Tag Archives: Brazil

Well, THIS is a surprising development. The Associated Press reports: A majority in Brazil’s supreme court has voted to make homophobia and transphobia crimes like racism, a decision coming amid fears the country’s far-right president will roll back LGBT social gains. Six of the Supreme Federal Tribunal’s 11 judges have voted in favor of the measure. The five other judges …

The New York Daily News reports: The Trump administration has forked over more than $62 million — taxpayer cash that was supposed to be earmarked for struggling American farmers — to a massive meatpacking company owned by a couple of corrupt Brazilian brothers. The Department of Agriculture cut a contract in January to purchase $22.3 million worth of pork from …

Reuters reports: Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has canceled a trip to the United States, his office announced on Friday, after sharp protests against his being honored as the person of the year by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. Due to Bolsonaro’s past racist, homophobic and misogynist remarks, organizers saw multiple venues in New York refuse to host the gala …

The Guardian reports: Brazil’s far-right president, the self-declared homophobe Jair Bolsonaro, has been accused of inciting hatred towards LGBT people after declaring the South American country should not become a “gay tourism paradise”. “If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life,” Bolsonaro reportedly told journalists in the capital, Brasília. “But we can’t …

The New York Times reports: The American Museum of Natural History said Monday that it would no longer host an event at the museum by an outside organization that was to have honored President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, whose environmental policies have come under fire. The announcement followed days of criticism that a prominent institution dedicated to nature and science …

The Times Of Israel reports: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he believes the crimes of the Holocaust can be forgiven, but shouldn’t be forgotten. The far-right leader made the comments Thursday night at a meeting with evangelical pastors in Rio de Janeiro. He was applauded by those who attended. “We can forgive, but we cannot forget. That quote is mine. …

Reuters reports: Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro said “there is no doubt” that Nazism was a leftist movement, just after visiting Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum. Bolsonaro’s remarks directly contradicted information on the museum’s website saying Germany’s Nazi movement rose out of right-wing radical groups responding to the rise of communism. In televised comments, the Brazilian president echoed …

Peter Montgomery reports at Right Wing Watch: Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s right-wing president, visited President Trump in the White House on Tuesday and followed up his official business with a Christian Broadcasting Network interview and meeting with conservative religious leaders, including CBN’s Pat and Gordon Robertson. CBN noted that Bolsonaro “has surrounded himself with well-known Brazilian evangelicals,” including influential pastor Silas …

ABC News reports: President Donald Trump and “the Trump of the Tropics,” Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, will meet face to face at the White House on Tuesday. Bolsonaro — a nationalist, Twitter-loving, “fake-news” decrying politician — chose to make the first bilateral trip of his presidency to Washington, where he has found an important friend and ally in Trump. As …

Buzzfeed News reports: On Tuesday, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted out what he claimed was the new normal at Carnaval. In it, a long-haired man is seen teasing his anus with a finger while standing on a bus stop before a fellow partier then pulls out his penis and urinates in the man’s hair. The scene allegedly shot in São …

Over at the Friendly Atheist, our friend Hemant Mehta reports that right wing lawmakers are wasting no time in pushing an anti-LGBT and Christianist agenda now that Jair Bolsonaro is in power. There’s a system in Brazil that allows old bills to essentially get resurrected by their sponsors even if they didn’t become laws in the past. By “dearchiving” those …

Reuters reports: Brazil’s vice president, retired general Hamilton Mourão, said on Monday that under no circumstances would his country allow the United States to intervene militarily in Venezuela from Brazilian territory. In an interview with Globo News cable channel, Mourão said Brazil will do all it can to avoid a conflict with neighboring Venezuela. He spoke from Bogotá, where he …

The Associated Press reports: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro is ordering the border with Brazil closed as opposition leaders plan to bring in foreign humanitarian aid from neighboring nations. Maduro said on state television Thursday he’s also considering a closure of Venezuela’s border with Colombia. Opposition leaders say they plan to mount caravans to bring aid into Venezuela from Colombia and …

The Associated Press reports: President Jair Bolsonaro is taking his anti-leftist ideological war to Brazil’s classrooms and universities, causing angst among teachers and education officials who say the government wants to fight an enemy that doesn’t exist. Bolsonaro and top officials have announced plans to revise textbooks to excise references to feminism, homosexuality and violence against women, say the military …

The Christian Post reports: A Christian missionary may be charged with “genocide” by Brazillian authorities after he illegally came in contact with a remote tribe. Steve Campbell of Greene Baptist Church in Maine is being investigated by officials from FUNAI, the Brazilian government’s Indigenous Affairs Department, after traveling deep into the southern Amazon jungle with the intention of sharing the …

The Associated Press reports: An openly gay congressman who frequently clashed with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Thursday he was leaving his job and the country because of mounting death threats. In an interview published by daily Folha de S. Paulo, Congressman Jean Wyllys said he was currently outside of Brazil and had no plans to return. Instead, he said …

The Associated Press reports: Newly installed President Jair Bolsonaro targeted Brazil’s indigenous groups, descendants of slaves and the LGBT community with executive orders in the first hours of his administration, moving quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America’s largest nation. In removing LGBT concerns from the …

Reuters reports: Brazil’s newly inaugurated President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday his election had freed the country from “socialism and political correctness,” and he vowed to tackle corruption, crime and economic mismanagement in Latin America’s largest nation. Bolsonaro, a former army captain turned lawmaker who openly admires Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, promised in his first remarks as president to adhere …

The Washington Post reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will head a U.S. delegation to Brazil seeking to foster closer ties with the far-right incoming president, Jair Bolsonaro, and discuss ways to counter the Venezuelan government. Pompeo will leave Washington for Brasilia on New Year’s Eve to attend Bolsonaro’s inauguration the following day before heading to Colombia. He plans to …

The Guardian reports: Jair Bolsonaro has been elected as the next president of Brazil, winning 55.1% of the vote in the second-round vote between himself and PT candidate Fernando Haddad. The far-right candidate was leading in the polls after he fell just short of achieving a majority in the first round of voting three weeks ago. His win on Sunday …