São Paulo, 3 December: During the election campaign, president-elect Jair Bolsonaro boasted he would pare the number of cabinet ministers down from its present total of 29 to a mere 15, but he has been overtaken by reality and the number is 22 and counting. The new government includes generals (and an admiral), Cold War warriors, climate deniers and...
30 November 2018
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
LAB News
LAB's new book Amazon Besieged is published on 1 December. We are launching it at a special lunchtime meeting 'Will the Amazon Survive Bolsonaro' within the Latin America Adelante 2018 Conference at TUC Congress House, Great Russell St, London WC1B 3LS. The meeting (in Congress Suite 1-2, Lower Ground Floor) starts...
The Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, is renowned for its extraordinary biodiversity and the vitality of its indigenous and riverine communities. But it is gradually being carved up by highways, hydroelectric dams and railways, built to allow agribusiness, the new powerhouse of the Brazilian economy, to export soya and other products though the Amazon River.
Amazon Besieged...
As LAB prepares to launch its new and powerful book*, co-author Sue Branford issues a stark warning of the implications of a Bolsonaro government for the river-basin and the indigenous and riverine communities who live there. Land-grabbers are already taking the law into their own hands – after January 1 the law will become their own.
Let us have no...
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn may be the first leading British politician since Judith Hart in the 1970s to have detailed knowledge of the region and sympathy for its struggles. In this exclusive interview for LAB, Matt Kennard probes Corbyn’s views on Mexico, Brazil and other countries and his 40-year commitment to human rights and social progress in Chile.
Jeremy...
Bernardo Kucinski is a highly respected Brazilian journalist and writer. After decades in journalism, he recently turned to literature, writing, among other works, a widely acclaimed short novel, entitled “K”, based on the ‘disappearance’ of his sister during the military dictatorship. On 25 October of this year Bernardo gave a public address in the Tucarena Theatre, São Paulo, on...
‘Remember Germany, 1934,’ my moderate brother advises, ‘and be explicit’. For forty years, I have written from the threshold between resistance and liberation. I never imagined we would live on the threshold between ‘the least worse’ and fascism. My eyes brim with tears. I don’t want to leave the House of Rivers. ‘In times of fake news and seamless...
Only four days after Jair Bolsonaro's election, federal judge Sergio Moro, Lula’s nemesis, hurried to Rio to accept the president elect’s invitation to become his minister of Justice. Even Bolsonaro was impressed by the judge’s enthusiasm. “He accepted as eagerly as a student getting his diploma at graduation,” he said. The new minister will be boss of a greatly...
São Paulo, October 23. On the eve of the second round of the presidential elections, armed police and officials from electoral tribunals invaded at least 30 state universities up and down the country, confiscating anti-fascist banners and posters, intimidating lecturers and students and interrupting debates. Judges justified these arbritrary actions by saying the materials and activities were pro-Fernando Haddad,...
On Sunday 28 October, Brazil will elect a new President in the middle of the worst political crisis since the dictatorship in the 1960s. In the past three years headlines about Brazil have taken a more ominous tone and now the door to the past seems to be open once again.
Back in 2015, the international economic crisis had plunged...