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☆ Brazil investigates who led anti-democratic riots in capital
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Anthony Boadle | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes also ordered social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and TikTok to block coup-mongering propaganda. Tens of thousands of anti-democratic demonstrators on Sunday invaded the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace and smashed windows, overturned furniture, destroyed art works and stole the country's original 1988 Constitution. The assault raised questions among Lula's allies about how public security forces in the capital were so unprepared and easily overwhelmed by rioters who had announced their plans days ahead on social media. Bolsonaro faces legal risks from several investigations before the Supreme Court in Brazil and his future in the United States, where he traveled on a visa issued only to sitting presidents, is in question. "The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian who has inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil.

☆ 'A cowardly and vile attack': Over 400 arrested after Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazil's Congress
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Sam Meredith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

World leaders condemned what they described as a "cowardly and vile" attack after thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro invaded the country's Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. Brazil's security forces have regained control of the country's political institutions and Brasilia governor Ibaneis Rocha said more than 400 people had been arrested as of Sunday evening. Lula sealed a remarkable return to Brazil's presidency late last year, securing 50.9% of the runoff vote to defeat far-right incumbent Bolsonaro. Many of Bolsonaro's supporters refused to accept the result, however, and political analysts have long feared a U.S.-style attack on the country's prominent government buildings. Lula blamed Bolsonaro for "encouraging" the riots, saying there were several speeches by the former president to incite Sunday's attack.

☆ Photos and video of chaos in Brazil show an eerily familiar sight for Americans as supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, storm the country's Congress 2 years after the US Capitol riot
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro stormed Brazil's Congress Sunday with complaints of a stolen election. Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the the National Congress building in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, sit in front of police after inside Planalto Palace after storming it, in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, clash with police as they storm the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023.

☆ The Jan. 6-style attack on Brazil's capital came after Bolsonaro followed the Trump election playbook
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The attack on Brazil's capital came after Bolsonaro closely followed Trump's election playbook. The attack in Brazil's capital came after Bolsonaro followed a near-identical playbook to that of former US President Donald Trump in the lead-up to the fatal January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C. in 2021. Bolsonaro, like Trump, spread baseless claims of voter fraud ahead of Brazil's presidential election — sowing doubts about the integrity of the electoral process. And, much like Trump, Bolsonaro refused to concede after he was defeated and would go on to skip the inauguration of his successor. In the run-up to Brazil's election, pundits and experts warned that Bolsonaro's rhetoric was setting the stage for the South American country to see its own version of the January 6 riot.

Speaking to reporters, Rui Costa, also a minister in Lula's cabinet, said government meetings were scheduled for Tuesday and the Finance Ministry and Management Ministry will announce measures this week. Hundreds of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed and vandalized the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace on Sunday. The attacks on state institutions are considered the worst since the country's return to democracy in the 1980s. The minister participated in emergency meetings with Lula and others on Monday. Reporting by Bernardo Caram; Editing by Steven Grattan, Andrea Ricci and Kenneth MaxwellOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Facebook owner Meta removing content backing Brazil assault
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrate against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brasilia, Brazil, January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Adriano MachadoSTOCKHOLM, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Facebook parent Meta (META.O) said on Monday it was removing content supporting or praising the weekend ransacking of Brazilian government buildings by anti-democratic demonstrators. "We are actively following the situation and will continue removing content that violates our policies." Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ordered social media platforms to block users spreading anti-democratic propaganda. During a demonstration by Trump supporters in January, 2021, social media companies were criticised for not doing enough.

☆ Supporters of Brazil's Bolsonaro engage in post-election unrest
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Bolsonaro supporters begin gathering for the first time outside military bases across Brazil, calling for a military intervention to prevent Lula from returning to office. Nov. 2 - Bolsonaro supporters hold rallies across the country, asking for an armed force intervention. Later that day, after the arrest of a pro-Bolsonaro indigenous leader for alleged anti-democratic acts, Bolsonaro supporters try to invade the federal police headquarters in Brasilia, the capital. Dec. 24 - A man is arrested for attempting to set off a bomb in protest against Brazil's election results. Dec. 29 - At least four people are arrested by Brazilian police for an alleged coup attempt during riots by Bolsonaro supporters.

☆ Bolsonaro's Florida stay puts ball in Biden's court after Brasilia riots
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Gabriel Stargardter | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/5] Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro gestures, as he meets supporters at the Alvorada Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, December 12, 2022. REUTERS/Adriano MachadoRIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The United States has a Jair Bolsonaro problem. But Bolsonaro left behind a violent movement of election-denying supporters, who on Sunday stormed Brazil's presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court. "The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian who has inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil. Former Panamanian President Martinelli was extradited from the United States back to Panama in 2018, three years after Panama's Supreme Court issued its arrest warrant.

☆ Brazil's top court removes Brasilia governor over pro-Bolsonaro riots
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BRASILIA, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes decided late on Sunday to remove Brasilia Governor Ibaneis Rocha for 90 days alleging security flaws that allowed the invasion of government buildings by supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro. Moraes also ruled that camps outside military bases set up by coup-mongering Bolsonaro supporters should be lifted within 24 hours and that roads and buildings should be unblocked. Moraes further ordered social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and TikTok to block accounts of users spreading anti-democratic propaganda. Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Tom HogueOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Steve Bannon calls Bolsonaro protesters who stormed Brazil's Congress 'freedom fighters'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Steve Bannon hyped the protesters who stormed Brazil's Congress, calling them "freedom fighters." The former Trump advisor has long stoked unsubstantiated rumors of election fraud in Brazil. Bannon has seized on the issue in the same way he did with Trump's own election fraud claims. Lately Bannon, a former Trump advisor, has also amped unevidenced claims of election fraud in Brazil. A review by Brazil's military late last year found no credible evidence of widespread election fraud, according to The New York Times.

☆ Brazil's Bolsonaro hospitalized in the U.S. with abdominal pain - report
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

SAO PAULO, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Orlando, Florida, with "abdominal pain," newspaper O Globo reported on Monday, a day after some of his hardcore supporters stormed the capital city of Brasilia. Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times in recent years with gut blockages after being stabbed while campaigning for the presidency in 2018. He traveled to the United States two days before Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took the office of president. Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Mark PorterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Chaos struck Brazil's capital on Sunday, when supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attacked the country's Congress by climbing on top of its roof and breaking the glass in its windows. Supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro rifle through papers on a desk in Planalto Palace, the workplace of Brazil's president, in Brasilia on Sunday. Eraldo Peres / APLula da Silva held a televised address Sunday where he authorized federal intervention within the Federal District until the end of January. Democracy guarantees the right to free expression, but it also requires people to respect institutions," the president tweeted. "And you know that there are several speeches by the former president encouraging this," Lula da Silva said.

☆ Bolsonaro supporters invade Brazil presidential palace, Congress, Supreme Court
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro take part in a protest to ask for federal intervention outside the Army headquarters in Brasilia, on November 2, 2022. Supporters of Brazil's far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday invaded the country's Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court, in a grim echo of the U.S. Capitol invasion two years ago by fans of former President Donald Trump. Television images showed protesters breaking into the Supreme Court and Congress, chanting slogans and smashing furniture. The Supreme Court was ransacked by the occupiers, according to social media images that showed protesters shattering the windows of the modernist building. "Violence has no place in a democracy," Douglas Koneff, the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Brasilia, wrote on Twitter.

☆ Global leaders condemn assault on Brazilian government buildings
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Brazil's democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined. Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable. BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT LUIS ARCE"We strongly condemn the assault on the Brazilian Congress, Palace and Supreme Court by anti-democratic groups. A return to normality is urgently needed and we express solidarity with Brazilian institutions. We categorically condemn the assault on the Brazilian Congress and make a call for the immediate return to democratic normality."

☆ Brazil's former President Bolsonaro accused of trashing the nation's iconic presidential palace, says report
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( Bethany Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, has been accused of trashing the official residency. The Palácio da Alvorada – Palace of Dawn – in Brasília is considered a masterpiece of modernist architecture. The new President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, was sworn into office on New Year's Day. The shabby state of the building was revealed in a tour of the palace with Brazil's first lady, Rosângela Lula da Silva, who GloboNews political correspondent Natuza Nery accompanied. According to a New York Times report, Bolsonaro flew to the US and planned to stay for at least a month while he faced investigations from his term as president relating to misinformation.

☆ Brazil's VP says development bank should be strengthened to leverage the economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Asked whether this would involve changing the so-called TLP rate, charged by BNDES to lenders, he said only "it is important to create conditions to reduce the interest rate." It replaced the former TJLP rate, which was set by the government below the country's Selic base rate, to subsidize corporate loans. In his inaugural speech, Alckmin said his ministry will have BNDES under its wing, stressing it was essential to strengthen the bank's role to leverage the economy. According to Alckmin, BNDES should act "as a dynamizer of the industry competitiveness and exports, especially those of higher added value." That contrasts with former President Jair Bolsonaro, who centralized policy formulation and decision-making into a single Economy Ministry.

☆ Norway says fund to reduce Amazon deforestation in Brazil back in business
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"He has reinstated strategies to make this happen, and appointed ministers with substantial knowledge and expertise in the area," Barth Eide said. In 2008 in an earlier term as president, Lula set up the fund to receive international contributions to Brazil's efforts to stop deforestation. He also signed decrees re-establishing Brazil's strategies to reduce Amazon deforestation, the rate of which surged to a 15-year high under Bolsonaro. Re-establishment of the fund "is globally significant," Barth Eide said. "The Amazon Fund gives the international community a great opportunity to contribute."

Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist, left Brazil for Florida on Friday after losing to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil's most fraught vote in a generation. Bolsonaro's U.S. trip insulates him from any immediate legal jeopardy in Brazil, where he is under investigation in at least four criminal probes. Under Brazil's constitution, a sitting president can only be arrested if he is convicted by the Supreme Court. From September, Lula will be able to install his own prosecutor general, who has the power to charge Bolsonaro if his cases remain with the Supreme Court. Bolsonaro also faces 12 requests for investigation at the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) for baseless claims Brazil's electoral system is liable to fraud, as well as alleged abuses of power for granting economic benefits to win votes.

☆ Brazil’s New President Reverses His Predecessor’s Loosened Gun Laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Samantha Pearson | Luciana Magalhaes | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A shooting club in São Paulo. Many Brazilians say they should be allowed to possess firearms in the face of violence by heavily-armed criminal gangs. BRASÍLIA—In his first hours as Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued sweeping changes to tighten the country’s firearms laws and reverse looser rules imposed by his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro , that prompted a million new gun registrations since 2019. A presidential decree, which took effect Monday, suspends new registrations of guns for hunting and sport as the leftist government works to rewrite the country’s 20-year-old gun laws. The decree forbids owners from transporting loaded weapons, suspends new applications for gun clubs and reduces the number of firearms permitted per individual from six to three.

The sugar and ethanol (S&E) industry, as well as international sugar traders, were widely expecting the resumption of federal taxes on gasoline and ethanol, as indicated by Finance Minister Fernando Haddad last week. "In our perspective, this measure might have negative effects on the S&E sector, as it maintains the ethanol prices below the market's forecast, while the expectation was for an increase in ethanol prices in the beginning of 2023," said Citi Research. Sugar and ethanol industry group Unica said the new administration had become "an accomplice" to the attack on the environment begun under the former administration, adding that the measure contradicts Lula's speech at the COP 27 U.N. climate meeting in November. The group said that the tax exemption was unconstitutional, since the law requires the federal government to give a tax incentive to biofuels. Mauricio Muruci, an analyst with Safras & Mercado, said fuel distributors were actively buying ethanol late last year before the expected tax return.

☆ Brazil posts record trade surplus of $62.3 bln in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BRASILIA, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Brazil posted a $62.3 billion trade surplus in 2022, official data showed on Monday, a record in the series started in 1989. In December, the trade surplus was $4.8 billion, said the Development, Industry, Trade and Services ministry. That exceeded the $3 billion surplus forecast in a Reuters poll with economists. The 2022 result were above the most recent expectations of the Jair Bolsonaro government, which in October had projected a trade surplus of $55.4 billion. Imports reached $21.9 billion, or 12% above the last month of 2021.

☆ Brazil’s Lula Returns to Power, 20 Years After First Taking Office
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Samantha Pearson | Luciana Magalhaes | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

BRASÍLIA— Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , the 77-year-old standard-bearer of Latin America’s left, returned to power Sunday, 12 years after his last stint as president. This time around he faces some of his toughest challenges yet, from uniting a bitterly divided nation to halting the destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest and boosting the incomes of millions of desperately poor families. Thousands of supporters, many singing and waving the crimson flag of the Workers’ Party, joined dignitaries from across the Americas in the capital for the inauguration and a festival of open-air concerts to celebrate the return of Mr. da Silva, known popularly as Lula.

☆ Brazil markets fall after Lula takes office vowing to end poverty
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Anthony Boadle | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his wife Rosangela "Janja" da Silva and Chief Raoni walk through the ramp of the Planalto Palace after Lula's swearing-in ceremony, in Brasilia, Brazil, January 1, 2023. Lula narrowly defeated far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro in October, swinging South America's largest nation back on a left-wing track. Lula spent his first day in office meeting with more than a dozen heads of state who attended his inauguration. In his swearing-in speech to Congress, Lula said he was not seeking revenge, but any crimes committed under Bolsonaro would be held accountable with due legal process. ($1 = 5.3458 reais)Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Gabriel Araujo in Brasilia Editing by Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Brazil's Haddad vows to 'restore' public accounts in first speech as finance minister
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRASILIA, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Brazil's new Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Monday he would propose a new fiscal anchor in the first half of this year as the administration of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva works to "restore" public accounts. In his first speech in office, Haddad said the government would not accept the "absurd" 220-billion-real ($41.19 billion) primary deficit forecast in this year's budget, indicating it will work to reduce it. Haddad did not mention Lula's decision the day before to extend a costly tax exemption on fuels. Prior to taking office, Haddad had stated that the measure - which has an annual impact of 52.9 billion reais - would not be extended. According to Haddad, the government will seek to democratize access to credit and establish a more transparent, "fairer and simpler" tax system.

☆ Jair Bolsonaro ditched the inauguration of Brazil's new president, fleeing to the home of an MMA fighter near Disney World: report
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Jair Bolsonaro was missing from the inauguration of Brazil's new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In Bolsonaro's place, a 33-year-old garbage collector gave Lula da Silva the presidential sash. The leftist incumbent snagged the office from the country's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, in a tight runoff election in October. As per tradition, Bolsonaro was supposed to pass Lula da Silva a presidential sash during Sunday's ceremony, symbolizing a peaceful transition of power. Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (left) waves to supporters on the day of his swearing-in ceremony, in Brasilia, Brazil, January 1, 2023.

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