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ARTS DEMOCRACY INTERVIEW

An interview with Carlos Latuff

Carlos Latuff is one of the World’s most famous political cartoonists. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1968, he published his first political cartoon in a Longshoremen’s Union newspaper in 1989 and continues drawing cartoons for unions to this day. As the internet gained force during the 1990s, he began drawing cartoons  in solidarity with […]

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DEMOCRACY ECONOMY LAWFARE UNITED STATES

How Manufactured Economic Crisis in Brazil Paved Way for a Soft Coup

It is increasingly apparent that the Brazilian economy was deliberately destabilized to lay the groundwork for the 2016 soft coup that removed former President Dilma Rousseff from office. This does not represent anything new for Latin America; creating the conditions for a successful coup typically takes several years and economic destabilization is normally part of […]

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DEMOCRACY SOCIAL INCLUSION SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

MST and the Fight to Change the Brazilian Power Structure: An interview with Gilmar Mauro

By Brasil Wire Contributing Editor Brian Mier.              During the 1960s, legend has it that governor José Sarney sat down at a table with a group of cattle-ranching cronies and aerial photographs of Maranhão state, in Northeastern Brazil. They marked boundaries on the photos with pencil and divided up the […]

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DEMOCRACY ELECTION 2018 LAWFARE MEDIA POLITICS

The Coup, Phase II: An interview with Dr. Ivana Bentes

By Brian Mier. The political situation in Brazil is getting confusing, even for people who study it. To summarise recent events, in April the organized left held the largest general strike in Latin America this Century, demanding for a halt to the austerity reforms and for illegitimate president Michel Temer’s immediate resignation. On May 24, […]

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DEMOCRACY LAVA JATO LAWFARE

Judicial Farce: Moro freezes Lula’s Assets, can’t find Triplex…

After giving former Congressional President Eduardo Cunha months of advance warning which enabled him to hide millions of dollars of bribe money before his arrest in 2016, and repeatedly refusing to admit evidence that would enable him to arrest PSDB party leader Aécio Neves and illegitimate president Michel Temer, Sergio Moro, acting as both prosecutor […]

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DEMOCRACY HOUSING SOCIAL INCLUSION SOCIAL MOVEMENTS VIDEO

São Paulo: Rebel City

During illegitimate, corrupt president Michel Temer’s attempt to implement an unnecessary extreme austerity regime that plunged millions of people below the poverty line and caused the UN to warn that Brazil may return to the World Hunger map, one of the most under-covered stories is the organized left’s efforts to resist the state of exception. […]

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DEMOCRACY SOCIAL INCLUSION SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Brasilia 24/5: A View from the Ground

by Brian Mier. On the night of May 23, I joined a group of activists from the Central de Movimentos Populares (CMP) social movement for the 16 hour bus ride from São Paulo to Brasilia. The trip was coordinated as a bus caravan and as we stopped for dinner along the way it became apparent […]

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DEMOCRACY FOREIGN POLICY LAWFARE SOCIAL INCLUSION SOCIAL MOVEMENTS UNDERSTANDING BRASIL UNITED STATES

The General Strike and the Survival of the Latin American Left: An Interview with Luiz Gonzaga Gegê da Silva

Luiz Gonzaga Gegê da Silva is a historic figure on the Brazilian left. A member of the MR-8 resistance movement during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, he spent time behind bars as a political prisoner and later became a founding member of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, PT), running for national party […]

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OPINION POLITICS SOCIAL INCLUSION UNDERSTANDING BRASIL

5 Brazilian Public Policy Innovations The North Could Learn From

By Brian Mier. During my 22 years in Brazil I’ve gotten used to gringos moving down here who, before taking the time to understand how things work, begin immediately bad mouthing the entire country based on local observations about the neighborhood or city they live in, which is usually somewhere in Rio de Janeiro’s South […]

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CITIES DEMOCRACY ECONOMY HISTORY HOUSING POLITICS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Urban Reformer: An interview with Erminia Maricato

Original version of article at COHA. Reproduced with permission. This interview was originally conducted in Portuguese, and translated by the author. Erminia Maricato is one of Brazil’s most renowned urban planners. In addition to having published 11 books and contributed nearly 40 book chapters, her lectures, often in public forums and protests, regularly draw large […]