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Quote:Top Brazilian politicians from across the political spectrum have warned that Jair Bolsonaro is putting thousands of lives at risk with what they called his reckless, paranoid, anti-scientific and belligerent response to the coronavirus. In a series of scathing interviews – conducted as 26 of Brazil’s 27 state governors convened an emergency meeting to discuss Bolsonaro’s behaviour – regional chiefs told the Guardian they feared the far-right leader was sowing confusion over the need for quarantine and social distancing measures, and wasting precious time setting political bonfires to energize his radical base. Bolsonaro says he 'wouldn't feel anything' if infected with Covid-19 and attacks state lockdowns Read more Bolsonaro sparked fury on Tuesday with an extraordinary address to the nation in which he rubbished the quarantine measures and travel restrictions being implemented by many state governors and urged Brazilians to return to work and schools – in contradiction of his own health ministry’s counsel. The comments stunned state governors – many of whom are now in open revolt against the president. “I was gobsmacked,” said Ronaldo Caiado, the rightwing governor of Goiás state and a former Bolsonaro ally.
Bolsonaro's anti-science response to coronavirus appals Brazil's governors | World news | The Guardian
Quote:Right-wing groups in Brazil are summoning their supporters onto the streets to demand that their country returns to work, and ends mass lockdowns imposed to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. This follows a highly controversial campaign against shutdowns by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who believes mass closures will cause more economic devastation and suffering than the virus itself. On Thursday, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Brazil rose by 20 to 77 — the country's biggest jump so far — while confirmed cases went up by 482 to 2,915, according to Brazil's Health Ministry.
Supporters Of Brazil's Bolsonaro Call For Protests Against Coronavirus Lockdown : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR
Quote:Drug traffickers in one of Rio de Janeiro’s best-known favelas have imposed a coronavirus curfew, amid growing fears over the impact the virus could have on some of Brazil’s poorest citizens. Chloroquine: Trump's misleading claims spark hoarding and overdoses Read more In recent days, as Brazil’s coronavirus death toll has climbed to 46, gang members have been circulating in the Cidade de Deus (City of God) favela in western Rio ordering residents to remain indoors after 8pm. Last weekend the low-income community – made famous by Fernando Meirelles’ 2002 blockbuster of the same name – became the first such area to record a case of coronavirus.
Brazil gangs impose strict curfews to slow coronavirus spread | World news | The Guardian
- While cases mount with rapid speed, the Bolsonaristas are urging for mass(!) protest to end the lockdowns
- Even the drug cartels have more sense.
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Quote:Brazil will reduce efforts to fight environmental crimes during the coronavirus outbreak, despite concerns that reduced protection could lead to a surge in deforestation. The director of environmental protection at Ibama environmental agency said the outbreak had left little choice but to send fewer enforcement personnel into the field. 'War for survival': Brazil’s Amazon tribes despair as land raids surge under Bolsonaro Olivaldi Azevedo estimated that one-third of Ibama’s field operatives were close to 60 years old or had medical conditions that put them at greater risk for severe symptoms of the virus. Ibama has not hired agents in years because of government budget cuts.
Brazil scales back environmental enforcement amid coronavirus outbreak | World news | The Guardian
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Quote:Brazil has removed months of data on Covid-19 from a government website amid criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro's handling of the outbreak. The health ministry said it would now only be reporting cases and deaths in the past 24 hours, no longer giving a total figure as most countries do. Mr Bolsonaro said the cumulative data did not reflect the current picture. Brazil has the world's second-highest number of cases, and has recently had more new deaths than any other nation. The Latin American country has more than 640,000 confirmed infections, but the number is believed to be much higher because of insufficient testing. More than 35,000 people have died, the third-highest toll in the world...
The far-right leader has been criticised for rejecting lockdown measures recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and, on Friday, threatened to pull out of the body, accusing it of being a "partisan political organisation". The president has repeatedly joined supporters in protests in recent months, ignoring social-distancing advice.
Coronavirus: Hard-hit Brazil removes data amid rising death toll - BBC News
- Supreme court intervened and cancelled this drive to hide the truth..
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Quote:As the country suffers under the coronavirus pandemic, an unprecedented attack on the Amazon is taking place in Brazil. President Bolsonaro is actively promoting slash-and-burn agriculture that threatens to destroy the region and further harm the climate.
In a time when politicians are media-savvy role-players, it's not that often that you have the chance to peer behind the facades. The way they talk when they're among themselves, their hidden intentions - all that usually remains concealed. But a video recently emerged in Brazil that will take your breath away. The recording was made in April, showing a cabinet meeting. A judge released it because it documents President Jair Bolsonaro's attempt to protect his family from police investigations.
The footage, some two hours long, is shocking, and not just because of Bolsonaro's aggressive tone. More disgraceful is the ideological hysteria with which his then-education minister demanded the imprisonment of Brazil's supreme court justices, saying the "scoundrels" ought to be locked up. And the family minister's follow-up comment that critical governors were not to be forgotten. Or the silence of the generals who were sitting at the table.
Not to be outdone, however, was the man many Brazilians now call the "minister of environmental destruction,""Ricardo Salles. He said that the COVID-19 crisis, which has torn through Brazil more violently than almost anywhere else, presents an "opportunity." With all the media attention focused on the deadly virus, he said, the government needed to use the moment to change the state of play in the Amazon region, specifically, Salles said, by eliminating red tape and reducing obstructive environmental regulations. "Let's run the cattle herd," he shouted. Salles was referring to the law, but he might as well have said the rainforest. It ultimately boils down to the same thing.
With news websites so full of COVID-19 coverage, it does, in fact, take quite a bit of scrolling before reaching the conclusion that actually, the cattle drive has long since begun. Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported in June that 10,000 square kilometers of forest disappeared last year, the largest total since 2008.
Meanwhile, research by the NGO Human Rights Watch revealed that the Environment Agency, which is part of Salles' portfolio, has virtually stopped imposing fines on illegal loggers, and two inspectors were recently fired for obeying the law and destroying the equipment of gold miners who had been caught illegally mining. In April, Salles allowed some indigenous reserves to be opened for commercial use. Not long later, he legalized the commercial use of thousands of former forest plots that had been appropriated by their now legitimate owners through land theft.
Bolsonaro’s Vendetta: Assault on the Rainforest Continues in the Shadow of COVID-19 - DER SPIEGEL
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Quote:For many years, Latin America’s largest democracy was a leader on data governance. In 1995, it created the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, a multi-stakeholder body to help the country set principles for internet governance. In 2014, impelled by Edward Snowden’s revelations about surveillance by the US National Security Agency of countries including Brazil, Dilma Rousseff’s government pioneered the Marco Civil (Civil Framework), an internet “bill of rights” lauded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. Four years later, Brazil’s congress passed a data protection law, the LGPD, closely modeled on Europe’s GDPR.
Recently, though, the country has veered down a more authoritarian path. Even before the pandemic, Brazil had begun creating an extensive data-collection and surveillance infrastructure. In October 2019, President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree compelling all federal bodies to share most of the data they hold on Brazilian citizens, from health records to biometric information, and consolidate it in a vast master database, the Cadastro Base do Cidadão (Citizen’s Basic Register). With no debate or public consultation, the measure took many people by surprise.
Brazil is sliding into techno-authoritarianism | MIT Technology Review
- Certainly no libertarian..
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Quote:Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to portray himself as an anti-corruption crusader have suffered another blow after police reportedly seized a wad of banknotes from between the clenched buttocks of one of his allies. Chico Rodrigues, the Brazilian president’s deputy leader in the senate, was reportedly caught with the concealed bundle on Wednesday during a police search of his home. The raid was part of an operation against the suspected misappropriation of public funds for fighting Covid-19.
Police find cash hidden between Bolsonaro ally's buttocks | World news | The Guardian
- Did he run out of toilet paper?
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