In 2016, with Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment underway, a rumour spread that actor Wagner Moura, regular collaborator with director Jose Padilha, had refused the role of Lava Jato Prosecuting Judge and self-styled national saviour, Sérgio Moro, in a new drama series. He had just completed a second season portraying Pablo Escobar in Narcos, also directed by Padilha, and also for […]
One day in 1993 I met a group of Brazilian military officers in São Luis airport. We flew off the island by small plane to the Alcântara Launch Center, the main spaceport for Brazil’s space program, where I was to spend two days a week for a year teaching English to […]
What we know, what we don’t, and what we can deduce about the role of geopolitics & hegemony in the Soft Coup which removed President Dilma Rousseff and her Government. By Brian Mier During a recent visit to Porto Alegre, Cuban professor and writer Raúl Antonio Capote Fernández talked about a 20 year recruitment process […]
As a series of widely publicized corruption accusations against former President Luis “Lula” Inacio da Silva fail to pan out, the local and international press continue to give much larger coverage to the charges than the subsequent proof of innocence. Most of these charges have been raised and dropped by a Parana-based federal judge, Sergio […]
A momentous week in Brasil was also one where the dominant international narrative shifted from widespread depiction of a “Heroic Impartial Anti-Corruption Campaign” (If you question the method you’re defending thieves) & “Spontaneous, Popular, Patriotic Anti-Government Uprising” (If you question mass media incitement & foreign funding you’re denying agency) to one which described that what […]
The situation in Brasil at the time of publication is extremely complicated & fluid but to better understand it, it needs to be broken down into its related component parts. This article will be updated with significant developments. 1. Elections At the core of this unrest is that the losing side never properly accepted defeat at […]
This article “Brasil & CIA” originally appeared in CounterSpy, April – May 1979, pp. 4-23 and has since passed into the public domain. We believe it to be a rare & valuable document of the period, with particular historical relevance today. More information on involvement in the Coup from since-declassified U.S. Government documents can be found at […]
In September Bloomberg covered a Brazilian elite NYC fundraising gala which it sponsored along with Goldman Sachs, BrazilFoundation (linked to BlackRock Inc) and KAR Properties, a developer who specialises in selling Miami condominiums to wealthy Brazilian ex-pats. In it, the reporter wrote “While the sensitivity of the issue prevented anybody from speaking a word publicly about Brazilian President Dilma […]
American exceptionalism is a myth. Superpowers do not promote democracy, not at home and certainly not abroad. Democracy requires popular sovereignty – power to govern without external control – the antithesis of empire. – Jan K. Black PhD. In the recently released ‘The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire’ (Verso Books), the first […]
Narcos is not a documentary and purely as televisual entertainment it is difficult to dislike. It is directed by the talented Brazilian José Padilha (Bus 174, Tropa de Elite) and also featuring fellow countryman, Tropa de Elite’s lead Wagner Moura (Elysium, Praia do Futuro), who shines as Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Narcos is a stylish, visually & […]