On April 28, 2017, hundreds of cities and towns across Brasil ground to a halt, as the Western Hemisphere’s largest General Strike of the 21st Century paralyzed their transport grids. In São Paulo, the economic heart of the country, 10 train and subway lines were paralyzed and all city bus lines stopped running. Airports were temporarily […]
He’s a political insider who pretends to be an outsider. He is a businessman prone to hysterical twitter meltdowns, who has fired staff live on Facebook, legally harasses his critics and, by carrying a change of clothes wherever he goes to guarantee that he is never photographed with a smudge, seems more concerned with his […]
Video by Freelance Journalist Michael Fox. April 28 2017: as a massive general strike against illegitimate President Michel Temer’s Neoliberal reforms rock Brasil, the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, São Paulo, grinds to a halt. CUT Trade Union Confederation estimated 35 million across Brazil participated in the General Strike, making it the biggest in […]
Chuck Mertz: I am going to start by getting you angry about the New York Times. There have been protests of late in Brazil, but according to the New York Times those protests while not as widely attended as those that took down Dilma Rousseff, have gone further to the right. This is the New […]
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 […]
UPDATE 3/10/17: Jair Bolsonaro has been prosecuted and fined R$50,000 for his racial slur against Quilombola communities. A campaign has been launched to urge George Washington University to cancel Bolsonaro’s scheduled appearance. On Monday the Clube Hebráica of Rio de Janeiro, a social and sports club for members of Rio’s Jewish community, hosted a speech […]
By Jean-Claude Bernardet A programmed decay. The BRICS are unacceptable. The BRICS Bank, which operates with various currencies, including the dollar, is unacceptable. A support fund (like an IMF for emergent nations) is unacceptable. We are watching the systematic dismantling of an emerging power. The shipping industry is no longer competitive. Petrobras has been dismantled. The […]
To all our readers, In August 2014, a small group of commentators, bloggers, academics, journalists and activists founded Brasil Wire, out of concern for what appeared to be happening in the country. Elections were looming, the atmosphere was tense, and we were particularly concerned about how it would be reported in the English language media. Those concerns […]
For the second time in two weeks, hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest Post-Coup President Michel Temer’s neoliberal retirement reforms. Yesterday’s event (March 31) was billed by CUT labor union federation leadership as the second warm up for for a general strike which will take place on April 28. Although the […]
Originally written for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs’ Brazil Unit This interview was originally made in Portuguese, and translated by the author. To download a PDF version of this article, click here. On March 15, an estimated one million Brazilians took to the streets in cities across the country to protest unelected president Michel Temer’s proposed […]