We are writing this in shock and grief at the sudden passing of our friend, journalist and broadcaster Michael Brooks. Michael had been a supporter, a collaborator and an ally to Brasil Wire for some years now, and this grew into friendship. His recent book ‘Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right’ […]
Buried under a global pandemic is the most important Brazil story for decades. Unless the role of the United States in Brazil’s democratic collapse is acknowledged and understood, no useful sense can be made of its present, or its future, and no honest appraisal can be made of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. […]
“No room for sentiment” said Wall Street insiders in 2018, as their man Jair Bolsonaro ascended to the Brazilian Presidency. In the face of Coronavirus, Brazil’s people are now living with the deadly consequences of that collusion. In a televised speech during the evening of March 24 2020, as the sound of Panelaço protests reverberated around […]
It is simply the most important geopolitical story of recent times. Documents leaked to the Intercept have led to the exposure of ostensible anti-corruption Operation Lava Jato (Carwash) as a means to rig Brazil’s 2018 election, and worse still, which was carried out in conjunction with the United States Government. And this is only the […]
Six years ago today, President of the Republic Dilma Rousseff made her customary televised Workers Day address to the Brazilian people. With towering public approval, up to 79%, exceeding that of her predecessors Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula da Silva, Brazil’s first female President looked unassailable in her push for re-election in the coming year. […]
Brazil’s first woman President explains the relationship between her illegal ouster and the rise of Bolsonaro by Dilma Rousseff Three years ago today, Brazil’s lower house, chaired by a congressman who was convicted of corruption, started impeachment proceedings against me even though there was no crime of responsibility to justify the decision. That congressional vote […]
On March 31, extreme-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has called for the Military to commemorate the Coup of 1964, a Coup which he insists was nothing of the sort. Such commemorations were outlawed under Dilma Rousseff in 2011, and for the Brazil of 2019 to celebrate the anniversary in any form is horrific. It is also unsurprising, […]
“Welcome to the Brazilian Necropolitical Circus.” On December 10 2018, the 70th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights, Brazilian President elect Jair Bolsonaro and his Vice, General Mourão, received their diplomas from the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE). They were presented with the inaugural certificates after a lecture on democracy by Rosa Weber, the […]
“If The Guardian was what it purports to be, Brasil Wire wouldn’t need to exist”. The British Newspaper’s coverage serves as a case study of how perception of what happened in Brasil became so distorted internationally. The Guardian is of course the closest thing that the UK has to a mainstream progressive newspaper, and it had, until relatively recently, a […]
These are sombre times for Brasil. An election looms, its leading candidate is in jail on politically motivated charges, and has been withdrawn. His distant challenger now sits in first place. He is a fascist and a white supremacist, in a country with well over half of its population of African or Indigenous descent. To his supporters, Jair Bolsonaro’s rape […]