Jan Rocha

The massacre of more than 100 people in Rio's favelas is an attempt by right-wing governor Claudio Castro to court popularity and revive the fortunes of the far right as they look for a successor to Jair Bolsonaro. It is at once a nod to Trump's military interventionism and a challenge to Lula.

President Trump has unleashed a barrage of actions against Brazil in an attempt to prevent Lula from retaining support. He has stated his open support for previous president Jair Bolsonaro, now under indictment for inciting a coup against Brazil's democratic institutions. He has named and inveighed against Brazil's judges, notably Alexandre de Moraes. Military threats, disguised as anti-drug aid, may soon follow. Brazil now faces 50 per cent tariffs if they do not bend the knee.

The new destructive and retrograde PL2159 Law being debated in Brazil's Congress, if it is approved before COP 30, will make a mockery of Brazil’s ambition to be a leader in environmental questions. By accelerating the destruction of the world’s largest and most biodiverse tropical forest, it will contribute to the climate crisis, not only in Brazil but on the planet.

With the number of fires in the Amazon 80 per cent higher than in 2023, has the rainforest reached its tipping point, after which it will became savannah and desert with calamitous implications for climate, rainfall and food across the entire planet?

Landowners across Brazil are escalating attacks against Indigenous peoples. While Lula's government appears powerless, landowners are forcibly evicting Indigenous communities, especially where these have reoccupied lands stolen from them previously and to which they will be denied rights under the 'Marco Temporal' (time-limit) rule likely to be approved by the right-wing dominated Congress and already being applied by local judges.

The climate disaster in Brazil’s southernmost state has provoked commotion and solidarity but also questions and criticisms of the man-made causes which contributed to it.

Brazil's Indigenous leaders are at last being recognized, reports Jan Rocha. But will anything really change in their 500-year-old struggle, as Brazil's Congress continues to defend the interests that seek to annihilate them?

Brazilian police and the Supreme Court have released a video showing Bolsonaro plotting to deny the results of the presidential election and mount a coup. The leading Samba schools in this year's carnivals, by contrast, highlighted the lives of Indigenous Peoples and the culture of black Brazil

Have Brazil's armed forces been discredited, again, by their backing for Bolsonaro, his kleptocracy and his attempt to steal the elections?

The Amazon Summit in Belém, Brazil, brought together 8 out of the 9 countries of the Amazon Basin. There were agreements, calls for western countries to share the burden of conserving the forest. But no explicit target on halting deforestation and no willingness to halt oil extraction.