.

Now that nine members of Bolsonaro’s entourage have tested positive, the mystery has less clarity than ever. Almost immediately after claiming that his test was negative — just hours after his son told Fox that it was positive — Bolsonaro refused to release the results of the test itself or have any doctor vouch for them, and then, without explanation, the president’s office announced that Bolsonaro would remain in isolation for fourteen more days and would undergo another test.

But then yesterday, during nationwide anti-democracy protests originally encouraged by Bolsonaro aimed at the Congress and Supreme Court, but which Bolsonaro ultimately discouraged on the grounds that it would be dangerous in a pandemic, the Brazilian President shocked everyone by leaving the palace — and the medical isolation he was supposed to be in — to join a crowd of supporters. He proceeded to touch at least 272 of them, including shaking hands, fist bumping and taking their telephones to snap selfies before handing them back. Prior to that on Twitter, Bolsonaro had implicitly encouraged his supporters to attend the mass street gatherings — in direct contradiction of the urgings of his own Health Minister — by posting photos of the protests in various cities.

Read all:

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/how-jair-bolsonaros-son-eduardo-conf...

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After the Civil War, thousands of defeated Southerners came to Brazil to self-exile in a country that still practiced slavery. For decades, their descendants have thrown a massive party that now attracts thousands. The Confederate flag? Everywhere. As in the United States, calls are growing for a reassessment, but some are refusing to renounce the symbol.

Read more at the Washington Post...